Category Archives: Microsoft

Venturing Into Unknown Territory

Android, Apple, internet, IPAD, iPhone, ipod, Microsoft, smartphone, Social Media, , , , , , ,

Orion Nebula Hubble SmallIf you are looking for an interesting listen, check out the Steve Jobs interview at the 2010 D8 Conference. If you would rather watch the video, here’s that version.

One of the interesting things Mr. Jobs said is that this phenomena of mobile apps that has really exploded in the past three years is something new, something we haven’t seen before. I must say, I agree with him. To be honest, there were a few albeit limited mobile apps before the iPhone and the iPod Touch, but they were few and far between. The iPhone and iPod touch really gave this market a truly usable platform for the first time, and that’s what caused it to ignite. Truly usable pocket/portable Internet-enabled devices have facilitated brand new types of activities.

In the realm of desktop computers, there are probably hundreds of thousands or millions of applications available. However, we cannot carry a running desktop or laptop computer around in our pockets. Full-blown computer applications are designed for a different platform with different purposes in mind. For years there have been people that have carried laptops around in their cars and briefcases with them, but full-blown computers don’t lend themselves to the types of consumer behaviors we see emerging from the use of capable smart phones.

On a desktop computer, if we want to look something up such as a restaurant or a sports score we typically go to Google or Bing, and such a search will likely point us to web pages to get the information we seek. However, as Mr. Jobs pointed out, the statistics indicate that the majority of people doing a search on smart phones tend to use specialized apps to perform these searches. Specialized smart phone apps do tend to provide much more specific, concentrated, GPS-enabled search results. Also, the GPS-enabled smart phone takes social networking itself to new heights.

Steve Jobs and Apple deserve credit for facilitating this new emerging portable device app market. The iPhone, the world’s first truly highly-desirable smart phone platform, was the right move at the right time. In the absence of the iPhone, given the emergence of high-speed wireless Internet, it’s likely that an app market of some sort would have emerged anyway. What Mr. Jobs and Apple really did was give the smart phone market a kick in the pants, spurring a quantum leap forward in what is essentially wireless broadband pocket computing that also happens to have a phone function.

Now that Android phones are on the scene offering the first serious competition with the Apple iPhone, the smart phone and app market is truly becoming interesting.

Ford with Microsoft SYNC System in Ford Taurus SHO

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This last week has been a pretty good one for me, for I got to review more than just a computer, printer or network. I got to review a car. Well, mostly the computer in the car, but still a very tricked out Ford Taurus SHO. A $37,000 vehicle with the Microsoft SYNC system inside.

Ford delivered the Taurus last week to my home. Blue-Grey in color, it didn’t look like the Taurus of years past. I used to drive one for work from time-to-time. That is when the car pool had one available.

However, this one was fully loaded. It had everything from the aluminum wheels to the SHO branded floor mats. It really made me feel like I was on top of my game when driving it. Not that I don’t like the current car I have – But when the time comes, I wouldn’t mind swapping for that one. As long as I can put a full drum set into it.

So let’s take a look at the car, the geeky stuff and other items inside:

The Car:

Ford Taurus SHO
Ford Taurus SHO

We’ll start out with the car itself. This is the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO with 3.5 Liter EcoBoost V6 engine. EcoBoost Technology combines turbocharging and direct injection. It basically works like a V8, but with fewer emissions. The 365 horsepower engine can get 17 city/25 highway using All-Wheel Drive (AWD).

The wheel stock was 19″ premium painted luster nickel-aluminum. The SHO uses the intelligent Access technology with Push-Button Start. All you need is the FAB close by and you will not only be able to get in your car, but also start it without taking anything out of your pocket.

The Geeky Stuff:

Inside the car was where I was focused on. It contained the Microsoft SYNC system – A navigation software package, personal media player and full Satellite / AM /FM radio. The voice recognition was from Nuance – makers of the Dragon Naturally Speaking software. Connection was through audio jack, USB or Blutooth.

