Canadian Musician July / August 2019 | Page 42

All Systems Go! By Eric Price Our Annual Checkup on Computers & Creative Tech O nce again, it’s time for your annual computer checkup with Dr. Eric! (Ed.’s note: Eric is neither a real doctor, nor has he ever played one on TV.) In an era where computer hardware and software changes have become evo- lutionary as opposed to revolutionary, it’s continually more challenging to get too fired up over the latest and greatest gad- getry. But fear not faithful readers, as I shall endeavour to both excite and entertain you as I comb through press releases and technical bulletins gleaning interesting tidbits and insights to share with you. Not Dead Yet! By now, I assume most of you are aware that Windows 7 will be reaching its end- of-life, which arrives on Jan. 14, 2020. With Windows 7 having first arrived on the scene in July of 2009 – a dinosaur’s age in the operating system domain – it has long seen better days, and by now, I would ex- pect most of you PC users will have already moved on to Windows 10. Of course, Windows 7 will continue to run after that date, but it will suffer the same long and painful death as other op- erating systems before it. Security updates, OS improvements, and bug fixes from Microsoft will cease on that date. As well, you can expect increasingly diminishing support from third-party software and hardware companies. Drivers, as well as newer versions of programs that will run in Windows 7, will become scarcer as com- panies will not want to dedicate precious resources to supporting a dead OS. Though Windows 7 has been super- seded by both Windows 8 and then 8.1, neither of those two operating systems ever really gained any serious traction in the market. With both OSes having already lost much of their support, Microsoft has left you little choice but to have migrated to Windows 10. Though there is still no formal mention of a replacement for Windows 10, Microsoft continues to release major up- dates to the OS about every six months. Let’s look at where Microsoft is current- ly with the update cycle for Windows 10. How’s Your Blood Pressure? major upgrade to Windows 10 since its initial release in 2015, and with Microsoft already having discontinued support for earlier updates, you need to make sure you are running at least version 1803 from spring 2018. Only a month or so behind schedule, version 1903 was finally deemed fit for public release in late May with the rollout being very slow this time around. Hope- fully this update will contain fewer of the surprise pitfalls found in the October 2018 update, which left more than a few users with either data loss or the aggravation of being unable to work for days. Though Microsoft made few new friends last update, there is hope they may As of press time for this issue, the May 2019 update for Windows 10 (version 1903) had recently launched. This is the seventh Tech Tools Revisited: SkyTracks Montreal-based SkyTracks.io’s music collaboration tool allows musicians from around the globe to contribute seamlessly on one track in real-time. Through DAW integration apps and the company’s customized web interface, it’s easier to build a song from the ground up without all contributors be- ing physically in the same studio. The company launched in 2015 to help musicians exchange audio files online and has since added extensive recording and editing features. It’s a monthly subscription service with Basic, Pro, and Studio tiers. www.skytracks.io. 42 C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N