Microsoft

Two Lumias One PIMP

The day my Nokia Lumia 710 had been waiting for is today. This morning, as per my daily routine since the end of January, I checked for updates for the Lumia 710 and this time was greeted with the black Zune update screen.
Finally!
I went through the update process. I actually went through the update process five times. My Three UK Nokia Lumia 710 initially updated to OS version 7.10.8779.8 and then to 7.10.8783.12. These were both updates to Windows Phone 7.5 Tango which had never been pushed to the device. After the first two updates Zune prompted me to update again to 7.10.8858.136 (Windows Phone 7.8) and then to 7.10.8860.142 and 7.10.8862.144 ("bug fix" and "quality improvement" updates).
My Nokia Lumia 710 running Windows Phone 7.8
So now my Nokia Lumia 710 had updated to Windows Phone 7.8 I was happy. But not as happy as I would have been if the update had arrived sooner. Why was I not elated I now had the update that brings Windows Phone 8-like tiles and live tiles and a suite of improvements? Well, I have to confess, yesterday I went and purchased another Lumia, one running the full Windows Phone 8 operating system and with model numbering 620. 

Yes I now have two Nokia Lumias. They are similar on the surface but very different devices in under their plastic shells.
Move over, "colleague".
Nokia's marketing department made a bit of a faux pas when naming their line of Windows Phone devices and choosing the name Lumia. In Finnish it is noun, a partitive plural form of lumi which means snow. In Latin lumia is the word for the citrus fruit called lime in English. In Spanish on the other hand it is a synonym for prostitute/whore/hooker. I played on this Spanish meaning of Lumia when I "broke up" with my Nokia Lumia 710 in February. So excuse me while I go ahead and do so again in the next paragraph.

I'm now in the situation where there are "Two Lumias One PIMP". PIMP is an acronym for "Person Into Manhandling Phones". Yes, it is going to get messy.

Once you have got over the cringe-worthy joke, if you haven't already clicked away, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Hotmail is dead! Long "Live" Outlook

So, last week Microsoft launched Outlook.com, a refresh/relaunch of their webmail service. Outlook.com replaces existing Hotmail and Live user interface, beefs up the service and even gives users the opportunity to change their email domain from Hotmail.com to Outlook.com.
I've been using Outlook.com both through a new email address and with my existing Live account, so here are my impressions almost a week in.

The user interface, once you have either signed up or agreed to have your existing Hotmail/Live use the new UI, is clean. At launch, everyone was referring to the UI as the Metro one.

Metro UI is the design language/style used by Microsoft for their smartphones (running Windows Phone), the Xbox dashboard and on Windows 8. Later in the week, news broke of the fact that Microsoft staff and partners have been explicitly told not to use the term Metro UI, due to threat of legal action from Metro AG, a German retail group. Until Microsoft come up with a replacement name for their UI, I'll call it Metro UI.
My Winodows 8 Start screen. I call it Metro UI.
The clean UI on Outlook.com is a definitely better. The larger, more readable fonts and cleaner screen seem to be snappier than the now clunky Hotmail webmail. Media, such as images and video, can be set to open automatically within the email itself and images can also be viewed as a slideshow too.
An email with an image as an attachment.
A gallery view of the image attachments.
From the Outlook.com webmail page you can also chat with your MSN/Windows Live chat buddies, integrate your Facebook chat and soon you will be able to make and receive Skype voice and video calls. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Skype from Outlook.com compares to Google Talk from Gmail.
I have refrained from transferring my Live account over to the Outlook.com domain because of all the other services tied to my Live email address, mainly Xbox Live and my Windows Phone Nokia Lumia. Apparently switching your address to an Outlook.com one can break those services and accounts.

Outlook.com is obviously not finished yet. Clicking on the logo in the top left corner of the page, you get to switch from your webmail to other services such as People (contacts), Calendar and Skydrive. People is using the Metro UI design language, but Calendar and Skydrive are still using the old Hotmail/Live UI. I look forward to seeing how those services behave using the Metro UI.
Metro UI switcher to the other account services.
My Outlook.com email address synchronises perfectly with my Nokia Lumia 710, and it is as good an experience on the Windows Phone platform as Hotmail was. Essentially, nothing is new there. On Android, you can add an Outlook.com email account to the Hotmail application and get your email on the go there. My personal view on the Hotmail for Android app: it's pants, don't bother trying!

