Microsoft

HP Connection Mangler

| Richard

So my shiny newish HP ProBook 5320m has the facility to take a SIM card which means no worries about a dongle being lost or losing a USB port.

HP’s Connection Manager software allows you to chose the connection speed: 2G or 3G or Auto for either.

All this is fine.

The trouble is when the coverage is dodgy: the HSPA connection automatically switches to UMTS but Windows doesn’t like this so your ability to use the connection is in effect removed. You have to then disconnect and reconnect.

Very annoying, especially when it happens multiple times each day!

Changing the Connection Manager to only 3G doesn’t help as it classifies both UMTS and HSPA as 3G.

Grr!

Windows Live Messenger for Mac – Longest Beta Ever?

| Richard

You know, sometimes I wish that Microsoft would simply grow up and get over its childish hatred of Apple and because of that its reluctance to embrace (and potentially embrace) Mac users.

A fabulous example of this is Microsoft’s Live Messenger and their long running and unresolved failures to actually support audio-visual conversations for users running a Mac.

I use both a PC (actually a Tablet PC) and a Mac and I have just bought another laptop running Windows Vista (with an upgrade to Windows 7 coming in due course). On the Windows platforms I can run Live Messenger and hook up a webcam to have a face to face conversation with another Windows Live user.

If I’m at my flat on the Mac, I cannot.

Back in December 2008, Microsoft announced a forthcoming beta release of Messenger for Mac which would offer A/V support in 2009. Now, some 10 months later, there’s still no sign of it on the horizon, far less a final release version.

Pathetic!

Nokia N95 8GB and Exchange

| Richard

I have resisted buying a BlackBerry – or strictly speaking having one bought for me by the company I work for – for the following reasons:

  1. If I want a phone, I’ll use a phone – the smaller the better, so it fits in my pocket.
  2. If I want to check or send an e-mail then I’ll fire up a laptop and do it on proper hardware.
  3. I don’t want “Sent from my BlackBerry” added to my e-mails!
  4. My Nokia N95 8GB does everything I want: camera, phone, texts, e-mail (I have a special e-mail account set up to be checked on it) and satellite navigation using Co-Pilot software.

But when BlackBerry introduced their Storm, I thought “at last, a BlackBerry that might fit my requirements!” So I spoke to the MD and he said I should go right ahead and get a BlackBerry. I dug a little deeper and found that Orange - who we are switching to – don’t offer the Storm: it’s Vodafone only. And besides, the BlackBerry Storm on Vodafone may not work with Exchange (or it possibly might … for an extra £26 a month on top of your price plan!).

Now as our company e-mail runs on Microsoft Exchange, that rather means that the Storm is as useful to me as a chocolate teapot. And it was slowly becoming apparent that being able to access my e-mail or be advised that e-mail has arrived on the go without needing to fire up a laptop with the Orange 3G dongle was becoming more and more of a requirement, it seemed I was stuffed.

So back to square one. I thought. I asked the IT bods to set up mail forwarding for me, so that incoming e-mail would go to my Exchange account and a copy would be forwarded to an e-mail address I had set up especially for this. I had set up my Nokia N95 8GB to fetch e-mails every 30 minutes and it worked.

Except that replies would appear to come from my own address and wouldn’t be properly synchronised with my work e-mails. So I Googled for “Nokia S60 exchange mail” and found this link to Nokia’s Mail For Exchange.

Downloaded, sent to the phone, installed and set up in a few minutes. Then a few more minutes tweaking the settings so it worked and voila! My Outlook Calendar and Exchange e-mails were sync’d to my phone. I’ve set it up to be connected during my working hours (8.00am to 6.00pm Monday to Friday) and then outside those working periods every four hours – I could have made it more frequently, but one last check at 10.00pm and then once every four hours over the weekend is more than adequate.

And It Just Works!

So I now have my Nokia doing what I want as I want it done.

