Good news is Microsoft has included an updated version of Outlook Connector for Office 2010 under the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview suite, so that users can use Outlook 2010 to access its Gmail, Windows Live etc including the folders of email, contacts and calendars.

Where to download the Outlook Connector for Office 2010?

For x86 version: http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/F/8/DF8DC3A7-CF01-4F22-B965-DD8CD86411ED/OutlookConnector.exe
For x64 Version: http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/F/2/8F2D0D4D-719B-4BD3-90BC-56B7AF48C419/OutlookConnector.exe

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I am waiting for my Windows 7 RTM copy, and I shall update you after I try it.

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On top of Grease-monkey, you just need to install another two Grease-monkey scripts in your Firefox – Bing! Here comes Twitter search results on top of the page for whatever you search. Installing this scripts made simple, however I have screen captured the steps that I would like to share it here:

Step1: Install Grease-Monkey script for “Twitter search results on Bing”

Right click on the smiley Grease-monkey, go to “Manage Scripts” and verify the script for “Twitter Search Results on Bing” is there.

Step2: Install Grease-Monkey script for “Bing-cleaner” for improving search result layout.

The procedure to install the Bing-Cleaner script is same as the first one. So repeat the steps.

Now fire up the Firefox, go to Bing and search anything. You will see search results from twitter is on top, aligned neatly.

ReadyBoost will leverage the flash memory storage devices by creating an intermediate caching layer on them that logically sits between memory and disks.Windows ReadyBoost relies on the intelligent memory management of Windows SuperFetch feature and can significantly improve system responsiveness.

Configuring Windows ReadyBoost is as easy as booting your OS, but many people are not discovering this hidden feature. When a removable memory device such as a USB flash drive or a secure digital (SD) memory card is first inserted into a port, Windows 7 checks to see if its performance is fast enough to work with Windows ReadyBoost. If so, you are asked if you want to use this device to speed up system performance. You can choose to allocate part of a USB drive’s memory to speed up performance and use the remainder to store files.  See the screen captures below which explains the steps you go through while enabling ReadyBoost.

• Select ‘Use this Device” and decide how much RAM you want to allocate. The maximum space from one Flash Drive can be allocated for Readyboost is 4GB. So use multiple Flash Drives for Readyboost if you want more than 4GB.

• Once Readyboost is done, you will see a Readboost Cache file as shown below in the figure.

You can measure the performance using perfmon utility – choose “Readyboost Cache” object . As can see in the below screen capture, I have used two flash memories for readyboost and allocated 6GB in total (in Red) and used space is 2gb at that moment (in Green). First flash drive has been allocated with 4GB, and remaining for data store. In the second one, I have allocated 2 GB and remaining for data store. I feel faster now working on my netbook than without having it.

You may find the new laptops in the market are now comes with “Turbo Memory” feature which is actually an internal flash memory fit inside the laptop. This can be used for ready-boost without dangling memory sticks.

Windows 7 RC Build 7100

Recently, I noticed my Windows 7 Beta’s trial period was about to expire and did not want to go back to Vista. So I decided to try Windows 7 RC (build 7100). The setup prompts me with an error saying that I cannot upgrade from my existing version of Beta which was build 7000. Though, Microsoft suggests a fresh installation of Windows RC, I was bit reluctant doing so due to large number of applications I already installed in Windows 7 Beta. There is a short cut I discovered while reading Windows 7 blog, where you can actually tweak a file “cversion.ini“ and bypass the check for prerelease, then upgrade from beta to RC works.Here is what I did and it worked for me.

1. Extract the ISO to the folder in my Windows 7 system (I used WinRar to extract the iso)
2. Go to this extracted folder.
3. Modify “cversion.ini” using Notepad or any text editor
   
4. Change the MinClient build number to same as beta build 7000 (this number is lower than RC build number 7100).
5. The file is saved in same location.Run setup from this modified copy of the image and the version check will be bypassed.