W3Schools.com, a great site for coding and statistical information, does a monthly poll on the main operating systems used today and the percentages of users taking advantage of each system.  For July, 2012 it rolls out like this:  Windows 7-53.8%, Vista-3.4%, Microsoft NT-1.2%, Windows XP-26.1%, Linux-4.9% and Mac-8.2%.

It is obvious that Microsoft is currently the ruler of the OS kingdom but of course this could always change.  However, I doubt it will anytime in the near future.  It is also no surprise that the majority of the questions I get involve Windows 7.

I receive a multitude of questions regarding, "How do I…?"  You can fill in the blank.  So today we will take a look at some useful and yet many times overlooked Windows 7 tips.

Here are a few useful keys which help you navigate around the main Windows 7 desktop. First, find the Windows Key (which I will abbreviate "W" in the following commands.)  It is the key located on the lower left corner of your keyboard between the CTRL (Control) and ALT (Alternate) keys.  The majority of the time it will have the Microsoft Windows logo on it.

Now open any program on your computer. Let’s use Internet Explorer for an example. Now press ‘W + Left Arrow‘ key (all four arrow keys are usually located in the central bottom area of your keyboard.)  What happened?  It is now somewhere to the right of where it was previously.  Try it again until it makes its final resting place on the right half of your screen.  Now press ‘W + Up Arrow’.    Yes, it is now maximized.  Try all of the arrow keys. Only one makes me mad.  After you play with them a minute see if you agree with me.  Yes, the one that bugs me is the W + Down Arrow.  Depending on where the window is located on the screen this causes it to minimize.  That is great in itself; however, there is no key board maneuvering that will bring it back up. You will have to use your mouse.

Now try ‘W + M.’ Yes, you have now minimized all of your open windows.  Good job!  To bring them back you can use your mouse.  I have one question about all of the slick minimization capabilities:  Why not have a key to bring an app back to its original or maximized size?  Oh well, they didn’t ask me in the first place.

Next, if you are one of the many, many windows users who have several programs opened at one time and want to "clean up" your window try ‘W + Home’ key.  This key combo minimizes and then restores all of your open windows except for the currently active one.  Slick!  To bring them back try it again…poof!  There they are, back where they started.  You must be able to see more than one program at the same time on your monitor to see this work.

Now back to my headache of having all of your programs minimized.  Try this one, ‘W + Tab‘ key, tap the tab key without releasing the Windows key.  This will surprise you if you have not used it before.  You will get a rotating "arc" of all currently open programs on your computer, along with the empty desktop.  Let go of the keys when the one you want to use is at the front of the arc.  Now add one more finger to the trick, try ‘W + Shift + Tab’ and tap the Tab key.  Let me know what you get.  I will see you back here next week.

Tags: arrow key, internet explorer, keyboard, Linux, microsoft windows, operating system, Ron Doyle, statistical information, surprise, Tips, treat, trick, windows, windows key, windows xp

Thanks to all of you readers who support the "Double Click" column by reading and writing.  It is very much appreciated.  Please keep it up.  I always enjoy hearing from you.

So it is that time of year again when we review all of the sites I have mentioned over the previous year.  As always, have fun remembering, discovering, or rediscovering all the info!  If you prefer to click on links and not type all of these, visit the DoubleClicks.info site and click away.

If the site addresses are too long to type I have shortened them using the, "bit.ly" app which I have discussed before.  All of these sites should be free (or have a free version) unless marked "nf".  Without further ado…here they are in their order of appearance with short descriptions of each.

