Smack-down: Adobe Buzzword - Acrobat deals a blow to Shared View et al

Last post I raved about the winning features, design and functionality of Microsoft Shared View. Now don't get me wrong it's amazing, I'm still using it and my on-the-PC version of Office 2003 in concert.

However, since then I logged into my scarcely used account on Buzzword, now Acrobat.com and remembered why I liked it and why I didn't.

Buzzword is Adobe's online Word Processor and so much more. When I was in the throes of job hunting I imported a copy of my resume and discovered that at that time there was no save as PDF option; now resolved - you can just about save to every major format including PDF. Furthermore, the GUI and interface is nothing short of gorgeous; in a beveled black. Adobe have gone to lengths to ensure that the Macromedia acquisition is not for nothing so of course there are implementations of Flash technology there.

For the font junkies out there a plethora of non-Office fonts are just waiting to be tried but, I have not checked if they are True type or not yet.

The user may share documents and create online meetings to discuss these much akin to the Shared View paradigm.

This is competes nicely with Office/ Shared View and Google Apps but, my resume was laboriously slow in loading and why does Acrobat.com insist on loading a Microsoft Scripting Component to work?

So, will I be using this beautifully designed, elegant offering from Adobe? Yes, but if you are reading this at Adobe, remember the P-word ... performance!

Technorati Tags: Adobe - PDF,Flash,Google,Internet,Job Hunt,Microsoft,Office,Online collaboration,Productivity,QA and Software Testing,Windows Live

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My Office 2003 Upgrade

Several weeks ago I made the leap and made the update to Office 2003. The update was seamless but as a prior user of Office 2003 there was one feature I was determined to keep. Microsoft Photo Editor.

Every other application in the Office suite is markedly improved yet Photo Editor which allows multiple images to be opened and is child's play to use as a basic editor is replaced with the Office Picture Manager.

Picture Manager is divided into three primary panes: -

• Left pane: this is a classic explorer tree with view of folder structure.
• Center pane: the user may see single images, a thumbnail of each image in the selected folder or single picture view.
• Right pane: this is the Office 2003 goodness - the drop down menu containing primary functionality

The crop feature is undeniably nice in Picture Manager but the lack of paned view or a standard Microsoft -> Window drop down menu was a little exasperating.

I used Photo Editor as my external editor in IrfanView (probably the best free image editor available) and opening multiple images from IrfanView in this manner would open one instance of Photo Editor with multiple images inside.

Picture Manager however opens a new instance of itself each time IrfanView sends an image to it as the external editor - irritating and an excessive use of screen real estate on the system bar.

So I decided no matter what, Photo Editor was going to stay. I searched for the PhotoEditor.EXE and copied it and its sub-folders to a new location prior to the upgrade to Office 2003. Unsurprisingly (Microsoft makes robust applications after all) it ran and is now co-existing nicely with Office 2003 on my PC. Of course, I am sure that if Picture Manager had feelings they would be hurt by all this - this is why when you offer an improved version you don't drop major features.

Technorati Tags: IrfanView,Killer Apps,Microsoft,Office,Outlook Contacts,Photo Editor,Practical Technologies,Productivity

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Microsoft Shared View - Collaboration made easy.

For a while now I have been an ardent user of the Microsoft Beta downloads and Microsoft Research downloads sites.

Microsoft has a variety of software available there and several months ago (if not longer) I downloaded and installed a Beta version of Shared View; now it is out of Beta.

Shared View integrates with your Office suite and I can attest that this works from Office XP and upwards (I haven't tried older versions) so now the real question; what does it do?

Shared View is for those of us who want to meet without meeting and have the option of reviewing documentation together. It is a simple and elegant application that seems to incur minimal resource usage on a PC or to one's Internet connection (subject to number of users and size of handouts).

