Mike Southby

The need to be able to conduct business whilst on the move is becoming more and more integrated into the way we go about our daily work; gone are the days when you can ignore email between point A and point B simply because you do not have access to your inbox.  For me working in the IT sector this is ever more important, I need to be able to stop the car almost anywhere and be able to remotely connect to a clients network when they need help – having to wait until I ‘get in front of my machine‘ simply is no longer an option if you want to succeed in today’s marketplace.

As you will know if you are a regular visitor to my blog, I am a huge fan of the majority of Microsoft’s products.  Perhaps it stems from the fact I chose the Microsoft career path and studied towards my MCSE and MCSA; perhaps it’s because 80% of the clients I deal with and the computers I maintain utilise Windows as their primary OS.  Either way, Microsoft – and Windows more specifically – are an integral part of my daily life.  Back on topic and moving back to my original point, the need to remain connected whilst out of the office is easily overcome when using a Windows OS, there are plenty of mobile data cards and USB data sticks now on the market, most if not all the big telecommunications providers supply them at competitive rates.  All of these products come supplied with connection software to get you connected – Windows connection software.

Now I am not saying some of them do not come with alternative software for Linux or Mac for example, if I did I’m sure I would be proved wrong but certainly the ones I have experience with (Vodafone, o2 and BT) do not.  So that leaves a problem for people who are wanting to make the switch to Linux, including the ever popular Ubuntu distribution – it may work well in the office or at home but if it doesn’t allow use whilst mobile too, why not simply use Windows?  Hardware support in Ubuntu has come on a very long way in the last few years, I remember only a year ago when I last gave Ubuntu a proper test that I was stuck when it came to using my data card.  With the Linux knowledge I had at the time, I simply could not get it to work; I’m pleased to see that Ubuntu and Linux generally have come on a long way since and now work almost as well as Windows, if not equally.

I run my ThinkPad in a dual-boot configuration, using mainly Windows 7 but also using Ubuntu as often as I can.  Today I thought I would have another go at configuring my mobile data card, sure enough I have been surprised by the ease at which the latest evolution of Ubuntu – v9.10 – handles hardware which a year ago, would have caused major headaches.

Note: For the purpose of this guide, I am using a BT mobile data stick, a rebranded Huawei E180 HSPDA USB data stick on a BT Tariff.  The contract is a 12 month plan as supplied with either BT Total Broadband or BT Business Broadband as an optional extra.

Prerequisites: I am assuming that you already have Ubuntu 9.10 installed and running and that your data card has previously been activated either by using it with the BT Connection Manager software in a Windows environment, or by activating the SIM in a Vodafone handset (BT curiously use the Vodafone network); also that the security PIN lock on the device has been disabled.

Configuring the data card for use is actually a relatively simple and pain free process:

• Plug the data stick into a spare USB slot on your machine, after a few seconds the device will be mounted automatically and on your screen you’ll see 2 icons appear for the BT software embedded into the data stick (shown as a mounted CD) and the USB storage facility of the data stick [screenshot]
• Right click on the network notification in the system tray and choose Edit Connections
• Click the Mobile Broadband tab and the Add a new connection
• You’ll be asked to choose a connection, you should only have one option HUAWEI Technology HUAWEI Mobile then click Forward
• Next choose Britain (UK) followed again by Forward [screenshot]
• On the next screen – strangely – you need to choose Vodafone as the provider and not BT Mobile, BT Mobile now use Vodafone to provide their connectivity so we choose this as a base configuration.  Click Forward
• You now need to confirm the type of contract you have followed by Forward
• Next you’ll be asked to confirm your settings [screenshot], click Apply
• Click Edit to edit your setting for the new connection you have just made and make the following changes under the Mobile Broadband tab [screenshot]:
  Number:  *99#
Username:  bt
Password:  bt
APN:  btmobile2.bt.com
Network:  (blank)
PIN:  (blank)
PUK:  (blank)
• Move onto the PPP Settings tab and click Configure Methods.  Uncheck all of the options apart from CHAP [screenshot].  Click OK
• Make sure that Allow BSD, Allow Defalte Data, User TCP Header Compression are all checked, next click on IPv4 Settings
• Ensure the drop down list is set to Automatic (PPP) [screenshot]
• Finally, change the connection name to something more suitable, I have used BT HSDPA [screenshot] but choose whatever you wish here, click Apply to confirm the settings

You have now configured you data card!

