So my wife and I have been playing Wii bowling regularly. She’s gotten quite good as you’ll see in the picture below!
What I didn’t expect was the facial recognition in Windows Live Photo Gallery. You’ll notice that it recognized and is asking for the names of the two faces it sees in the picture.
Well played Live Photo Gallery!
Have they considered drinking coffee and doing maintenance at night? (Just a thought.)
Service with a smile! I’ve always found it annoying in Windows Task Manager to see a dozen entries for Service Host with no idea what parts each represented.
Now take a look at Windows 8 Task Manager after expanding the Service Host entry:
Besides the nice touches in the new Task Manager, finally I can see the detail of what’s the host is up to.
So count me among the few (million) that have installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. I’ll not even discuss the new start screen yet, as I want to work with it more before writing about it. I do want to point out that it’s not the only thing that is new in Windows 8. Here are a few of the first things to catch my eye.
Explorer Ribbons 
If you’ve been using Office 2010 you’re right at home. Right down to the File menu. Context specific menus available depending on the selected folder or file type. The Share tab even includes a Zip button to easily zip a file(s) or folder. The File menu includes recent locations and the option to pin them to always have locations ready in your list. And even the Quick Launch toolbar for your most used options.
Another favorite item is the quick access to some of the advanced items. Mouse to the far bottom left corner and right click to get a nice power user menu list:
Very quick access to common admin tasks that used to take 3 or 4 mouse clicks, or knowing the right file to launch from the run box (I always forget if it’s .msc or .mcs for those things). No need now with this quick list.
If you have found other favorites, let me know!