This Outlook.com webmail refresh is a good start for Microsoft, I like the shinily simple UI and service. Is it enough to win me over? Currently I'm locked into Google's services and webmail service, GMail, so it will be tough for Microsoft to do so. Check back in a few months time and see if I have changed...

These are the views of an Android fanboy, bear that in mind. As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

My Nokia Lumia 710 Update Woes [Updated]

I've had a Nokia Lumia 710 for a few months now. I like the Windows Phone running Nokia a lot, and even my Android fanboy feelings don't stop me from telling people that the device is excellent value for money, and an easy to use device for non smartphone geeks. Sadly Nokia have dangled the Windows Phone 7.5 Tango update at me for months now, and I'm still waiting for the update to be available for my Lumia 710.


All is well with the device, I have had no hardware problems with it at all. I purchased non-original spare batteries for the Lumia 710 at a very reasonable price, and with my Galaxy Nexus it is currently always with me. I actually use the Lumia 710 as my main mp3 player. Zune, the desktop sync software for Windows Phone, allows me to manage my podcast subscriptions easily and quickly, as long as I remember to boot into Windows.

A few months ago I was excited by Nokia's announcement that the Windows Phone 7.5 Tango update would be soon available for the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800. Since then there was a long period of silence on the matter and then at the beginning of July Nokia started the update the rollout. The update was available on certain carriers in the UK, and marked as "Waiting for approval" on other ones. H3G (Three UK) were one of the carriers "Waiting for approval" and when I checked back this morning it was marked as "Update Available".
On both Zune and the handset itself no update is available for my Lumia 710. I'm still waiting.

This makes me think that the one of the most important "features" of Windows Phone is a bit shaky. Android Fragmentation is often used as an argument against using Android. The lack of update support and the delay of updates caused by device manufacturers, network providers and regional settings may not actually be a problem solely existing on the Android platform. I have a friend with a Dell Venue Pro, a discontinued Windows Phone made by a company who has given up on the smartphone market for now. He already has the Windows Phone 7.5 Tango update, while my shiny and relatively new Lumia doesn't. I'm peeved to say the least. Windows Phone updates are supposed to be rolled out almost all at the same time to everyone with a Windows Phone, avoiding a fragmentation of the market.

Not only the Windows Phone 7.5 Tango update is a fragmentation issue. Windows Phone 8 has already been announced by Microsoft. Existing Windows Phone devices will not be able to support the new smartphone OS. Instead, Windows Phone 7.8 will be rolled out to existing devices with a few cosmetic changes and not much else. I wonder how long it will take my Nokia Lumia 710 to get the update to 7.8. Probably ages.

Please Nokia, if you want to survive as a business and win back customers, if you want to shine again rather than just be another Windows Phone OEM get the updates rolling out quickly and smoothly. Windows Phone Fragmentation is the last thing you need.

So my suggestion is that bloggers, tech journalists, and smartphone geeks start speaking of the teacup elephant in the corner: Windows Phone Fragmentation. Seriously, it is unlikely it will ever happen. At the moment and for the foreseeable future the Windows Phone market share is tiny and hiccups like these will only hamper its growth.

[Update] Less than a week after this blog post I got the Tango update. You can read my impressions here.

Right, I'm getting back to playing with my shiny new Nexus 7. As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below. I'll update this post as soon as I get the Windows Phone 7.5 Tango update on my Nokia Lumia 710.

Nokia Lumia 710 And Ubuntu: They Speak To Each Other!

I've had a Nokia Lumia 710 for a while now.  This week I discovered I can use my Lumia 710 and manage media and content on it through my Ubuntu Linux machines, and I'm a very happy chappy as a result.

The Nokia Lumia 710 is one of Nokia's first Windows Phone 7 devices, the product of the Finnish company's leap of faith from a "burning platform" onto a lilly pad in the middle of a stormy ocean. Windows Phone 7 is Microsoft's smartphone operating system which it pitches as a competitor to Google's Android OS and iOS (which is shipped on Apple devices).
From the beginning of my ownership of the Nokia Lumia 710 I encountered frustration with some of the basic management of Windows Phone 7. Adding and managing media could only be done (up to now) from a Windows or OS X machine running the Zune software. Zune performs similar functions to iTunes, just that it uses a simplistically shiny UI which fits in well on Windows 8, but looks out of place and unintuitive on Windows 7. I have been an avid Linux user for many moons now, and Microsoft Windows is an OS I only boot into rarely if there is some slightly more complicated in phone rooting/ROMming that requires running applications on Windows. Hence my frustration: I have to restart my computer into Windows (7 most of the time on my desktop, 8 on my laptop), wait for the slower startup (it's so much faster in Ubuntu or Lubuntu!), update the antivirus (not an issue on Ubuntu or Lubuntu!) and open up Zune.