Microsoft SYNC
Microsoft SYNC

Navigation:

The voice navigation system was fairly straightforward to understand. If you have used a Tom-Tom or Garmin system, then the SYNC navigation will be second-hand. I entered in a couple destinations and the voice guided me to where I needed to go. There were a couple times it was unsure, so it said “Incomplete data, proceed with caution”. That way, I didn’t trust the system to the point where I would drive it off a cliff.

The voice navigation was also very competent on what it was saying. “Turn left onto Ambercrombe – Turn right onto McKenna..” and so forth. I think there was only one time I noticed the voice sound digital in my travels.

You can put in new destinations, or pre-program common ones. Just in case you forget where the store is, or if this is a company car – you can pre-program the destinations so new drivers can find the route without asking for directions.

The Climate Control:

What can I say about this? April is a Hot – then Cold kinda month. One minute you have all the windows rolled down, then the next the heat is blasted at 90 degrees. To be able to have all that at your fingertips is pretty important. I do have to say, though – The actual button configuration toward the bottom was more confusing than on the SYNC system. Especially when I wanted to turn the blower up and down.

The Sound System:

Microsoft SYNC with Sony Speakers
Microsoft SYNC with Sony Speakers

This is by far the best sound experience I have had in a car. The 12 speakers by Sony pushing out 390 Watts brought clarity to anything I played. Podcasts and music was both enjoyable to listen to, and easy. With the Bluetooth built in, I didn’t need to connect my iPhone to a cable – although I had an option through the USB port. The 10 GB of Hard Drive storage could allow me to put my CD’s into memory.

I was a little flustered that it wouldn’t let me upload MP3 CD’s into the car. I could play the MP3 CD through the system, though. Once I had the jukebox running, I could go through the songs as easily as if they were on my computer.

Since the system has Hands-Free options, I was able to answer phone calls with my cell in the pocket. It stored all my contact info so I could just push the button and go. The Stereo would duck under the phone voice, the backup sensors or the Navigation voice if needed. It made for a comforting experience where I didn’t have to juggle for phones or cables.

The Bling:

I was playing with the interior lighting all week. There were 2 buttons on the dash – One that dimmed a series of LED lights inside the car (by the door handles, in the compartments) and another that changed the color of the LED lights. I could choose the light based on my mood, but I mostly stuck with my favorite color: Green.

What is missing?

When we talked with Ford at CES, I thought there was going to be a special uplink option for music and podcasts. I was expecting to let the car talk with a wireless system to download media. That wasn’t the case. Sure, I could have used a Bluetooth connection from the house, but it would have been nice to be able to connect to the media server and get the music and podcasts that way. This was the only thing I wished it would have.

The car specs said I had a Rear View Camera. Either I missed it or this model didn’t have one. If it did, then I am surprised it wasn’t an intuitive system.

The Verdict:

I enjoyed the ride for the week. I got to take a couple longer trips and felt comfortable the whole time. I had a few friends ride along and they really enjoyed the handling. The only thing they mentioned on the car was the design of the dashboard felt a little enclosing. It was an akward looking dashboard, but there was one big Sony speaker in the middle.

I was really happy to drive this car around for the week. I would like to thank Ford for their generosity in letting me review the system. The SYNC system is absolutely a fabulous idea and with some extras can be a very useful and very fun addition to your drive.

Microsoft CES Keynote a Review

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I watched the Microsoft CES Keynote last night, on Ustream thanks to Cali Lewis of Geekbrief TV and I was not impressed. A little background, this is the first Microsoft Keynote I have watch. I have used Windows before, but I am presently a Mac user. I don’t hate Windows, I just find the Mac easier to use. So with that as a background here is my review

