Category Archives: windowsThis announcement is likely to get lost in the hoopla, given the Stevenote announced so many cool things today. However, this itself is fairly cool–the release of Crossover Office Linux 6.0 and Crossover Mac 6.0. Unlike, say, VMWare or Parallels, Crossover runs Windows applications natively without needing a copy of Windows. This is accomplished by […]
I’ve previously written about Soonr, which is a client-side plugin for Skype that makes it possible to send and receive both IM and calls to and from Skype users. I haven’t used it in a while, mostly because I’m too busy using Twitter to be bored enough to fire up Skype on my mobile phone.
Today […]
There was a post on Web Worker Daily about Microsoft’s “newly launched” Office Live Basics. Back when Microsoft was beta testing it, it was called Windows Live Custom Domains, which I previously wrote about. Same basic idea, but now they supposedly worked out all the bugs.
When I tried to sign up, their webpage said I […]
Another good tip from my dad. This trick will let you migrate DRMed video content from iTunes onto a DVD that you can play on a normal DVD player. This looks Windows specific, though, and does require buying some extra software. There’s probably some Mac way to do this, but then again, I tend to […]
My dad claims I dragged him into the online world many eons ago–back in the days of Bulletin Board Systems running on a modem or two on an old computer stuck in a closet of some guys house. I do remember accessing a few of my favorite Santa Cruz BBSes when I visited his place […]
After finally getting my corporate laptop back from the shop, I had to reinstall the software that I personally needed on there. This includes the software for my Verizon Wireless EVDO card. Unfortunately, it seems this process, which asks you a lot of annoying questions like “why do you need to download this software,” also […]
While my work laptop is in the shop, I got a chance to play with Parallels on my MacBook. I tried the new beta and enabled coherence. Man, seeing a “combined” Windows/Mac desktop is just something else. This little sliver of a picture gives you an idea.
If people want to understand why it is I don’t use Windows, or more specifically Internet Explorer, here’s a good simulation of the experience.
A comment on my posting about GMail for your Domains (GFYD) suggested I give Windows Live Custom Domains a shot and review it. The verdict? Don't bother, at least right now.
This service requires you have an MSN/Passport/whatever account. Fine, I can live with that. You tell it what domain you want to use, you change your MX records to point to their server–they only give you one MX, what's up with that?–and once the MX has changed, you can start creating accounts. I used one of my disused domains for this experiment: phoneboy.info.
I created an account and it told me that I had to log into www.hotmail.com in order to activate the account. Been there, done that. Each account that you create is limited to 25mb in the first 30 days, after which they will bump you to 250 megabytes "at their discretion." There does not appear to be a limit to the number of accounts you can create, though you get 40 "invites" that you can send to your accounts to try the Windows Live Mail beta, where you get 2 gigabytes of space.
Two nice features: Microsoft gives you instructions on setting up a SenderID record for your domain. They also provide the ability to allow random people to sign up for accounts on your domain. Kind of nice, I suppose. I guess a third feature is that these accounts become valid MSN/Passport/whatever accounts, so you can use them everywhere you normally use that kind of thing.
Meanwhile, the sign-up processes is totally broken on Firefox on the Mac. When you click on the link to read the license agreement, it doesn't bring up the page at all! In fact, when you click on the "Accept" button, only then does it show the license agreement and then you have no way to "continue." Bah. A similar thing happened when trying to validate my account on hotmail.
Also, there doesn't appear to be a way to either promote an account to be domain administrator (GFYD does this), or create "aliases" for your domain (i.e. admin@example.com can be directed to a particular person's email account). And there's the Hotmail interface itself. Bleck.
For the final touch, when I "invited my account" to the Microsoft Live Mail beta, the email I got that supposedly was to send instructions on how to sign up for it, it was blank. Completely and utterly blank. Bah.
This is kindergarten stuff, folks–stuff Microsoft needs to get right if people want to take them seriously. Lord knows they didn't get their security model right. After reading that article, I am even more glad I have made the switch to Mac OS as my primary OS. And while Google hasn't gotten it completely right with GFYD either, they're a lot closer to having it right than Microsoft does.
Edit (25 Aug 2006): Wow, I can't believe I forgot this, but Microsoft's offering does not offer the ability to create email "aliases" nor does it offer any sort of forwarding for your domain.
