January 2006 Archives

I love Google. They can almost do no wrong, or at least so I thought. They’ve released two big bombs recently, the Google Video store and Google Pack. Google Video has never been the most pleasant or helpful experience, and selling video content hasn’t helped it. Most videos are too expensive with too restrictive DRM.

Google Pack a one-stop-shop for downloading system utilities and Google software (surprise, surprise). It includes Google Earth, Google Desktop, Picasa, Google Toolbar for IE, Google Pack Screensaver, Firefox with Google Toolbar, AdAware SE, Norton AntiVirus 2005 SE, and Adobe Acrobat Reader 7. You can optionally installed Trillian, Google Talk, Real Player, and GalleryPlayer HD Images. It also has the capability to auto-update. I’m all for auto-updating, and I do like a lot of those applications, such as the Google Desktop, AdAware, and Firefox. I’m not as thrilled with Real or Norton AV, though. The idea is to make it easy to add apps for new machines without having to go through a half-dozen downloads and installs. I’m not sold on it being especially useful, though.

Palm’s taking orders for the new Treo 700w powered by Windows Mobile. It’s gotten mixed review. Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal still prefers the Treo, saying ‘it doesn’t beat 650’. Treo Central generally likes it, though they’re not thrilled with some elements of Windows Mobile. David Pogue of the New York Times likes the Today screen and the ease of setting up a conference call, but not the 240×240 screen resolution or the creating new appointments. Virtually everyone likes the form factor and its speed, thanks to the Verizon new EV-DO network. Mobile Tech Review says it’s ‘one of the best Pocket PC phones we’ve used’. C|Net likes it as a Windows Mobile device, but its “heft and washed-out screen has us giving the edge to the Treo 650”. Time Magazine refers to it as Microsoft and Palm’s Wondrous Offspring It’ll definitely be a hit with the corporate community. We’ll have to see the Palm version to decide who got it right. Technorati

Alexander Gorlach has some great screenshots of Office 12.

• Installation
• RSS Support in Outlook
• More RSS Support
• New Features of Outlook 12

We’ve all sat through too many PowerPoint presentations that are far too long, with too many slides (usually poorly designed), and entirely too much text on them. The 10/20/30 rule is Über-elegant. A PowerPoint presentation should have no more than 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes, and use fonts of 30 pt minimum. Guy Kawasaki expounds on the rule on his blog.

[Via A PowerPoint Blog]

Eric Carter released a little info on VSTO v3 at PDC.

• It’ll support Office 12 with the same features that worked for Office 11.
• The same add-in technology for Outlook in VSTO 2005 will apply to all Office applications.
• Customize the Office 12 UI Ribbon
• Create application level task panes for Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint
• Support the new Office 12 file formats
The add-ins and task pane tools really help turning Office 12 into a platform in its own right.

Infotech Canada’s has released 10 free SharePoint themes, courtesy of their Team Tools.

[From Graphicalwonder]

Microsoft has released updates for both Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Services.

You can find more information here:

• KB#900929: Description of the WSS post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package

• KB#897722: Description of the SPS post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package

[From Andrew Connell]

A new version of Notepad++, the most excellent Notepad replacement, is available for download. Checkout the release notes for more information.

You can even have it be your default Notepad in Windows (rather than the anemic notepad.exe that ships with Windows). Here’s how:

Installation Instruction:

• Download the Notepad++ launcher which allows you to replace Notepad completely by Notepad++.
• Backup your original Notepad.exe in c:\windows (we never know…).
• Copy notepad.exe which comes with this package into 3 directories (in given order) :
1. c:\windows\system32\dllcache
2. c:\windows\system32
3. c:\windows
• When you replace notepad.exe in c:\windows\system32 and c:\windows, a “Windows File Protection” message box appears, click Cancel. Then another message box appears, click OK.
• Modify you registry (if you use installer to install your Notepad++, you don’t need to do this step): Create key \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Notepad++, then add your Notepad++ full path as the default value of this key. In my case, it’s C:\Program Files\Notepad++.

Notepad++ should now be your default Notepad.

It’s anyone’s guess how long it will be before Microsoft releases a patch for the WMF vulnerability (Google news). Until that time, Ilfak Guilfanov has released a patch. Via Steve Gibson and Security Now! Episode #20 podcast. This is a serious threat, so patch yourself ASAP and don’t open any WMF files until you do!

Indezine releases a new, free PowerPoint template every week. They’ll add a little variety to your presentations without making a dent in your wallet.

We’ve all sat through too many boring, hideously unattractive PowerPoint presentations. Everyone’s seen all the themes and animations. Set your presentations apart with Ovation from Serious Magic. It “turns lifeless PowerPoint slides into a stunning presentation in seconds.” It brings broadcast quality animation and backgrounds to your presentaions, making the leap from static slides to sophisticated video.

I’m a big fan of virtualization and VMWare (or VirtualPC). VMWare has made a big move by releasing a free VMware Player. In addition to running VMs created by VMware Workstation etc, it also “supports Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats”. That’s so cool. Free VMs from Microsoft like Fabrikam should work just fine (though I haven’t tried it yet).

Now anyone cam play with RedHat linux or Ubuntu Linux without having to setup a dual-boot environment. There are alo Community Virtual Machines of OpenBSD and Fedora Core among others.

Here’s what I really like about it, though, coming from a training environment. A vmware image can be created and then distributed internally to provide a real training environment. Yes, remote access solutions are great, but they’re not always practical. A lot of the stuff I do require a connection to a SQL server or Exchange etc. How sweet is this?