Two cool programs for windows....
 

I bought a windows ultrabook yesterday - and so begins the tedious work of installing all my tools - or so I thought... then I found this REALLY neat site that was recommended by a colleague:

http://www.ninite.com

It allows you to check your commonly used application from a list (if they are on the site) - download a TINY installer - and run it to batch install the application in a single installer... best of all - you can use it to run UPDATES of your installed applications... so you can make multiple installers - keep them handy and run them to update Java, flash etc - without having to run the application update services - so after I've installed all these programs, I can delete the startup items that each puts in place to check if they are up to date... woohooo!! NICE!!


Next... through this site - I found another MUST-HAVE for windows 8 - Classic Start - a simple startmenu for Windows 8 - yes, I know there are a ton of these but I was looking for a quick/easy one - and this one being in ninite.com made it the one I choose to have on my machine.


Anyway - thought I'd share... enjoy... ;)

Shopping for a new laptop on Friday for dev work - and am cringing at the idea of W8. Planning on installing XP or Vista as soon as I get it home, lol.

you know - I was as well (and I have an MSDN account so it was no hassle - I even had the dvd and a usb external ready to go) - that was until I found Classic Shell - now I can leave windows 8 in place... it really is ok with classic shell installed.

I have my windows metro interface or windows 7-like setup - it adds a proper start menu back to window 8 - and it almost doesn't differ from this windows 7 machine I'm on now... I got a samsung ultrabook with touch screen, 4Gb of RAM (I'm upping that to 8Gb) - 500Gb hdd) for $849 from bestbuy - I actually went in to look a the discounted macbook airs and I was a little forgetful and went to the wrong bestbuy - one that didn't have the macbooks... it was drive back 28 miles to the *right* bestbuy - or eval what was there... the samsung fit the bill and I'm very happy with it now that I have the classic shell program installed... before, I was fighting it and getting very frustrated.... now, frustration factor is no more than I had with win-7.

I was going to upgrade to 8-pro - but I actually don't think I'll need hyper-v on this laptop... and I can't think of another reason why 8-pro might be better for this machine than the standard 8 that came with it - I have RDP client on here... that's about all I need... :dunno:

My windows key does my start menu - if I shift-windows-key - it flips between metro and windows desktop - I like it this way now. I can use it to demo software installation on windows 8 to my wife and staff.... which makes this a valid tool for training now! ;)

Don't you mean XP or 7? I see no reason to XP on a new machine unless you've got old software you need that won't run on 7 and no upgrade is available for that software (which is why an old PC is hooked up to my scanner). However, if it runs on Vista, it generally runs on 7.

And usually better than it did on Vista! :thumbup:

Ninite is ****ing awesome.

I've run Vista for years, never a problem. :dunno:

7 isn't out of the possibilities, but the work I'll be doing is out of country, so don't want to have compatibility issues. :eeps:

I'm not saying Vista isn't functional - millions of people still use it. Win7 is just better. Compatibility compared to Vista shouldn't be an issue because Windows 7 itself thinks its really Windows 6.1 (with Vista being 6.0).

yep - I'm not saying there aren't differences between vista and 7 - but I 've yet to hear of issues with software compatibility between the two. They are just too similar.

Got ahead of myself earlier, it's XP or W7 for the work laptop.

Likely going to be using a lot of MS DSNs in a predominately XP/2k2 environment. Where I've run into issues is with W7's 64-bit ODBC data sources tool, when in a mixed Office environment. Have to cmd the 32-bit tool to create DSNs for these retro platforms - meaning at-station setup, due to older Office apps. :typing:

Running XP puts me on their level - and the few stations with W7 can be set up as above.

Side gig - building an Office SQL app/reports overlay on Oracle data farms. Panama. :D

:thumbup:


ps. dont ever go Vista !!!