Need More Desktops? Have No Space? Desk Space!

Do you have room for 6 monitors on your desk? I do. A few weeks ago, I described the luxury of having a nearly 24-inch monitor on the desk at home. Then I mentioned the even greater luxury of having 2 monitors on the desk at the office. It would be wonderful to have a second monitor at home, but there's really not enough space, so I have 6. Virtually.

The key term there is "virtually". I don't really have 6 monitors on the desk, but I do have 6 computer desktops on the monitor that's sitting on my desk thanks to Desk Space.

This doesn't offer all the advantages of having a second screen. I can't drag some of the clutter off the main screen and place it on a second screen where it's still visible while I'm working on the first, but it does allow a user to set up optimized work spaces that contain just the applications that are needed for a specific task. You might, for example, have a desktop that holds your word processor and an online dictionary, another that contains and Excel spreadsheet and a telnet session to the office, a third with a full-screen Itunes session.

Moving from one screen to another is fun, too, if you have enough CPU speed and enough video processing power. Each desktop can have its own background, but don't try that on a machine with limited video hardware, 2 GB of RAM, and a mediocre processor. But if you have the hardware to support it, the animation is impressive as you'll see in the video.

The video is a bit shaky. I think that's because it's actually been downsampled 3 times: Once when Screencast-O-Matic created the downloadable file, again when I exported the video from Adobe Premiere to an MP4 format, and finally when Vimeo crunched it to fit. But take a look; it's only about 3 minutes long and you can see how Desk Space works.

 

Desk Space: 6 Screens in 1 from Bill Blinn on Vimeo.

In addition to using Ctrl-Win and the arrow keys, you can also use Ctrl-Shift and one of the keyboard number keys to go directly to a specific screen.

Or press and hold Ctrl-Win, then spin the 6-sided desktop cube until you find the desktop you're looking for.

3 CatsBottom Line: Organize your desktop with more desktops.

This is a good, solid application—probably the best desktop multiplier I've seen. Occasionally it seems to lose track of an icon in the Tray or on the Task Bar, but you can always activate the application associated with the icon by clicking Desk Space's Tray icon and selecting the application there. Overall, it's a great way to organize multiple workspaces without having to cover the entire desk with monitors.
For more information, visit the Otaku website.

Will You Still Love Me When I'm (Windows) 64(-bit)?

Not quite 1% of Windows XP users installed the 64-bit version. About 11% of the people who bought Vista installed the 64-bit version. This is the version of Vista that actually more-or-less worked. Now that Windows 7 is out, 64-bit usage is up. Way up, in fact. Hovering just below the 50% mark, 64-bit penetration for Windows 7 is more than 4 times what it was for Vista. If you haven't yet migrated to Windows 7, consider this a strong indication that spending a little extra for a 64-bit system and the additional memory it can use to be worthwhile.

Microsoft blogger Brandon LeBlanc wrote about the phenomenon recently. As he put it, "With Windows 7, running a 64-bit OS is becoming the norm."

Intel has prepared a white paper on 64-bit operating systems. Intel offers hardware for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems, so the recommendations are based more on customer satisfaction than market share.

The best way to get to Windows 7/64 is by replacing your existing computer. But if you have a reasonably recent machine that's running 64-bit Vista or 64-bit XP, try the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. When you buy a new PC with any version of Windows 7 except "Starter", you'll receive both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system. So the only question will be whether the hardware can support 64-bit systems.

I've written previously about converting to a 64-bit operating system and have noted that there are a few bumps on the road. So far, they've all been small enough to ignore, particularly in light of the advantages of running a 64-bit operating system: The primary advantage is more memory. I installed 8GB of RAM and the performance difference is clearly visible.

This year, a lot of people who have put off upgrading their computers are expected to upgrade. If you're in that group, be sure to evaluate 64-bit systems to determine whether the way you use your computer would benefit from being 64.

Read Brandon's full article here.

Print Is (Almost Officially) Dead

The founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, said something both surprising and expected this week. He said that Amazon now sells more electronic books than hardcover books. That may seem shocking, but we know that the print industry has been in decline for many years. So it may be surprising that this happened so soon, but it shouldn't be too surprising. And when you consider how carefully Bezos worded the sentence, maybe it's not surprising at all.