Quote of the Day

| Richard

When Internet Explorer died again as I had the audacity to close a tab, I was amused at the suggestion it came up with to help:

Problem caused by Windows

This problem was caused by Windows, which was created by Microsoft Corporation. Currently, there is no solution for the problem that you reported.

{roffle}

The Trouble with Macs…

| Richard

So with the move to London happening soon, one of the items I had to sort out was my Internet access. Here at home – working for myself from my office on the side of the house – I have a business broadband package from Demon with fixed IP addresses for all the computers and printers. When I’m out and about, I usually use a 3G USB dongle from Vodafone which is more often that not either a regular 38Kbps service or on occasion nothing more than a pretty white plastic thing for decoration only. Where there is good coverage, it’s supposed to deliver 1.8Mbps with the promise of 7.2Mbps in parts of London though annoyingly Rotherhithe doesn’t appear to be in the Promised Land but just outside – I’ll check when I get there.

So anyway, with 5GB/month I thought that might make it easier: no need to get a phone line and a broadband package, just use my allowance for a change.

But Mrs RHM then suggested I should get a webcam for my laptop so I could help the kids with their homework if need be and also keep in touch with her. Fine, I thought, though alarm bells started ringing: she uses our venerable iMac while the rest of the family have PCs.

So what’s the problem with the iMac?

Well the iMac and OSX Leopard has iChat which promotes its video chat features. To use it to its best, you need to have a .Mac account – which is expensive for what you actually get which is why I abandoned my .Mac account after a couple of years – as does your friend and .Mac is pretty much a waste of time for anyone on a PC. “Never fear”, says Apple, “you can always link up with AIM.” What?

“iChat works with AIM, the largest instant messaging community in the U.S. You and your buddies can be either AIM or .Mac users. Text, audio, and video chat whether your buddies use a Mac or a PC. Sign in with your AIM account, and all your buddies appear in your iChat buddy list.”

Great! No-one in the UK – OK, I exaggerate a tad – uses AIM: AOL Instant Messenger. The client software seems to have issues here on this PC, by the way, which comes as no surprise to me having once used AOL software for testing purposes. Go on: ask any of your connected friends what they use for instant messaging and they’ll say “MSN” (or “Windows Live Messenger“, to give it its proper name).

You can, of course, download the Mac Messenger client, but the ‘usual’ home user version does not support video messaging. Not really a surprise as I think Microsoft doesn’t really bother with Mac users as they’re lost causes as far as “the Beast of Redmond” appears to be concerned.

Maybe this is another reason not to get a Mac? Until Apple comes up with an instant messaging client that supports video messaging with Windows Live users, you’d otherwise be partially cutting yourself off from the majority of computer users, at least here in the UK.

Search and Ye Shall Find

| Richard

…depending upon what you use to search.

Or so it would appear.

When I “upgraded” to Office 2007, Outlook “suggested’ I download and install Windows Desktop Search which they suggest is “Best in Class”.

Now I am already running Google Desktop and have been impressed with it.

Yesterday I tried out some Nero software (before removing it again as it didn’t do what I wanted) and that installed another search program that looked exactly like a re-badged version of Windows Desktop Search.

Anyway, I’d had ‘mixed’ results with Windows Desktop Search noting how the number of items searched would sometimes count down, or that the number of items to index would also count down without a corresponding increase in the number of items searched and indeed noting that it would continue to index my PC even when supposedly snoozing.

Couple all that with the way that it only seemed to want to know about the current Outlook post file and it began to take on the usefulness of a chocolate teapot; especially when you take into account the need to keep Outlook post files to an absolute minimum size in the latest version unless you want your system slowed down to less than crawling pace. Outlook 2007: bst avoided!

