I have been turning the idea in my head on writing a Windows 8 Book and aside from writing the book I have no idea where to go from there. You would think with all the information you can find on the internet, you would find everything you need. Lately though, the overabundance of information has actually become an issue, leaving me with alot of information but nothing that really helps.

This is a very good point, that many people who would want to write a Windows 8 book might not have a clue where to start.  I thought then that I’d follow up yesterday’s article with a guide to doing exactly that and getting started writing.

Audience

The first and most important decision to make, as it will influence everything else, is who your intended audience will be.  Who it is you’re writing the book for will determine what type of language you use, the types of images and annotations you use, and how many, and how long and detailed the book might turn out to be.

For example, if you want to write for complete beginners, perhaps something for family and friends and people you provide tech support for, then the tone would be warm and friendly, with an absence of jargon and with every technical word you must use clearly explained at the time.  You will probably want to use a lot of colourful screenshots, with many annotations so that it is very clear to readers what they’re looking at.  You would also want to use a fair few numbered and step by step guides that will help people perform tasks.  Lastly the content for this audience will largely fall around using the new Metro interface, downloading and installing apps and keeping things ticking over easily and quickly.  After all, people in this category simply don’t want to hear anything about installing Windows or the Control Panel, it’s just too complex for many of them.

We move on from there with more business-centric users, perhaps people in your workplace more interested in how to keep working on the desktop and what new productivity and power-saving features are available for them.  Enthusiasts will want to know how to install Windows 8 in different ways and how to configure it, with little in-depth hints and tips to help them get the best from it, and so on.

Size and Content

Now that you’ve determined who your audience will be you need to decide how big the book will be and what the content will be.  A book for newbies would be relatively short, perhaps between 50 and 100 pages, while one for business users might not be much longer and one for enthusiasts might run to 200 or even 400 pages.  It’s important when writing for the first time, especially when you have all your formatting, page layout and editing to do as well not to set yourself a goal that’s too high.  I found 170 pages when writing the Windows 7 Power Users Guide gruelling while also holding down a full time job.  By the time I wrote the 500 page Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out I was down to working only two days a week and writing the rest of the time.  There simply was no other way to do it.

With your page count in mind you should set about writing a draft table of contents, making sure that the page count is foremost in your mind all the time.  Think about how many paragraphs or pages it will take to decribe or walk people through specific subjects and use this as a basis for getting the content to fit your book.

Production

It’s common to write a book in Microsoft Word, after all it’s a writing tool, but Word and other word processors can be limiting in the page formatting they allow you to do.  I used Microsoft Publisher to write the Windows 7 Power Users Guide after quickly realising that I couldn’t do something “visually appealing” enough in Word.  Using a desktop publishing package does present its own challenges with text run on from one page to another difficult among other problems.  Using DTP software though can make for a much more engaging book.  All that said there’s nothing wrong with using Word and some of the advanced layout and imaging tools available can make for very eye-catching designs.  The layout and design can be a slow process to get right however and on the Windows 7 Power Users Guide probably one-third of the three months it took me to write was spent getting the formatting correct.

One very important part though will be the option to either export of print your file as a PDF.  There are many free PDF writers out there, some of which will also export as other eBook formats, but having written your book you’ll want people to be able to read it in a non-editable format.

This is a short and probably simplistic way to look at how you can start writing your book.  It all comes from the planning, and that is why this article has focused so much on that.  Spend time getting your table of contents, page layout, design and voice correct and the rest will fall into place reasonably naturally afterwards.  So good luck and let us know here at gHacks if you release a Windows 8 book on the Internet.

Getting a book contract at this point proved pointless, though I did try.  I hadn’t proved myself so eventually in 2008 I decided that self-publishing would be the way forward.  Thus in January 2009 when the Windows 7 beta appeared I began designing page layouts, insert graphics and a draft table of contents for what would be my “Windows 7 Power Users Guide“.  I went through several drafts and designs when writing the first three chapters but eventually found my stride and on August bank holiday, shortly before Windows 7 was released to manufacturing, I released my new eBook and paperback for sale.

As a way of making money they were never going to be the route to my next foreign holiday, and the eBook was made free a year later.  As a 170 page book however I felt that perhaps I could use it to prove my mettle and began contacting publishers through the submission links for new authors on their websites.

There were a few knock back emails I received, and some emails went unanswered but eventually a nibble came in the form of an email from a senior editor at Microsoft Press.  They were looking for someone to write a Windows 7 Troubleshooting book and wanted to know if I was interested.  Two months later the contract was signed and “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” was published in October 2010, one year after the release of Windows 7.

Since then I’ve been able to better enjoy the fruits of my labour.  I was given a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable professional) award in the Windows Expert category in January 2011 and this was recently renewed for a second year.  I’ve also spent the last year receiving review hardware from companies including Samsung, ASUS, Nokia and HTC and have had a great many Windows Phones, laptops and more through my door to play with (a very pleasant perk of the job).

Now my Power Users Guide has been formally picked up by US publisher APress and the “Windows 8 Power Users Guide” is scheduled for release this year to coincide with general availability for Windows 8 itself.  I’m also working on an eBook project for Microsoft Press’ parent company O’Reilly for whom I am continuing to run a monthly series of help and how-to webcasts.  In addition I was last year signed by a new publisher, co-founded by the man responsible for making the Dummies books popular, and where Ed Bott is now Editorial Director, and my first eBook for them “Need2Know Office 365 Security Essentials” was released last November.