Let's parse the statement, provided by Amazon's PR department:

"We've reached a tipping point with the new price of Kindle—the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189," said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "In addition, even while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books—astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months." [Source: Amazon PR]

The first sentence is where Amazon flogs the new lower-priced Kindle. It's the second part of the statement that interests me. "[E]ven while our hardcover sales continue to grow ...." Note that the statement specified hardcover books. These are the books that have been hit the hardest as consumers move to paperback books. He didn't say "all" books; just hardcover.

Even so, sales of Kindle books do now exceed sales of hardcovers: "Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books. This is across Amazon.com's entire U.S. book business and includes sales of hardcover books where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the number even higher."

The trend is clearly upward. But let's face it: The readers are becoming easier to use, easier to read, and less expensive. You can replace a $30 book with a $10 electronic copy. Yes, you probably don't want to read a Kindle in the bathtub, but most people read in more places than just the bathtub. Electronic readers are fine for most of them.

According to the Association of American Publishers, e-book sales grew 163% in May and 207% year-to-date through May.

What About Newspapers?

Many newspapers have announced that they will begin charging for Web access. The Columbus Dispatch this week, on the heels of a hefty price increase for home delivery, announced an online version that looks just like the print version and is available to print subscribers for free.

Two points of interest: First, the online version doesn't look just like the print version. It looks a lot better. Many of the photos (and the ads) are in color because color doesn't cost any more to produce on the Web. Second, you can subscribe to the online version only for $8 per month instead of $28. It doesn't take a math genius to see that the online version costs less than 1/3 what the print version costs.

This kind of pricing makes sense and I hope it works because I don't want newspapers to go away. For all their faults, newspapers still generally provide the most balanced and complete coverage of local, state, national, and international news. Radio can't do it. Television won't do it. So losing the people who have traditionally been called "print journalists" would be bad.

Some of the largest costs involved in creating a daily newspaper have nothing to do with the news itself. The paper must be printed (paper, ink, presses, physical locations, and press operators) and distributed (trucks, automobiles, plastic bags, and carriers). Eliminating those costs would allow the "paper" to be distributed electronically at a far lower cost.

Could it be that the Dispatch's big increase for the print version is intended to push more people away from having a paper version delivered daily?

I looked at the online version this week. The user interface is quite good. This might work. Those of us who are age 50 or above will probably want a printed version, but given the price differential, everything could change and change quickly.

Short Circuits

Windows XP with SP2: Time for an Upgrade!

Computerworld recently included a story that stopped me short: Microsoft has ended all support for Windows XP (service pack 2). It wasn't the fact that support has ended that surprised me; it's the fact that anyone would still be running XP with service pack 2. After all, service pack 3 was released more than 2 years ago. Service pack 2 was released late in 2004.

If you are still running XP with service pack 2, you will receive no more updates, and that includes security updates. So if you're not yet ready for Windows 7, you should at least upgrade your system to service pack 3, which will buy you almost another 4 years of support.

There is one exception: If you installed the 64-bit version of XP and you upgraded to SP2, your operating system will be supported until 2014. That's because Microsoft never released a service pack 3 for the 64-bit version of XP.

Some people who had an irrational fear of the security measures added in SP3 turned off updating. Those folks missed nearly 1200 bug fixes.

You can obtain SP3 for free. Just download it from Microsoft's website. Or you can pay Microsoft $4 and they'll send it to you on CD. Or talk to one of your techie friends, who will probably be able to find a dusty copy somewhere in their archives.

But if you must stick with SP2 on Windows XP, Computerworld has some suggestions that will help make your system more secure. These suggestions range from getting rid of antiquated, insecure browsers (IE 6, 7, or 8, for example) to making sure that you keep browser plug-ins patched (Hint: Firefox does this automatically) to updating the applications you use.

Take some time and check that part of the article out. It contains some good ideas even if you're running the latest and most secure version of Windows, "lucky 7".

Final Reminder: Technology-Corner and 610Tech Ends

The last year that Technology Corner was on 610 WTVN was 2006. Since then, it's been TechByter Worldwide. This month, the old domain names (technology-corner.com and techbyter.com) become history. If you're still using either one of them, please update your link to www.techbyter.com.

The 2 old domains will be picked up as soon as they are available by someone who may hope to sell them. They probably won't be available for a few weeks, but they also won't point to TechByter.com as they have since 2006.