News You Can Use

Microsoft released the new Vista operating system to consumers this week. They are already working in Service Pack 1, which by all accounts is a good thing. But let's concentrate on Windows XP for now.

Microsoft Support for Windows XP Home Extended
Microsoft announced to little fanfare this week that they are extending support on Windows XP Home and Media Center to April 2009, also the scheduled end of support for XP Pro. That is "mainstream support." On-line, self-help support is now scheduled to be extended for five years after that. (Read more about the Windows Life-Cycle policy here: http://tinyurl.com/v77f.)

This is good news. Extending the support suggests that Windows XP is still considered a viable operating system, and it means that we don't have to rush headlong into buying Windows Vista and all the expensive hardware and software to go along with it.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 Delayed
Not really news, because it was announced last fall. But a gentle reminder. XP SP3 is currently scheduled for release in 2008, and that is characterized by Microsoft as a "tentative" date. In the meantime, regular readers of this column will know that Microsoft has discontinued support for XP SP1. Unless you have a compelling reason not to, you should already be running SP2.

Useful XP Tools/B>
When you delete a file in Windows, it goes to the Recycle Bin. If you've made a mistake or changed your mind, you can often recover it from there with little trouble. Once you empty the Recycle Bin, the file isn't really gone, though. It's just hiding, and you can sometimes restore it using file recovery tools.

I've mentioned PC Inspector (http://tinyurl.com/5ah8u) and Restoration http://tinyurl.com/5onoc before, and I've had success with both. This week I heard about Recuva, which is another file recovery tool. This is a beta version, and I'm trying it out. So far it has found files on my hard drive and on a memory stick I tested. It does not seem to recognize any deleted emails (I use Thunderbird), however. If you want to try it, it's free, here: http://www.recuva.com/.

A new, cool, free tool from Microsoft is Photo Info, available here: http://tinyurl.com/2fgbr9. According to Microsoft, "Microsoft Photo Info is a new software add-in for Microsoft Windows that allows photographers to add, change and delete common "metadata" properties for digital photographs from inside Windows Explorer. It also provides enhanced "hover tips" and additional sort properties for digital photographs in Explorer (in Details view).

Most photo editing software will let you do that, too. But the beauty of this utility is that you don't have to open your editing program to see or edit the information about a photo. Just right-click on the photo, and choose "Photo Info" from the context menu. You'll get a window with several tabs where you can view and edit information about the photo. Best of all, you can do this with more than one photo at a time. It's just great.

Superbowl XLI
Want to waste some time before the Superbowl? You can preview the ads that will run on American television here: http://tinyurl.com/33crs7, and you can have a look back at some of the classics from years gone by. After the game, you can see this year's ads on line here: http://tinyurl.com/dnwap.

If you want to snack during the game, maybe you'd like some recipe ideas. There are plenty of them right here: http://tinyurl.com/23unbb. And don't forget the mother of all Superbowl sites: http://superbowl.com/. Or, you could just see a movie: http://tinyurl.com/ywkfa2.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.