On March 26, Daniel Carrera announced that the OpenDocument Fellowship now offers an ODF validation service, similar to the W3C validation service for HTML. You can use this service to verify a document’s compliance with the OpenDocument Format.

Keeping up with the rapid increase in governments embracing open standards and specifically OpenDocument is assisted greatly by the OpenDocument Fellowship’s annotated set of links relevant to decisions by government bodies around the world to adopt office software supporting the OpenDocument XML standard.

The Fellowship’s news page is a good source of the latest information and links to relevant news items and commentary. Here are a few of the many items listed on that page.

Foxit PDF Reader for Windows & U3
Foxit 2.0 is a freeware Windows application that is, according to its website, a free PDF document viewer and printer, with incredible small size (only 1.5 M download size), breezing-fast launch speed and amazingly rich feature set. There is a for-fee Pro version that provides more features. And, there is a Foxit Reader 2.0 for U3 USB smart drives that is also a free download.

YALE: IDE for Machine Learning and Data Mining
YALE (Yet Another Learning Environment) is a multi-platform Open Source application that provides a graphical interface for machine learning and data mining. Its feature description page should give you a better idea of what it is capable of.

TrueCrypt 4.3 Released
TrueCrypt 4.3 for Windows & Linux was released this week. Sorry, no Mac OS X version yet folks. According to the release notes, the major changes seem to be related to Windows Vista compatibility. It is now fully compatible with both the 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista.

Since only the Windows Vista Enterprise and Ultimate Editions support the new Bitlocker feature, you definitely want to learn more about TrueCrypt for encrypting data if you use Windows Vista.

Ruby 1.8.6
The latest version of the great Ruby scripting language was released on March 12…

Ruby 1.8.6

Ruby is probably best known for being the language used to develop Ruby on Rails. However, the Ruby language itself shouldn’t be ignored even if you are already comfortable and productive with other dynamic languages such as Perl or Python.

DVD Flick 1.2.1.2
DVD Flick 1.2.1.2 (last updated on Feb. 10, 2007) can work with different kinds of video formats to create a video DVD that can be played on a standalone DVD players. Sounds like just the thing to use to collect the various bits and pieces of videos created using a video-able still digital photo camera and assembling them to send off to family members.

Jeffrey Snover, Microsoft’s PowerShell Architect posted a slidedeck and PowerShell cmdlet samples on the PowerShell team’s MSDN blog today…

MMS2007: Managing Systems Using PowerShell

If Snover has something to say about PowerShell, I definitely want to read it. So, I downloaded it to the old notebook (running Win XP Pro) I happened to be using at the time. But, um, the slidedeck in the ZIP file turned out to be a PPTX (PowerPoint 2007) file and this notebook didn’t have that version of Office on it. Fortunately, Microsoft provides a free…

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats

…that works with versions of Office as old as Office 2000. The file is 27.735MB large and downloaded and installed relatively quickly (no reboot needed).

What did the PC future look like back in 1989? Take a trip in the Wayback Machine in this speech from Bill Gates. Gates and his execs should listen to it as well, because there’s an unintended warning in it for the future of MIcrosoft.

Google Mobile Changes?
Google Mobile seems to have changed quite a bit since I mentioned it last October. If you browse google.com, it automatically redirects to a mobile device friendly page google.com/m. Unlike the full-sized personalized page, the mobile friendly version can only have up to six page modules added (weather, movies, news sources, etc.). There aren’t any links to other mobile friendly Google properties, but other Google sites redirect to mobile friendly pages too. gmail.com and news.google.com look fine on my Windows Mobile Pocket PC. One nice touch is that GMail can be used over an SSL encrypted session on a Pocket PC or Smartphone by using https://gmail.com instead of http://gmail.com.