To connect simply click on the connection icon and then choose the new connection – you should now see the pop up to tell you that you are connected [screenshot].

I have not noticed any difference in connection speeds when using my data card with either Ubuntu or Windows 7; in both environments the connection seems very stable and I’m pleased with the overall connectivity.

Note:  Whilst the default settings are working absolutely fine for me, I have had previous issues with BT generally in so much as there DNS servers can often take a long time to resolve addresses; this applies both to their mobile data and Broadband services.  The actual data connection themselves are however always reliable and pretty quick.  If you find this a problem change the default DNS servers to an alternate provider, I recommend the servers provided by OpenDNS; 208.67.220.220 and 208.67.222.222 respectively.  Of course this also applies to any ISP if you find resolution is taking longer than you expected, including home broadband connections.

I hope you find this useful.  Enjoy.

Linux is growing in popularity more and more with every year that passes, in recent years this has been made ever more public with the Ubuntu distributions which are now real Windows alternatives for the average end user.  Just as with Mac sofware, Ubuntu comes ‘out of the box’ with everything you could possibly need to go about your day to day business; best of all everything is essentially free thanks to its open source underpinnings.

However there are drawbacks.

Ubuntu comes bundled with OpenOffice, a Microsoft Office alternative from Sun.  It works really well; giving you all the features you have come to expect from using Office on Windows, but – and here’s the real killer – even though it has the same functionability, it looks different, acts different and has different native file formats. This alone is enough for a lot of people not to give Ubuntu or other Linux distributions a try, afterall, why would you want to switch to another OS when you have Windows installed already, do all of your work in Office and are familiar with both.  Microsoft Office not being compatible with Ubuntu is a real problem.

As more and more Linux distributions have been developed and their popularity has increased, so has the need for a stable solution to using Office in a Linux environment, it’s been very ‘messy’ but a lot of people have had varying success using Wine.  Wine let’s you run Windows software in a Linux environment which when it works, works great.  However, Office had always been one of those annoyances that doesn’t seem to work under Wine as it should.  Fortunately though, Wine has been improved over the years and now their is a solution.

For the purposes of this guide, I am using the latest version of Ubuntu, Wine and Microsoft Office; Ubuntu 9.10, Wine 1.1.32 beta and Microsoft Office 2007.

So, to get Office working on Ubuntu, read on.

Firstly, we need to make sure that all previous versions of Wine are uninstalled.  Previous versions of Wine suffered from a regression issue and will not work with Office 2007 so:

• Click on System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager
• In Synaptic Package Manager, type Wine in the search field and highlight any existing instances of Wine which are installed on your system, making sure to choose Mark for Complete Removal and then Apply
• We now need to remove the exiting .wine folder by navigating to Places > Home Folder.  You’ll need to press CTRL+H to unhide the .wine folder so that you can delete it

Next, we need to install the latest version of Wine, but before doing so it won’t hurt to give your machine a restart.  Once you’ve done this, do the following:

• Download the latest version of Wine from http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/archive/index.html, I used v1.1.32 beta.  When the popup box appears, choose to Open with Gdebi package Installer.  Once the package begins installing, you will get a warning dialogue.  Acknowledge this and continue through the install process

We can now install Microsoft Office 2007, so pop the installation disc into the drive and wait for the system to mount it:

• Navigate to the installer by going to Places > Office12 and right click setup.exe chosing Open with Wine Windows Program Loader
• Now follow the installation process as if it were a Windows installtion [screenshot], but choosing a custom installation and choosing the program options you’ll need [screenshot].  Note:  Unfortunately, not all of the office applications seem to work correctly under Ubuntu (or Linux generally) so I’d recommend just installing Word, Excel and PowerPoint.  Access and Outlook have known issues.

Once Office has finished installing [screenshot], we need to install winetricks which is a useful tool to use some common workarounds to some of the deficiencies in Wine:

• Open your Terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and type:
  sudo wget www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks [screenshot]
• Next, install cabextract in order to be able to extract the contents of Microsoft cabinet files.  To do this, type the following:
  sudo apt–get install cabextract [screenshot]
• Next we need to install MS core fonts, Visual C++, MS scripting and Jscript, type the following:
  sh winetricks corefonts tahoma vcrun2005spl wsh56js

The next stage is to confgure Wine itself:

• As we already have a Terminal window open, type:
  winecfg [screenshot]
• On the Libraries tab, add 2 new variables:
  riched20
usp10
• Once you have done this [screenshot], highlight or click riched20 and click Edit, change to Native Windows then Apply and OK

Finally, we can now test Office, navigate to Word; Applications > Wine > Programs > Microsoft Office and click the launcher for Word.  You may need to restart your machine in order for the Microsoft Office program group to appear in the menu.  When Word launches, you’ll need to activate as normal and, importantly, choose not to use Microsoft updates [screenshot] (see note below).

