My Digital Life

Microsoft finally releases Windows Mobile Office Mobile 6.1

Office Mobile 6.1 has now been officially released for Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC and Windows Mobile 6 devices. 

Per the Microsoft web site:

"To allow Windows Mobile users to work with Office documents created in the Open XML formats, Microsoft has developed an upgrade for Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile applications. This upgrade to the Office Mobile applications allows viewing and editing of Word documents and Excel workbooks and viewing of PowerPoint slideshows created by using Microsoft Office 2007

Other improvements include:

• Enhanced viewing experience for charts in Excel Mobile
• Ability to view SmartArt in PowerPoint Mobile
• Ability to view and extract files from compressed (.zip) folders"

This upgrade only works for Windows Mobile powered devices that have an earlier version of Office Mobile. If your Windows Mobile powered device does not have Office Mobile applications, this upgrade will not work for you. You can purchase Windows Mobile full Office Mobile suite from handango.

The .msi install is available free from Microsoft here.

APC Powerchute software and RS1300LCD UPS

Update 10/29/07: new event 61453 - electrical noise (bold)

After I installed my new APC RS1300LCD UPS (see post) I found out that the Powerchute Business edition monitoring software I was using is not compatible with the RS1300LCD UPS,  you have to use Powerchute Personal edition (unless you use a hack). It seems APC has decided to distinguish their workstation UPS' from their server UPS'. I can understand that the server UPS' should provide more data and configuration option, however the Business edition software should work with both segments of the market.

The feature I wanted to continue using from Powerchute Business edition was the ability to email me UPS events. Windows Vista has the ability to trigger tasks based on log events. These tasks can include an email trigger. Rather than fiddle with the Business edition hack I decided to use this route and I currently have identified 3 UPS events.

• Self Test passed - event id - 61452
• Battery backup transferred to battery due to a blackout - event id 174
• Battery backup transferred to AC utility power - event id 61455
• PowerChute not communicating with the battery backup - event id 61456 (usually happens on a system resume)
• PowerChute recommenced communicating with the battery backup - event id 61465
• Battery backup transferred to battery power due to electrical noise - event id 61453 (I have never seen this event before but I was glad I had a UPS, the event lasted 5 seconds)

The tasks are easily created using the start (right click on computer) manage Computer Management plug in. The log events can be found in Event Viewer/Windows Logs/Application. You can easily create the task by right clicking on the event or by manually creating task in the Computer Management Console under System tools/Task Scheduler/Task Scheduler Library/Event Viewer Tasks.

Since the email trigger requires an SMTP relay server, I use 1st SMTP Server which works well although I would love to run it as a service. In order to catch all the events to decide what I want to keep, I also created a catch all tasks with APC UPS Service as the event source, so I can decide if I want to track other UPS events.

Google Maps Mobile 2.0

 

Update 11/30/07: After using the new version of Google Maps yesterday, here are my thoughts. This is a nice feature but currently it is not very usable unless you are driving along roads like interstate highway where cell towers are placed along the side of the road. Driving from point a to b on an interstate highway gives you pretty good location accuracy, however once you drive into a neighborhood the location information is not very accurate and I find it less than useful. Hopefully Google can tweak their calculation to make this feature more usefull.

Google just released a new version of Google Maps for Windows Mobile (download link) which includes an interesting beta feature that attempts to determine your location based on the cell tower you are connected to and your signal strength.

The feature worked with my T-Mobile Wing, however I could not get it to work with the Verizon i760 ("your location is temporarily unavailable"). On the T-Mobile Wing, it told me that my location was within 1700 meters from the tower. Unfortunately it did not give any indication of direction from the tower. Right now the beta feature does not seem to useful, however I think it has potential if they can figure out direction from the tower. I will be trying it in different locations today and will report back.

 

Will T-Mobile USA turn on 3G in December?

Will T-Mobile USA turn on its 3G network in December? That is the question. Rumors are flying that T-Mobile USA will make a big announcement regarding 3G on or around December 6th. Apparently the upgrades are almost complete and they have been waiting for the U.S. Government to relinquish the air space.

For as long as they have been working on this upgrade, T-Mobile has done a great job of keeping details secret. No one seems to know if the coverage will be be nationwide or just in the test cities of New York, Seattle, and San Fransisco. There is also very little known about the 3G devices that will be available. No one is clear on what frequencies will be used (850, 1700, 1900, and/or 2100), the only clue we have is the HTC Kaiser is a tri-band, 850/1900/2100 UMTS device.

As T-Mobile customers, our wait may be coming to an end. Let's hope anyway.

