Unlike the change from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 or from Windows ME to Windows XP there are no revolutionary changes. Windows XP users will notice the most difference in terms of the look and feel of the software as visually it looks very similar to Vista, perhaps just a little more intuitive.

Using this software you get the impression that finally Windows may have ‘come of age’ with this release. When pitched against this new release, Windows XP looks clunky, badly aged and flawed by comparison and although visually Vista holds its own a little better, in terms of performance it still looks as though the wheels are about to fall off. I wasn’t against Vista as much as some others however I will admit that due to the fact it was hungry for resources you always got the impression it was about to ‘fall over’ as soon as you started doing anything slightly demanding.

I’m running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 on a relatively new laptop and the comparisons against Vista are startling; faster start up times, less hard drive access, greater stability and even improved battery life. Although I’m unsure whether it would be faster than XP or not, it is worth bearing in mind that this eight year OS never really gained momentum for 64-bit support and as such it could possibly do with being retired even if just to wave in a new, faster era of 64-bit applications.

Ignoring the arguably most important developments in terms of speed, security and stability, it is the little changes and additions that I appreciate most. I like the ability to ‘peek’ back at the desktop by hovering down the bottom right hand side of the start menu, the auto preview when you flick between applications using & and the rotation setting that can be used to change your wallpaper automatically every couple of minutes.

Visually it looks gorgeous; the semi translucent taskbar and menu headers along with various other visual effects make the OS look a lot less flat than XP. Although it’s not a million miles away from Vista, it is certainly more ‘polished’ and due to the noticeable speed increases it doesn’t give you the nagging impression your machine is crawling to a halt as a result of a few visual effects.

I also love the way you can ‘pin’ applications to the taskbar. For example, if you pin Firefox to your taskbar area then the icon will always be visible next to the start menu in what would have been traditionally been the ‘quick launch’ area. The similarities end there however as when you click this icon it the application launches but doesn’t create a new group within your taskbar; the quick launch icon essentially becomes the menu group if you wish to click back to your Firefox session or launch another instance of the browser. Windows 7 handles multiple instances of one application by ‘stacking’ the icons within the taskbar rather than relying on the incredibly inefficient grouped application menus used in XP and Vista.

My search has been hindered by the fact that while there are many sites which offer fantastic photographs of Torbay, most the images lack a certain artistic quality and are unavailable in the kind of resolutions that would allow them to be blown up. Eventually I came across Flickr; one of the most popular photo storage and sharing sites on the Internet.

The site is free, easy to use and features various methods for sorting, categorizing and tagging along with features allowing users to comment and rate pictures. You can choose to make your photos either private or public and as such it would be useful even if just as a private gallery to store images more securely than on your own hard drive. Should you decide to make your photos public you can easily apply a Creative Commons copyright license to inform users of how you license the photo to be used (for example, non commercial use only). It is worth pointing out that while users should respect your copyright, Flickr cannot enforce or take action if they do not.

The free account provides you with a 100MB picture and two video monthly upload limit but if you find yourself exceeding this then for $24.95 (around £17) you can upgrade to the pro account which will allow you an unlimited monthly upload limit and an unlimited amount of online storage.

The Flickr (www.flickr.com) interface is attractive and easy to use and when searching you can choose to either perform a simple text search across the entire site, just your Flickr friends libraries, your own uploads or by a geographical place. The results of your search are displayed in order of what others have found interesting along with small thumbnails which you can then click on to reveal a larger image, comments and a full tag list. Impressively, if the user has uploaded the photo in a high resolution you can also see the original, full size image which is perfect for when quality is paramount; especially if you are looking to enlarge or print the image.

When you upload a photo by either the web, e-mail or via your mobile phone you can keep them grouped together using a number of different options such as predefined group names, keyword tags or even the location in which the photo was shot.

The quality of the material online is quite staggering; there are very few crude camera phone pictures present and instead the public galleries tend to attract a high class of amateur and professional photographer using SLR digital cameras. The real geeks can even restrict their search to specific camera make and models; it is interesting to see what others have achieved using the same equipment as you. An important issue for any Internet site containing pictures on the Internet is of course a content filter which can be set to differing levels depending on the user.