When I read stuff like this Slashdot article that talks about people switching from Mac OS to Ubuntu Linux, I am mildly amused. Maybe it’s because while I’ve certainly “switched” operating systems over the years, the fact of the matter is, no single OS meets 100% of my needs. I have a Mac Mini (Power PC variety), a Windows laptop, and a Linux laptop all sitting side by site sharing a common keyboard and mouse with Synergy. I use all three OSes simultaneously. Part of it is the increased screen real estate and inherent stability that comes from operating more than one computer at once. Part of it is because I have needs in all three OSes.
I use Windows for various tasks at my day job that cannot currently be done in any other OS. I do most of my web page reading in Linux for stability reasons, and IM/Skype/VoIP/web-based media (like videos) on the Mac. Could I do all of these on one OS? Sure I could, but the experience would be suboptimal or simply not possible.
I suppose most people don’t have tons of computers sitting around at their house like I do. I will admit to being unusual in how I compute and do many other things. Perhaps a new MacBook will change how I compute as well since I will be able to do “all of the above” on one device. It might reduce three computers to two–I still need my work laptop, after all.
Or maybe not. Having three computers up and running and accessible on the same desk reduces the likelihood that I will be “down.” if one computer crashes, I don’t generally lose the other two. The load that runs on each system is lower than if I were to run everything on one system. I also clear separation of functions. I also have three times the amount of software to choose from.
For people who say Apple’s hardware quality has gone downhill, pretty much everyone’s hardware has gone downhill to some degree or another if you ask me.
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As promised, the folks from Soonr have released Soonr for Mac OS 10.4. It is now available on their site for download. And while the basic functionality–integration with Skype–works as I expect on the Mac, the desktop integration piece is not 100% “there” yet.
In addition to allowing you to chat with your Skype buddies as well as “call” them from your mobile phone (basically, the Soonr desktop agent sets up a conference call between your mobile phone and the Skype friend–or lets you make another SkypeOut call), Soonr also allows you to access files in certain folders in your system. You can choose which ones are made available to you. You can also utilize Mac OS X’s “Spotlight” feature to find files outside of your shared folders. You can protect access to these files with a password.
The cool thing is that this “remote access” can happen not only over a web-enabled mobile phone, but basically “any” web browser. So now in addition to running Skype on your corporate laptop, you have access to your documents from anywhere. Kind of cool, but when I put my security googles on, this has “Danger Will Robinson” written all over it.
A few flaws I’ve noticed initially: If a contact is surrounded in <>’s (one of my contacts is for some reason), then Soonr won’t correctly display the contact name. It basically prints it “as is.” Come to think of it, that creates, among other things, a potential cross-site security risk. It should be straightforward to “translate” characters that might get translated as HTML into something harmless.
One thing about the remote file access: the agent isn’t very good at scanning the shared folder for updates. So, for example, if I go into my documents folder and create a new file, I can’t immediately go to Soonr on my mobile phone to see if the file is available. Not sure how often it updates, but clearly that is an issue. I also cannot seem to make an SMB mounted filesystem available via Soonr as well. Sure, it allowed me to “select” the mounted filesystem as a shared folder, but I can’t access it via Soonr. These issues are probably related.
Anyway, just having the ability to access my Mac-based Skype from my Nokia E70 is damn cool.
Soonr is another application that enables the ability to use Skype from your mobile phone. Both require Skype and a special agent application to run. Unlike EQO, which requires a specific application on your mobile phone as well, Soonr uses the web browser built into most phones. This is good in the sense that it’s very easy to support a wide range of phones. There is less variation between web browsers on phones than there is in J2ME implementations on phones
Soonr appears to have a lot of the same functionality as EQO. However, there are some downsides to Soonr’s approach:
1. Chat isn’t instantaneous, at least receiving them. This is because you must manually “refresh” the page to see chat updates from the other person.
2. More data is used with Soonr’s approach, which is a concern for people who aren’t on unlimited data plans on their mobile phones.
Soonr also has some other interesting features, which includes the ability to look at other information on your computer desktop such as your Outlook inbox/calendar as well as access other files on your desktop. These features aren’t working on my system, but it is an interesting idea. I do have other methods for accessing this data, so this isn’t a critical feature for me.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see what approach ultimately wins.
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