• Open Office is a Microsoft Office clone that works almost as well.
• Ubuntu a free operating system which you can run alongside of or instead of Microsoft Windows.
• Ron’s video training I created a couple of videos for fun, it never went any further than these two…maybe one day.
• Change your User Account Picture one specific Double Click training video.
• VirtualBox an application that allows you to run multiple operating systems on one computer.
• Open DNS the best app out there for blocking objectionable sites from the kids.  It is slightly complicated but at the top of the features pile.
• Facebook you know about this one and if you don’t you won’t be interested.
• Windows Live Essentials a free suite of applications which do many different things from Microsoft.
• Create a Panorama an article I wrote for Microsoft about how to join individual pictures together to make a panoramic picture.
• Double Clicks my site for this column.
• eBay, TigerDirect.com, NewEgg.com, 1SaleADay.com, DealDump.com online tech stores, the sites are free but the stuff on them is nf.
• Active KillDisk application to absolutely clean your disk of personal information and everything else.
• True Crypt folder and/or file (and more) encryption software.
• XOOM this is Motorola’s entrance into the PC Tablet market, it is a good one, but later in the year I show you the best (IMHO).
• Keepass.com, LastPass.com, RoboForm.com, 1Password are some of the password recording applications around, still I chose KeePass over the rest.
• Open Wi-Fi leads to False Arrest an article showing why you should lock down your wi-fi network to stay out of jail.
• Your Home Router (192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1) the IP Addresses that will most likely get you into your home router.
• Nook Barnes & Noble’s ebook reader.
• Project Gutenberg where you can download most any book that is not under copyright any longer.

OK, this took us through June, 2011.  Next week we will visit part 2 of last year’s links.

Tags: clone, different things, Double Click, ebay, free operating system, free version, microsoft, microsoft office, microsoft windows, multiple operating systems, open office, panorama, previous year, Ron Doyle, target, time of year, training, video training

Several weeks ago I mentioned a application when talking about Ubuntu called, VirtualBox.  I had a couple of people writing asking if there was a program like VirtualBox they could use to run Ubuntu, Windows XP or another operating system on their Windows 7 computer.

Guess what?  There is and it is called, "VirtualBox", (virtualbox.org) the exact same program.  There are different downloads for Windows, Mac, Linux (Ubuntu) and Solaris (another free operating system) depending on which operating system your uses as its base system.

What VirtualBox does is really simple; however, how it does it is quite complicated.   This article may be for more advanced user so if you feel you are more advanced (not sure what the definition is) then read on.  If you do not feel you are a more advanced user, then come back next week for a more "universal" discussion.

Let us pretend that you run Microsoft Windows XP on your computer.  Over the past month or so you read my articles concerning Ubuntu and you would like to try it out.  You have run it off of a CD and found that it was a little too slow for you.  You would like to run it off of your actual computer to really find out how good/bad it is.  The other, currently more likely scenario is that you use Windows 7 on your system and you would like to run XP for some "trust issue".  Either way, VirtualBox, www.virtualbox.org, is where you need to look.

As long as you have a licensed (if a license is needed although one is not needed for Ubuntu) installation disc of that additional operating system you can install it on your computer.  It will allow you to run that operating system on your computer while your original OS is also running.

At present, VirtualBox runs on Linux (Ubuntu), Windows, , Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports the ability to run Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4, 2.6 and all Ubuntu like OS), Solaris, OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.  If you have never heard or do not care about any of the items mention in this paragraph re-read the last sentence in the third paragraph above.

Basically you start your computer as you normally would.  Next, you start VirtualBox and choose to run the OS you previously installed.  It will open a window that starts what looks like another computer running.  However, this window will be running the "other" OS.  If you go to DoubleClicks.info I have posted a picture showing what it looks like when you are running Windows 7 as your host (native OS) and Ubuntu 10.10. The graphic is provided by VirtualBox.com with a couple of edits by me.

If you are looking for something like this, give VirtualBox a try.  There are several other free applications out there that offer almost identical features; however, this one is the easiest to set up and use…in my opinion.

[Screenshots are from VirtualBox.org.]

Tags: actual computer, BSD, downloads, free, free operating system, Linux, mac linux, microsoft, microsoft windows, open, solaris, trust issue, ubuntu, virtual, virtualbox, windows, windows xp

This is something that bothered me, ever so slightly for a while, but still I wanted to find a “fix” to, so today here it is.  I have successfully tested this with Windows Vista and 7.

