More About Windows 10 Fall Creators Update
Windows 10 (all supported versions)

Microsoft recently announced that the next major update to Windows 10, the Fall Creators Update, will start rolling out, worldwide, on October 17, 2017. Some are anxiously awaiting the Fall Creators Update, some are dreading it, and some are reserving their opinion until they get their hands on it and try it. No matter which category you are in, you’re probably interested in knowing what lies ahead and specifically what new features will the Fall Creators Update bring with it.

The following list is from Microsoft. Keep in mind, however, the official release date is still more than a month away and new features could be added and/or some of the features listed below may not be included.

From Microsoft, here is a partial list of the new features to be included with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update:

OneDrive Files On-Demand – View and access your OneDrive files in File Explorer
without using disk space.

Pin contacts to the taskbar – Pin your top people to the taskbar for one-click
access by Skype or Mail.

Drag and drop files to share – Drag files directly onto contacts in your taskbar to
start an email, or share directly to your contacts via the share picker

Touch keyboard on PC – The onehanded (sic) touch keyboard provides shape writing, and enhanced text prediction

Pin your favorite websites to taskbar – Pin a website to the taskbar from Microsoft
Edge for instant access

Ransomware protections – New protections in Windows Defender Antivirus help safeguard against malicious apps and threats, including ransomware

Fluent Design – The UI for Start, Action Center and Microsoft Edge include elements of our new Fluent Design System such as Acrylic Material – a cool, translucent effect

Connect to iPhone/Android – View a website on your iPhone or Android phone and continue viewing it automatically on your PC

Story Remix – Combine photos, videos and soundtracks automatically to create
video stories

Improved battery life with power throttling – Save up to 11% in CPU power
consumption by throttling background apps

Currency converter in Calculator – An international currency converter is built
into the Calculator app, including an offline mode

PDF-based forms in Microsoft Edge – Fill in PDF-based forms within Microsoft
Edge and make notes directly on PDFs

Windows Mixed Reality – Combine with a Windows 10 Mixed Reality headset for
immersive mixed reality experiences

Get web search results in Cortana without opening your browser – Cortana
pane will expand automatically with results

Better storage management – Files can be automatically deleted in your
Downloads folder after 30 days

Support for 3D in Office apps – Easily insert a 3D object into a Word, Excel or
PowerPoint file

Emjoi (sic) 5.0 – cool, new and improved emoji designs that display more consistently on
other platforms

Find My Pen – Windows can tell you where you last inked on your computer
which makes finding a lost pen a lot easier

New gaming features – PC gamers can stream games using Mixer and get better
performance using Game Mode

Notes from Microsoft:

1. Features may be available in select markets; experience may vary by region and device. Windows 10 Insider Preview may be substantially modified before it’s commercially released. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information provided here. Some product features and functionality may require additional hardware or software.

2. Features are not available in all languages. If you get the build with the supported language, the language resources will download. If you add the language after getting the build, you may need to go to Optional features and download the resources. Shape writing
and text prediction are available for the following languages: Catalan (Catalan), Croatian (Croatia), Czech (Czech), Danish (Denmark), Dutch (Netherlands), English (India), English (United States), English (United Kingdom), Finnish (Finland), French (Canada), French (France), French (Switzerland), German (Germany), Greek (Greece), Hebrew(Israel), Hungarian (Hungary), Indonesian (Indonesia), Italian (Italy), Norwegian, Persian (Iran), Polish (Poland), Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal),Romanian (Romania), Russian (Russia), Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish (Sweden), Turkish (Turkey), Vietnamese (Vietnam). Dictation on the desktop is currently only available for English (United States) and Chinese (Simplified) input methods.

3. Cortana not available in all markets.

So what do you think? Do any of the new features appeal to you? We think Story Remix will be well received as replacement for the very popular Windows Movie Maker that many people enjoyed. Also, we think most people will like the new currency converter feature in the Windows calculator. .  Other than that we’re going reserve judgment for now.

Are you ready for another big Windows 10 update?

Windows 10 Action Center
Windows 10 (all versions)

One of the least used and understood features of Windows 10 is the Action Center. It’s true that the Action Center is a notification area where you’ll see App notifications, notifications that your hard drives need attention, or a Windows Update is pending – and other app notifications, etc. But at the bottom of the Notification area, there’s an action center. You can access the Action Center by pressing Windows Key + A or by clicking the shout-out icon just to the left of the system clock.

You may see something like this:



But wait, there’s more. Click on Expand to see all the goodies in the Action Center:

There are some interesting, even useful buttons here. Like connecting to Wi-Fi (you can see above I’m connected to a network called “Omaha”).You’ll also see things like “Rotation lock”. If you have a tablet PC or convertible laptop, you can lock in the screen so it does not auto-rotate when you tilt or flip your tablet or laptop. In many cases, you want the screen to rotate relative to the device orientation.