First the whole speech seemed disjointed, it reminded me of a community play where someone gets pulled from the audience to play a part and they are a little too enthusiastic. That is what Steve Balmer reminds me of, the person who thinks he is cool, but is not. Second, the big hype all day was the Microsoft was going to introduce a tablet along with HP. Steve Balmer did show a prototype tablet, but from the little he showed it looked like a tablet with Windows thrown in. A tablet is not a laptop and should not be treated as one, if Microsoft goes that route they are bound to fail. Of course until the product comes out everything is just speculation. They did announce that Project Natal who be available at the holiday season this year. Project Natal is the use of gestures and body movements to play games instead of a controller. It is an interesting concept, but I am not sure how successful it will be in the long run after all if gamers wanted to wave their hands and body to play a game they would become athletes. However if Microsoft allows other people outside of Microsoft to develop for it I suspect that there will be unique uses it for outside of gaming. I will admit the one thing that confused me completely was the demonstration of their book reader. Which from what they showed would require me to read the book on my computer, with E-books like the Kindle and the Nook available this is a nonstarter for me. The one thing that did interest me was the PC within a TV, which as a self profess geek, I find interesting. The problem is I am not sure if most people want a full computer on their TV. Most people just want to be able to get the videos they want to their TV and simple set top boxes like the Roku, TiVo, Popcorn Hour, not to mention the XBox 360 already do that. So I question why most people would use this over a set top box unless they have unique deals with content providers that the person is interested in.

All in all there was nothing announced at the Microsoft announced at the keynote that I said wow that’s something I just have to have. Most of it was either , looks interesting in concept, but lets see work in the real world, like project Natal, or was like the Microsoft TV, where I said I’ve already seen that and it was done better by someone else. What do you think, is there anything that Microsoft showed that peaked your interest and that you can’t wait to get a hold of.

From Vista to Windows 7

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Now that the initial hue and cry over the release of Windows 7 has died down a little, I thought that I might report on how I got on upgrading a Vista machine to Windows 7.  Basically, it’s a doddle, but is it worth it?

Being a (somewhat mature) Masters student, I was able to purchase the upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium for about half the current promotional rate.  Here in the UK, that equates to about 40 GBP, including the media.  Fortunately, I was able to download the upgrade rather than wait for the post to arrive but at around 2 GB, I left it downloading overnight.

My laptop is a year-old HP 9800 model with 3 GB RAM and an AMD Turion processor.  It had come with Vista and to be honest, I had no real problems.  My main Microsoft issue is with the ribbon bars in Office 2007!

Consequently, I decided to upgrade Vista rather than start afresh.  When I started the upgrade, the first part of the process was to check compatibility.  No hardware driver issues were reported but I had to uninstall my anti-virus (Kaspersky) and it warned about iTunes registration.  So after sorting those out and rebooting, the upgrade was good to go.

I’m not sure how long it actually took but it was less than six hours – I left it running overnight and was presented with the licence key screen when I got up the next morning.  Few more mouse clicks later and it was all done.

After logging on, everything was as I left it, albeit with a few slight changes to the user interface.  What’s good is that there’s no longer the blue and green slime background, instead a blue one with a bird, somewhat reminiscent of Twitter, but perhaps bearing an olive branch.  I’m sure you’ll have read elsewhere about the various UI changes – I quite like the revised Taskbar with each program taking up one slot.

Windows warned me about the absence of anti-virus software pretty quickly but re-installing the same version of Kaspersky caused no problems.  During the installation, the reduction in user access control prompts was noticeable but the were still some.  I know that there have been some reports to the contrary regarding malware, but there seemed to be a better balance of control now.

But after that, it was pretty much business as usual.  There was some stuff about “Homegroups” and another secret key, but I largely ignored that – I’ll sort it out later once I understand better what it’s about.

Was it any faster?  Hard to say, I’m not a really demanding user but it opened video files, played music, etc. all as I’d expect.  Windows Explorer toolbar still wants me to burn files as a popular activity despite that fact that I’ve never once burnt a CD on the laptop.

Later on, I asked my wife what she thought of Windows 7.  “Windows 7?  I didn’t even realise that you’d done the upgrade.”  Whether that’s a compliment or not, I’m uncertain.  I think it reflects that if you are a Vista user and you are happy enough, it’s not a compelling upgrade.  Perhaps 98 to 98SE would be selling it short and 95 to 98 might be a better comparison.

