Aria Rajasa Masna

I started using Windows 7 yesterday and plays around with it, I gotta admit I was pretty confused when trying to get used to the overall system. Well, It’s been 5 years since I actually use Windows (XP) so I got a little clunky here and there. Details after the break.

On to the point, there are two things I notice that are “missing” but I love so much on my Macbook is this: Scroll Anywhere and Software brightness control.

Scroll on any windows without having to focus/click them

In a Mac, you don’t have to focus on a window to scroll it’s content, this is great when you’re used to opening more than one window at a time. Good thing I found Flying Windows, it lets you scroll and move background windows without bringing to front. I don’t really care about moving a background window, I just need to scroll it. It’s very small and it leaves very minimal trace on your desktop. It just works :)

Software level brightness control + profiling

Macbook have keys for adjusting monitor brightness on the top left side of the keyboard. I tend to dim the lights when browsing or working and lighten it up to the max when watching video. On a PC, it’s not that easy because the buttons for monitor settings are on the.. well on the monitor and it’s quite a hassle to change it everytime. Lucky that I found Display Tuner.

The UI design doesn’t fit windows general design (well, it doesn’t fit any OS design either) but I don’t really care because it supports profiling. I made 2 profile, 1 for dim lights and the other with top brightness for watching movies. So everytime I want to watch a movie I can just change the profile to Movie, and change it back when I’m not. Another awesome feature for this application is that it can bind shortcuts for specific profile. I set the Dim Lights profile to Alt+F1 and Movie profile to Alt+F2. Easy as pie e?

Ok so that’s the 2 things that I modify from my Windows 7, what’s your small but important upgrades on your Windows?