In short the last three years have been amazing (though very hard work too) and I thought I’d throw down the gauntlet and encourage you to get here too, after all, if I can do it anybody can!  Have you ever wanted a book contract of your own?  Do you want to write about Windows 8 or perhaps the next version of Microsoft Office?  If you do then now is the time to start planning as the public beta for Windows 8 will begin at the end of February.

Writing a book, even one as small as 170 pages (I know, it sounds ridiculous to me too) isn’t easy, doubly so if you’ve never done it before.  It will monopolise your time and you can expect to spend three months writing it in your spare time.  If you have a book about Windows 8 in you though I strongly encourage you to write it.  After all, you never know what opportunities it might open up for you.  The rewards can be unexpected and very welcome, and the feeling you get from helping people is worth it on its own.  ;)  I’d love to read your Windows 8 books later this year and see your particular spins on the format.  Good luck all.

We seek to recognize the best and brightest from technology communities around the world with the Microsoft® Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award.  These exceptional community leaders come from a wide range of backgrounds. They are teachers, artists, doctors, engineers, as well as technologists, who actively share their high-quality, real-world technical expertise with the community and with Microsoft.  With the MVP Award, we thank these inspiring individuals for representing the voice of thousands in the community through the powerful and independent feedback they give us, and for helping our customers maximize the potential of their software.

Getting an MVP is pretty cool and my renewal came as a big though very welcome surprise and does come with some tangible benefits (software mostly) and access to product groups within Microsoft to feed back comments and ideas, and find out what’s up and coming with their products in the coming months.

I received my award pack yesterday and I thought you might be interested to see the physical goodies that Microsoft give awardees.  They include a lovely glass trophy which you get in your first year with a small lug with the year written on it.  In successive years they just send you more lugs.  These include blue 5 year lugs for long-time awardees (some have been MVPs for as long as 17 years!).  Also in the pack you get a Microsoft ID card for when you visit company sites, a metal lapel badge, a framed certificate and this year, which seems a little out of place, a set of MVP stickers.

In fact I’ve been challenging people to come up with the most imaginative use for the MVP stickers and I’m offering a small prize for the best suggestions (why not give your suggestion in the comments below) and ones so far have included being stuck to a car dashboard so the traffic police in the Microsoft car parks don’t give you a ticket, marking your coat hook at work or covering the glowing Apple logo on a Macbook (alas they’re not quite large enough for this).  For now I’ve settled with one on my laptop lid.

I was renewed in part because of my writing here at gHacks and our sister site Windows7News and I’d like to thank all of you for your support this last year.  2012 is going to be great as I have at least two Windows 8 books coming out  :)

Despite the MVP renewal I will continue to call out Microsoft whenever they get something wrong and, in all honesty, I’m considering buying my first Mac this year too!  Photos of the 2012 MVP award pack are below along with the use I put at least one sticker to.

We have celebrated the six year anniversary of the site in October, and the fourth annual Christmas Giveaway in December. I’m happy that I can give something back, besides the content that is posted daily on Ghacks of course.

Looking forward I can only hope that Ghacks continues to growth in the same pace as it did the last years. I still think that this is incredible considering that the site does not have the backing of a big company that pays hundreds of thousands of Dollars for optimization, advertisement and content.

Being independent does have its advantages though, as we do not follow a corporate agenda or have to report to an executive who does not care about the site’s user base or reputation as much as we do. Can I manage to keep the site independent in the coming years? I honestly do not know. As much as I like writing and managing the site on my own, I feel pressure every day running it.

Enough with the babbling. On behalf of the Ghacks.net team I wish each and everyone of you a happy New Year and all the best for the year to come. I personally hope that I see you again here on the site in the new year, maybe even more than in the old. And if you could bring a friend or colleague along, that would be awesome.

This is the last post of the year, we’ll start posting again tomorrow on the first of January. Ghacks out.

Fair Trade Digital Exchange is a revolutionary “digital first” publishing company devoted exclusively to technology topics. The Fair Trade DX development model lets us turn content from world-class authors into high-quality books and learning products, at a pace that leaves traditional print publishers in the dust. Unlike other publishers, we treat authors as full partners, and our shared goal is to inform, enlighten, and delight readers.

We’re proud to announce our first four titles, available today in all popular digital formats.

• Need2Know: Ed Bott’s Windows 8 Head Start, by Ed Bott
• Need2Know: Microsoft Office 365 Security Essentials, by Mike Halsey
• Need2Know: Broadcasting your PowerPoint Presentation, by Katherine Murray
• Need2Know: Building ASP.NET Web Pages with WebMatrix, by Jim Wang

I wanted to make this first book a really holistic view at Office 365 security for small businesses.  In this I look at every aspect of business computing from your ISP and Internet connection to your PCs, smartphones, tablets and even employment policies, home working and more.

It’s fantastic to have been invited into such esteemed company as they’re all brilliant authors, and doubly so to be with them during the launch of the publisher and their first new book series.