Philips HN060 Noise Canceling Headphones

I bought the Philips HN060/37 Noise-Canceling Earbuds for a recent trip. For a relatively low price (US$50+) headphone, it did a pretty good job of delivering sound while reducing the background noise while on a plane. It comes with three sets of buds in different sizes. None really fit my ears well. But, they fit well enough for use. I wouldn’t be able to run or exercise with any of the buds though. They tend to fall out (unlike the Sony earbuds I usually use in non-noisy settings). The neckstrap is handy when stuck in a plane for a long time. But, the cords to the buds tend to get tangled up a lot when taking the headphones out of its pouch or putting them away. The 124 ratings of it on Amazon gives it 3 out of 5 stars. I tend to a agree. It is a relatively decent earbud headphone. It would get a lot better rating for me if the earbud fit well in my ears and if the strap didn’t get so tangled up so often.

Pre-Windows Mobile Office Files vs. Windows Vista WMDC
Reader Patrick (PHH) says:
WMDC imports all my Word and Excel files (I have over 1200 on my pda) in ppc format (pws and pxl). I thought it was the fault of Office XP vs Vista (I could read those files fine on Office XP installed on an XP pc)and that when I bought Office 2007 I’d be able to read the ppc files on my PC. No such luck.

It will import rtf files directly, so I’ve translated literally hundreds of doc files into rtf format; however I don’t see any workaround for the spreadsheet files. I even tried openoffice on my Vista machine. It won’t read those files either.

I’m running ppc 2003 on an iPAQ 2755. Have been using them FINE for over a year on XP and using various versions of ActiveSync.

I’m close to paying the computer shop that built my machine for me to revert to XP from on my brand new machine unless I can get some answers.

Is there any way to get Microsoft to talk about these problems for brand new software?

Patrick: Welcome to the wonderful world of poor initial design decisions! The original Windows CE Handheld PC designers decided to create unique Word and Excel file formats a decade ago. When Mobile Office components came to the Pocket PC, they kept the same broken design that required a translation before the files could be read on the desktop. This led to all kinds of problems for Windows CE/Mobile users for years. This finally changed in Windows Mobile 5 based Pocket PCs. But, that was too late for your aging Windows Mobile 2003 based iPAQ.

I’m not syncing old 2003 or 2003 2nd Edition Pocket PCs with my Vista box. So, I can’t test your situation at the moment. However, it looks like Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) actually reverts back to ActiveSync 3.8 code when old legacy devices are partnered. This means that there should be an option that becomes visible when you sync an old device that lets you check or uncheck the Office Mobile translation feature (it is turned off by default since Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices use native DOC and XLS [but not DOCX and XLSX] file formats).

You might also want to consider upgrading two or three generations and move up to a WiMo 5 or 6 generation device.

Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000: Who Designed the Useless Clip?


I bought the relatively new Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000 Webcam designed for use with notebook PCs on a whim last week. The 2 megapixel camera and USB microphone components seem to work well. The image is quite a bit better than Intel 0.3 megapixel webcam I bought years ago. There is one little problem with the NX-6000 though. The clip that was presumably designed to clip on top of the LCD lid of a notebook is a fixed size. There isn’t any width adjustment I can see or feel. So, unless your notebook lid is an exact fit for the NX-6000’s clip, the webcam won’t sit on top of your notebook. I can tell you for sure that the clip is way too narrow to use with a Dell Latitude D600 notebook. And, I suspect it will be way too narrow to use with the D620 notebook that will replace it.

And, why is it that the so-called business notebook models have fewer features than the consumer models? No webcam. No Firewire port. No SD card reader, etc.? But,that is for a different blog rant.

Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000: OK, the clip kind of works
I took another whack at the LifeCam NX-6000 earlier today. I sort of shoved it on the top of a Dell D600 notebook LCD lid and found that the clip slides out a bit (Did I mention there is no useful printed documentation for this thing?). It sort of sat on the cover at an somewhat odd but mostly workable angle. I had to move the LCD cover around a bit to frame objects (me) correctly.

One other thing became apparent as I played with it for a bit. The NX-6000 becomes pretty hot to the touch after using it for a few minutes. This surprised me. Of course, this is the first webcam I’ve bought in 4 years or so. Do all current generation webcams heat up?