 

The week of November 26th in My Digital Life

This weekend I decided to upgrade the Vista Business on my Lenovo X60 to Vista Ultimate. If you are planning to use your laptop for multimedia you are pretty much stuck with going with Ultimate. I thought this would be a simple process; use the upgrade DVD (came with the laptop), pay for the upgrade during the upgrade process and I would be on my way. Not so, you must first buy the upgrade, download a license file, keep the license web site window open, then use the upgrade DVD. By using the update DVD first I ended up with an unvalidated copy of Vista which is not upgradeable and I was forced to call Microsoft to get the appropriate set of unlock keys.

Other than the amount of time it took to perform the upgrade (2 hours), everything seems to be working fine. I did have un-install and reinstall OneCare.

Apple released firmware version 1.1.2 for the iPhone. It looks like iPhoneSIMfree keeps on working, however you must jailbreak the iPhone again using the latest jailbreak application found here. This fixes seem to be targeted to the European market so I don't plan on performing this upgrade anytime soon.

This week:

• My review of the iqua BHS-303 Bluetooth headset is still in the queue to be posted on pocketnow.com.  This is a very good headset for $35 (Internet price)

T-Mobile Germany will sell iPhone without contract

The Associated Press reports that T-Mobile Germany will  sell the iPhone unlocked without a contract to comply with a court injunction issued after Vodafone Group PLC challenged the contract terms (see Chris B. comment). T-Mobile will sell the phone for €999  or for €399 with a two-year contract.

For about $1479 you can have an officially unlocked iPhone, albeit with the German UI. I wonder how Apple will handle warranty and support?

The week of November 19th in My Digital Life

This is Thanksgiving week in the United States and business is pretty quiet.

Last week I posted the last video of my Verizon Samsung i760 (part 6), however it did not process correctly and even though everything seemed fine on youtube, the video was not viewable. I won't be able to try posting again until tomorrow since I am out of town. Had I had VPN configured on my DFL-210 router at home, I could have tried it again from my current location. When I get back, VPN definitely moves up my task list...

Microsoft's startup Zumobi is getting into full swing registering beta testers for their December 14th release. This effort seems to be the culmination of the Microsoft Research project Deepfish to enhance the mobile browsing experience (post) into a full fledged Windows Mobile UI replacement similar to what HTC and Microsoft have done with the Touch UI. It was interesting to note that the press pictures feature HTC devices. So now the question is: Will HTC replace the Touch with Zumobi's UI?

This week:

• My review of the iqua BHS-303 Bluetooth headset is still in the queue to be posted on pocketnow.com.  This is a very good headset for $35 (Internet price)

My Vista application list November 15th

I last updated this list August 7th. The vast majority of applications on the market are now Vista compliant. I updated Microsoft Money 2007 to Plus and ranted yesterday about the lack of testing, how could they let this product out the door. I have also updated my Adobe's Photo Elements to version 6 which sports a whole new look, I am not sure I like it yet. I also upgraded my Sony Vegas Movie Studio 6 to Vegas Pro 8. It was expensive but this is a very nice piece of software and has been extremely solid. I am using it to edit my video reviews on pocketnow.com, it is performing very well, however I have a lot to learn about its functionality. I am now using iTunes 7.5 which has resolved my calendar synchronization issues with Outlook 2007. I never did get MusicBridge between iTunes and Windows Media Player to work, I have given up that endeavor for now. I also upgraded Acronis to version 11 which works much better with Vista.

Applications that work

1. Office 2007 - Vista compliant application
2. Office 2003 - Seems to work without any problems
3. Money 2007 - an update is available and it works well.
4. SQL Server 2005 works fine with SP2.
5. Office Accounting Professional 2007 SP1- works well.
6. Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2007 - works well with Office Accounting 2007 and integrated database.
7. Nuance's Paperport 11 released an update which can be downloaded and works well. The update process is little cumbersome since you have to uninstall the old versions and then have to terminate multiple processes including SQL Server to enable the install to complete successfully.
8. ECTO 2.3.3 blogging application works well.
9. SmartFTP requires version 2.0 build 1002 or later.
10. ImgBurn version 2.1.0 works well.
11. Acronis 11.0 True Image Home backup now 100% Vista compliant. Read my backup scheme here.
12. Adobe Photo Elements 6.0 - Vista compliant and new look.
13. Sling Media Sling Player for Windows 1.5, it looks like bug fixes. No major release for Vista yet.
14. Kiwi Syslog Service version 8.1.3 works with Vista and records all my D-Link DFL-210 events. I had to create a firewall rule to allow port 514 through the firewall (same as in XP). Here is my post on the subject.
15. APC PowerChute Business Edition version 7.0.5 works well with business class UPS'.
16. TyTool 10r4 to extract files from a series 1 Directv Tivo works. I was able create a DVD file structure.
17. Hyperterminal Private Edtion from Hilgraeve - This is the old version of Hyperterminal and works fine, too bad Microsoft left it out of Vista.
18. iTunes 7.5 - It still is not 100% Vista compatible but works ok, it still flakes out sometimes and won't play tracks, however a reboot cures the problem.
19. Ilium Software eWallet 5.0 - Works very well.
20. Diskeeper 2007 version 11.0.703.0 - Works well on my Lenovo X60.
21. APC PowerChute Personal Edition version 2.1.1 works well.
22. PuTTY version .60, raw, telnet, SSH, Rlogin, and serial terminal emulator.
23. Adobe Reader version 8.1. New name for Adobe Acrobat.