Regards Office 365 Security Essentials, the publisher says…

Many smaller organizations rely on a few tech savvy managers to ensure that Microsoft Office is configured and deployed to best support core business objectives. If you are one of these indispensable managers, you are probably aware that the online collaboration features of Office 365 also create security risks not associated with desktop versions of Office. In Need2Know: Microsoft Office 365 Security Essentials, author Mike Halsey identifies and explains those risks, and answers essential questions about how to run Office 365 safely and
securely. With a program that eliminates the need for a patchwork of third party solutions, it’s important to harness the tools at your disposal to the fullest.

Microsoft Office 365 Security Essentials shows you how to secure your Office 365 team site, how to manage your users and administrators, and how to employ secure practices with Microsoft and third-party tools, as well as good old common sense. Author Mike Halsey brings wisdom from his extensive work with Microsoft Windows and the Office product family to the table to help you address the security threats you must know how repel in order to protect your company and its assets.

In Microsoft Office 365 Security Essentials, you will quickly learn how to:

• Manage Office 365 email and contacts securely
• Implement team site security effectively
• Handle security when using Office 365 with other Microsoft products
• Create and manage different types of Office 365 user accounts
• Set appropriate permissions on Office 365 team site accounts
• Identify different types of Internet threats, and implement an effective antivirus solution
• Implement common sense password security and use encryption to protect sensitive data

Microsoft Office 365 Security Essentials also includes handy references to safe password creation, secure web browsing, and anti-spam best practices, suitable for sharing with employees and coworkers.

You can find out more about this new book series at the fair Trade Digital Exchange website.

Click to view full size

Regarding the schedule: Please note that there may be circumstances where I cannot post a review and giveaway on a particular day. This can happen if something unforeseen happens, an accident for instance, or if I do not get a reviewer’s copy of the program in time to review it.

Giveaway Rules

Here are the rules of the giveaway:

• Each day, one software review will be posted. The number of licenses that users can win will be mentioned in the review.
• You can participate in the review by leaving a comment. Sometimes, I may post a question that I’d like you to answer. It would be nice if you’d be doing that.
• You are only allowed to post under one name and email address. Users who post with multiple aliases will be banned from the giveaway. You can comment more than once, but only the first comment will count for the drawing of winners.
• You are free to spread the word and tell others about the giveaway (friends, family). It would really be nice if you could.
• The winners will be mentioned on the Ghack’s Facebook Page and Ghack’s Google Plus page. Both pages can be accessed even by non-members of said social networking sites.
• Winners will be notified by email. Make sure you enter your email address correctly in the comment form. Sometimes I get keys right away and will mail you the keys. Sometimes, companies may require additional information, e.g. your name. In this case, I will mail you and ask for those information.
• I expect winners to respond in five business days. Winners who have not responded in that time will forfeit the license and I will award it to someone else instead.

The applications Day 1 – Day 12:

1. December: Audials Moviebox
2. December: Dropbox (additional storage)
3. December: Game Jackal Pro
4. December: Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
5. December: Fast Picture Viewer
6. December: Alarm++
7. December: Wordweb Pro
8. December: Roboform
9. December: Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
10. December: Drive Scrubber
11. December: Revo Uninstaller Pro
12. December: Sandboxie

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Google yesterday has launched Google+ Pages, an addition to their Google Plus networking service that allows anyone to create pages. This works similar to Facebook Pages. I have created a Ghacks Technology News page on Google+ and would like to ask anyone here on Ghacks to help promote it. You can access the page here.

The page, from the looks of it, looks very much like a standard Google+ profile.

Here is what you need to know about Google+ Pages. I will explain how you can create your own page and what you need to do if you have a website.

You can create a new Google+ page by clicking on the “Create a Google+ page” link in the lower corner of the right sidebar. The link currently is displayed below the Hangout module.

You need to pick a category for your page. Google currently sorts pages into five categories: Local Business or Place, Product or Brand, Company, Institution or Organization, Arts, Entertainment or Sports, and Other.

Depending on the selection made, you need to fill out different kinds of information. Local Businesses for instance need to select their country and primary phone number, products or brands a page name, website, category and visibility.

Once created you are asked to select a profile photo for the page and post about the page on your “user” stream.

Webmasters who create a page for their website business are encouraged by Google to link from their Google+ page to their website and vice versa. While it is relatively easy to link from Google+ to the website, it is not as easy the other way round. Google asks webmasters to use the rel=”publisher” tag when linking from their web property to the Google Plus page. This identifies the user as the publisher and is likely used for verification purposes.

Additional information about this process are available here on the Google Help site.

Only the page creator can post on the page at this point in time. Other users can comment on posts, but there is no option right now to authorize other users to make posts directly on the page. According to Google, this will change in the coming weeks.

I have a few ideas for the Ghacks page which I would like to briefly describe.

• Post stories that are interesting but do not fit on Ghacks.
• Tech Help for users. This is somewhat limited right now due to the fact that only I can post there. Users could send me private messages and I post their requests on the page. Could mess up the page on the other hand if I’d get lots of requests.
• Do a daily or weekly “best of” stories from other sites that I read.

If you have other ideas let me know. I really like the best of idea.

Oh, and if you could +1 the page and put it in one of your circles, I’d be eternally grateful :)

Oh, and here is the official announcement by Google.

