Microsoft is killing XP, So What?

Microsoft is planning to end all retail and PC OEM sales of XP on June 30 this year. This move by Microsoft is not being welcomed by many Windows PC users. In a survey conducted by PC World Magazine, it came out that two-thirds of the respondents were very unhappy about the news; 79% also said that they prefer XP over Vista. PCWorld’s survey was inspired by a site called SaveXP.com where almost 100,000 people have added their names to an online petition urging Microsoft to reconsider its decision.

Why is it that majority of PC users could not just accept the changing of season? I have been using Windows Vista Ultimate for almost a year now and I would not deny that it took me about two to three months to get the hang of it.I would not also deny that Vista, as of now, is clearly not as stable an OS as XP, just this month i had three to four “blue screens” from crashes whose causes i, nor Microsoft’s website, could not explain. Now if you will ask me which OS I prefer I would say that I prefer Vista over XP. Vista is a work in progress, we still do not know how much it could give us. As for XP, we have mastered it, it has become the comfort zone of many PC users, a new challege like Vista looks like a lot of work and humans are naturally lazy so they stick to something that is familiar. I’m bored with XP’s look and familiarity.

Kiddie Scripts for My Students

JavaScript. Some of my students who are new to this kind of thing got enamored to the wonders that Notepad and their favorite browser (Firefox) could bring them. It was as if I revealed to them some magic tricks when I taught them some little snippets that could amaze the uninitiated. So here are some little javascript goodies for the beginners. Just to keep them busy. Just put it in the body of your HTML document and you will have a simple calculator.

Photoshop Clipping Mask trick

This little trick which involves manipulating layers is quiet simple but it is a very powerful device for photomontages. It is important for a Photoshop artist to know how to make layers interact with each other. If you are new to Photoshop probably you do not know that Layers is one of the features that make Photoshop the best among the rest. Now is the time for you to start experimenting and playing with Layers.

 

In this example we will be changing the shirt of the child in the image, from a plain white to something that is printed. I have used two images, image A and image B. Image A is the image with the child and image B will be use to “change” the child’s shirt.

Don’t mind the lighting problem of image A because we will take care of that in the next tutorial, for the mean time we’ll just change the child’s white shirt into something that is printed.

A Trick a day

Gone were the days when every time we come to the point of needing something somewhat out of the ordinary to be done we hire experts to do it for us. The digital age is the do-it-yourself age. If you own a PC and know how to read and follow some instructions then you are on your way to becoming the jack who knows a trick or two in every trade. Learning a little hack each day is is good for the soul and the pocket. You’ll feel your worth every time you successfully apply to the real world something that you’ve learned from some tutorial or how-to e-book.

In this blog i’d be posting little tricks that would matter to little jacks like me. My interests cover a wide field so i guess i would manage to keep this blog alive with a couple of tutorials or more every week.