This tutorial will help you create an iCloud account on your iOS 5 device.

1. Tap the Settings icon from your springboard. And navigate to Mail, Contacts, Calendars
2. 
   
3. Select Add Account…
4. Select iCloud
5. Tap Get a free Apple ID
6. Enter the details
7. By default, it would select the Use my current email address ?
8. You need to select Get a free iCloud email address, so that the ? mark comes appears next to it. This will allow you to enter the details with @me.com
9. After entering the name, and other details in the boxes, tap Next
10. Accept the Agreement, tap Agree
11. Viola, You just created a iCloud account. And you are good to go ahead and use it! Enjoy iOS 5!
    
12. 
    

Happy 25th Anniversary Microsoft Windows

Yup, time really does fly and today, 20th November 2010 is the 25th anniversary of the launch of Windows 1.0. This was Microsoft’s first stab at a multi-tasking graphical user interface and had four versions. 1.02 was released in May the following year with the final version 1.04 coming out in April 1987.

The GUI, because it wasn’t an operating system at that time, ran on top of MS DOS and didn’t come to the mainstream public’s attention until the release of Windows 3 in May 1990.

Windows 1 was officially unveiled on November 10th 1983 when it was known as “Interface Manager” and it was competing head on with the most popular GUI at the time, GEM.

It’s interesting to note, because Microsoft would never be able to get away with this these days, that some early versions of Windows 1 came bundled with Office apps Word and Excel, presumably to help boost sales.

Clearly the main reason why Windows 1 wasn’t a success was the release of the Apple Macintosh the year before, with a high profile Orwellian advertising campaign.

Windows 1 offered very limited multi-tasking and didn’t include features such as being able to overlay one window on another. Instead, Windows could only be run side-by-side. Layered windows did not appear until Windows 2.

Supplied programs included the Calculator, Calendar, Cardfile, Clipboard viewer, Click, Control Panel, Notepad, Paint, Reversi, Terminal and Write and it’s surprising just how many of those programs have survived to this day.

Anyway, a very happy anniversary Windows from Windows7News and looking back, it surprising how much of the main interface elements in Windows 1 are still used by Windows 7 and will continue to be used for many years to come.

How To Scan For Viruses From AutoPlay Dialog

I’m sure most of you find yourself constantly plugging in various flash drives into your PC which aren’t necessarily yours, unknown to you there could be viruseslurking on them ready to infect your PC the second you plug them in. At the moment there’s no quick and easy way to scan these drives when you plug them in, but this little trick below will sort that out for you.

You need Microsoft Security Essentials to do this so make sure you have it installed. Now just a quick note, this will involve installing a little script and changing things in the registry, so if you’re not comfortable with that, maybe it’s best you steer clear of this.

1. Firstly download this mseautoplay.zip file and unzip it.

2. There will be 3 files in it, you want to copy the msescan.vbs file into your Windows directory which is located in Local Disc (C:) / Windows

3. This next step will require you to double click on the mseautoplay.reg file which is in the folder that you downloaded. A warning box will pop up asking if you want to add this to your registry, click yes to this. You will then get a confirmation message after it’s been added, again hit ok

4. Now next time you pop in a thumb drive or in fact any other form of removablestorage, you will get a new option in the autoplay dialog that pops up, allowing you to scan the file with Microsoft Security Essentials.

If this is an option you find yourself doing often, you can even go into the control panel default options for Autoplay and set it as the default action everytime you plug in an external drive.

Heads up to How to geek for putting this together

Create A Shortcut To Quickly Lock Your Desktop

This method of creating a shortcut to lock your desktop not only works in Windows 7, but also in Windows Vista and Windows XP

I’m sure most of you lock yourdesktop regularly, every I leave the room I’ve just gotten into the habit of locking my PC. It’s quick and easy to do and it takes less than a second then to unlock it again. However in many workplaces you are actually required to lock down your PC anytime you walk away from your PC to prevent any prying eyes from seeing what they shouldn’t.

So let’s get to it, how do we make a shortcut to lock the desktop apart from using (Win + L) ?

1. Right Click on a blank area of your desktop and select New
2. Go ahead and make a new Shortcut
3. Now in the field that appears you need to type in this rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation
4. Then hit Next
5. You will then need to enter the name for your shortcut, so for this example we’ll call it “Lockdown”
   
6. Hit Finish and you’re done

Now you can leave the shortcut on your desktop, or what I did was drag it into my taskbar so all I have to do is click it once and it instantly locks my desktop. You can even change the icon for it to a lock or something if you wish.

source: http://www.windows7news.com/2010/10/09/create-shortcut-quickly-lock-desktop/

How To Easily Customize Your Welcome Screen

Personally I don’t really care too much what my welcome screen is when I log onto Windows, the standard Windows 7 one suits me just fine. But I know there is lots of you guys who like to customize your machines to the max and give them that personal touch. Up until now it hasn’t been that easy to change your log on screen wallpaper.