Zune is "shiny". I like it. I like it in the same sort of way that I like Windows Phone 7's user interface, and in the same way in which I adore the WebOS user interface. It's all about the UI, its fluidity and how intuitive it is. That's probably why I like the Android 4.0.x UI too: Matias Duarte, formerly of Palm where he designed the WebOS UI, is now the Director of Android operating system User Experience at Google.
Shiny! Shinier with Rachel Stevens
At the beginning using the Zune software didn't work for me. Plugging the Nokia Lumia 710 into any USB port (either primary or secondary) was useless, it didn't show up in the device manager and Zune didn't know there was a Windows Phone 7 device connected to the computer. Only after I had reinstalled Windows 7 on my desktop did I manage to get the Lumia 710 and Zune to talk to each other. Finally I was able to synchronise music folders and podcasts with the device. This was a relief because I had been streaming podcasts over the interwebs through a browser, and this was severely affecting battery life. Once I had got used to the routine of synching the Lumia on a daily basis, things were fine.
When on holiday in Italy I was using my Nexus S as my main smartphone and the Lumia was relegated to being a wifi device when at home for Skype calls, mp3 player functions and playing a fantastic Xbox Live game called Flowers.

After having updated my Ubuntu and Lubuntu partitions on my laptop and desktop to the newest version of the distribution (12.04 Precise Pangolin), I stumbled across the fact that the Nokia Lumia 710 could be mounted as a media player. Once mounted, I could read and write the contents of the folders, manage photos, music and podcasts to the device. On Ubuntu, it even offered to manage the media player in Rythmbox, the media management application bundled with the pinky-orange Linux based OS.
Now that I don't have to boot into Windows so often I'm a happier Wobbles feeder. I can also reply to John C. Dvorak who was reiterating the fact that you HAVE to use Zune on TWiT last week: not any more! You can now live a Windows free life with your Windows Phone 7 smartphone. Until the next OS/firmware update that is... ;-)

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions. I also started a thread on the MoDaCo forums about this so feel free to join the chatter about this there too.

XBOX Live, I Don't Live There! Fail! [Rant]

I live in many contradictions. The biggest contadiction is probably being an open source software enthusisast and user while also being an Microsoft XBOX Live gamer and user. While I detest Microsoft Windows in its various incarnations on PCs, I love my XBOX 360 and gaming on it. As things stand at the moment, I'm luke warm in relation to Windows Phone 7 but more about that in another post.
I love my XBOX but...


Today I am writing this blog post because I'm annoyed at Microsoft for not letting me change my XBOX Live Gamertag (the account used to purchase content and play games online) from the original country setting (Italy - accidentally set in 2008) to my actual country setting (UK).
Until recently I hadn't been to bothered by the Italian XBOX Live account. My girlfriend was quite annoyed by this, because when movies/trailers/game demos were downloaded they were either dubbed into Italian or had Italian subtitles. Now I want to take advantage of XBOX Live and my XBOX to use all the newer cooler services available (in the UK) such as Last.fm, the on demand TV and video services. Because my XBOX Live gamertag is set as Italian, I can't access these services. Now I'm annoyed.

I have a XBOX Live gamertag with almost 8000 points on it, 100 unused MS Points in the account and would like to carry on using my Todoleo gamertag without losing it. I definitely don't want to be paying for two concurrent XBOX Live subscriptions, I already hate myself inside for paying for one.
There is no way I can change the country setting to my XBOX Live gamertag, I have tried in many ways. This morning I called the XBOX Live customer service number listed on the XBOX.com website and got through to a customer service representative who very politely told me I couldn't change Todoleo from an Italian account to a UK one, and that the best solution would be to create a UK account. I then asked to take things further to make a complaint about this and was told it was not possible. I was however asked for my email address and told I would be sent a link to a form for feedback on the matter. About an hour after the call I still have not received the link.
It is absurd that in this day and age I can't change the account settings from one country to another. Why is this? Why can't Microsoft recognise the fact that people move around, change the country they live in? All that is happening is that people who do move and are inconvenienced are getting angry and probably less loyal to the services and products. I definitely am!
Anger and hatred are flowing through me at the moment, I feel the dark side of the Force coursing through my veins... I'm going to go and play some Star Wars The Force Unleashed to get over this. Offline.
As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions. Let me know if I should ditch my XBOX and opt for a Sony PS3 instead (or is that just as bad?)