We had some announcements of our own to share in October. Ghacks turned six in the month, and in that time span we have been published more than 11,500 articles on the site. I also announced the 4th Annual Ghacks Christmas Giveaway asking everyone to chime in and post their favorite software that they would like to win a copy of (It is still open by the way).

The layout of this best of list has been redesigned a bit. I decided to put everything into the four categories browser, How-Tos and Tutorials, Windows and Microsoft, and Online and The Internet.

Browser

Mozilla and Google are still pushing out new versions like crazy which is still something that I do not feel particularly happy about. I took a look at Firefox 9 and Opera 12 in October.

Chrome Remote Desktop Beta Extension

Configure Firefox To Install Add-Ons Faster

Firefox, Thunderbird Lagging? Lag Fix Inside

Mozilla Talks Silent Updates, Plans Firefox Service

ProxTube Unblock YouTube Videos

Uninstall Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Completely

Why are Two Flash Player Plugins Running In Google Chrome?

Why Are 2 Plugin-Container.Exe Processes Running?

How-Tos, Tutorials

Most of the how-tos and tutorials have been browser or Windows related this month. Not many left to share in this category.

How to maintain a good security and backup strategy, Part 1 – the Home

Speed Up Dropbox Download Speeds

Microsoft Windows

News and reviews about Windows and Microsoft have always been strong here on Ghacks. This month has not seen a big announcement or news, other than Microsoft closing the Skype acquisition.

Copy CMD Output Directly To The Clipboard

DNS Benchmark, Speed Test DNS Servers

Free Fake Antivirus Removal Software Updated

Microsoft Patch Day October 2011 Overview

Microsoft Retires Gadgets In Preparation Of Windows 8 Launch

SSD Fresh, Optimize Windows For SSD Usage

Virtual WiFi Router For Windows

Windows Password Resetter, Restore or Reset A Windows Account Pass

Why Are There Two Explorer.exe Processes Running?

Online, The Internet

Here is a selection of Internet related topics that we have covered in October on Ghacks.

Amazon Filler Item Services

Google Rolls Out Https Search For Logged In Users (see also: Google Redirects Your Search To Https? Change It!)

How To Outsource Assignments, Tasks To Free Up Time

Speed Up WordPress Page Loading Times By Removing l10n.js

Where Are Google Search Cached And Similar Links?

If you look back, what were your highlights of October 2011?

The Ghacks Christmas Giveaway is an event taking place from December 1 to December 24 (and sometimes a few days more depending on software availability) where readers of the blog can win commercial software licenses. I have partnered up with great companies like Symantec, Kaspersky, Bitdefender and independent developers that develop gems like Fast Picture Viewer, Sandboxie or Bulk Image Downloader in the past.

I asked you last year which software you’d like to see in the upcoming giveaway, and I’d like to continue this tradition this year.

You can suggest any online service or software, and I will contact the developers to see if they can be convinced to take part in the event. I cannot give you a guarantee that the devs will cooperate but from past experience I can say that most will. Please include the name of the company and the product in your comment (and website if available) so that it is easier for me to find the company website.

Please note that I cannot test Mac or Linux software, and won’t try to get those included in the giveaway unless the company is offering a Windows version as well. If the latter is the case I can include it in the giveaway.

Companies and organizations who produce quality software, hardware or online services can also contact me directly for inclusion in the giveaway. (please use the contact form at the top for that).

I cannot guarantee inclusion at this point in time. If the software or service is regarded highly or of high quality, then chances are good that it will be included.

Each software, hardware and service will be reviewed here on the site. You can check out past reviews here.

Some articles here on Ghacks for instance receive dozens of comments. A lot of the giveaway (which is totally understandable) but also articles that are of interest to many readers (Windows Firewall Notifier is a recent example). Other articles here receive one, two or maybe even no comment at all. The same is true for sites like Addictive Tips and even Freeware Genius.

I’d like to discuss why it is like it is. Why are so many users commenting on company backed websites and less users on others? Is that a numbers game? Do those sites receive more visitors which then results in more comments? Or has it something to do with “trusting” those companies?

While the majority of blogs that get lots of user comments and interaction are company based, there are others run by individuals like the German tech site Caschy’s Blog with ten, twenty and even more comments per article.

I’d like to get there, get more users involved here on Ghacks. I can think of a few reasons why Ghacks receives less user comments than other sites. It could be that the process is to complicated (which I personally doubt since I do not require registration), that my articles are to boring, or that they “say it all” and leave little to discuss. Could also be the public perception or “image” of the site or that Ghacks visitors are more the passive type.

I’d like to start this discussion to get a better understanding of the reasons. Is there anything that I can change on site that would entice you to comment more often? Or is it something that is completely out of my control?

Each week will see different prizes with a grand prize in the final week. The prize breakdown and dates for the competition are as follows.

