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With our recently finished poll (Windows 7 – Love or Hate) we wanted to get our readers views on the Windows 7.  As you can see from the pie chart above (click to enlarge), 60% of our voters love windows 7, 8% hate it and 32% are yet to be swayed in either direction.  Here at PCToolbox we’re a big fan of Windows 7 and are recommending it to all our clients.  Whilst Vista was not a big hit with many users we believe that Microsoft have produced a class operating system in Windows 7 and have well and truly silenced the critics.

Check out more Windows 7 posts on Brandstar and PCToolbox

Last month’s poll asked our readers…’Which TWO Microsoft Office Applications do you use the most?’  The diagram to the right (click to enlarge) shows how our readers voted.  As you can see Microsoft Office Word, Excel and Outlook were the three applications to receive the most votes, which to us isn’t surprising as the applications are commonly used worldwide due to the overall quality, simplicity and flexibilty of the software.

PowerPoint and Publisher again are commonly used pieces of software but it is rare that the ‘typical’ home user requires them for their general computer usage.  Whereas Access is a far more specialist application for those who need to create/manage a database system.

Office 2010 is set to be released in June (2010).  Many companies are doing a deal whereby you purchase Office 2007 and can download 2010 for free when it comes out so have a look around on the internet for such deals! For example…Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student from Amazon (PC)

Our poll this month was ‘where do you access Facebook?’ Bosses pleased to see that most people are checking their facebook pages at home rather than at work with a staggering 47% just viewing it from home.  Second up was people viewing their pages from both home and work. (Click on the image to enlarge)

21% of voters said they don’t check facebook at home or at work so I’m guessing they don’t have an account?  If you don’t know what facebook is and would like to find out more check out our post on it from back in 2007…Facebook – What’s it all about?

Don’t forget to become a Fan of Brandstar on Facebook!

Our most recent poll was ‘Do you use iPlayer?’ 67% voted ‘Yes’, 33% ‘No’ and thankfully there were no votes for ‘What is it?’

However, for those of you who don’t know what BBC iPlayer is read our Brandstar post about BBC iPlayer from back when it was introduced! See ‘BBC iPlayer – catch up on missed TV‘

Here at PCToolbox we think that the likes of the BBC iPlayer are brilliant and in the future I reckon they’ll be the main way people watch TV shows!

ITV (PCToolbox Review), Channel 4, Channel Five and Sky all have their own equivalents. Check them out!

Don’t forget to vote on this month’s poll…’where do you access Facebook?’

Just a quick review of our last poll ‘Do You Have A Webcam?’  30% of the voters do have a Webcam.  We were surprised that a staggering 70% don’t have a Webcam.  We understand that a percentage of these voters may be business readers, but that is still a huge figure.

Webcams are great pieces of equipment to have and open up a new world of communication.  For instance, you could use Skype to communicate with people all over the world, and instead of just talking you can see each other too!

Well I am pleased that no one voted for “What’s Skype” although I am sure where are people out there who have no idea what it is!  I am surprised however that we have an even split!  I thought that many more people would use Skype than those who don’t….maybe it is the group that read PCT or maybe that really is it!!  An unexpected result.

Last months poll was asking who backed up and the results were interesting! Most people that voted do apparently backup up, but almost as many people have said they don’t! And then half as many say they sometimes backup. Let’s be honest, sometimes means…we think about it but never get round to doing it!

Having a computer break down is bad enough but loosing irreplaceable data is devastating for anyone, photos that can’t be recreated or business data that if lost could cripple the business.

With so many backup tools out there and portable hard drives now available for around £50 for 250 GB there is no real excuse!

Browse our backup posts here, and watch out later this month for a post of our top 3 backup external drives.

Together we can save you’re data!

PollDaddy is a free poll and survey application which can be added to websites, blogs, social networks etc.  The application seems to be flexible and easy to create polls/surveys to your specification.  You can select pre-designed skins or use your own CSS.  There are various styles of questions you can ask, varying from multiple choice to long answer questions.  PollDaddy also analyses all the information from the polls and surveys for you.

We think that this would be ideal for a small business or charity to get a quick opinion of their site connections/site visitors etc.  However, there are larger packages (which you have to pay for) which would be ideal for a larger company.  The tool has been used by a variety of well known companies, for example, FOX and PC World.

It’s worth a look!