Bing For Android [Not Reviewed], Fail!

I was going to review Bing for Android, Microsoft's search engine's app for Android. I can't do the review and this post will explain why.
I would love to install the Bing app on one of my many devices...
I tried searching for the Bing application on my current main Android device (a ZTE Skate also known as the BAP) and it would not appear on the Android Market. Having had no luck finding it, I swapped phone and used my Samsung Galaxy Pro. No luck with that device either. Thinking all this was very strange, I then picked up my Archos 80 G9 Honeycomb tablet and searched for Bing in the Android Market. I was relieved to fing "Bing - Microsoft Corporation" but when in the Android Market description page was faced with this:
"This item is not available with your operator."
I was quite annoyed by this. I logged onto market.android.com on my laptop and found the Bing application. When trying to select a device to install the application to I was faced by a list of 11 devices the application is not compatible with.
"This app is incompatible with all of your devices." Bing Fail!
So that's how what was going to be my review of the Bing app for Android turned into another blog post about Microsoft failure. I hope this is covered in the Linux Outlaws' Microwatch segment next week because it is really worthy of it in my opinion.

Microsoft have seen some sense (HTC pun not intended) and decided to get their search engine onto the fastest growing and soon to be dominant smartphone/tablet platform (mostly open source too!). They are not doing too well if their app is not compatible on my 11 devices which range from low-end low-res screens to high-res tablets.

I look forward to Microsoft sorting this out and being able to review the Bing app for Android at some point in the future...

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Todoleo.com Exclusive Interview With Bill Gates [Updated]

Bill Gates is currently the non-executive part-time Chairman of Microsoft, the American software company he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked amongst the world's wealthiest people, and has also pursued a number of philanthropic endeavours, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
To celebrate the move of the Todoleo Tech Blog to http://www.todoleo.com/ Bill has agreed to an exclusive interview in which we'll touch on subjects related to the technology and consumer electronics industry.

On Windows
Microsoft Windows is globally the most used operating system on personal computers. Since 1985, in its first incarnation as an add-on for MS-DOS, Microsoft has come to dominate the world's PC market. Microsoft now has versions of Windows that run on PCs, servers and smartphones.

Naturally the first subject I touched on was Windows, which Bill is still really enthusiastic about.

"When Microsoft first started out with Windows the market was totally different, computers were not connected through the internet and software was distributed  in boxes on tapes or disks. I remember playing Leisure Suit Larry and thinking man, look what we've achieved and what I could do if I left the office one night."

"Making computers easier and safer to use through the years, and kickstarting the PC revolution was great. Now Windows is the best way to run iTunes and sync an iPod. You can even install Chrome and Google things. The internet has really changed things. On Chrome I can even go into incognito mode and buy my wife a gift. By the way, Windows 7 was my idea."

On XBOX


I'm personally an XBOX 360 owner and spend far too much time playing games on it. Microsoft has a great product and the media capabilities are useful in the living room, even for non gamers. So I asked Bill what this living room computer is to him.

"The XBOX is a wonderful educational tool. I would recommend it for the character formation of every individual on the planet. There is so much you can learn. If you are getting ready to move to a big city, just play GTA IV for a while and you'll gain all the social skills you'll need. One of the best ways to do your history homework is on the XBOX: play Red Dead Redeption, Assassin's Creed or Command & Conquer Red Alert and you'll know what history was all about."

"At Microsoft we still have a lot of work to do on the XBOX though. I've been buying some games like Gran Turismo and Little Big Planet and still can't get them to work."

"When my wife is not at home I can even use the XBOX as  a media centre and play back some specialist movies I downloaded using Chrome in incognito mode. Man, that is so awesome!"


On The UK
Bill Gates was Gates was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005. He is often in the UK, as he is today, so I asked him what his favourite thing is over here.

"To tell the truth, I really come here for the Tesco Finest Heather Honey & Stem Ginger Yogurt. It's really tasty and it has lots of bits of Honeycomb in it. Mmmm, honeycomb...!"

