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Source: The New York Times November 11, 2009 [slightly adapted]

Trucks, Trains and Trees
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
No matter how many times you hear them, there are some statistics that just bowl you over. The one that always stuns me is this: Imagine if you took all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships in the world and added up their exhaust every year. The amount of carbon dioxide, or CO2, all those cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships collectively emit into the atmosphere is actually less than the carbon emissions every year that result from the chopping down and clearing of tropical forests in places like Brazil, Indonesia and the Congo. We are now losing a tropical forest the size of New York State every year, and the carbon that releases into the atmosphere now accounts for roughly 17 percent of all global emissions contributing to climate change. [.]
"You need a new model of economic development - one that is based on raising people's standards of living by maintaining their natural capital, not just by converting that natural capital to ranching or industrial farming or logging," said José María Silva, a conservation expert. Right now people protecting the rainforest are paid a pittance - compared with those who strip it - even though we now know that the rainforest provides everything from keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere to maintaining the fl ow of freshwater into rivers.
The good news is that Brazil has put in place all the elements of a system to compensate its forest-dwellers for maintaining the forests. Brazil has already set aside 43 percent of the Amazon rainforest for conservation and for indigenous peoples. Another 19 percent of the Amazon, though, has already been deforested by farmers and ranchers.

Old Tray, New Tricks: Windows 7's Taskbar and window
management tweaks are nice. But its changes to the
System Tray - aka the Notification Area - have a huge
positive effect.

Changes in Windows 7 transform the System Tray from
an intrusive eyesore (in Windows Vista) into a useful set of
shortcuts and other controls.
In the past, no feature of Windows packed more
frustration per square inch than the System Tray. It quickly grew
dense with applets that users did not want in the first place, and
many of the uninvited guests employed word balloons and
other intrusive methods to alert users to uninteresting facts at
inopportune moments. At their worst, System Tray applets
behaved like belligerent squatters, and Windows did little to put
users [PARTICLE] in charge.
In Windows 7, applets can't pester you unbidden
because software installers can't dump them into the System
Tray. Instead, applets land in a holding pen that appears only
when you click it, a much-improved version of the overflow area
used in previous incarnations of the Tray. Applets in the pen
can't float word balloons at you unless you permit them to do so.
In Windows 7, applets can't pester you unbidden
because software installers can't dump them into the System
Tray. Instead, applets land in a holding pen that appears only
when you click it, a much-improved version of the overflow area
used in previous incarnations of the Tray. Applets in the pen
can't float word balloons at you unless you permit them to do so.
It's a cinch to drag them into the System Tray or out of it again,
so you enjoy complete control over which applets reside there.
More good news: Windows 7 largely dispenses with the
onslaught of word-balloon warnings from the OS about
troubleshooting issues, potential security problems, and the like.
A new area called Action Center - a revamped version of Vista's
Security Center - queues up such alerts so you can deal with
them at your convenience. Action Center does issue
notifications of its own from the System Tray, but you can shut
these off if you don't want them pestering you.
All of this helps make Windows 7 the least distracting,
least intrusive Microsoft OS in a very long time. It's a giant step
forward from the days when Windows thought nothing of
interrupting your work to inform you that it had detected unused
icons on your desktop.

(Adapted from
http://www.pcworld.com/article/172602/windows_7_review.html)

WINDOWS 7 REVIEW
Windows 7 gets the basics right. Here's what you need to know
about the new OS.
Harry McCracken, PC World
Monday, October 19, 2009 2:00 pm
What if a new version of Windows didn't try to dazzle
you? What if, instead, it tried to disappear except when you
needed it? Such an operating system would dispense with glitzy
effects in favor of low-key, useful new features. Rather than
pelting you with alerts, warnings, and requests, it would try to
stay out of your face. And if any bundled applications weren't
essential, it would dump 'em.

It's not a what-if scenario. Windows 7, set to arrive on
new PCs and as a shrinkwrapped upgrade on October 22, has a
minimalist feel and attempts to fix annoyances old and new. In
contrast, Windows Vista offered a flashy new interface, but its
poor performance, compatibility gotchas, and lack of compelling
features made some folks regret upgrading and others refuse to
leave Windows XP.

Windows 7 is hardly flawless. Some features feel
unfinished; others won't realize their potential without heavy
lifting by third parties. And some long-standing annoyances
remain intact. But overall, the final shipping version I test-drove
appears to be the worthy successor to Windows XP that Vista
never was.

(Adapted from
http://www.pcworld.com/article/172602/windows_7_review.html

Windows 7 gets the basics right. Here's what you need to know
about the new OS.
Harry McCracken, PC World
Monday, October 19, 2009 2:00 pM


The Windows experience occurs mainly in its Taskbar ?
especially in the Start menu and System Tray. Vista gave the
Start menu a welcome redesign; in Windows 7, the Taskbar and
the System Tray get a thorough makeover.

Windows 7's revamped Taskbar introduces several new
features and gives users much more control over how it looks.

The new Taskbar replaces the old small icons and text
labels for running apps with larger, unlabeled icons. If you can
keep the icons straight, the new design painlessly reduces
Taskbar clutter. If you don't like it, you can shrink the icons
and/or bring the labels back.

In the past, you could get one-click access to programs
by dragging their icons to the Quick Launch toolbar. Windows 7
eliminates Quick Launch and folds its capabilities into the
Taskbar. Drag an app's icon from the Start menu or desktop to
the Taskbar, and Windows will pin it there, so you can launch
the program without rummaging around in the Start menu. You
can also organize icons in the Taskbar by moving them to new
positions.

To indicate that a particular application on the Taskbar is
running, Windows draws a subtle box around its icon ?
subtle, in fact, that figuring out [CONJUNCTION] the app is
running can take a moment, especially if its icon sits between
two icons for running apps.

In Windows Vista, hovering the mouse pointer over an
application's Taskbar icon produces a thumbnail window view
known as a Live Preview. But when you have multiple windows
open, you see only one preview at a time. Windows 7's version of this feature is slicker and more efficient: Hover the pointer on
an icon, and thumbnails of the app's windows glide into position
above the Taskbar, so you can quickly find the one you're
looking for. (The process would be even simpler if the
thumbnails were larger and easier to decipher.)

Also new in Windows 7's Taskbar is a feature called
Jump Lists. These menus resemble the context-sensitive ones
you get when you right-click within various Windows
applications, except that you don't have to be inside an app to
use them. Internet Explorer 8's Jump List, for example, lets you
open the browser and load a fresh tab, initiate an InPrivate
stealth browsing session, or go directly to any of eight frequently
visited Web pages. Non-Microsoft apps can offer Jump Lists,
too, if their developers follow the guidelines for creating
them.

Other Windows 7 interface adjustments are minor, yet so
sensible that you may wonder why Windows didn't include them
all along. Shove a window into the left or right edge of the
screen and it'll expand to fill half of your desktop. Nudge another
into the opposite edge of the screen, and it'll expand to occupy
the other half. That makes comparing two windows' contents
easy. If you nudge a window into the top of the screen, it will
maximize to occupy all of the display's real estate.
(Adapted from
http://www.pcworld.com/article/172602/windows_7_review.html)