DETAILS AND SPECIFICATION WINDOWS XP

 
Windows XP was originally brought into being as an operating system which would combine the best features of the latest business operating system of the time, Windows 2000, which by then was quite mature and evolved, having had a few years of use in the business community, and Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), which was far and away the most robust version of a home-use operating system prior to XP. In today's computing environment, Windows XP can be useful for both small business and home users by making system problem recovery and digital media transfer easier. It also features history and Service Pack 2 features a better security for the user.

Many users prefer to remain with Windows XP, rather than upgrade to the latest Microsoft Operating system, Windows Vista

Windows XP came into being around the year 2000/2001.
It came as a logical progression from Windows 98 SE for many users although it had a look and feel about it much like Windows 2000 Professional. XP was originally brought into being as an operating system which would combine the best features of the latest business operating system, Windows 2000, which by then was quite mature and evolved, having had a few years of use in the business community, and Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), which was far and away the most robust version prior to XP. To say that Windows Millenium (ME) was any more than a cut-down version of Windows 2000 Professional would hide some of the inherent problems in that O/S. In fact it stands out from the others, rather like the version of MS-DOS known as version 4.00 (four point oh oh.) See Windows for a more detailed description of all the Microsoft Windows operating systems.
It should be noted that now there are more flavors of Windows in place than ever before, with the introduction of Windows Vista. But there are basically three versions of Windows XP. The two other versions, (apart from Windows XP Professional) are: Windows_XP_Home and Windows_XP_Media_Center_Edition. And all of these three are designed around the same O/S, Windows_XP, and accommodate the NTFS file system, designed by Helen Custer. (See the Wikipedia article on NTFS and its author, Helen Custer).
A more rugged version of Windows XP was launched later with the introduction of Service Pack 2. This added basic security with the introduction of the Windows Firewall and other lock-downs, and support for more multi-media hardware. It provides enhanced security measures that have hopefully improved defenses against viruses, worms and hackers, along with increased manageability and an improved experience for users. In addition to security and bug fixes, it changed many default settings to improve security, but it may have also created some problems for users because of the increased security. Nevertheless, Windows XP Professional is a software product which a lot of users prefer over the latest version, Windows Vista, which introduced still more security features along with the enhanced visual effects.

Microsoft Windows XP Professional can be normally run on a X86 32bit processor PC, and also on a 64bit processor, for which there is special software. It is important to note that only certain software is capable of leveraging the advanced features of 64bit. Among these are Adobe and Microsoft software products which have been extensively developed within the 64bit environment. It is interesting to note that this flavor of Windows can also be run on an Apple Macintosh computer as a sub-process. Also, Windows XP Professional is capable of being run in a dual or triple boot environment where the other OS's are on a separate partition. Other OS's which run multiple-boot with Windows XP Professional are Linux and Windows 98. Generally speaking, Windows XP will not run well with a processor slower than 700 Mhz and there should be at least 512 mbytes of RAM, (even though the specifications allow for much less.) A computer with lower hardware specifications would probably have a better chance of success using Windows 2000 Professional.

Other considerations are the use of USB and IEEE 1394 standards, removing the need for a parallel port for the printer and introducing the concept of a USB hub and transfers over firewire. Wireless networking has been improved considerably with Service Pack 2, allowing for WPA encryption and three other flavors of encryption, too.

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OS FOR MOBILE DEVICES

                                        

Apple CEO Steve Jobs came out of his medical leave again on Monday to announce the company's latest operating system Lion, which will make Mac feel a lot like the company's iconic tablet, the iPad.

The company also announced its pioneering iCloud cloud computing offering, besides new OS for mobile devices — iOS 5 for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

The new iOS has integrated a Twitter client with camera, pictures, browser Safari, and even maps. It even has a bookmarks feature called Reading List which can sync your bookmarks across your different Apple devices.

iPhone and iPad users will now be able to edit their pictures within the device itself thanks to iOS 5.

But the most revolutionary change to Apple device users will be felt with iCloud. Jobs said iCloud will replace the company's existing service called MobileMe that allowed users to sync their contacts, calendar, and mail with a virtual harddisk for anywhere, anytime access.

Unlike MobileMe, iCloud will also allow users to sync their apps, documents, music and photos along with contacts, calendar and mails. This means that users will be able to use apps purchased using iPhone on iPad as well as restore them using the cloud service if something goes wrong.

The iCloud will allow users to sync their iTunes music library across several devices running. "This is the first time you've seen this in the music industry. Multiple (music) downloads to different devices for no charge," said Jobs while announcing iTunes in Cloud. Earlier, Google and Amazon had announced music services based on cloud-computing.

Apple has also included a new iMessage service for its devices, akin to BlackBerry Messenger service that Research in Motion offers and which has been a bone of contention on security apprehensions in countries like India.

Jobs has been on medical leave since February this year but had made a surprise appearance to announce Apple's iPad 2 on March 3 this year. However, today's appearance at WWDC (Apple's global annual developers' conference) in San Francisco was a planned and well attended affair with over 5200 attendees in the Moscone Centre on Howard Street.

The conference began with Philip Schiller announcing Apple's newest operating system Lion. Schiller, a member of Apple's executive team, is senior vice-president of Worldwide Product Marketing and reports to Jobs.

The Lion OS X for Apple's Mac computers has multi-touch gestures built into all trackpads just like the iOS that runs iPhone and iPad. It can also support full screen apps which matters on notebooks.

It will have a pioneering resume function which will let users instantly get their windows and apps back to exactly how they were even after rebooting. Another feature is Launchpad, an iOS like creation of folders using various app icons.

Mac OS X Lion is the eighth major release of the OS with over 250 new features and 3,000 new developer APIs, which will be available to customers in July as a download from the Mac App Store for £20.99.

"The Mac has outpaced the PC industry every quarter for five years running and with OS X Lion we plan to keep extending our lead," said Philip Schiller.

"The best version of OS X yet, Lion is packed with innovative features such as new Multi-Touch gestures, system-wide support for full screen apps, and Mission Control for instantly accessing everything running on your Mac," he added.

Apple also announced in-app purchases which will be available in the built-in Lion Mac App Store. Other features include Mac App Store adding push notification; auto save for everything; sandboxing for security and delta updates to reduce download size of updates.

Yet another feature of Lion would be file-sharing service called AirDrop whereas a user in a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi network can easily drag-and-drop the files for sharing. There is improved search function and conversation like thread view in the email client.

There are over 54 million Mac users worldwide whereas iPad has sold 25 million units since it was launched 14 months ago. However, the company did not give the exact breakup of sales of iPad 2 which continues to be out of stock in many US stores.

About 15 billion songs have been sold by Apple through iTunes, making it world's number 1 music retailer, claimed Scott Forstall, Apple's senior VP for iPhone software development, who too reports to Jobs.

According to Forstall, there are 200 million iOS devices in the world put together, including iPads and iPhones.

The features of the new iOS include News Stand, using which the user can collate new issues of subscribed magazines and newspapers automatically. It has a new Notification Center, which can be accessed by swiping down from the top and includes stocks and weather notifications.

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