Mike Southby

As some of you may know if you are following my Twitter updates, last week I broke my G1.

Now I had been thinking for a while that it was getting a little left behind in terms of technology with all the newer handsets on the market, so the obvious choice was to replace it with something newer and stereotypically of me, something totally different (what is it they say about a change?).

So that left me with a few choices, either another Android device (I’d already thought previously about a Nexus One), an iPhone, the Palm Pre or, a Windows Mobile device.  Logically knowing my love of all things Android it would have made sense to go with the Nexus One, but somehow I found myself being drawn to the sheer lushness of the HTC Leo, or as we know it in the UK market the HD2.  In terms of design, I think it’s a fantastic phone, technology wise too it ticks all the boxes with the latest Snapdragon 1Ghz processor and that huge 4.3 inch screen but, and there’s a catch, it runs on the Windows Mobile platform.  After being a very happy Android user, my head told me not to go for another Windows Mobile device after having many previously, and yet it didn’t take too long until I saw the words ‘thank you, your order has been successfully completed and should arrive shortly’ appear on my screen.

Now I’d like to take this opportunity to say I am well aware that the basic Windows Mobile platform is not a patch on the Android, however HTC have ported their very successful ‘Sense’ interface for the very first time onto a Windows Mobile device with the HD2.  In doing so they have effectively removed (visibly) the Windows Mobile interface for all but the most backend of tasks giving the platform a much needed new lease of life.  There will be those who at this stage will be cringing and telling me what a mistake I have made but there can be no arguing that of all the mobile platforms, Windows Mobile ‘just works’ when it comes to seamless office integration, by that I mean push email with Exchange and the ability to view, edit or create documents on the go; put simply, Windows Mobile is in my opinion, the best business solution for mobile users, it always has been.  Sure, Android can do all these things too, but unless you want to port all of your business needs to Google Apps (which is not as stable or reliable as they will have you believe, I know this through my own experiences), it’s a little ‘clunky’ getting things to work seamlessly as you need 3^rd party applications and workarounds.

Having said that it’s not all great, I haven’t used Windows Mobile for a few years but in terms of application support it’s not a patch on Android, or the iPhone for that matter.  Social integration and the ability to download useless applications for fun is where the money is at these days.  How I’ll miss the ability to make rude noises or hold my phone to my mouth as if it were a glass and watch the ‘beer’ level go down.  OK, perhaps not.  Still, I will have the ability to run the social networking applications I have been used to using such as Twitter, Facebook and FourSquare so all is not lost.  Also worth remembering is that what the Windows Marketplace (which let’s be honest is a joke compared with the Android Marketplace or the iPhone Apps Store) lacks in terms of applications, is somewhat made up for by the work of developers over at the XDA Developers Forum.

For my needs though, I think – indeed I hope – Windows Mobile 6.5 with Sense on the HD2 will be just fine.  I guess only time will tell; watch this space for updates over the coming weeks.

The install or upgrade of Microsoft Internet Explorer will give you the option to change your default search engine just as in previous versions of IE; of course for many this is going to involve a change from Bing to Google.  Now it may only be a minor point but after this initial choice their doesn’t seem to be an easy way of changing to a regional variant of Google using the Search Add-In menu, being that I live in the UK it seems a reasonable assumption that I am going to choose to change my default searching habits to UK searching – or at least have that choice.  Easy to do you’d have thought, alas not in IE!

After giving it some thought, the answer is actually quite easy, instead of using the menus within IE simply visit the webpage that was first seen at the beginning (of course most people will have gone straight past this screen and no longer have access to it), the webpage is:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-en/default.mspx?dcsref=http://runonce.msn.com/runonce2.aspx

Here you will have the option to create your own search provider which is a lot easier than it sounds.  All you need to do is the following (using Google UK as a guide):

• Open a new tab in the browser (IE, of course), ensuring you leave the existing page open as you will need to come back shortly
• Visit the search engine that you want to be your default, in this case http://www.google.co.uk
• Perform a search for ‘TEST’ ensuring that you use all capital letters and that you check the UK option to return search results based on UK sites
• Copy and paste the URL of the page containing the search results into the box back on the ‘Add Search providers To Internet Explorer’ page
• Choose a name for this search provider, in this case Google UK
• Hit install

That’s it, simple.  Next time you use the search field in IE you’ll be presented with relevant sites.

