Microsoft Offers Free Tech Support to All Windows Vista Customers

Got a problem finding the correct printer driver for your Windows Vista computer? Or did some of your software programs and hardware devices stop working after you installed SP1? Or are you facing trouble while installing Vista SP1?

Well, you may stop hunting blogs and web forums for solutions and contact Microsoft directly over phone, email or web chat as they now offer free and unlimited tech support to all Windows Vista customers worldwide who are using Vista Service Pack 1.

The offer is valid worldwide until March 18, 2009.

To get started, go here and pick your country. Here are direct links to Microsoft toll-free phone numbers in India, United States, UK, Australia, Singapore and France.

The offer may not be used with pirated copies of Windows Vista as you would require the 20 digit Product ID for filing a support. Right click My Computer and choose Properties. The Product ID is mentioned under "Windows Activation"

Windows Live Photo Gallery will Soon Recognize Faces in Pictures

Imagine this. You connect a digital camera to your PC for transferring photos and the software is able to recognize family members and friends in the photos by their faces.

Well that’s something new coming in the new release of Windows Live Photo Gallery - it will include a special "Face Recognition" feature where the software will automatically recognize different faces in in your personal pictures and will also let you add those names as tags.

The first beta is expected sometime in September. LiveSino (English), LiveSide and ZDNet have more on what’s coming in the next release of Windows Live.

This will be something like running Riya facial search* on your desktop though just limited to faces as Photo Gallery cannot read text contained in your photos. Evernote can however do this for you.

*Update (July 25): Please note that the above screenshot is just for illustration purpuse and is done using the current version of Windows Live Photo Gallery with a picture from Riya visual search.

SMS Poll: Conduct Live Polls via SMS Text Messages

SMS Poll, as the name suggests, is a mobile cum web service that enables you to conduct live polls and surveys via text messaging.

Not everyone in the room may be carrying a laptop to participate in web polls but they are very likely to have mobile phones that can send text messages.

Once you set up a poll using SMS Poll, your audience can vote by send an SMS from their cell phone to a local number. Alternatively, they can vote online using the computer or through the mobile browser of their phone.

The results of the poll can be displayed in real-time as a live chart in PowerPoint or in an Excel sheet. The charts get updated automatically as new votes are received.

SMS Poll is currently available in UK and Australia but support for New Zealand, India, and Canada would be added by September according to founder Anil Sabharwal.

For people in US, Poll Everywhere offers a very similar service where people can vote by simple texting their response to a US specific short code.

Both SMS Poll and Poll Everywhere allow up to 30 SMS votes for free (perfect for small gatherings or one-time events) though you can always upgrade to a paid version if you have a large audience.

Add Links to Other Blog Search Engines In Techmeme

I use Techmeme several times a day to discover new tech stories but for some reason failed to notice a simple Preferences option that makes Techmeme even more useful.

*You can do something similar on Google Search through Customize Google.

To illustrate, this is the default look of any news cluster on Techmeme. You see a short snippet from the main story and then a list of blog sites that are discussing that story.

Now with preferences, you can add links to major blog search engines like Ask Bloglines, Sphere, Google Blog Search, Technorati and IceRocket next to each of the main story as shown in the second screenshot.

This will help you quickly discover other interesting blogs that too are discussing the same topic but never made it to Techmeme.

The Preferences option, located at the top right corner on the Techmeme home page, also lets you view titles of secondary stories in expanded mode.

Identify Software Programs & Hardware Devices That Work (or Don’t Work) with Windows Vista

Microsoft has long offered desktop tools to help you check compatibility of existing software programs and hardware devices with Windows Vista.

For instance, you could run the Upgrade Advisor on an XP computer to know if that old machine can afford to run Vista. The problem is that you can check Vista compatibility of only installed software or hardware that’s already attached to the computer.

How do you know if that printer & scanner lying in the basement would work with Vista. Or will that old copy of Photoshop install successfully on your new Windows Vista computer?

Rather than hunting for this information on web forums and manufacturer websites, check the all-new Compatibility Center - a central database of hardware devices & software programs along with their current Vista compatibility status.

You could check compatibility of mobile phones and digital cameras with Windows Vista. Some screenshots.

In case a product is not compatible with Windows Vista (like Photoshop 7), there’s a link to the developer’s website (in this case, Adobe) for getting further information. Overall, a pretty useful tool.

Firefox Tip: Save Multiple Web Pages as MHT Files In One Go!

Considering that Windows Desktop Search can index content stored in .mht files, this may prove very useful if you need to save your work and close the browser.

How to Hide a USB Flash Drive inside a Torn USB Cable

Are you looking for an unsuspecting place in your home where you can comfortably hide the USB Flash drive that stores all your secret data?

Here’s a simple method that may ring a bell - it uses a torn USB cable for camouflage. Most would pass it as a good-for-nothing cable though internally, it acts as a perfect safe-house for your USB stick.

All you need is a USB drive, some adhesive, a sharp knife and an old USB "A-B" cable (that will house the drive). Then jump to Windell Oskay for detailed instructions.