Or how about Tablet Mode – if you’re using a laptop or desktop or all-in-one computer and you accidently tap “Tablet Mode” you are in for a big surprise – your desktop will be full of huge tiles and your beloved start menu will be no more. Luckily, if you accidentally tap “Tablet Mode” tapping it again will turn it off. If you click “Note” please note you won’t open Notepad, but you will open Microsoft One Note, which is a whole other animal. If you click “Quiet Hours” you won’t get any notifications between the hours of midnight and 6:00 AM. Not sure how useful that one is.

If you click the little “Sunshine” button, you won’t turn off the rain, but you will brighten your screen, if it’s not already as bright as it can be – like mine. Conversely clicking it when it’s on 100% will make your screen dimmer. You can use this button to adjust your screen brightness however you like it. And you’ll find Battery Saver here as well.

Night light (on Creators Update and newer) will adjust your screen brightness depending on the time of day.

The one we use the most is “All Settings”. It’s right there in Action Center, in both expanded and collapsed views.<

So, now you know a lot more about the Windows 10 Action Center. If you use it, it may save you time. If you don’t, at least  you know it’s there.

Exploring is fun!





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Earl

It wasn’t long ago I watched him walk down the street with a sad, strange limp. In spite of it being a warm, sunny day, he wore a tattered jacket, brown and threadbare in spots, and buttoned up to his neck.

His face wrinkled and worn, only showed me that age had not been a friend to him. He scuffled and shuffled and limped with slow, unsteady, measured steps. He walked with curious and careful gait. Each step a challenge, and each block of the neighborhood a monument to his perseverance and dedication to his daily walks.

When I say “daily”, I mean he walked every day as long as the weather cooperated. There were days in the dead of winter, when he would not dare to venture out. He was not alone – no one else would either.

I saw him walk in the rain, without an umbrella, limping along the sidewalks, his eyes focused on the path ahead. He appeared oblivious to me; he never looked in my direction, although he must have known I was watching. He had to know – I watched him every time he walked.

“What’s your name?”, I often wanted to say. I wondered where he lived. I wondered if anyone loved him. Did anyone care for him? Did he have any pets? Did he have children? Grandchildren.

In their silent march of time, the days passed. He trudged on, dragging himself along the sidewalk. He limped along undeterred in his resolve. Or was it his habit? He never acknowledged my existence. And though I saw him pass by most every day, I never acknowledged his either.

His eyes never moved from the sidewalk. Focused upon the concrete path ahead, his eyes never once looked up at me or anything else.

I named him Earl, but, of course, I don’t know what his name was. It may have been Frank, Bill, Ernie… to me he was Earl – the man with limp

Be a Power Searcher with Google's Free Online Courses

The Internet sometimes can be a scary place, especially for the trusting, unwary souls that become the unwitting target of scams, rip-offs and cybercrimes. And it's too bad that things have to be the way they are. But, the Internet is nothing more than the extension of reality - the way things are in this world of ours. Things may not always be pleasant in the ethereal world, but they're sure not always pleasant in the real world. There's plenty of bad to go around, but there's a lot more good than bad, sometimes it's just not so easy to see because it doesn't make headlines.

One of the greatest and most useful things about the Internet is that it puts knowledge and information at the fingertips of anyone with an Internet-connected device. It's a tool. And like any tool, those who know how to use it will get a whole lot more out of it.

One thing that we mastered early was the ability to find things on the Internet. Since we've been around the Internet since the early 90's, we've had many years to hone our browsing skills. And, necessity is the mother of invention. We need to be able to find things when we need them and find them fast. Using a search engine, like Google, is a lot more than just typing in haphazard search terms. Yes, you may eventually find and glean the info you're looking for, but wouldn't it be great if you could learn to find what you looking for right away, on the first try, without drilling down through lines and lines of search results? Of course.

We recently learned that Google is offering courses in power searching and advanced power searching. Those of you who have mastered the art of finding what you're looking for quickly and easily will benefit from the advanced power searching course. Those who have not mastered the basics of searching, will greatly benefit from the basic power searching course.

You can see from the images above what you'll learn by taking the Google power search course(s). Note also that the courses allow you to set your own pace.

Well give you a little idea of how the page progress as you get ready to embark upon the power search online course. The following is from the Google power search main page. First you'll want to take the pre-course assessment. Just click on Pre-course assessment from the course syllabus (no EB not city bus!):

"Pre-course assessment

Before we begin, we'd like to learn a bit about what you know about search techniques. The goal of this pre-course assessment is not to judge or grade your skill, but to get a sense of what you know coming in, so that we can better understand what you gain from the course. To that end, please do not use Google to look for the answers--simply answer each question based on what you currently know.