Firstly, you are going to need a Windows Live ID (aka a Microsoft Passport). You can either Share an Office Document via the add-on toolbar to each Office application or open a session via the Shared View application. Then you simply send an invite to the current session or schedule a meeting via Outlook and paste the invite to whomever you wish to meet (the function to do this is either copy the invite or paste directly into an email but since I use my calendar in Outlook to schedule meetings I hope this feature is integrated more fully in the next version).

The layout is simple: a silver horizontal toolbar at the top of your screen with drop-downs to indicate participants, handouts (documents for review), share (the option to allow Remote sharing of any open Windows or your whole Desktop) and a Messaging free text area.

Convergence has always been a pathway to creating killer apps but here Microsoft seems to have scored a bulls-eye.

The integration of Remote Desktop technology, Messenger and a scaled down local Sharepoint all of which integrates smoothly into Office (even to the extent of using Tracked Changes) makes for a worthy integrated solution for those of us who don't wish to send out several copies of one document and then have to remember what everyone said during the meeting over the phone and merge these documents back together; particularly when no two people have Track Changes setup the same way.

Just for the absence of these several copies to merge each being sent back to my email I am smiling each time I use Shared View.

Frankly, Shared View is rapidly becoming my online meeting dashboard when actual work has to be done. Now Microsoft just needs to integrate VOIP and speech to text and away we go.

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft,Office,Online collaboration,Remote desktop,VOIP,Windows Live
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Mysterious WIN.INI entries

My PC startup is usually time I use to sip my coffee and let random thoughts percolate thru my cerebellum. Normally my inner dialog is more to the tune of "What the !^%^% is taking this PC so long to boot up!"

This then leads to me reviewing what is running at Startup in the Task manager or using SysInternals Process Explorer. Then I tend to open MSConfig from the command line and go on a deselect purge worthy of  Stalin.

It got to the point that between Services and actual applications running at Startup I was using a hefty chunk of CPU and RAM. I wanted some of these to be available but most of the time didn't actually need these services or applications. I had two choices: -

1. Set the guilty parties as disabled and have a speedier startup.

2. Leave them enabled but create a script or batch file to disable them after Startup if I didn't need them.

The problem with option 1 is that other people use the PC and disabling stuff normally ends in frantic phone calls when I am out of town. I found an application called Taskill and used it on my Windows XP SP2 Home PC to disable my shortlist and this resolved some of the problems.

Of course there are applications which on every usage or after any update decide to reinstate themselves as enabled. Two such examples are Quicktime and Real Player (and its hidden Real Scheduler). Worse even and shame on you for this Real.com was that after the latest update to Real v11 it would actually open and run on Startup.

However, I then decided to look thru every tab in MSConfig and arrived at the WIN.INI tab. I was glancing down the entries and saw once called ANNIE. I opened the tree and the configuration entries seemed to indicate it was some kind of video capture program. My initial concern was it was some kind of malware.

I disabled the entry and then tried to find it thru Google but all I could find was other users on forums who had it on their PC but had no real idea where it came from or what it did. Then I recalled that at random intervals I would find in my C:\ main folder a JPG screen capture from some video that had been played in Windows Media Player. I enabled the entry again in WIN.INI and ran a video and found another capture JPG in my C:\.

It sits disabled in my WIN.INI until I can deduce exactly how it got there and what the actual purpose is. I suspect that one of the many Codecs I installed gave me this little extra. Now I am going to have to test each one until I find the answer.

Technorati Tags: Add-ons,Codecs,Graphics,MSConfig,QA and Software Testing,Sysinternals,WIN.INI,Windows Media

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Did you know about that really useful feature in Google Calendar?

Frequent readers know that in addition to my love of Microsoft applications I am an avid Google Applications user; particularly GMail and GCal. Frequent readers also know my paradigm for keeping me, my family and our mobile devices in sync.

The other day I received an invitation thru GMail to a meeting from an associate. I replied and it was added to my GCal. I was checking my GCal settings as my wife had complained of suddenly being unable to see my calendar and in the settings I noticed the far-right link/tab called  Mobile Setup.

