Today, let me show you how to easily prevent this from happening. Oh this depends on which browser you are using.

Internet Explorer

Click on the drop down arrow next to the Printer icon on the toolbar. Select the Page Setup menu item.

In the Page Setup window, you should see the “Headers and Footers” setting which specifies what are to be printed in the headers and footers. The codes “&u&b&d” will eventually print the URL of the page, as well as the printing date. You can simply delete off the codes such as “&u&b&d” which is in the footer section to have a blank footer.

You can of course modify the codes to print out different stuff in the headers and footers. Here is a list of the codes:

• &w - Window Title
• &u - Page URL
• &d - Date in short format (as specified by Regional and Language Options in Control Panel)
• &D - Date in long format (as specified by Regional and Language Options in Control Panel)
• &t - Time in regular format as shown on the clock (as specified by Regional and Language Options in Control Panel)
• &T - Time in 24-hour format
• &p - Current page number
• &P - Total number of pages
• &b - right align the next text. (following &b)
• &b&b: Centered text (between &b&b)
• && - A single ampersand (&)

There you are, pretty straight forward and easy for Internet Explorer. Now, how about Mozilla Firefox?

Mozilla Firefox

On the File menu, click on Page Setup. Then in the popup window select the Margins & Header/Footer tab.

Here you should see that it’s very easy to change the margins, and of course the header and footer options. All the options are in the 6 drop down selection lists, no messy codes to play with as in the IE browser. If you want to get rid of the URL, just select blank in the drop down list.

There you are, some quick tips for Internet Explorer as well as Firefox. Don’t ask me how to do this in other browsers such as Opera, because I haven’t played with them that much yet.

Earlier last week, at the D6 conference Ballmer demonstrated the multitouch interface of Windows 7 which will ship to customers in late 2009.

The demo showed an app for organizing photos, and a Windows Paint app that you can draw with all your fingers at once. Also, a digital globe app, where the two-handed interface makes good sense. What’s really amazing is a piano app, on which you can now play chords using your fingers on the multitouch screen!

Anyway, do you think Microsoft is copying Apple this time? Whatever it is, I truly hope Windows 7 will be better, not like Windows Vista which looks superb but performs badly.

While I was setting the sharing folder up, I took screenshots because I guess it will make a good entry on this blog.

The whole process is pretty straight forward. Firstly, create a folder on one of the computer which acts like a file server. Then, right click on the newly created folder, select Properties, and check the option “Share this folder on the network”. So far so good, the folder is now shared on the network and should be accessible from other computers.

Now, to make the folder slightly more secure we want to set a password for the Guest account, which of course must be enabled. Microsoft makes it hard for newbies to do this because by default there is no option to set a password for the Guest account!

To set a password to the Guest account on Windows XP, you need to do this:

Click Start > Run > Enter cmd and click OK.

In the DOS window type the following and press Enter.

Net user guest password

Go to Control Panel > User Accounts. Click on the Guest account and now you can change the password!

Alternatively, you can set the password straight away in the DOS window by entering the following command:

Net user guest *

and press the Enter key. After that, enter your password two times for confirmation.

Now, you can access the shared folder from another computer through the local network, the system will prompt for you to login. Simply enter “Guest” as the ID, and then supply the password you have just set.

Happy!

Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to attend the conference at the World Congress on Information Technology which was held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. What a waste to miss shaking hands with the giant Bill Gates. He looks like he has put on some weight, doesn’t he?

This would seem similar to Google Sky, an extension to Google Earth that maps the sky. The requirements for the tool are pretty hefty though:-

• Microsoft® XP SP2 (minimum), Windows® Vista® (recommended)
• PC with Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2 gigahertz (GHz) or faster, recommended
• 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM; 2 GB RAM recommended
• 3D accelerated card with 128 megabytes (MB) RAM; discrete graphics card with dedicated 256-MB VRAM recommended for higher performance
• 1 GB of available hard disk space; 10 GB recommended for off-line features and higher performance browsing
• XGA (1024 x 768) or higher resolution monitor
• Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing and scrolling device
• Microsoft® DirectX® version 9.0c and .NET Framework 2.0
• Required for some features; Internet connection at 56 Kbps or higher through either an Internet service provider (ISP) or a network. Internet access might require a separate fee to an ISP; local or long-distance telephone charges might also apply

WorldWide Telescope does seem to have a more hefty minimum requirements list compared to Google Sky.