On Mobile
Bill's mention of Honeycomb brought us nicely onto the subject of mobile:

"The future of communication and computers is Mobile. I recently got this amazing phone called a Nexus One. It has a really good touchscreen, I can check my email, Google stuff and even download podcasts on the go. I really like the Outlaws Podcast where they have a segment about Microsoft called Microwatch. The German guy and the Liverpudlian are so informative and entertaining!"
"Anyway, I had better get going. I have to submit a bug in Launchpad on an OS project my friend in London called Mark is working on. It's something to do with DirectX not working properly."


Thanks to Bill for taking time to help launch Todoleo.com. You can carry on following the Todoleo Tech Blog at its new address: http://www.todoleo.com/


Update


Yes, this was an April's Fools thing. I see Bill's search engine, Bing took it well though.


Thanks for all the feedback on this!

Feel free to leave comments/questions!

Microsoft Kinect for XBOX 360 FTW!

Before I start, with this blog post, I should let you know about my views on Microsoft and their products: I disagree with their anticompetitive business practices, think that their market dominance is bad for the IT industry and the global economy as a whole. As most human beings I live in a bit of a contradiction: although a Linux user and a Microsoft Windows OS boycotter, I own and use a Microsoft XBOX 360 games console, pay for and use XBOX Live Gold membership and generally am a bit of an XBOX 360 fanboy. I am aware that this is going to attract hate comments on my blog, accusations of hypocrisy and moral inconsistency as well as just general spam.


The Kinect Sensor Peripheral For The XBOX 360

A week ago Microsoft launched its Kinect for XBOX 360 in the UK. Kinect is a webcam-style peripheral (accessory) for the Xbox 360 games console, it enables users to interact with the XBOX 360 without a physical controller using body gestures and spoken commands.

During the month of September I was at a Microsoft training event for the Kinect, and tried out the pre-release beta of the peripheral and some of the games that would be available for it at launch. It was great fun, and gave me a good idea of how it would work on the XBOX 360. At a conference in October, I got to mess around with it again, try out more games and lose any street-cred I had left on stage in front of other conference delegates. (currently my street-cred it is at an all time low, probably in a negative range...).

On the day before the launch, my colleagues and I set up an XBOX 360 with a Kinect sensor and hooked it up to a 40" LED backlit LCD TV. Since then it has attracted a lot of interest from people of many different age groups passing by in-store. Image conscious customers won't step in front of it to try it out, but sometimes walk to a checkout to purchase it anyway. Kids love it and often are parked at the display while their parents browse other departments or are doing the rest of their shopping.

Kinect is a direct competitor to the Nintendo Wii and Sony's Playstation Move. In my opinion it is a superior system, and much better value for money than its competitors. Here's a summary of why:
  • Kinect is a one off purchase as far as peripherals go. There is no need to purchase extra conrollers or controller add-ons (as is the case with the Wii and Playstation Move) both for single and multi-player use.
  • Kinect is better value for money when bundled with a console and is on a platform that can provide HD entertainment (unlike the Nintendo Wii)
  • Kinect uses full body control which means you can use your whole body to control the games and/or interfaces (unlike the Nintendo Wii or Playstation Move which only track one point in space on the conroller). Think of it like multi-touch on a touchscreen but with depth added to it.
  • Voice control with Kinect is very, very good. In-store we have a pretty loud and noisy environment, yet it still works most of the time. Apparently voice recognition is coming to Kinect in a future update as well.
  • Open Source drivers have been already developed and released less than a week from the UK launch. If you want to, you can plug a Kinect Sensor into your PC and use it as a 3D video capture tool (it works out cheaper than buying a 3D webcam...)

The games available at launch with the device are pretty varied and aimed at the "casual gamer" market created and dominated up until now by Nintendo with the Wii console. Dance Central by Harmonix (developers of Guitar Hero and Rock Band) is a Guitar Hero like game where your guided dance moves earn you points. While with Guitar Hero and Rock Band all you do is tap buttons in certain sequences, with Dance Central and Kinect you have to actually replicate dance moves. This is probably my favourite game for Kinect so far and lead cause of my negative street-cred.

Kinect has pushed me further into XBOX 360 Fanboy territory, and deeper into a hole in moral no man's land when it comes to my views on tech and IT. Kinect for XBOX 360 is now on my tech and gadget shopping list.