Please note: During this assessment and the units that follow, you will often see words written inside square brackets [like this]. The brackets represent a search box like you see in Google, and the words inside the brackets are what you would type into the search box. So, if you see [golfcross rules], you would want to enter a query like this:

You would not type the brackets into Google, just the words inside them.

Thanks!

Now let's ask you a few questions:

Which of the sections in the image below are advertisements?

From there you go on in multiple-choice test format. Like this question: "When searching Google Images, you can drag an image into the search bar and find webpages where it appears online."

True
False
I don't know

Do you know the answer? If you said "True" you're right.

Lesson 1... 

This is a course that any one who uses Google search will benefit from - regardless of skill level. Finding the right information, fast, is a great skill to have. If you have some skill, hone it. If you're not very skilled in search techniques, taking this course will help make you a skilled power searcher.

The faster you find information you're looking for, the less time you waste looking. Life is short; who has time to waste?

This week's Site of the Week is both a great Site of the Week pick and a great search tip.

Learn to be a power searcher with free online courses from Google.

Version 8 Just Released!

What's New in Reg Organizer 8.0?

• Ability to clean the cache of the installed applications.
• A new Private Data Cleanup tool was added. It is designed for cleaning the data of a personal nature emerging in everyday use of your PC like browsing history and the drop-down lists with the paths of files you recently opened in Windows or applications.
• The new System Cleanup tool combines the functionality for cleaning the disk and the registry allowing for effective freeing up of disk space and correcting the system problems like invalid shortcuts.
• Ability to clean the jump lists (recently accessed application files and actions).
• Ability to clean the Run dialog (opened using the Win + R keys combination) history.
• Switching between the Maximum cleanup mode and the Everyday cleanup mode in the System Cleanup tool. The Maximum cleanup mode can be used, if it is necessary to free up the maximum possible amount of space on the drives. This will be done at the cost of removing old restore points, emptying the Recycle bin, etc. Enable this mode to view more information to make a decision.
• Recently Used Files section: More files and folders you recently opened in Windows or applications are now displayed here.
• Check for update: You may disable notifications about beta and alpha versions.
• The Settings window can be resized.
• It is now possible to open Express Check directly from the Tool Selection Panel located at the left part of the main window.
• The Startup applications tool: Now you may permanently exclude the applications from the optimization. To do this click on the cross at the right of the application in the recommendations window.
• Note for Cloudeight subscribers : If you purchased or renewed Reg Organize through Cloudeight within the last 12 months, you're entitled to a free version upgrade to Reg Organizer 8.0.

What the heck are hashtags??

My grandma made great hash, but I wouldn't be allowed to have any until my friends (yes, I really used to have friends) amused her by playing homerun derby with a plastic balls and bats, her backyard.  Now you can imagine homerun derby with TC, a little boy, running around calling himself the sultan of swat..

#sultan

When were tired of playing homerun derby, we played tag. By the time we got around to playing tag it was almost dinner time - which us poor folks called "supper". We played tag, got all sweaty, and then went in to eat. Ate dinner, filthy. Watched TV filthy. Went to be filthy. No bath until Saturday. Yay!!

#stinky

 I am no longer the sultan of swat.  But I still play tag; EB and I play tag all the time -- but not that kind of tag: We play email tag and phone tag.  I avoid answering calls from her when I can -  she always loses at phone tag..

#phonetag-loser

Anyway, my grandma made the greatest hash in the world, but took her recipe with her to that great kitchen in the sky, so no matter how much tag EB and I play, I won't get anymore of my grandma's great hash. But when I was a kid, after a hot, sweaty, summer game of tag, I'd go into her non-air conditioned house, sweaty and dirty, and swill down 4 glasses of Grape Kool Aid and a big plate of hash. Hash after playing tag is called hashtag..

#hashtag

But a hashtag is something different. A hashtag looks like #cloudeight. On social media sites and in micro-blogging (and you can look that up) a hashtag helps keep things organized in groups. Neither EB nor I are big fans of hashtags, but TC is a big fan of hash. #realhash with meat and potatoes and grandma's love!!

#yummy

#enough-already

I know you all want to know more about hashtags, so you might want to read Mashable's Beginner's Guide to Hashtags.

Buy One Get One Free - Back to School Special

Sale Extended Through This Weekend!!

I've decided to bring back our Back to School Buy One Get One Free Special - until EB gets back. So through Monday, September 18, 2017, you can buy one Cloudeight Direct Computer Care Repair Key and get one FREE. You can keep the both service keys for yourself or share one or both with a family member, friend or student of your choice..

Buy your keys now, use them when you need them. They never expire!  Our Cloudeight Direct Computer Care repair keys are always good until you use them. Think of our computer repair keys as inexpensive insurance for your computer!..

Our Back to School Buy One Get One Free Sale has been extended through Monday September 18, 2017..

Get all the details here!!

• Premium Subscribers' Home Page You'll find the last few weeks of Premium archived on this page..
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