Week 1

Monday 17th October to Sunday 23rd October 2011 – Prizes 1 copy of “Windows 7 Plain & Simple” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Week 2

Monday 24th October to Sunday 30th October 2011 – Prizes 1 copy of “Windows 7 Step by Step” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Week 3

Monday 31st October to Sunday 6th November 2011 – Prizes 1 copy of “HTML5 Step by Step” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Week 4

Monday 7th November to Sunday 13th November 2011 – Prizes 1 signed copy of “The Windows 7 Power Users Guide” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Week 5

Monday 14th November to Sunday 20th November 2011 – Prizes 1 copy of “The Windows 7 Resource Kit“, 1 copy of “Windows 7 Inside Out Deluxe Edition” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Week 6

Monday 21st November to Sunday 27th November 2011 – Prizes 1 Acer Iconia Tab W500 Windows 7 Tablet with a 10.1 inch multi-touch screen, 2GB memory, 32Gb SSD, 2 in 1 card reader, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3, 1.3MP built-in webcam, Windows 7 Home Premiun 32-bit and Office 2010 Starter Edition preloaded. 1 copy of “Windows 7 Inside Out Deluxe Edition” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Entry Rules

• People following Mike Halsey MVP on Facebook may enter this competiton a maximum amount of once per week, duplicate entries will not be counted.
• Competiton questions will be posted once on the wall of Mike Halsey MVP each Monday throughout weeks 1 to 5.
• Entries can be accepted from people worldwide.
• All entries MUST contain the full name, postal address and contact telephone number (required by some couriers) of the participant. Entries submitted without this information will not be counted. This information will be deleted at the end of the competition and will not be shared with third-parties.
• All participants must be 16 years or older to comply with competition rules in some countries.
• All participants must be able to receive packages via standard postal mail or by courier.
• People may only win one of the weekly prizes (weeks 1 to 5) and the grand prize maximum. People cannot win two weekly prizes.
• People who have won a weekly prize may still enter following weeks to increase their chances of winning the grand prize, though their entry will not be counted in the week they enter.
• Each week’s competition will be slightly different to reflect the prizes on offer and may include open and multiple-choice questions and tip suggestions
• Each person must submit a tie-break tip each week on the subject provided, this subject will change each week.
• Entries must be emailed to mike@MVPs.org with the subject Competition during the weeky period of the competition, as stated above. NOTE: If this email address repeatedly fails (which it does sometimes) try mike_dot_halsey_at_live_dot_co_dot_uk
• Lost, late or undelivered entries cannot be counted.
• The winner of the grand prize will be selected from the best tie-break tip over the full course of the competition. There will be no separate way to enter during week 6.
• Winners will be notified by email within 6 days of the end of each week’s competition and will be required to accept their win within a calendar week. Any person who is non-contactable by email, or who does not accept their prize within the time permitted will forfeit their prize, which will be reallocated to a new winner.
• Prizes will be sent by a variety of methods including regular mail. No replacement prizes can be sent for any items lost or damaged in transit and no cash alternative will be available.
• Delivery of prizes can take 6 to 8 weeks depending on the location of the winner and the delivery method used.
• The winner will be chosen by Mike Halsey and judged on the quality of the answers given and their tie-break suggestion. Mike Halsey’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
• Entry to this competition constitutes acceptance of these terms and conditions.

In the beginning I worked two jobs, Ghacks and my regular one. This was a pretty hard time as I had to work before I went to work and after I went home on the site. I was lucky back then that I never experienced any serious down times when I was at work. I’d probably would have taken a sick day or day off then to be able to fix the site.

When the site started, it was all about a tool that a friend of mine had created to make advanced Google searches from the program. It was very handy at that time, but it somehow got dropped along the way. That’s actually where the name Ghacks comes from, Google Hacks.

The day that changed it all was when the guide Using Google To find Movies made it on the homepage of the then popular service Digg. The site, only active for about a week, received tens of thousand of visitors from that exposure. I was lucky enough that I added Adsense some time before to the site. When I found out that the site made more than $100 on that day it made click and the idea was born to make this more than a hobby. Without that, Ghacks may have never become what it is today.

It has been six years now and Ghacks is still more or less a one-man show. Sure, I hired some authors to add different perspectives to the site, but it is me who administrates the site, watches over its financials and contributes to the site on a daily basis. It is a full-time job. Surprisingly though I’m still motivated and do not have that nagging feeling that I do not want to “go” to work because work sucks. I love it.

Now that the site has turned six, I’d like to thank each and every one of you for being a visitor, reader, guest, contributor or whatever it is you are to the site. Without your help, Ghacks would not be where it was today, and more importantly, I would still work my 9 to 5 job.

To celebrate the event, I’d like to provide you with the opportunity to win one of ten Ghacks t-shirts. You can take a look at both available shirt designs here:

The shirts are of high quality. I still have the first shirts I ordered a few years ago when I started offering merchandise.

All you need to do to win a shirt is to comment here on this thread, or mention the birthday on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or any other site on the Internet (that you are allowed to post on and where it is appropriate).

I pick the winners and contact them asking for their shipping address, t-shirt they want and size. Please note that some black shirt sizes are currently out of stock. It may take some time before they become available again. Good luck everyone.

Update: The winners of the shirts have been notified by email, they are: Paul(us), Ivan K., JFP, JimT, Tinwheeler, Kalmly, Mouser, Midnight, Johan Gustavsson and Matias.