A little cynically (it was one of those days) I looked at the drop-down list to see if Israel was listed thinking "not a chance ..."; Google has an R&D center in Tel Aviv but I was more doubtful about the Israeli cellular providers approving this sort of thing. Happily I found Israel in the list and further found my cellular provider. I validated the settings and lo .... my cellular phone received an SMS test reminder from my GCal.

I setup to receive day before reminders via SMS to my cellular phone from GCal and I was just reminded about this meeting. I explained to my wife how to do this; of course if your whole life is listed in your GCal or for example times of Jewish festivals etc then your cellular phone is going to be a little busy.

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What keeps Smart-phones, Cellular Phones and PDA's from becoming your main Computer

The quantum leap in progress and functionality of all these handheld/ portable devices over the last couple of years is amazing.

So many applications and services are available and everyday there is news about convergence of more technology with PDA's and Cellular Phones. That in itself created the Smart-phone. Miniaturization of hardware, processors and memory allowed for these devices to progress even further and advances in battery development allow for a longer usage between recharges when you are on the go and not plugged into the car (or a mobile solar charger).

My big problem with all these devices is that the main piece of current technology that inhibits these devices becoming your primary Computer is not the keyboard or connectivity to peripherals (most have Bluetooth and or WiFi but yes, USB or another standard fast port would be nice); the screen size simply is restrictive.

Don't get me wrong, I do lots with my Pocket PC but realistically, I love sitting down in front of my 19" monitor and seeing things in 1024x768 resolution. As many web sites and services that have been designed also for Mobile usage (a la GMail and other Google Applications) many have not and the flexibility, usability and breadth of functionality is way more limited by Screen real estate usage.

This is where I flex my conceptual thinking muscles. This restriction is due to physical constraint and it has brought us UPMC, ultra portable laptops and rather large Smart Phones but is this the solution or a clever series of work-arounds?

I think that when we have devices that incorporate holographic projectors with built-in touch screen technology then these Mobile devices will truly have come of age. Obviously, this throws down the gauntlet to the battery creators to provide a more powerful, longer lasting battery. Perhaps, like the Seiko Kinetic watches these devices will be powered by movement of the Human body or the batteries will be charged by this.

I did Google the term "holographic touch screen" and it seems that others have thought in this direction but so far, not yet for Mobile devices. Time will tell.

Technorati Tags: Bluetooth,Cellular phone,Kinetic energy,Pocket PC,Smart Phone,Solar power,WiFi

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Outlook Contacts and the Map Feature

Continuing in the Geographical / Mapping / Locational Services vein ...

Of all the features in Microsoft Outlook the one that has been consistently under-implemented since Outlook 2000 is the Map Address feature for Outlook Contacts:

 

The Map Address button found on the Contacts Toolbar has never fulfilled its potential throughout each iteration/ version of Outlook. What does the button do? It takes the address data and locates it in Live Maps (once upon a time this was done via Expedia Maps). However, once the data is displayed in the user's browser Window, then what?

The user has no real way of embedding the map into the Contact; at best you can manually paste the hyperlink from the browser into the Contact.

Furthermore, for the most part, this feature is not supported outside the United States. Microsoft is an International corporation and Outlook is used the world round. Windows Live Maps supposedly has full-World coverage so why not enable the user to: -

1. Locate any address in the World.
2. Have the option to save from the Live Map back to the Contact a copy of the map using the Map Cruncher Add-on to decide which layers are relevant.

In an ideal world, much the same way as Internet Explorer 7 allows the user to add Search services and select a default this feature should allow the user to add and select a default Geo-search service of their choice (Live Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps to name a few).

There is a way to alter this but it requires a deep knowledge of the Windows Registry to understand where this is defined. This is not something I recommend playing with unless you have in-depth knowledge of Outlook, the registry & how to roll-back should you make a mistake.

Until Microsoft fixes this, the Map Address feature will languish unfulfilled.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Outlook,Outlook Contacts,Live Maps,Map Contact Address

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