Microsoft seems to be keeping up with Google in the map space. Microsoft does enjoy a greater presence on mobile devices than Google. An advantage they will be looking best to utilize before Google’s Android initiative begins to gain traction. As an aside, a classroom assignment at MIT gave hints as to the potential of open standards for development mobile applications. The students were asked to develop applications on Android and the results included programs to set location specific reminders (such as to buy milk when in vicinity of a market), a location centric social networking application and selective barring of calls based on location.

Microsoft would be keeping a close watch on these developments and will be seeking to remain on top of the developments in the mapping technologies and perhaps in the future mesh all of these together on mobiles.

I bet that picture caught your interest. Who doesn’t want to get a free Windows yeah?

Now, before you go and search Microsoft’s website for a free edition of their their ‘over the top expensive and fairly new’ Operating System, you might just want to finish reading this article first. You just might change your mind about switching to Vista.

Have you ever wondered why every initial release of a Windows is never the best in quality and is always full of bugs? Now you can see what Windows Vista is clearly made of.

Some of you might have seen this lingering around the Internet, but I am pretty sure there are some who have yet to see this.

I saw this yesterday night and thought I’d share it with you guys.

Some people didn’t think that this was funny, but I not only thought it was a ‘bull’s eye’, it was a work of a genius.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Disclaimer : Just in case, this is a joke.

A brief recap of the events follows:

January 2008

Microsoft made an unsolicited bid of $44 billion in cash and stock to acquire Yahoo! which sent the portal’s management into a drive to drum up counter offerings to prevent a takeover. Rumors spread on deals with AOL, News.corp or even a search partnership with Google.

April 2008

Microsoft fires a mail to Yahoo giving the company a deadline of three weeks to come to terms with the offering lest it be forced to take the offer directly to the shareholders. This could be adverse to Yahoo, considering its lost ground in the search market and the looming economic slowdown.

Just in

Yahoo’s reply was to ask Microsoft to up its price substantially from the present $31 per share or forget the deal. Yahoo announced an experimental test of ads delivered via Google Adsense to 3% of Yahoo search traffic. Then comes the news of Time Warner’s possible partnership with Yahoo in which the media company would get a 20% stake in Yahoo and in exchange merge its AOL operations with Yahoo’s services.

Microsoft did not take this lightly as in talks with News.corp for a combined bid in which they would together woo Yahoo and create a company by clubbing together MSN services, Yahoo and MySpace.com, the extremely popular social network owned by News.corp.

Google Vs the Microhoo

Nonetheless, these are some of the giants in the online media space shaping up what could be the best challenger to Google’s growing dominance in search specifically and in online technologies in general. Google continues to grow its market share. It’s doubtful whether Yahoo and Microsoft could realign (in case of an acquisition) in short enough time to mount a serious challenge to Google without losing more market share.

What has been significant in all this acquisition milieu is the new product announcements that Yahoo has made. The company continues to innovate, perhaps to send out the message that it can fight it out on its own. Microsoft may be keen to get Yahoo for a lot more than just gaining some grounds in the search space. Opportunities galore in mobile Internet space.

Yahoo was designed around the concept of portals - provide services to get users to stick around the site. This is opposed to Google’s strategy of guiding people to others’ content and monetizing from ads placed around it. While Google’s model has been successful on the web accessed from a PC, mobiles are a different story. Limited screen area and high effort for user input means that ‘portals’ have immense benefits. It is here that Yahoo stands to gain with its multitude of services and this may be what is driving Microsoft’s acquisition plan.

Supposing the acquisition does get settled, there will be a lot of ruckus raised on the anti-trust front and expect legal suits to delay (while charging hefty fees) the ultimate merger. Yahoo’s acquisition would see the demise of one of the pioneers in the Internet front, but there is hope that Microhoo would make a more powerful competitor to Google. And more competition means that ultimately the user wins!