Thanks to everyone for all the great wishes and praise, that was really nice for a change ;)

But it was not only Microsoft that was in the news in August. Mozilla made the news a lot of times. First with the very controversial suggestion to hide Firefox version from the about window which were later dropped, probably due to a lot of flak that the organization received from users who did not agree with the move.

We have seen new Firefox and Thunderbird releases, and read a lot about features of upcoming Firefox versions. Among the new features are better third party add-on security and new add-on compatibility checks, the new graphics component Azure and a general outlook of future Firefox features as well as features in Firefox 8.

Google’s social networking service Google+ seems to have lost some of its momentum in August. Users who want to get an account can get invites from the comment links of our 150 Google Plus Invites post. Google did announce Games in Google+ in August which are currently limited to a handful of games.

Google bought Motorola Mobility in August as well, which some have seen as a defensive move to get the company’s patent portfolio.

August was also the month where CNET introduced the CNET Download.com Installer, a highly controversial installer for most of Cnet’s software offerings.

Communication, Messaging, Email

Thunderbird 6 was the big release in August. The new release did not add a lot of new features, just like the Firefox web browser.

How To Configure Email Filters In Thunderbird

QuickArchiver For Thunderbird, Archive Mails Faster

TeamSpeak 3 Final Released, Android, iOS Versions

Twit Cleaner, Sort Out The Garbage Among Your Twitter Followers

Entertainment

MyP2P shut downw eeks after my review of the live streaming aggregator, and my quest for alternatives resulted in a few high quality sites and lots of spammy ones.

MyP2P, Football Live Stream Aggregator

Myp2p.eu Alternatives

Privacy: Another Reason Why I Won’t Use Origin By Electronic Arts

Hardware Reviews

Mike seems to get quite some hardware from his contacts at Samsung and other companies. I only wish that I would get some hardware to review as well ;)

Samsung Series 5 Chromebook Review

The Web

Lots of great new extensions and tools to test and make your life a little bit easier.

Captcha Trader, Automatic Free Captcha Solving For JDownloader

Chrome Live Sport, Watch Live Sports In Your Browser

Google Dictionary Chrome Extension

How To Create Multiple Firefox Profiles For Specific Tasks

How To Go Back Multiple Pages In Firefox

How To Run Firefox Stable, Beta, Aurora And Nightly Simultaneously

MasterCard SecureCode Explained

Most Popular Google Chrome Themes

New Google Sign-In Page

Operating Systems, mainly Windows

Windows is still the operating system that gets the most attention here at Ghacks.

Analyse The Boot And Shutdown Performance of Windows

Gramps, Free Genealogy Software

How to Set Up a VPN on Windows 7

How To Uninstall The Babylon Toolbar Completely

Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator

NirLauncher, All Nirsoft Applications In One Program

Setting Windows Virtual Memory, why you need to and what about SSDs?

Speed Up Windows Explorer By Disabling Thumbnail Previews

Using the System File Checker to Repair Windows 7

Windows Network Locations: Differences Between Home, Work and Public Networks

Did I miss a story that you liked a lot? Or did we miss to report on something that made waves on the Internet? Let me know in the comments.

First thing I did last year was to check in on the site to verify that my credit card information are correct. Which they were, not a huge surprise considering that I have not used or changed the data in one year’s time. Next thing I try is to make a manual payment on the Wiredtree Grove website, with the same result.

I get the dreaded authorization failed error on the page. That’s bad, considering that delays in payment of the invoice could mean that the server Ghacks is running on could be taken offline by the company until a payment clears.

So what can I do? I call the Mastercard hotline in my country where I have to wait a good ten minutes or so before I have to go through a ridiculous authorization process (card number, name, birthday, address, three digits of the linked bank account number). I then get the following explanation (every year, actually more often as I sometimes buy expensive stuff on the Internet, have to call them all the time).

Mastercard has an automatic fraud detection system in place that blocks payments that break a pattern or look suspicious. My payment to the web hosting company Wiredtree is apparently looking like a fraudulent payment. The only possible explanation that I have for this is that it is a four-digit payment to a foreign country. The service agent offers to disable the fraud protection for the next 24 hours or 3 days so that I can make the payment.

I’m curious and want to know if there is a way to whitelist select companies, but that is apparently not possible. The system is also not capable of learning from past year’s payments. I mean, I pay the hoster once a year at the same time. Should not an automatic system be able to come to the conclusion that the payment is legit if it happened in past years as well?

I ask the agent about options. The only option for me to make sure that the automatic payment gets through is to call them a day earlier to remove the automatic fraud checking for three days from the account. That’s ridiculous, don’t you think? To make things worse, you have to pay for that call.

Have you ever had problems with your credit card and online payments? Let me know in the comments. Oh, and hosting for Ghacks is paid in full for a whole year, so no worries in this regard. Until next year, that is.

Lets start with browsers, as this is something that is constantly in the news all over the world. Firefox was the number one browser here on Ghacks in 2009, with a share of 49.11%, followed by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer with 34,90%, Google Chrome with 6.73%, Safari with 4.02% and Opera with 3.88%.

Things have changed noticeably two years later. Internet Explorer is now the most used browser with a market share of 34.59%, that is only .31% less than two years ago. Firefox dropped significantly from the all time high to 32.14%, a drop of nearly 17% in two year’s time. Chrome managed to get market share and is now sitting at 21.01%, an increase of exactly that 17% that Firefox lost. Safari moved up .30 percent, Opera usage dropped to 2.27%, unless Opera Mini is included in the calculation which would add another 2.29% to Opera’s market share.

