Windows 7 and the Drivers that you Loved

Don’t necessarily work together any more. Just like the days of old, when a new version of Windows came out, the hardware industry had to play catchup.

Well, welcome Windows 7 on the scene and the story is the same. I have been working on installing a new Gateway PC into a professionals home network and it wasn’t any surprise that their old Dell wireless external adapter didn’t work with the new system. I went out and bought a few different kinds of adapter from Linksys, a USB stick adapter, a range booster and an internal card.

First I tried to install the internal card, but discovered that because the PC was a space saving slim line model, the full height card would not fit. OK let’s try the USB stick. Installed the accompanying software and barely got a signal from the Linksys router. OK remove the USB stick and try to get the range expander to work. After all the router is in the basement and the PC is in the 1st floor living room. BTW, the old PC didn’t have any problems getting a signal with this setup.

Spent way too much time trying to get a good signal, called Cablevision to troubleshoot. We got a great signal to the modem. I even put a laptop and connected it to the router via network cable. Worked great. So the problem is either the wireless signal or the adapter.

After much research I came upon a FAQ on Microsoft’s website that said that not all hardware would work yet with Windows 7. You would think that a company as big as Linksys would be one of the first to get the new drivers out, right?

Well not so. I now have to find another brand of adapter that is Windows 7 compliant and test it out. So much for keeping everything Linksys.

Word to the wise, Make sure that the box says Windows 7 compliant! It will save a lot of frustration on your part. For me it is too late!

Windows 7 Tips > Changing the Way a Program Starts

A cool new feature of Windows 7 (at least in this blogger’s mind) is a new way of configuring how a program starts.

Click on the Start Button, then left click the program that you want to work with. From the new resulting drop down menu you will see the following choices amongst others:

Pin to Task Bar
Pin to Start Menu

I like to keep my desktop as free of icons as possible, so I like to put my most used programs on the Task Bar.

To ‘Pin’ anything to the Task Bar, you must first make sure that it is ‘unlocked’. To do this, right click the task bar and make sure that the task bar is ‘unlocked’. If it says ‘task bar locked’, then left click it once and it was become unlocked.

By clicking ‘Pin to Task Bar’ the application sends a copy of itself to the Task Bar. Now instead of clicking Start>All programs>Program folder>program you can just single click the icon on the task bar.

If you have any questions about Windows 7, or any technology questions, please feel free to post it here and I will do the best I can to answer it.

You the business owner , “Blew It!”

These are words that no business owner wants to think about! Yeah times are hard here on Long Island as they are everywhere else in America. You the business owner, “Blew It!”. You are so busy cutting costs, laying good hard working employees off, haggling with your vendors for lower prices, listening to the nay-sayers on TV and print that tell you this is how you run ‘your’ business and the only way to stay profitable, that you forgot that this is just another down cycle in our economy. Long Islanders bounce back FAST! And they have mouths. They spread the word about businesses good and bad. Sadly we usually only hear about the ‘bad’ stuff.
You as a business owner should be looking for innovative ways to take advantage of the down turn in the economy. Look into small business loans from the government to upgrade your equipment, train your employees in the new technologies. Start those projects that need research. Sitting back on your hands when ACTION is what will get you ahead of the competition is not considered ‘coasting’. It is considered loosing ground to your competition.
Every business owner right now is standing in front of a crap table called your business environment. Some of you just stand there watching, caressing those budgets carefully in your pockets, trying to make a decision to step up and get into the game. Scared to do anything other than ‘hold back’. While you watch the other people at the table ‘in the game’. Making strategic investments, and yes, taking chances. But calculated chances.
Some of the things you are holding back on are employee training and yourself (but don’t be selfish in this respect), new equipment, planning for projects that have been put aside, and advertising.
One of the first things that companies pull back on is marketing and their IT budgets. Well when everyone else is doing that, you should be out there will BIG Ads. Since everyone else is holding back you will look bigger without a lot of effort.
IT budgets, well as an IT consultant and previously employed IT Manager, I can tell you that now is the time to look at your equipment. Older, power hungry computers, monitors and servers can actually be upgraded for less than you think because you have to remember that new equipment puts out less heat (so the need to cool is less expensive), and that the newer OS from Windows called Windows 7 will make those PCs running VISTA (hold the curses) actually a pleasure to use and increase your employees output.
Contact your marketing partners. Contact your IT people in house and consultants. Start a dialogue with them to start learning what they can do for your business. You know the big boys are quietly doing this! You know you need to set yourself apart from your competition. You KNOW they ARE doing these very same things. You KNOW you don’t want to look yourself in the mirror in a few very short months and say to that stressed out person looking back at you, “YOU BLEW IT!”.