Notes: There are some limitations, the most noteworthy of which is that this may not work correctly if you install using media with an SP already applied, Office under Wine will not work with any of the Microsoft Service Packs and/or Microsoft Update.

The ‘proof is in the pudding’ as they say, heres some screenshots [Word Excel PowerPoint].  Enjoy!

If you find this guide useful, please leave a comment.

There have been a lot of reports recently by numerous people around the internet, that there seems to be ongoing problems with people syncing their iPhone to iTunes in a Windows 7 environment.  The official Apple forums [Link] have got a number of threads related to the issue so it does appear that this is definitely a problem and this is not just a bunch of die hard Apple fans trying to add a negative taste to what has been otherwise, a successful launch for Microsoft’s latest operating system.

Now, looking at the problems people are facing, there does seem to be some common similarities; most people who are reporting the problem are using a motherboard with an Intel P55 chipset and the problem seems to be affecting more people using Windows 7 x64.  Both of these are not conclusive though, as it is also affecting people using other chipsets and Windows 7 x86, although certainly, less so.

The official advice – as always – seems to be a workaround, suggesting that you should use a USB hub or PCI USB card for connecting your iPhone, and disabling Power Management for each of the USB root hubs on your machine, but none of these seem to work universally for everyone which to me would suggest that neither Apple or Microsoft still really understand what the problem is and that there isn’t an imminent fix.

Fortunately, I don’t have an iPhone so am not affected by this, how about you?  Have you had problems with iPhone/iTunes syncing with Windows 7?  If so, have you been able to fix it or come up with a workaround?  Share your thoughts!

There seems to be a lot of confusion over the new naming convention for Windows 7.  Microsoft in all their wisdom seem to change direction each time a new version of Windows is released and each time, the name doesn’t seem to follow the previous.  So, I thought I’d explain the logic behind why the latest version is called Windows 7.

Microsoft has decided to start calling this and future releases of their Windows operating system based on their version numbers.  Versions previously known by other numbers (95 and 98) or name (Me, XP and Vista) used internal version numbers.  XP was version 5.1 and Vista was version 6.0 for example.

So the story in the evolution of Windows so far is:

Windows 1 was released in November 1985, 2.0 in October 1987, and 2.1 (which was also known as Windows /286 and Windows /386) in May 1998.

Windows 3, which first introduced 32-bit capabilities came to market in May 1990, and came into its own with versions 3.1 in April 1992.

Microsoft then split off a ‘new technology’ version of Windows to compete with UNIX.  It was influenced by Microsoft’s then partnership with IBM who created OS/2.  The development of this new version began as OS/2 version 3.  It shipped as Windows NT 3.1 in July 1993 and was a fully 32-bit operating system.  It was also the first version of Windows that did not run as a shell on top of DOS.  Windows NT 3.5 shipped in 1994, and 4.0 in 1996.

Windows 4 came out as Windows 95 in August 1995 and was the first consumer version with 32-bit support and pre-emptive multitasking.  Windows 98 arrived in July 1998, and a second edition (Windows 98 SE) replaced it in 1999.  Windows Me shipped in September 2000 and was the final consumer version of Windows 4; it was also a complete flop.

Windows 5 arrived as Windows 2000 in February 2000 and was a replacement for NT 4.0.  The consumer version, known as Windows XP (or Windows 5.1), was released to manufacturers in August 2001 although not available on the retail market until October.  The latest version is SP3.  Windows Server 2003 (Windows 5.2) replaced Windows 2000 in April 2003, and its latest version is SP2.  Microsoft released separate 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Sever 2003 in April 2005.

Windows 6 was named Windows Vista, released to manufacturers in November 2006 and reached the retail market in January 2007.  Vista is also available in 64-bit editions.  Windows Server 2008 is also another version of Windows 6.

So there we have it the story so far and today, we see the official launch of the 7^th incarnation of the Windows family – Windows 7.

Makes perfect sense really doesn’t it?