Application that seem to work or I have not fully tested

1. VentaFax 5.71 - Inbound Fax with Vista service works, print driver function does not work.
2. VentaFax 5.80 - They fixed the print driver function but the windows service does not work.

Application that do not work

 

Driver issues:

Currently none. System is very stable.

Microsoft Money Plus my rant of the day

Every year I go through the ritual of purchasing the latest version of Money to get the latest minor bug fixes, it is not as if the software changes dramatically but in order to get the latest fixes you must purchase the new version. When I used Quicken they had the same approach. I switched over to Money in 2003 because the new versions of Money were much more stable than what Quicken was putting out. This year I don't what happened with Microsoft, but someone on that team needs to be shown the door.

I purchased and downloaded Money Plus Premium, installed on Vista and it would barely run. I went the Microsoft support site (link) and found two major issues.

1. Money stopped responding, I had to follow the instructions in this knowledge base article for a workaround.
2. Money was very slow rendering it's home page, I had to remove the budget watch control on the home page.

There seem to be a bunch of other problems with this version as well , which thankfully I have not run into, yet. However this is not acceptable, if your software is not ready it should not ship. I was able to easily diagnose the problem, but for the layperson this just makes them want to switch...Maybe its time for me check Quicken out again.

The week of November 12th in My Digital Life

This weekend I decided to try out the AppSnapp method of unlocking my iPhone. I installed the new version of iTunes ,Apple just released which provides unlocking functionality for the additional cellular carriers providing iPhone service in Europe. I then proceeded to restore my unlocked iPhone back to the standard locked firmware. I then followed the instructions on the AppSnapp web site, after some fiddling and multiple reboots I was able to connect to the web site via the iPhone and in less than 60 seconds the iPhone was unlocked. I have a couple of notes on the instructions:

1. When you create the contact, use 0 as the phone number
2. It is not clear whether you have to create a favorite for the contact you created, but I did
3. Once you have initially connected to a WIFI hotspot and you reboot, you need to be patient for the WIFI reconnect to happen (between 1 and 2 minutes), once the WIFI icon appears you can then launch the home page in your saved contact. Follow the instructions on the page, a download and installs occurs. No message will be displayed but within 60 seconds your iPhone will be unlocked.

Of course this only takes cares of the iTunes unlock. My SIM card/cell phone unlock from iphoneSIMfree was still active and worked once the iTunes unlock was completed. Many kudos to the iphonedevteam for putting this together.

On the mobile device OS front, PC Magazine voted Windows Mobile 6 as their Editor's choice despite the fact that it was not perfect. I have to agree with them, and if Apple puts together a well integrated OTA synchronized email/contact/calendar/task application on the iPhone, watch out...They also voted the Samsung i760 as one of the best devices and I agree, it is a very solid device.

I was surprised by David Pogue, one the mainstream media's technology reporters I find balanced,  posted some Windows Mobile comments that are just plain wrong. I was going to refute his post but Matthew Miller of ZDNet beat me to the punch with his rebuttal.

Last weekend one of my PATA drives failed and I caused myself headaches. I ran the Seagate web based drive utility and it reported the drive failure from the S.M.A.R.T status. The drive is still under warranty and I could ship it back for a replacement. The problem is that I use that drive to store my week - 1 backups and it would be a pain not having it for 2 weeks. I decided to use HDD Regen, it recovered one bad sector, I ran the Seagate drive utility, it showed no errors. I have used this utility twice now, once on my Tivo drive and once on this Seagate drive. The $59.99 I spent for the utility has been well worth it.

I am still missing channels 185, 186, 188, 192, and 193 on my Sirius radio. I was being told that it was because the activation/programming signal was not getting through. After placing the antenna in the middle of the roof, I had Sirius resend the activation signal with no change. They were able to deactivate and activate channel 198 (Playboy) so I know I can receive program updates. At this point I am thinking that I have a problem with the Sirius radio.

This week:

• Finish and post part 4 and 5 of my video review of the SCH-i760.
• My review of the iqua BHS-303 Bluetooth headset is still in the queue to be posted on pocketnow.com this week.  This is a very good headset for $35 (Internet price)