However, in terms of cost, if I’d paid the full retail post-January 2010 upgrade price, I think I would’ve felt ripped off.  At Microsoft’s current promotional price, it’s ok value and at the student price, good value.  Obviously I’m coming from Vista to 7 and if you were coming from XP, you be getting more value from the upgrade.

Overall, for existing Vista owners it’s painless to upgrade, you’ll feel right at home but you may question the value.

It’s Patch Tuesday, Are You Stuck?

Information, Microsoft, Windows

Windows Update
Windows Update
It’s Patch Tuesday, which means my poor laptop is getting slammed with a major update for Windows Vista. It has been sitting and installing “component 15 of 16” for more than two hours. I’m tempted to halt it and let it start over. And of course, I had an update yesterday morning at 6 a.m. as well. And at least one over the weekend and one last week.

There are actually 34 patches being deployed to users of Windows XP, Vista, and 7 today. That is a record amount of patches for Microsoft to push, and some of the patches are considered “critical.” None of the patches being offered for Windows 7 are considered critical, which may mean that the Windows 7 operating system is coming out of the box in better shape than previous versions.

And I don’t mind getting patches if they are important. But it would be really great if these patches could be taken care of without having to tie up a machine for several hours. Especially since it’s my only working machine this morning while both of my desktops await warranty repairs from Dell.

Wear Your Email Safety Helmet

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Whenever I want to feel fearful and depressed I usually visit one of the news websites. Earthquakes, murder, war, theft, snoops, kidnappers, recession, depression, corruption, and all other sorts of horrible news. When I read the news sites I’m reminded of how unsafe the world is. Soon I tire of the bad news and move on to investigate the net for news on tech and design. Today Foxnews.com had the audacity to remind me that I am unsafe even on the web. The site highlighted the news from Microsoft that thousands of Hotmail passwords had been exposed. It scared me to death. I nearly jumped to my Hotmail account before I even finished the article. Reading on I discovered that Microsoft had deactivated all the affected accounts until true control could be restored. Why do I care? Hotmail only collects my spam from sites that demand an email address. Hotmail lets through all the other spam anyway! But I digress.

email icon The point of all this is: we are never safe. Their is no safe haven in the world or the web.  Every company does it’s best and so must we.  Yet, sometimes problems may come. If we live with that understanding we can truly do our best to protect ourselves. When we react in panic there is not a clear path of thinking. So with this reminder of our web-identities fragility, what should we do? Let’s refresh four basic email and online account rules:

  1. Always use a secure password. Your birthday, name spelled backwards, address, mothers name, dog’s name, middle name, favorite food, and initials hardly qualify. Use one of the many free random password generators on the web or if you insist on an easier to remember one then create a mixture of information that you can remember. For example and purely fictitious: !S1eP99t9 This could be a combination of the month and year you and your spouse were married. Now while I would only call this a basic password it sure beats “Fluffy”. Of course if you want your bank account to be protected by Fluffy, then more power to you.
  2. Never use the same passwords for multiple accounts. For that matter don’t do what I did at the start and use the same password with just the last letter different! Why would you want someone to have a free-for-all with all your accounts? Use different passwords and find an open-source or free password vault. I personally love 1Password for the Mac.
  3. Change your passwords periodically. I must admit it takes the misfortune of someone to remind me to do this.
  4. Don’t use a public computer. Many public computers are not adequately protected against the installation of malicious password key logging applications. Just don’t log in on a public computer. Just say no. And certainly don’t buy something online with your credit card information! Browse the web on it, read the news, just don’t give any information.

I understand these are basic tips, but sometimes we just need to be reminded to stay alert and on guard.  Kind of like reminding our kids to wear their helmet when they ride a bike.  Resist the urge to become lazy online. I don’t want to read about you on Foxnews.com.