Windows Upgrade – Moving from XP to WIN7 – Steady State

Do you use Steady State tool kit?

You always have to wonder when companies have a great product or service – they do an upgrade and that service goes away.  Well Microsoft is certainly one of those companies many times over.

I see some changes happening at Microsoft, they are starting to do many things differently – one of them is listening to the users and doing something about it or trying!

If you manage system then most likely you have used Windows Steady State tool kit, well they have never created a Windows 7 version of this great tool.  When I say Microsoft listens and take actions, well I don’t think you will see Steady State for WIN7…..

A Windows 7 version of Steady State was not created and we’ve heard loud and clear from IT Pros that this is something they wanted and needed.  After we evaluated the types of functionality Steady State provides, we found that using new Windows capabilities that are built into Windows 7, Group Policies and free tools from Microsoft, the majority of Steady State functionality could actually be replicated by IT admins.

The good news is that they have addressed this concern and have put together a few papers explaining how to do almost the same thing as Steady State for XP and Vista within WIN7 – So Microsoft says…

Going back to the Windows article, the comments don’t paint a very good picture… read for yourself!

If your thinking of moving to WIN7 or already have and was wondering where STEADY STATE was, well you have your answer and some reading to do.

Steady State for Windows 7

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OFFICE in the cloud – Microsoft Office WEB APPS

What a great tool to have available, if you have not looked at Windows OFFICE WEB APPS – your missing out on a great product.  Want to open an excel sheet or Word doc, but the computer your on doesn’t have office – no prob – use Office WEB APPS.

This is great tool for kids that don’t have office at home – they are working on School computers with OFFICE, they can then save their work on SkyDrive and at home they can open the document in the cloud using OFFICE WEB APPS.  No USB keys (security risks for the school and student)  Can’t say they misplaced the USB key etc.  You need to work from home but you don’t have Office – work in the cloud and have 25G of space to save your documents for FREE.  These APPS are very good and Microsoft looks like they want to be in the game.  The product has been available for 100 days – 20 million people later and two updates already in less than 4 months – This is not the OLD Microsoft that normally takes a year or more to do an update.

Office serves over 20 million people on the web

Products you should be looking at from Microsoft today….  Just because…..

Security Essentials – AntiVirus

Windows Live Essentials

SKYDRIVE – 25G of cloud Storage FREE

 Windows Live Mesh – Sync files and folders between multiple computers and/or 5G of cloud storage

Explorer 9 BETA – talk about fast……  Who needs Chrome or Firefox

These products offer so much value and they are good – so many uses to make your computing experience so much easier.

eBook Reader – KINDLE for PC – Read 1st Chapter on your PC

I have no idea why this wouldn’t have been done a long time ago.  This is a great advantage and one that both eBook users and non-eBook readers can use.  I know I have ordered many books on-line and you can’t flip through read a little like you could in the store.

This is not the same experience as holding the book in a book store, but it’s getting there…..  I will have to load up the application tonight and try it out.  I have been reading (listening) to audio books for sometime and the service I use is Audible – which for most books allows you to listen to a sample of the book.  This lets you to hear a bit of the book and something that is key for audio books is you get to test drive the reader of the book – that person can make or break even a good book.  Audio is a different experience, but I have come to love it as much as sitting and reading a book.

AMAZON KINDLE for PC

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Life Cycle – What do you do with your OLD Equipment? Sell/Recycle/Pitch

What do you do with your OLD Computer equipment?   Do you sell it to local recycling companies for a few bucks a unit?

Have you ever wondered where this product might end up!  Until I read the following article I never realized just how bad it could be.

Did you know CDI offers RECYCLING and we will give you a CERTIFICATE of Destruction that proves (Legally) that your assets will not end up overseas and were recycled safety is in questions.

The Problem of Global Electronic Waste Dumping

Many electronics recyclers don’t actually recycle the electronics they collect. They can make more money by selling old electronic products to exporting waste traders than by processing it here in the US.  Traders send it to developing countries where workers earn extremely low wages (often a few dollars per day) and where health and safety and environmental laws, enforcement, infrastructure and citizens’ rights are very weak.

Simply stated, we are solving our e-waste problem by exporting it to poor countries around the globe. 

Primitive Processing Contaminates Workers, Residents

In these countries, the e-waste ends up in backyard recycling operations, often literally behind peoples’ homes. One example is Guiyu, China, an area where a lot of our e-waste goes. They use crude and unsafe methods of taking apart our old computers and TVs to get to and remove the metals, which they can sell, causing great harm in the process. These dangerous practices include:

• Bashing open cathode ray tubes with hammers, exposing the toxic phosphor dust inside.
• Cooking circuit boards in woks over open fires to melt the lead solder, breathing in toxic lead fumes.
• Burning wires in open piles to melt away the plastics (to get at the copper inside).
• Burning the plastic casings, creating dioxins and furans – some of the most poisonous fumes you can breathe.
• Throwing the unwanted (but very hazardous) leaded glass into former irrigation ditches
• Dumping pure acids and dissolved heavy metals directly into their rivers.

These horrific working conditions plus weak labor standards in China and many of the other developing countries where e-waste is sent, mean that women and children are often directly exposed to lead and other hazardous materials.

READ THE ENTIRE WRITE UP

Let CDI offer you a service where your sure your not hurting or taking advantage of others in other countries.  We can take care of your computer needs from the 1st day to the last day of its life cycle.

Posted another item after this one – e-Waste – did you know it was this bad!

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