Nikon are the first of the major camera manufactures to release their codec for RAW support in Windows Vista. As a Nikon user I am delighted that I can now use the new Photo Gallery to manage my NEF files. You can get the codec in two ways, either directly from Nikon’s site or you can use the Windows Vista Photo Gallery to help you. If you have .NEF files in any of the folders that are monitored by the Photo Gallery, you will automatically be prompted to download the update

The page for Nikon NEF files is here: http://www.nikonimglib.com/nefcodec/

After seeing the Windows Home Server at CES, I definatley want one for my home. What is a Home Sever? Simply put it's a central storage device for data and digital media collections that family members can access from any computer in their household.  

Windows Home Server comes with a set of shared folders that are predefined for content such as photos, music, videos, et cetera – and you will also be able to create your own folders. You can securely access those folders from the desktop of any computer in the house. Likewise other members of the family could copy all their photos to the photo folder, all their videos to the video folder. Windows Home Server will automatically protect those treasured images, music, personal documents and videos by centrally backing up all the machines in the house as well. For example, if a parent or sibling accidentally deletes an important file or document, or a selection of photos you will be able to easily recover those materials by accessing the most recent backed up file containing the original document or group of photos. For more details click here

If you want to find out more, and keep up to date with all Microsoft’s announcements at CES to see what’s coming your way in 2007, then check out the Microsoft at CES web site.

Windows Meeting Space, the new collaboration feature in Windows Vista, is a simple yet powerful tool that enables face-to-face collaboration among small groups of Windows Vista users—anytime and anywhere.

Whether you are making a Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentation or revising a spreadsheet, Windows Meeting Space enables face-to-face collaboration by as few as two or as many as 10 people over a wired network, a wireless local area network (WLAN), or an ad hoc wireless network. Connections are established quickly, easily, and securely. One person simply initiates a session in Windows Meeting Space. Others can join it, share files, or see the same view of an application or desktop and collaborate in real time. 

Ad hoc collaboration—anywhere, anytime

Windows Meeting Space works on your current network (wired or wireless). Even if you don’t have a network, Windows Meeting Space will create an ad hoc network for you as long as you have a laptop with network card. Users don’t need special knowledge about creating or joining an ad-hoc wireless network. The process of creating or joining the meeting is exactly the same as if you were joining a meeting on an infrastructure network. This ad hoc feature is perfect for collaboration when participants do not have access to a network infrastructure—for example, in a coffee shop that has no Wi-Fi hotspots, or when you have a meeting with customers who do not have corporate network access. Windows Meeting Space and its inventive use of ad hoc wireless network integration opens up a range of new and more flexible collaboration possibilities.

Windows Meeting Space also takes advantage of the People Near Me feature, which allows you to check who is available on the network you are using and invite them to join your collaboration group or another People Near Me–enabled application. People Near Me makes explicitly inviting a person to a session simple and easy.

Remote participants can be invited via email or a file if your network supports Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) global connectivity. You simply start a session in Windows Meeting Space and send invitations via email. When the participants get the invitation, they simply click it and type in the password.

Secured collaboration Windows Meeting Space—and the entire peer-to-peer developer platform in Windows Vista—are designed with security in mind. Invitations and participant authentication are handled by using certificates derived through a common password exchange and verification between the session creator and other attendees. 

Well with Windows Vista you don’t have to, but just in case you want to find out more read on..

Infrequent disk defragmentation leads to an inefficient layout of files on the hard disk, which can slow PC performance. Windows Vista includes a new disk defragmenter that runs in the background and automatically defragments the hard disk as the need arises. The new disk defragmenter no longer needs to complete in a single session—it can defragment incrementally, whenever the computer is idle.

Disk defragmentation is one of the processes that takes advantage of low-priority I/O out-of-the-box. A hard disk can thus be defragmented in the background without hurting the responsiveness of your applications.

Welcome back, I hope you had a great Christmas and I wish you all a Happy New Year

We are now only 27 days to launch and still only 24 hours in each day, but it doesn’t always feel like it. As the pace of life accelerates at work and at home, many people find it helpful to use a PC-based calendar to manage their time. So in Windows Vista we now have the Windows Calendar. This flexible, easy-to-use calendar enables you to plan and manage all of your activities and coordinate your schedule with others. Once an appointment is on your calendar, you can set up an alert to remind you when the appointment is approaching. You can set Windows Calendar to alert you minutes, hours, or even days ahead of time, depending on how much advance notice you want. You can also set up recurring appointments. Perhaps you attend a weekly or monthly club meeting, or pay your mortgage on the same day each month. With Windows Calendar, you can create one appointment and then instruct the calendar to set up a series of similar appointments at the intervals you choose.

Windows Calendar allows you to set up individual calendars for multiple people. This is especially helpful for families or other groups who share a single PC. Windows Calendar makes it easy for people who use the same computer to coordinate their personal schedules by letting them compare information from any or all personal calendars, side-by-side in a single view.

Imagine a busy family with two parents and three children aged 10, 12, and 15. Because everyone in the family has access to a shared PC running Windows Vista, each person can use Windows Calendar to set up and manage his or her own personal schedule. Windows Calendar enables each family member to view the others’ calendars, either selectively or all at once.  Appointments from each calendar are displayed in a different colour, making it easy to tell whose schedule each item belongs to. 

Windows Calendar is fully compatible with the popular iCalendar format, so you can import and export calendar information to and from other applications and websites.  Using Windows Calendar, you can subscribe to calendars hosted on websites in the iCalendar format and then view those calendars alongside your own. The iCalendar compatibility of Windows Calendar also makes it easy to publish your own calendar on the Internet through a web host. If, for example, you chair a committee, or coach your child’s sports team, you can use one of the calendar views in Windows Calendar to create a schedule and then publish it to the Web so others can see and share that information. If you want, you can publish your personal schedule with password protection, so only designated friends and family members can access and view your calendar.