So the other day, I needed to find some access details I’d e-mailed a client a while back. I knew I wouldn’t find them in my current Outlook post file, so I opened the job-specific post file archive and asked it to search only to find that it hadn’t been indexed and none of the other search facilities in Outlook could help either. So I fired up Google Desktop and instantly found the details I needed…

I looked at the Windows Desktop Search preferences and manually added .pst files – curiously omitted by default – and made sure that the Archives folder was ticked to be searchable and after allowing Windows Desktop Search to catalogue everything unhindered – at the expense of it slowing down my system – I decided to run a little test.

I sent myself an e-mail from my Gmail account (excluded from my Google Desktop search items) with the name “Persephone Winterbottom” in the e-mail body. This came via a POP3 account into MailWasher Pro and thence into Outlook. I then opened an archive .pst file and dragged the new e-mail into it before closing it once more.

After both programs indicated they were up to date, I ran a search for “Persephone Winterbottom”. Now, you need to bear in mind that Google Desktop needs Outlook post files to be open to be searched whilst Windows Desktop Search shouldn’t if it follows the preferences.

And the results? Google Desktop returned a positive on the e-mail within the main Outlook post file. Not so good if you want to actually locate the e-mail in its archive but the program does return its contents within the browser window (which is good enough for me).

Windows Desktop Search still doesn’t seem to acknoweldge the e-mail’s existence whatsover, even days afterwards, so it’s been uninstalled here now.

Gah! (Rare anti-Microsoft Rant)

| Richard

I’m starting to become A Little Bit Fed-Up with Microsoft.

One of the best pieces of kit I own is my Toshiba Portégé 3500 Tablet PC. Quite why Tablet PCs never really set the world on fire is frankly beyond me: the never-ending notebook* for you to scribble on when you’re making notes or suggesting a layout to a client is just fabulous. (*OneNote – the ‘killer app.’ for the Tablet PC which isn’t too bad on a regular lappy either).

Until…

Until it decides to get a bit tired and emotional and Windows XP SP2 Tablet PC Edition (phew!) throws up yet another BSOD every time you try to start it up, blaming the (unchanged) video drivers.

My main work machine is a three year old, dual-screen PC that was many thousands of pounds to buy and is still super fast and super-spec’d. Except that it takes 15 minutes to start up from being turned on or restarted to have the desktop and start-up apps. loaded and the PC usable. 15 minutes. Try timing that yourself – it’s longer than it takes to go and make a cup of coffee and come back to my desk.

I have Windows Vista ready to roll out. Except that it tells me that my sound card drivers won’t work and because the sound card is three years old, the manufacturer has not written Vista drivers for it. The card and surround sound system is working perfectly here on XP Pro as are a number of apps. which won’t apparently work either. So no, I shan’t be running Vista here for the foreseeable future.

Office 2007, on the other hand, has been installed here. Some nice features for Outlook, but boy is that slow! Oh and it prompted me to download and install Windows Desktop Search which is a truly bizarre little app. which seemingly doesn’t understand what snoozing actually means (i.e. it carries on indexing even when supposedly snoozing) and can’t seem to keep track of how many items it has indexed (often counting backwards) and has still to index.

I also have an old iMac (the CRT TV type) which is ready to go in about a minute. Apparently, Office 2004 for the Mac (I presently have Office X) includes Word 2004 which includes similar functionality to OneNote. Hmm.

So, back to the Tablet PC. How to replace it?

Well Toshiba does seem to be soldiering on with Tablet PCs but we’re looking at £1,000 – £1,600 (plus VAT) for one of them. Pros would include being able to run Office 2007 including OneNote and using my Outlook post file on the PC and the Tablet. Cons would mean the same instability and slow booting time.

Or I could always get a new Apple MacBook. Prices are more or less comparable and if I chose to use Parallels or Boot Camp I could even run Windows XP on it. The downside is simply the lack of the Tablet PC functionality.

Or I could simply buy a cheapo laptop from PC World for £500 and junk it from time to time. No Tablet PC functionality and probably a tad heavier.

Decisions, decisions..