When you look at the different browser versions you see the following distribution:

Internet Explorer:

Internet Explorer 8 is the most used browser with 56.59%, followed by Internet Explorer 9 with 17.75%, Internet Explorer 6 with 13.83% and Internet Explorer 7 with 11.79%. Microsoft at least here on Ghacks has a lot of convincing to do to get IE users to switch to more recent versions of the browser. It is likely that the majority of requests that use IE6 or IE7 come from company networks.

Firefox:

The most used Mozilla browser on Ghacks in June 2011 was Firefox 4.0.1 with a share of 44.63%, followed by Firefox 5 with 16.07%, Firefox 3.6.17 with 11.25 and Firefox 4.0 with 4.18%. Many users are still using outdated versions of the browser, Firefox 3.6.3 for instance which is still having a share of 1.38% of all Firefox visits. This highlights one of the core problems of Mozilla: Getting users to update the browser to more recent versions. It needs to be noted that Firefox 5 has been released at the end of June. It is expected that the browser’s market share will rise considerably in July.

Chrome:

Google Chrome is the clear winner when you look at market share gain in the past two years. Most Ghacks visitors run various versions of Chrome 12 and 11. Older versions are still being used, Chrome 10 for instance has a market share of nearly 2%.

Opera Mini:

Opera Mini had more connections in June 2011 than the desktop version of Opera. That’s an increase of nearly 2% over the past two years.

Google Chrome, at least here on Ghacks, managed to snag away market share from the Firefox web browser, and not Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Operating Systems

Windows was the most used operating system back in 2009, with a share of 88.62% of all visits, followed my Apple Macintosh systems with 5.60% and Linux with 4.89%.

The situation has not changed by a lot in two year’s time. Windows is still the most used OS with a share of 84.93%, followed by Macintosh with 4.17% and Linux with 3.66%. Android is having nearly double the visit rate of the iPhone, with 1.41% to 0.77%. This is followed by SymbianOS with 0.76% and iPad with 0.72%.

Mobile use is increasing a lot, and it may be time to get a special theme for mobile users to improve their experience on site.

Windows:

Windows XP was the most used Windows operating system in June with a share of 46.51%, closely followed by Windows 7 with 42.88%. Vista came in third with a share of 9.90%. That’s a drop of 17% for XP in the last two years, and of almost 20% for Vista.

And there is apparently at least one user who is connecting to Ghacks with Windows ME.

Screen Resolution

The majority of Ghacks visitors operate a screen resolution of 1024×768 or more. When you look at individual resolutions you see 1024×768 at the top with a share of 20.59%, followed by 1366×768 with 13.85%, 1280×800 with 11.12% and 1280×1024 with 8.51%.

Screen resolutions have – surprisingly – changed only little when compared to two years ago. In 2009, 1024×768 was the most used resolution with 22%, followed by 1280×800 with 19.26% and 1280×1024 with 16.16%. Only the 1366×768 resolution was nowhere to be seen back then. It has become popular in recent years only, especially on notebook systems but also on the desktop.

Other tidbits

Almost 80% of all Ghacks visitors have Java enabled in their browser. That’s an impressive value, considering that it is likely that the majority does not need Java at all on the web.

The top five countries according to Google Analytics are:

• United States
• India
• United Kingdom
• Brazil
• Canada

Most popular languages of the operating systems are:

• en-us
• en-gb
• en
• pt-br
• fr

The top search engine is Google which refers 60.68% of all search engine visitors followed by Bing with 4.95% and Yahoo with 2.39%.

Anything else that’s missing that you would like to know, or something that you want to add? Let me know in the comments.

Additionally I will, at their request, be making more tutorial videos and providing how-to articles for their support site and for their TechNet newsletter which goes out to IT professionals.

The news has come about because of the publication of my first Microsoft Press book last year, Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out, which became one of the publisher’s top 20 eBooks of 2010, despite only being released at the end of October, and has sat consistently in the top 2% of all paperback sales on Amazon since then.

Personally I find it quite an honour that Microsoft consider my help, support and tutorial materials and videos to be of a high enough quality to be part of the official Microsoft support website.  I know this sounds a bit glib coming from the author of a Windows 7 Troubleshooting book that was published by Microsoft Press, but it really came as a very pleasant surprise that came out of the blue, and I’m genuinely thrilled.

The first five videos to go on the Microsoft website, about the Automated Troubleshooters, reading the Event Viewer, using the (oh so carefully hidden) System File Checker, the very useful Windows Startup Repair and finally how you can manually Repair Corrupt Boot Files were originally made to help promote the book.  Future videos will be made in collaboration with Microsoft and will focus on the things Windows users have the most difficulty with.  The next videos will appear by the end of this month.

There’s also more exciting news coming in the next month or so, but at the moment I’m sworn to secrecy (and quite frankly it’s driving me nuts!) but you’ll be the first to hear, believe me.

You can watch the first five videos on my YouTube page and get the latest news on additional videos for the Microsoft website on my new Facebook page.

