My Digital Life

Fixing the disappearing Send to OneNote Printer

A recurring problem I have had with Office 2007 OneNote on Vista is the disappearing Send to OneNote printer. I use this printer to send information from web sites which have a printer friendly link. The link usually pops up the printer selection box, I select send to OneNote and the web page is transferred to my OneNote notebook's unfiled note section. The translation to OneNote is displayed correctly most of the time.

The annoying part is when the printer selection box pops up and there is no Send to OneNote printer. In the past I have been able to bring up OneNote and run the Office Diagnostics under help, however lately that has not worked. I started Googling for a fix, found out that Microsoft seems to be aware of the issue but has no fix. I then stumbled on a post from the Microsoft public forums which described how to create a OneNote Printer. Since then I have created the OneNote printer on 2 machines, and it has not disappeared.

1. Add Printer - Local - Do not detect.
2. Use the following port: Send to Microsoft OneNote port.
3. Select a printer. Select any printer driver, it does not matter you will be changing it later.
4. Printer Name: you can choose any name.
5. Do not share, do not print a test page.
6. Finish.
7. Go to properties on the printer and under Advanced click the drop down
   and select the Send to Microsoft OneNote driver.

    

   

    

8. Also Under Advanced select Print Processor and choose the
   OneNotePrint2007 and leave as RAW.

    

   

    

9. Under Ports make sure it's set to the "Send to OneNote" port

    

   

    

10. Close the properties and you are set to go.

The instructions were posted by Kelvin Krastel on http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.onenote/browse_thread/thread/58c3b6f451c79f97/3498b7069519c3b5?hl=en&pli=1

Google's wonderful embedded syntax

One of the great features of Google's search engine is the syntax you can use in the search box to retrieve all sorts of informations directly. The other day I was reading about Audi's new Q5 crossover/small SUV which is currently available in Europe but won't make it to the US until next year. These days when I look at vehicle specifications I am more inclined to look at the MPG ratings rather than horsepower (it still amazes that certain manufacturers still tout horsepower in their ads). The European mileage standard is liters per 100 km which really means little to me in comparing the mileage to my X5 (unless I switch my settings to metric). I use the Google syntax to get definitions on words, convert temperatures from Celsius to fahrenheit, Euros to Dollars, so I decide I would try to enter an expression to convert liters/100 km to MPGs. I entered "8.5 liters / 100 km in mpg" in my IE 7 search box and was pleasantly surprised to retrieve my answer: 27.67 MPG. I would be happy to have this kind of mileage...

This is a great feature to have at your fingertips and I love that the the syntax uses natural language patterns. Other than the fact that I still find that Google still returns the best search results (I use Live and Google back and forth), this syntax makes Google tough to beat. I tried the same expression in Live search and got search results.

My CES 2008 wrap up

As the press frenzy of the International Consumer Electronics Show CES 2008 winds down, it is time to review what I saw during those few days, and write up my thoughts and opinions of my first visit. I tried to see a bit of everything and will report on more than Windows Mobile. It was quite a week, so much to see and so little time with 140,000 of my closest friends ...I was definitely on information overload but in the end I concluded that all of the technology on display was evolutionary and there was nothing revolutionary, that said there were areas of the shows that were very interesting. I have whittled the interesting technologies into the following areas:

• GPS devices and associated applications
• Touch and Gesture user interface paradigm
• HD DVD and Blu-ray
• Wireless audio and video component connectivity
• Bluetooth
• Smartphones

Read my thoughts on pocketnow here.

Outlook calendar updates

I have always found that entering sporting schedules or other repeating public events into Outlook to be extra work that I don't really have time for, but I find having these schedules especially on my Pocket PC very helpful. Jason Langridge posted a tidbit about www.calendar-updates.com, a site that provides downloads of calendar items into Oultook, The site charges for these calendar items, but they provide a additional information in the calendar item such as TV and radio schedule. When you use Microsoft Exchange (I use 4smartphone.net) and Direct Push to your Windows Mobile 5.0 device the calendar events are automatically pushed to Pocket Outlook.

Now, am I willing to pay $1.99 to download the Washington Redskins schedule, probably...

IE 7.0 Beta 2 - Week 2

I have been using IE 7.0 Beta 2 for about a week now and I have it found very stable. Here some items I have found since my original entry.

Pros:

• Very useful keyboard shortcuts
• Alt Key enables/disables classic menu items
• Ctl + Key combination zoom page in (10% increments)
• Ctl - Key combination zoom page out(10% increments)
• Ctl E Key combination takes you to the search box
• Alt Enter Key combination from the search box displays the results in a new tab
• Ctl I Key combination opens favorites
• Ctl H Key combination opens history
• Ctl J Key combination opens RSS feeds

Cons/Issues:

• The IE Favorites scheme is not as easy to use as the Bookmarks in Firefox. I use links on the toolbar extensively and I have not found a way to open an entire group in tabs. I have to open the favorites window to do that.
• There seems to be a problem with Mobile favorites. I have prefaced the name of some of my mobile favorites with a "0 -" so that they sort at the top but under IE 7.0 those favorites are not synchronizing, yet they still appear in IE 7.0. Maybe I need to try ActiveSync 4.2 Beta...

I like the RSS feed concept IE7.0 has implemented. The category, sort and search options box is very useful but I would like a way to see the titles in the sidebar before bringing up the RSS feed page.

The New Digital Life

Rick Segal (a Canada-based venture capitalist) posted an interesting item on his blog http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2006/01/the_new_digital.html regarding what it can mean to live a Digital Life and getting a First Class upgrade to boot.

He uses a Tablet PC with a Verizon EDVO account.  I have been using my trusty Pocket PC with a T-Mobile GPRS connection for years using the same site http://www.flytecomm.com/cgi-bin/trackflight and the FAA Air Traffic Control site at http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/plaintext.html.  Both of these are not perfect displays in Pocket IE but they work well enough.  Seat Guru now has a mobile site, so you can choose that perfect seat at the counter http://mobile.seatguru.com/. I created some screen shots below. 

And now we can also watch a SlingBox on a Pocket PC http://engadget.com/2006/01/05/sling-announces-pocket-pc-support-for-the-slingbox/ but I doubt GPRS will work well.  EDGE should be ok, I can't wait until I get my hands on the T-Mobile SDA aka HTC Wizard in February.

The first mouse

Here is an interesting bit by Robert Scobble (Microsoft's chief blogger) about Douglas Engelbart.  He invented the mouse. Here are some pictures of Douglas Engelbart and the original mouse, it  should really be in the Smithsonian along side the ENIAC.