My first hard drive held 20MB and I’m currently using one which holds 1TB so although I can admit that a 50,000 times increase in capacity is a substantial development, this doesn’t deter from the fact that the technology involved has remained very much unchanged. A hard disk relies on a number of spinning discs, referred to as platters which are then read by a read-and-write head; the closest and rather crude approximation would be to think of a vinyl record being read by a stylus. Clearly the disadvantage of this technology is that it relies on moving parts and hence is limited in speed by the physical restrictions on the device, along with suffering potential reliability problems caused by having several magnetic discs each haphazardly spinning at 7,200 times a minute inside your machine.

A technology that has been threatening to break in to the mainstream consumer market for some time now is the Solid State Disk (SSD) which stores its data on flash memory chips rather than magnetic platters; much in the same way as a little USB memory key, otherwise known as a flash drive. Since the SSD is physically larger than a flash drive there is room to fit a greater number of chips and hence the capacity can be increased accordingly. The speed of the memory used and the actual interface between the SSD and the computer is significantly faster than utilised by a flash drive and hence more suitable for the intensive access required when using it as your main storage device.

With the physical restraints of the hard disk banished, defragmentation is no longer required. Unlike a hard drive which would have to physically move to several positions on the disc to read a file that was split in to several pieces across the platter, it takes no longer to read data from several positions on a memory chip rather than just the one. The lack of movement also results in the drive being completely silent and slightly more energy efficient than a conventional drive.

One might wonder why we are still using the old cumbersome hard drives if such a technology is currently available and unfortunately there is one real sticking point. The price of flash memory is relatively high compared with the production cost of a hard drive platter so while you may be able to pick up a 64GB SSD for around £120 you could pick up a 750GB Hard Drive for half that amount. For this reason you are more likely to find Solid State Drives in relatively high end mini laptops where storage capacity and price aren’t such issues however only a fool would come to the conclusion that the capacity and price difference between the two technologies will remain for long.

A disk defragmenter is designed to organise your hard disk back in to some kind of order so that your computer has to do less work and hence becomes more responsive. I have in the past talked about this subject but made the mistake of suggested the defrag utility supplied with Windows; whilst it does do a good enough job, it is undeniably slow. I am instead this week recommending the Defragger application that can be downloaded free of charge from www.defraggler.com.

Once installed, just select the drive that you wish to defragment and you will be presented with a pie chart depicting the used and free space on the drive – to get the most efficiency from the application try to ensure that you have at least 15% free space available. Now click the analyse button and the application will return a map of your hard drive showing the scale of the fragmentation on your drive so that you can be sure that defragging is actually needed. Providing you are satisfied, just click on the defrag button and the application will work away in the background to restore your hard drive to some kind of order. Whilst working it will provide you with an evolving map and status bar so that you can check on its progress.

The entire process will take typically around an hour or so depending on the size of hard disk, degree of fragmentation and speed of computer. You are welcome to carry on using your machine whilst your data is sorted and there is even the option to select a ‘background’ mode which will result in the whole process taking longer but your machine will suffer less slowdown. The application can also be selected to defragment individual files or folders therefore saving time if you only want to correct the most severely affected files.

I am eager to stress that defragmenting is something that you should do only occasionally. I’ve known people who run a utility such as this on a daily basis and with this degree of usage any time saved in loading operations is more than offset but the time taken actually running the utility. You will always have fragmentation on your hard drive so the trick is to ensure that it doesn’t get to the stage where it is adversely affecting your machine and blasting this utility through every couple of months should do the trick.

The URL to download the application directly is to long to easily print in this article so you are best of doing a search for it yourself; the quickest way I can suggest is to head to www.freewarefiles.com and do a search for Winbubbles or otherwise a quick Google search will locate it for you. After installing the application you will be able to customize pretty much any aspect of your Vista installation, including the following:

Windows Customizations:

· Enable Aurora Bootscreen guide – This will allow you to change the drab black Windows bootup screen to something a lot more interesting.

· Add/Edit OEM Logo and information (this appears in system properties) as well as owners information

· Context Menu Customizations such as Move To, Copy To, Disk Clean-up options

· New screensaver properties, including options for the Windows Bubble screensaver which ordinarily has no user configurable settings.

· Alter system icons including removing the arrow on shortcut icons

· Add/Remove IE, Computer, Network, Control Panel, Public Folder icons from Desktop.

Optimizations:

· Speed-up Start menu search

· Easily deactivate and reactivate Windows Aero – This can be useful if you want to tone down the graphical effects new in Vista, for example to increase performance or laptop battery life

· Clear Multiple Monitor Configuration

Security:

· Disable Task Manager, Autoplay, access to the control panel and other restricted areas – Very useful if others have use of your computer and you want to limit the amount they can change or access.

