10 Great Features in 10 Different OSes

If you are making the ultimate OS, what features would you choose?

1. Mac OS X, Time Machine: Apple introduced Time Machine backup software with the Mac OS X 10.5 in 2007. You can back up to a local drive connected via USB or Fire wire, or even to network storage via Ethernet or Wi-Fi. As long as your backup volume is available. Time Machine creates hourly, daily and weekly incremental backups of your system.
2. Unix, The Shell Terminal: There's always tension between command-line and graphical interfaces, and for the last decade or more, GUIs have been the dominant face of most OSes. But as Max Steenbergen writes in his article "Commands Lines: Alive & Kicking" for UX Magazine, the command line is making a comeback via app launchers like Alfred, Launchy and GNOME Do.
3. Ubuntu, Simplified Linux Setup: Ubuntu aims for easy installation and configuration, and that's been my experience so far. You can download a live CD ISO or a Windows installer to get going. It doesn't require much of a commitment if you just want to give Ubuntu a try. Burn the ISO to CD and boot from that, or install it in a virtual machine using VirtualBox, Virtual PC or VMWare Player
4. BeOS, 64-Bit Journaling File System: When Jean Louis Gasse left Apple, he founded a new team that created the charming and forward-looking BeOS in 1991.The file system included with BeOS, however, is one of its truly cool features. Called BFS (BeOS File System), it was a 64-bit journaling file system using file attributes, or metadata. The ability to query and sort against file metadata gave BFS some relational database-like quality similar to what we may finally see via WinFS in Windows 8. The 64-bit address space gave BFS the theoretical ability to support volumes of more than eight exobytes and files over 30 GB. This at a time when 30 GB hard drives were hardly commonplace.
5. IRIX, SGI Dogfight: The first components of what would become the Dogfight demo were created by Gary Tarolli in the early '80s. OK, technically Dogfight wasn't an OS feature like some of the other items we've discussed here, but it was designed specifically to highlight the advanced (for the time) 3D rendering capabilities of SGI's systems.
6. NeXTSTEP, Right-Click Context Menu: While the Mac OS didn’t embrace the right-click context menu until much later, it was an OS feature from the start in NeXTSTEP.
7. MS-DOS, BASIC: MS-DOS was undeniably the dominant desktop operating system throughout the '80s, and every one of those computers running MS-DOS included the Microsoft BASIC programming language in one form or another. In fact, the version of BASIC created by Paul Allen and Bill Gates predates even MS-DOS, originating as Altair BASIC in the '70s
8. Windows 3.0, Alt-Tab Task Switching: Pressing the Alt and Tab keys brings up a window that displays an icon for each open window present on the system (even if minimized). The currently active window is highlighted by default. Holding down the Alt key, you release and press the Tab key to move the highlight to the next window, thereby making it the active window and bringing it to the front.
9. iOS, Multi-Touch: The introduction of what we now know as iOS for the iPhone in 2007, however, represented the first chance for many of us to have a hands-on experience with multi-touch
10. Windows 7, Start Menu and Taskbar: The Start menu and taskbar as we know them in Windows today debuted in Windows 95. With each new release of Windows, new features have been added: integrated search, pinned applications, recently used files and one-click access to often used folders and system configuration tools. Vista added the ability to type a string into the search box and get a list of files and applications matching that string. Windows 7 made that feature actually work properly (mostly through more efficient file indexing) and added per-application recently used file listings.

These are captured from blog of Terrence Dorsey, who is the editor of MSDN Magazine.

Visual Studio 2010 Key binding Posters

If you like those little Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts, you can download posters from the below location. Here are reference posters for the default key bindings in Visual Studio 2010 for Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++ and Visual F#

Download here.

Difference Between Build and Re-Build in Visual Studio .Net?

Build means compile and link only the source files that have changed since the last build, while Rebuild means compile and link all source files regardless of whether they changed or not. Build is the normal thing to do and is faster. Sometimes the versions of project target components can get out of sync and rebuild is necessary to make the build successful. In practice, you never need to Clean.

Build or Rebuild Solution builds or rebuilds all projects in the your solution, while Build or Rebuild <project name> builds or rebuilds the StartUp project. To set the StartUp project, right click on the desired project name in the Solution Explorer tab and select Set as StartUp project. The project name now appears in bold.

Build.BuildSolution F6 or CTRL+SHIFT+B Builds all the projects in the solution.
Build.BuildSelection SHIFT+F6 Builds the selected project
and its dependencies.

Hope this helps

Firefox speaks your language

Firefox is available in over 70 languages, download Firefox that speaks your language.

Download from here for fully localized versions.

Active Sync for Windows Vista and Window 7

ActiveSync 4.5 will not work for Windows Vista and above for that we need to install Windows Mobile Device Center.

The Windows Mobile Device Center enables you to set up new partnerships, synchronize content and manage music, pictures and video with Windows Mobile powered devices (Windows Mobile 2003 or later). The Windows Mobile Device Center combines an efficient business-data synchronization platform with a compelling user experience. The Windows Mobile Device Center helps you to quickly set up new partnerships, synchronize business-critical information such as e-mail, contacts and calendar appointments, easily manage your synchronization settings, and transfer business documents between your device and PC

Step 1: Connect your phone

Grab your phone and the USB cable that came with it. If you need some additional help setting up and using your new phone, see Windows Phone 6.5 basics for more information.

Step 2: Download the sync software for your computer

Choose the sync software for your computer's operating system, which you can download here:

• If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7, your sync settings will be managed through Windows Mobile Device Center.

• If you have Windows XP SP3, your sync settings will be managed through ActiveSync. Download ActiveSync 4.5 for here.

Step 3: Get Microsoft Office Outlook

To sync your phone's email, calendar, and contacts with your computer, you'll need to have Outlook installed on your computer. We recommend the latest version for the best experience. When you're ready to start syncing, see Sync Windows Phone 6.5 with my computer.

Hope this helps.