For real this time.
According to a member of a certain jailbreak team, the untethered iOS 6 jailbreak is scheduled to be released in two weeks time and will work for any device with 6.0.1 and 6.0.2, if all goes well. The hope is that it will also work for 6.1. PlanetBeing has the jailbreak ready.
Microsoft has apparently dramatically improved the CHKDSK Utility on Windows. Gone are the days of having to plan days ahead of time and writing scripts to do a full check disk and repair on multiple drives over night while you sleep. From what I’ve been told by a support engenier at Microsoft, Windows 8 has not only dramatically increased the speed of the utility, but you no longer have to restart while using it. You can perform disk checks while you’re working in the Windows enviroment.
Here’s what he said:
Support Engineer
Hi Danny,
It’s great to know that you have chosen Windows 8! I hope you are having a great time working on it.
You are absolutely right. The “Chkdsk” utility for earlier versions of Windows took much longer when compared to Windows 8 and you have guessed the right thing. This is one of the many improvements in Windows 8.
In past Windows versions, NTFS implemented a simpler health model. In this model, the volume was taken offline for as long as necessary to fix the file system corruptions and bring the volume back to a healthy state. Downtime was directly proportional to the number of files in the volume.
Though we made significant optimizations to the speed of chkdsk in Windows Vista and Windows 7, the increasing capacities of the hard disks and the increasing number of files per volume made the chkdsk longer and longer to complete (even with speed improvements).
So in Windows 8, we’ve changed the way we approach the health model of NTFS and changed the way we fix corruptions so as to minimize the downtime due to chkdsk. We’ve also introduced a new file system for the future, ReFS, which does not require an offline chkdsk to repair corruptions.
For more details, please check the article: “Redesigning chkdsk and the new NTFS health model“ in this link:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/09/redesigning-chkdsk-and-the-new-ntfs-health-model.aspx
Hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to get back to us for any Windows related issues or queries.
In an earlier post about emulating the Windows mouse curve on Mac OS X, I mentioned emulating Mac font rendering on Windows. Font rendering on Mac OS X and Linux have always been far superior to that of Windows. There are definitely a few more minor annoyances that Microsoft, for some reason or another, refuses to address despite popular opinion, such as the ongoing widespread hatred of Internet explore.
Where OS X and Linux emulate what text looks like in print, Windows insists on a more digital look, which ends up looking pixalated. Clear Type has been available since windows XP, which improves it, but remains inferior to Mac and Linux font smoothing. Improved font rendering on Windows, like the aforementioned Windows mouse curve for OS X, is something I’ve been longing for for years. Until Microsoft changes it’s tune regarding font rendering, we’re going to have to resort to using hacks such as Mac Type and Gdipp.
I’ve tried both applications, and while not perfect, Mac Type gets you closer to the desired look. Out-of-the-box it’s an improvement, but it still needs tweaking. I tried using it’s default settings, but it left fonts on browsers looking really heavy. After messing around with it’s custom settings, I noticed that to get the fonts as close to Linux and Mac as possible, I’d have to use a combination of tweaking Clear Type and the Mac Type profile, which is easier said than done. It definitely took me a few tries to get it as close as possible. The developers might want to look into making the app more intuitive.
If you’re like me and you boot multiple operating systems on one machine, you’ll notice annoyances between Operating systems when switching back and forth. You might like the way Windows handles something compared to OS X, vise versa. Personally, I can’t stand the OS X mouse curve, and have been looking for a fix litterally for years.
I’ve tried all the applications that claimed they address the problem, such as Steer Mouse and ControllerMate, but neither came close to actually fixing it. I can’t get into technical details, as I’m not a Mac developer, but I knew how I wanted the mouse to feel, and it just wasnt happening. I wanted the natural and precise mouse cursor movement I felt on Windows. I think they call it Enhanced Pointer Precision. It just always felt slippery, for lack of a better word, on OS X.
A few of the guys at ControllerMate felt the way I did, and I joined them in the discussion on their forums. One of the guys in one of the longer threads who felt the same way I did talked about developing an application of his own to address it.
I have to admit, I didnt believe it could be done. i found his website years later, and I have to tell you, I litterally jumped out of my chair seconds after installing Smooth Mouse. It was amazing. My mouse felt just like it did on Windows.
Now if i can only get the Windows fonts to display like they do on OS X. We’ll talk about that later.
Windows 8 is a step in the right direction. This is the first time Microsoft has taken such a large leap. I think I like the fact that there is a desktop mode and a sort of app mode where you run core applications or applications purchased or installed from the Microsoft Store, which like Lion and Mountain lion, is part of the operating system. I like the flat design. First time Microsoft has actually changed their design rather than skinning over what they already had.
They seem to be moving in the ecosystem direction, which is great. Obviously this was something Apple did right. Google soon followed suit, and now Microsoft. While it’s missing certain services like AIM, presumably because Apple has some sort of connection to them, I like the integration of the services they already had in place, such as sky drive. I like how similar to Lion and Mountain lion, you can connect other services, such as facebook and google for certain features/applications.
Im really enjoying Windows 8, and I’d like to get used to it, but it’s a little discouraging when seeing rumors on reputable publications such as the Verge that say Windows Blue will be a complete rework of the Windows environment. Is Windows 8 comparable to the short-lived Windows ME?