· Add Encrypt/Decrypt to Explorer´s Right-Click Menu (Context Menu) – Allows you to quickly and easily protect any sensitive files.

· Enable/Disable UAC – Quickly and easily allows you to turn off or on the User Account Control which pops up every time Windows detects you, or an application on your computer is trying to change a system setting; I personally turned this off the second I installed Vista.

· Disable RUN command in the Start Menu and Task manager

· Hide ALL, or specific drives on your PC – Useful if you want to restrict users access to files and drives on a public computer.

This is, of course, not a complete list as there are dozens of aspects of Windows Vista that can be customized from within this application – Think of the above as more of a taster. Whilst Winbubbles doesn’t really introduce anything new and previously inaccessible, it does make the process of customizing your computer a lot easier and a lot more accessible to the average computer user and as such is certainly worth a go. Please note that this application is only compatible with Windows Vista, although there are dozens of similar applications already released for Windows XP such as Tweak UI which can be downloaded free of charge, again from the website www.freewarefiles.com

To make things more interesting I have decided to separate my readership in to two extremes – one designed for regular computer users, and one for the hardcore. This may prove more beneficial than reading off ‘one size fits all’ list and we’ll start with the ‘regular’ users.

Backup your hard drive – Why not start with the most obvious point which is also the one that’s most likely to be ignored. We all know we should backup but yet none of us do, myself included. Head to http://www.computerarticles.co.uk/driveimage-xml/ for a review of some software to make the process less painful however don’t say I didn’t warn you if you choose to ignore this advice.

Keep your Windows installation clean – It’s amazing how much of a difference a trim and tidy version of Windows can make to the speed of your computer. In the past I’ve highlighted software that can assist you with this, and several reviews are archived at www.computerarticles.co.uk. Despite the range of software available, one of the most effective ways is simply going to Add/Remove programs and taking out any applications you don’t need. This point has been included as a gentle dig towards my girlfriends’ mother who had me cleaning up her bloated, slow Windows installation until ten o’clock this evening, when she knew I had an article to write!

Stay healthy while using your machine – Don’t underestimate the effects of RSI; it is a serious condition. Simple precautions can easily help you avoid any conditions or discomforts associated with using a computer. Check out http://www.computerarticles.co.uk/repetitive-strain-injury/ for further reading.

Keep up to date – Although this is a task that can easily be put off, it is worth making an effort to ensure that your Windows, anti-virus and any other important software is up to date. By doing so you’ll be minimising the chance of experiencing any security issues along with potentially increasing the speed and reliability of your machine.

The hardcore computer users (otherwise often known as ‘geeks’) will probably appreciate all of the above however there is an equally important set of skills involving moderation which may need to be learnt. This section is intended to be taken very tongue in cheek; we do however have some truly geeky friends in our friendship group so for the sake of sanity some of these points must be learnt.

Extend your conversational skills beyond computers and mobile communications – Whilst I do appreciate technology myself there is something unsettling a person whose range of conversation doesn’t extend past this one subject. Yes, I know that if you turn your mobile phone to 90 degrees that the screen automatically rotates itself, however this doesn’t necessary make for good conversation every time we’re in the pub.

Enjoy the outdoors – Some studies suggest that we only spend, on average, approximately three quarters of an hour every day (3%) outside. I would imagine that for some IT guys this figure is much lower so try to make an effort to experience the real world once in a while; in many ways it is superior to the virtual one.

Eat healthy and exercise – Hardcore computer users either tend to be very skinny, due to lack of exercise or very large, due to a poor diet. Sitting in front of a computer for five hours eating pizza and drinking Coke can’t possibly be good for you.

Turn it off every now and again – Force yourself to do other things; read, socialise, try to do some cooking. I can’t think of a better New Years resolution than to commit to rediscovering the real world. It is an old parody on the game Second Life I do know but www.getafirstlife.com is an extremely poignant site.

Unnecessary Screen Savers

Screen Savers have been redundant for many years now but yet many users still insist on having them on their machines. The idea of a screen saver stemmed from the days of monochrome monitors; these had a tendency to suffer an incurable ‘burn in’ if a still image was left on the screen for an extended period of time. Fortunately modern monitors, especially TFT’s, don’t suffer from this affliction so there is absolutely no reason to have your screen saver turned on. A better idea would be to have your PC automatically switch the monitor to standby mode after a set period of time as this would save power and extend the life of the monitor. To activate this feature head to control panel, double click on the power options icon and then select how long you would like the PC to wait before the monitor is switched in to standby when it’s not being used.