After the requirement of the European Commission for Microsoft to offer a choice of browsers to its users (See Article), I noticed that Windows Update has today downloaded a small update which finally gives me the choice (not that I or anyone else of course could not have already manually changed browsers beforehand) as to which browser I prefer to use with Windows 7.

The update in question is KB976002 – Microsoft Browser Choice Screen Update for EEA Users of Windows 7.

Once downloaded and applied, the update adds an icon to your desktop (appropriately named Browser Choice) which when clicked, opens up Internet Explorer and continues to offer you a selection of alternative browsers for you to take a look at or download (the download links and appropriate links to the relevant vendor sites for information are included for convenience).  The current options are:

• Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Safari
• Opera
• Sleipnir
• Avant
• K-Meleon
• GreenBrowser
• FlashPeak
• Flock
• Maxthon

By clicking the Browser Choice icon and running through the options, you’ll notice that Internet Explorer is automatically unpinned from the taskbar but that it is not uninstalled (of course Internet Explorer forms an integral part of the OS and can never be fully uninstalled), although it is possible to further remove all reference to it by un-checking the Internet Explorer option by going to Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows features on or off.

I think the inclusion of this choice is a step in the right direction but I would have liked to have seen it taken a step further.  It would have been great to have seen an option to not only choose additional browsers, but the ability to define your default browser and remove reference to Internet Explorer (if that’s what you choose to do of course) all in one place.

Personally I still use Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.6 and Google Chrome 4 so this update has not changed anything for me but I am sure that it will have an impact on the browser trends within Europe over the coming years as more and more people come to realise that they have a choice; perhaps then Microsoft will start developing further releases of Internet Explorer to the same set of standards as other vendors in the hope that its popularity increases once again.

Discuss.

I have been more than happy with the ability to synchronise my calendars between my Outlook and Google using Google’s own sync tool until recently when I began using Outlook 2010.  You see the problem is that Google have yet to release an update to their tool to allow the tool to work with Outlook 2010, a surprise considering how long Outlook 2010 has been available and the positive feedback it has been receiving.  Remember that positive feedback equates to more and more people using the latest version.

The problem appears to be not that Google’s sync tool will not work with Outlook 2010 but that it performs a version check on execution and will not get past the fact that it ‘thinks’ it will not work, so it simply gives an error and halts.

There is of course a way round this.

Caveat:  I take no responsibility if you manage to break your Outlook installation, remember to take a backup first and if you are unsure or have no experience of Hex editors, perhaps think twice before following these steps.  If you do a search on Google there are already Outlook.exe files available for download that have had the change made, although – importantly – be very careful downloading and running .exe files unless you are sure they come from a trusted source!

You’ll need to use a Hex editor, there are a few available in you do a search; I used Notepad++ with the ‘Hex-Editor’ plugin.  Firstly locate and make a backup (very important in case something unexpected happens!) of the Outlook.exe file which is located at c:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice14 and at assembly location 0x000c09b2 change the value to 0×32 in the ascii dump (it will have originally been 14.0.0 but now should read 12.0.0).  This in theory should only change the version number that the Outlook Add-In Manager reports to add-ins.

It works fine for me, I’m now happily synchronising between Outlook 2010 and Google once again.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: I have been getting a lot of emails asking if I can upload an OUTLOOK.EXE file with the Hex changes in place, so, if you simply want to download a patched file without making the changes yourself heres the link.  It goes without saying that you download this file at your own risk. To prevent antivirus programs blocking the file I have placed it inside a ZIP archive so you will simply need to unpackage it and place it into your c:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice14 folder but please remember as always to backup the original file first.  If you find this useful, please leave a comment.  Thanks.

As promised, an update on where I am at with trying to get a working installation of Microsoft Office 2010 on Ubuntu.

After numerous hours spent trying various options and configurations of WINE I’m still unable to get it working.  Sure, I can get it to install but it won’t run so I can’t really call it a success.  I’ll have some time over the Christmas break so will keep trying and hopefully will have a stable solution soon; these things have a habit of ‘falling into place’ and the answer is usually staring me in the face!

My original post showing how to install Office 2007 can be found here – http://www.mikesouthby.co.uk/2009/11/ubuntu-9-10-installing-microsoft-office-2007