Windows Mobile Screen Formats
Quick, what is the difference between Windows Mobile Standard and Windows Mobile Professional? Had to think a moment, huh? What? Still need more time. Yeah, that was a great renaming move. But, hey, there’s more to confuse you beside branding changes. There are now 5 possible Pocket PC (oops, “Professional”) screen formats and 3 possible Smartphone (oops, “Amateur”…wait, that’s not right either, “Standard”) screen formats. Microsoft’s Mike Calligaro explains it in all its gory detail in a blog item titled…

320×320 Revisited

The article focuses on the 320×320 format introduced for Windows Mobile 6 (based on Windows CE 5… Got a headache yet?) but has a great table placing all the screen possibilities in perspective.

We Need a Good Non-Microsoft Windows Mobile Sync Solution
I just read on PocketPCThoughts.com that HP is no longer providing Microsoft Outlook with Windows Mobile devices. You might be thinking that you can simply buy the most inexpensive version of Office 2007 to deal with this issue. But, think again. Head over to the Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 edition page and look at what it includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. No Outlook in that package. While only HP has gone down this no-Outlook-with-devices path so far, they do sell a good sized percentage of Windows Mobile devices in the US. One can assume that Dell and other Windows Mobile vendors will not be far behind.
Your next thought may be that it might be good to sync with a bunch of Google web apps. Unfortunately, while Google has a decent calendar, it does not have a contacts solution. Yahoo!, on the other hand, has decent contacts, calendar, and notes web apps. It even provides a free IntelliSync (now owned by Nokia) utility to sync with its apps. Unfortunately, I had such poor experiences with it years ago that I am afraid to try it again. Yahoo! has been aggressively pursuing mobile users recently. So, I hope they take this opportunity to create a good mobile sync scenario.

Microsoft is only focusing on Enterprise users with Exchange Servers. But, that leaves out a lot of consumers as well as double digit percentage enterprise users who do not have Exchange Servers. The importance of the desktop OS has been less and less important over the years as we increasingly find ourselves dependent on web-based applications. Even Microsoft’s own confusing Live brand web services acknowledge this trend. So, why are our mobile devices still often tied to a PC-bound Outlook client? What we need is a good non-Exchange Server web-based sync solution that can sync with any mobile device: Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Linux, Apple iPhone, whatever.

[IronPython] IronPython v1.1 RC1 Released
Dino Viehland
Fri Mar 23 13:11:28 PDT 2007

Hello IronPython Community,

We have just released IronPython 1.1 Release Candidate 1. IronPython v1.1 is a minor update to IronPython including both new functionality as well as a number of targeted bug fixes. The new functionality in v1.1 includes several new modules (array, SHA, MD5, and select), support for XML Doc comments within the help system and __doc__ tags, as well as support for loading cached pre-compiled modules. If no regressions are discovered with this release then we will re-release the same binary as v1.1 final.

You can download the release from: 1.1 Release Candidate

We’d like to thank everyone in the community for your bug reports and suggestions that helped make this a better release: Anthony Baxter, Arman0, Christian Muirhead, Doubleyewdee, Eloff, Jörgen Stenarson, Py_Sunil, Seo Sanghyeon, Tarlano, and Whit537.

Here’s my weekly summary of Freeware, Open Source, and free web services mentioned in my personal blog last week. The list is a bit shorter than usual because of my traveling last week.

Mac OS X Expose Clone for Windows
Ok, so far, how many freeware or Open Source apps have I jotted down in this blog with the string “Mac OS X” that is actually a Windows app? Until today, I think that number was zero. Now, the counter increments to one :-)

Mac OS X Expose Clone for Windows

Google Picasa Photo Organizer 3.8.07 and Picasa Web Albums
Google recently released a new version of Picasa Photo Organizer 3.8.07 and Picasa Web Albums for Windows (as well as a Beta release for Linux). You can now store up to 1GB of photos in Picasa Web Albums.

TalkShoe (Beta): Web Voice Talk Show Service
I first learned of…

TalkShoe

…when Leo LaPorte and Amber MacArthur switched the format and name of their Inside the Net from a Podcast to a live net talk show called net@nite that is later released as a Podcast. TalkShoe (currently in Beta release like pretty much every other web based service) provides the ability to host similar net talk shows that lets multiple people call in to talk to you during your show.