If you don’t ‘stop’ a USB device before unplugging it from a PC you’ll mess it up.

If you unplug a USB device before stopping it correctly from within Windows then it will most likely make a violent sound often followed by your Operating System scolding you for removing the device without disconnecting it first. Whilst it is true that if you do this with a device such as a flash drive or USB hard drive whilst it is juggling data around that some real damage can be done there is no real reason that unplugging a printer, scanner, camera and so on without first stopping it will cause any damage to the device.

Overzealous Defragmenting

I have covered defragmenting before in Click but very briefly I’ll quickly recap for those who are unsure what I mean by this term. A computer will not always write a single file in a continuous space on the hard disk but will often write the file in several pieces on the drive in whatever space is available. Over time this can lead to the drive becoming ‘fragmented’ which results in the computer working harder, and as a result taking longer when accessing the hard drive as the data has to be read from several different areas of the disk, rather than being read in one continuous stream.

A defragmentation program, such as the one provided free in Windows, is used to reorganise the files of the hard drive so that, where possible, a file is always stored in one piece rather than scattered across the drive. The problem is that these programs can become addictive and often lead to an obsessive desire to have every file on your hard drive defragmented. I know people who run these utilities several times a week and the simple truth is that there is nothing wrong with a fragmented drive. Modern Operating Systems attempt to keep fragmented files to a minimum and even a large amount of fragmentation will make a relatively small difference to your overall system speed.

Whilst we’re on the subject, it is worth noting that it’s quite normal that some files cannot be defragmented; this is because they are being used by Windows and as such they can’t be moved around. There are ways to get around this but since this space is more often that not occupied by temporary virtual memory, it really isn’t worth worrying about.

I can’t argue with the fact that if your hard drive is genuinely very fragmented then running a utility such as Windows Defrag can result in some modest speed increases but please, don’t get in to the habit of doing it more than a couple of times a year. Every so often someone will tell you about how they spend two hours a week defragmenting their hard drive and the vast difference it makes but please, ignore them.

One program I’ve had particular experience with in the past is Alcohol 52% free edition which can be downloaded by heading to www.alcohol-soft.com. Do bear in mind that this free edition isn’t the core product offered by Alcohol Software so do make sure you look carefully and avoid downloading a 30 day trial for one of their more extensive versions by mistake.

Once installed, the software will allow you to create up to six virtual CD or DVD drives on your hard disc and these will then act to Windows as though they were real drives connected to your computer. Simply load one of your existing discs on to a virtual drive and it will stay present until you decide to delete it, even if you remove the physical CD from the drive or restart the computer.

There are several benefits to using a virtual drive but one of the most common applications is to back up existing physical media that you use frequently so that you don’t have to worry about losing or damaging the disc. Once you’ve created a virtual drive on your hard disk and copied the application from the CD or DVD you can then safely store the disc away without fear of anything happening to it.

The access time of a hard drive is a lot faster, so if you often play the same game you may find it beneficial to put the whole lot on to a virtual drive and then benefit from substantially reduced loading times; the reading speed of a virtual CD for example is 200x.

Some users may find another useful application is the ability to run multiple discs simultaneously; if need to use several different applications that all require their disc present during runtime then unless you have multiple drives you will soon become stuck. If you were to instead create several virtual drives then you could dispense of disc swapping entirely.

Of course, you may well wonder why bother with the effort of emulating a CD or DVD drive and that if you wanted to store the data from a CD or DVD drive on your hard disk then you should just drag and drop it over using Windows Explorer. Unfortunately, the primary obstacle in this instance is usually the copy protection employed when the data is recorded to the disc; very many applications will detect that they’ve been copied to a hard disk and then refuse to function. Alcohol 52% mimics the conventional CD or DVD format perfectly and also emulates many of the well known copy-protection methods to ensure that the disc you copy to your virtual drive has the best chance of working perfectly.

Weighing in at only 6.7mb Alcohol 52% is a very small application and the only negative point that I can come up with is that it’s bundled with the Alcohol search toolbar which installs itself automatically. The toolbar is next to useless and you should ensure that one of the first things you do is to remove it using the supplied uninstallation program. This minor point aside, Alcohol 52% is a very capable piece of free software and I certainly wouldn’t hesitating in making a recommendation to those who could have a use for it.