I was going to publish a guide on how to do it before, but it involved a lot of registry hacks and I didn’t think you’d fancy going through all that just to change your log on wallpaper. So know I’ve found a much easier solution for you.

Logon Screen is a great little program that you can download for free from here. It integrates right into Windows and it so easy to use. You simply install it, then you can browse for the picture that you’d like to swap in and then you can add a couple of advanced options. Simple things like enabling or disabling the shut down button, show who last logged on and even showing a message to users before they log on.

This program could come in quite handy indeed since it does more than just changing your log on background.

So if you’re one of these users who loves to customize their pc to the max, this is for you, or even if you want to add some of those additional features to the start menu.

source: http://www.windows7news.com/2010/09/20/easily-customize-screen/

Is Your Computer Ready for IE9?

If you haven’t already joined the Windows 7 train, then you’d better hurry because desktop computing is leaving the station without you. By that I mean Microsoft and probably other software manufacturers will begin writing software that will no longer run on machines running anything earlier than Windows Vista. We’ve already seen the trend forming in two of Microsoft’s current popular software titles: Windows Live Essentials Wave 4 and the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 9. Neither of which will be compatible with Windows XP.

Legacy, while one of Microsoft’s strengths, is also one of Microsoft’s greatest weaknesses. The need to support old hardware and software has kept Microsoft from making huge leaps in innovation that many clamour for. Say what you will about Windows, but one thing most PC users know is that Windows works with almost anything, no matter how old and poorly written it is or has become. In Windows Vista, this came to a head. In Windows 7, Microsoft pushed virtualization as a means to use out of date or legacy software in a virtual environment.

It seems as if Microsoft is making a statement by dropping compatibility for their new versions of Essentials and Internet Explorer: upgrade or fade away. Sure, many users can and will get along fine without using Essentials or IE9, but the writing is on the wall and it looks like this isn’t an exception, but more the rule in future versions of Microsoft software. Eventually, Microsoft will have to drop compatibility for older Windows versions and with the wide adoption of Windows 7, it looks like this may be the time. If you haven’t already upgraded, and why haven’t you, now is as good a time as any to do so.

Speaking of Internet Explorer 9, the beta unveil is just 5 days away. I’ve started seeing internet adverts claiming that IE9 is essentially the ‘greatest thing since sliced bread.’ We’ll see about that, but considering IE9 is a refresh and isn’t just lipstick on a pig, I think we may be in store for something worth checking out.

source: http://www.windows7news.com/2010/09/10/computer-ready-ie9/

You Can Do More With Windows 7′s Calculator Than You Might Think

I’m sure most of you have used the Windows 7 Calculator for the odd sum that you need to quickly add up, but it turns out this calculator is much improved on previous versions of Windows. There’s a whole bunch of other features thrown in there which you mightn’t know about at first.

Here’s a couple of them;

Calculate Dates

How many times have you needed to work out how many days, months and even years between one date or another? While it may be easy enough to give it a rough guess, you can actually do this accurately in Windows 7 with the built in Date Calculator feature.

Just fire up your calculator and then go to View -> Date Calculation or you can hit Ctrl-U on your keyboard. You will then be able to easily calculate the differences between two dates, or add/subtract days to a specific date.

Unit Conversion

Another useful feature that’s been built into the calculator is a unit converter. This comes in very handy for me and I wish I knew about it sooner as I’m always trying to convert distances and weights.

To access this go to your calculator and then View -> Unit Conversion or you can also get there with Ctrl-U. You can now convert away to your hearts content with a variety of units available including angles, area,energy,time,velocity, mass as well as many more. There’s no currency conversion however since that would require constant updating to keep in line with the currency exchange rate.

Work Out Your Fuel Consumption

Yes there’s even a feature for working out your (mpg) or (L/100 km). When you’re in the calculator, go to View->Worksheets and then choose which one you want. While most cars come with this feature built in, I suppose it could be handy, it’s pretty cool that it comes as a standard feature though.

There’s also a host of other different calculator modes such as Scientific, Programmer and Statistics for those of you how need to use them

So there’s a couple of little tips for you about the calculator that you may not have known about

source: http://www.windows7news.com/2010/09/07/windows-7s-calculator/