The iPhone is probably one of the most successful mobile communications device ever sold. According to Apple’s quarterly sales reports, the iPhone sold more than one million in Q4 of 2007 (see the report here), less than 3 months after it was launched and Apple is more than halfway in achieving their target of selling 10 million iPhone by the end of 2008.

It’s not a surprise if Microsoft wants to hop on the iPhone’s success/popularity bandwagon.

It may be a common misconception that Apple and Microsoft are archenemies. Over the years, the 2 companies have been helping each other to grow. Back in 1997, Steve Jobs announced that Internet Explorer 4.0 would be the default browser in Mac OS because back then, IE was the best browser there was (Netscape was also a huge contender). Also in 1997, Microsoft even invested $150 million in Apple, developing Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office for Mac, along with other developing tools for Macintosh at that time. Seems coincidental that everything started in 1997, doesn’t it? That’s the year when Steve Jobs became the CEO of Apple Computers.

Over a decade has past, and the collaboration is still going strong. And even though IE for Mac is no longer used, Microsoft has still maintained a group of engineers and programmers to handle Mac side of things - Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit. And it’s aptly located just a few miles from Apple’s Headquarters in California. And currently, Microsoft is one of Apple’s largest software development partners.

Just on Mac software alone, Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit made around $200 million in profit last year. And take into consideration, that’s mostly due to Office Suite for Mac!

Apple launched its SDK (Software Development Kit) for the iPhone not long ago, and the programming scene for applications and games for the iPhone is really buzzing. So, it just makes sense that Microsoft would want a piece of this. Tom Gibbons is the head of Microsoft’s Specialized Devices and Applications Groups (which means he deals with stuff like Microsoft Surface Computing and other hardware) and he said that their current focus is to extend Office functions onto the iPhone and iPod Touch.

It sounds like we’re going to be able to create/edit Word documents, Excel and Powerpoint files on our iPhones. Although it sounds feasible, don’t get your hopes up yet. They are just looking into it right now as the SDK is quite fresh and they don’t really know how much can be done with it. But if it can be done, imagine how the world will change: You could be giving your Powerpoint presentation by hooking your iPhone up to a projector or editing your documents in the train. You could do your work anywhere without a laptop.

This brings the iPhone onto a whole different level. The boundaries of this phone are limitless just because developers out there can write software for it, and just about anything goes. I’ve always had this at the back of my mind when I purchased the iPhone. I knew that the day will come when it will overtake Windows Mobile device in terms of productivity.

People have often asked me previously “Is it a phone or a PDA/Phone?” and I always replied,”Right now it’s just a phone, it’s going to be a PDA/Phone later.” And that always catches their attention.

Now, a better alternative is to put Windows Live Messager on my blog. Yes, you can chat with me on Windows Live Messenger (previously known as MSN Messenger) directly! Don’t wait, type your message in the box on the left column of this page… get in touch with me.

If you want to put this on your website or blog. It’s fairly easy. Login with your Windows Live ID at Windows Live. Windows Live ID can be your MSN Hotmail, MSN Messenger, or Passport account.

Check/enable the option “Allow anyone on the Internet to see my online status and send me messages”.

After that, click on the “Save” button at the top bar of the page to save the setting. Once that is done, click on the “Create HTML” link located at the left column of the page. Now, you have 2 options how to display your Windows Live status on your website/blog. Select either the status icon, or the web messenger control, depending on your own taste or preference. For me, I selected the web messenger control.

After that, simply copy and paste the generated HTML code in your website/blog template.

Now, all your web visitors can chat with you on your Windows Live Messenger. So convenient, easy, fast and most importantly FUN! I teach you a nice trick today, to return the favor, you come to my blog and date me, can or not? For pretty girls only. Terms and conditions apply.

Windows Live Messenger… (MSN for short) alerted of virus/trojan threat and required me to either scan the file using the antivirus program on my computer, or download and setup a free virus scanner from Microsoft for free. I opted for the latter because I wanted to see what’s in store for this “free virus scanner from Microsoft”.

That’s what happened when I clicked “Install”. Took a while to download and setup this so called Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner. But the whole process is pretty much on auto-pilot. After everything was done, no chance was really visible. The scanner is perhaps running in the background, or is only invoked when we want to send a risky file such as an EXE.

What’s your experience or thoughts on this? You trust Microsoft’s Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner or not?