Here is my offer for software developers and users alike. If you have a software that you would like to be hosted on the Internet, you can do so here on Ghacks. Just send me the program and I will host it on my server. You can link to the download directly from your website if you like, or to a post here on Ghacks that reviews the application. A link back would in both cases be appreciated.

You can also contact me if you are not a developer but have software on your hard drive that is hard to find and without developer homepage. I upload the program to the repository here so that everyone can download it more easily.

All programs are tripple-checked with online and offline antivirus applications to make sure that they are clean and do not contain malicious code. I have created a temporary download page here on Ghacks. Plan is to beautify it a little bit, as it looks pretty awful at the moment.

You can access that page by following the software downloads link.

Please note that Ghacks is not offering hosting for web pages, only for software downloads at this point in time. This might change as well if enough software developers show interest in this opportunity. For now, if you have coded a program but do not know where to upload it to, let me know about it.

I’d also like to point out that we cannot host certain type of files, including cracking or hacking related applications.

Use the contact form at the top of the page, or leave a comment in this thread to discuss this further.

The day I’ll be in attendance for will be “Deploying and Managing the Modern Desktop” which will include additional subjects including virtualisation.

Desktop technology has marched on: user needs and expectations are changing; the Internet is a different place to 10 years ago and we haven’t even mentioned virtualisation!

You need to think about your desktop and the infrastructure behind it. You need a modern desktop to easily take advantage of all of these technologies, and to enable your people to be productive long into the future. In this demo-filled day, we will look at how to weave technologies like Windows 7, Office 2010, the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (MDOP), and desktop virtualisation technologies into a coherent sustainable, cost-reducing desktop strategy.

I’ll also be feeding back to you the days events and the news that comes from it.  It’ll certainly be interesting to be on the other side.  I have to admit I’ve not actually been to a Microsoft events before so for my first one to be at their request to help answer questions from IT Pros is quite a personal thrill and a great acknowledgement of the work done by all my colleagues here at gHacks.

For those of you in or near London don’t forget my Geek Meet where there will be staff from Microsoft present and I’ll have signed copies of my Windows 7 Troubleshooting book and a fantastic Windows 7 Tablet, courtesy of ExoPC, to give away.  This social event is open to everyone though you’ll need to enter our competition to be in with a chance of winning the tablet.

For all of you Tech Pros in the UK I’ll be hosting some “Ask the Expert” sessions at Microsoft’s upcoming “Deploying and Managing the Modern Desktop” Tech.Day event in London (23rd May) at the request of Microsoft UK. You don’t get that from other tech websites!

Desktop technology has marched on: user needs and expectations are changing; the Internet is a different place to 10 years ago and we haven’t even mentioned virtualisation!

You need to think about your desktop and the infrastructure behind it. You need a modern desktop to easily take advantage of all of these technologies, and to enable your people to be productive long into the future. In this demo-filled day, we will look at how to weave technologies like Windows 7, Office 2010, the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (MDOP), and desktop virtualisation technologies into a coherent sustainable, cost-reducing desktop strategy.

The day is split into four sessions. Modern Desktop, Deployment, Virtualisation and then a final session on Windows Server and Office 365. In addition there will be information on subjects including migrating from IE6 and application compatibility as well as introductions to some new Microsoft technologies including Lync, Office 365 and Windows InTune.

I’ll be in each session and available during intervals to answer questions from delegates on desktop, deployment and virtualisation and, of course, Troubleshooting!

I’ll be taking my camera too and grabbing people from Microsoft and other major players in the tech industry to ask them about all manner of subjects, and I’ll post all that back here next week. It should be an eciting day with a great deal to see and interesting people to meet.

Win a Tablet PC + Free Books!

What’s more the social event of Microsoft’s whole UK Tech.Days week will be our Geek Meet (Sun 22nd May, 8pm) which will be held this coming Sunday at the Bavarian Beerhouse in Tower Hill at 8pm. It’s open to everyone, people from Microsoft will be there to answer your questions and share a drink. What’s more we’ll be giving away £600 of tablet PC, courtesy of Exo PC. It’s very easy to win too, and I’ll also have a big stack of signed copies of my book to give away.

If you’re already booked to attend the Techdays then feel free to come and give me a poke on the day but if not and you’re anywhere near London then get yourself along to the Geek Meet. I’ll be the guy in the gHacks t-shirt doing some very social networking :)

On the night you will need to bring along a printout (or smartphone) showing you’ve subscribed for your chance to enter and win.

UPDATE : In the first day of it’s release as a free eBook, the Windows 7 Power Users Guide has received more than half a million hits!

The book contains 16 chapters and is a guide on how to get the very best out of Windows 7 from installation to configuration and advanced operations. It includes step-by-step guides, screenshots and diagrams on every page, quick tips throughout the book and is presented in full colour.

From the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out from Microsoft Press… A book for people who use Windows 7 at home or at work and know it can do more for them, but who don’t know how. The Windows 7 Power Users Guide contains helpful how-to’s, full colour pictures and quick tips to guide you through everything from using the Start Menu and Taskbar to backing up your documents and identifying and fixing problems

You can download the book from my online book store or directly from my website here. 

You can now catch up with more of my writing and events (including competitions and giveaways) at my new Facebook Group.