Here is what your explorer view looks like with the default settings.

To display drive-letters first, followed by the drive description, use these steps.

You will need to “perform” a REGEDIT on your system.  If you are not familiar with a Regedit be careful!  If done wrong it could be detrimental to the life of your computer.  Read here if you want more info about Regedits from Microsoft.

1. On your computer
2. First click the Start button
3. Type Regedit.
4. Navigate to the following location
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
5. If it doesn’t already exist, create a REG_DWORD value named ShowDriveLettersFirst.  If it does exist just double click it and go to the next step.
   1. Double-click ShowDriveLettersFirst and set its Value data to 4
   2. See the screenshot below to see what it should look like

Close the Registry Editor by clicking the “X” in the upper right corner.  Whatever you have entered will be automatically saved.

Next, open “My Computer” to see your drives.  If they do not show the letter in front of the name of the drive press the “F5” key to refresh the window and there you go.

If it doesn’t work you mistyped something of didn’t follow the directions correctly.  And DO NOT email me as you were warned earlier (above in red) that you could hose your system with Regedit.

Here are the other possible edits for ShowDriveLettersFirst registry value.

Good luck and let me know it worked for you.

Tags: Double Click, Drive letters, dword value, ff0000, machine software, microsoft windows, order, png, reg dword, regedit, support microsoft, vista, windows 7

According to the Internet, "Ubuntu" is an African word from the Bantu language "which has no direct translation into English, but is used to describe a particular African world-view in which people can only find fulfillment through interacting with other people…" Desmond Tutu has a good definition of it if you wish to take a quick read, http://bit.ly/dSv0ia. He says, "A single straw of a broom can be broken easily, but the straws together are not easily broken."

However, for us geeks Ubuntu is something a little different.  Ubuntu (ubuntu.com) is an operating system based off of Linux.   It was created as a hobby by a young college student named Linus Torvalds while attending the University of Helsinki in Finland in 1991.  The operating system that you are most likely acquainted with is Microsoft Windows.  Windows operating systems are found on the majority of computers today.  Linux is found on…well, not many but it is gaining presence worldwide.

Ubuntu, differs from Linux in that it is much more user-friendly and windows-like.  This means that it has a nice user interface (looks good), is easy to use and closely resembles Microsoft Windows.

Oh, one very significant thing I forgot to mention; Ubuntu is free.  Yes, absolutely no cost.  Ubuntu also comes with many other free items that you must pay significant amounts for with other systems.  Ubuntu is sponsored by Mark Shuttleworth, a South African billionaire.

When you install Ubuntu you also get the Firefox browser, a quite useful email program named "Evolution."  It works quite well and has many games for free.  Oh yes, I almost forgot to mention you also get Open Office (OpenOffice.org) which is free.  Open Office, in my opinion, compares very favorably with Microsoft Office (office.Microsoft.com).  That was hard for me to say since I am a staunch supporter of Microsoft but this works very well – for free.

Ubuntu gained one new user and supporter about a month ago when I installed it on an old notebook. It is now all I run on that computer.  Ubuntu will run on new computers and old low-end computers alike.  I tried it on a very old computer several years ago that wouldn’t run Windows XP but ran Ubuntu like it was brand new.

Ubuntu doesn’t need all the power of the newer Windows machines.  If you have an older computer and aren’t totally tied to the MS systems you may want to try Ubuntu before you toss it out. 

Before you run out and install it make sure you read my next column where I will cover a few more interesting things about Ubuntu.  By-the-way, this column was written entirely on my Ubuntu system using OpenOffice and worked wonderfully.

Tags: african word, alternative windows, bantu language, Broom, desmond tutu, free, geeks, linus torvalds, Madela, mark shuttleworth, maverick, microsoft, microsoft windows, operating system, OS, straws, ubuntu, unbuntu, university of helsinki, user interface, windows operating systems