Think you can’t do something about global warming? In fact, you can. Putting your PC into sleep mode when you’re not using it, such as is the default in Windows Vista after it’s idle a set amount of time, can reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by more than half a ton annually, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft recently made four new DreamScenes (animated desktops) for Windows Vista Ultimate Edition. I created a short (86 seconds long) video briefly showing each of the new DreamScenes on my PC.

Novell Linux Ad - Miguel de Icaza

Yesterday at Brainshare Novell had this video spoof on Apple’s campaign.

NOTE: You’ll need to watch the flick to understand the title ;-)

What’s the Difference Between Windows Mobile 5 & 6
I just saw a comment about the Windows Mobile 6 SDK post ask what’s the difference between Windows Mobile 5 and 6?I guess the official statements can be found on the Microsoft web pages at…

Introducing… Windows Mobile 6

…and…

Microsoft Reveals New Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone Software

My irreverent answer is “1″ (6 - 5 = 1). My slightly less irreverent response is: Not much unless you have access to Exchange Server for email (I don’t). I am, however, interested to hear what the Windows Mobile product group has to say to me and other Mobile Devices MVPs later this week to change my mind.

I should also note that there are differences from a developer’s point of view. Changes to the screen form factors and inner workings make a difference to them. From the end-user point of view, however, there is not much that makes you say “ooh, wow”.

Large Hotel’s 2 T1 (what?) Lines Saturated. Thank Goodness for Phone Data Service
What happens when you place a large number of techies (Microsoft MVPs in this case) in a large relatively modern hotel? Well, if the hotel (35 floors or so with 20 rooms per floor) only has two T1 lines (1.544Mbps per T1), you have saturated network access.

Fortunately, my SDA Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone has EDGE service. Unforunately, the SDA doesn’t have a QWERTY keyboard. But, my i-Mate K-JAM does. And, since both have Bluetooth, I used the SDA as a wireless modem and typed email messages from my Pocket PC.

The MVPs also seemed to saturate a number of cellular carriers’ cell sites around Seattle’s Convention Center during the day. So, that meant even my EDGE connection was lost for much of the day. Kind of strange to be in middle of a geekie techie fest and being without wired or wireless data access during the day and part of the night (just got back online to the hotel’s network minutes ago).

Bluetooth: Safety First

With all the discussions about WiFi safety, we sometimes forget that the other wireless protocol, Bluetooth, needs to be secured too.

I was trying to pair a new Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse with a MacBook over Bluetooth this evening in my hotel room. I was a bit surprised to see someone else’s Bluetooth enabled notebook show up in addition to my new mouse. I shouldn’t have been, of course, Bluetooth has a 10 meter range (or greater depending on the hardware used) and can penetrate walls. And, this person left his notebook’s Bluetooth radio in Discover mode. Since 10 meters is a bit larger than 30 feet and these hotel rooms are not larger than 30 feet long, I could see the notebook.
The moral to this story is to check your devices: Notebooks, PDAs, phones, etc. Then, make sure Discover mode is turned off except when you need to have the device probed by some other Bluetooth device for pairing.

Getting Out of Cell Phone Contracts
Yesterday’s USA Today had an article titled…

Consumer website offers tips, guides on getting out of contract

…that features info from Meghann Marco from The Consumerist website who provides tips on ways to get out of cellphone contracts without incurring a penalty. There are actually three related articles on page 5B in the March 15 (Thursday) issue. The impetus for these contract breaking articles is, of course, the impending release of the Apple iPhone sometime this summer.

Being Mobile Still Isn’t Simple for Everyone

After spending an intense week at the Microsoft MVP Global Summit, being faced with a 12 noon hotel check out and a 5:20pm flight out of SeaTac, I decided to spend a bit of change to purchase a one-day pass that lets me hang out in an airline club lounge that provides a work desk, A/C outlets, and WiFi access (and snacks and soft drinks too).
The person at the lounge’s front desk handed me a WiFi brochure. My MacBook didn’t need any special instructions to connect. It simply told me that my preferred access point was not available and asked if I wanted to connect to one that was. After approving that action I was online.

Looking through the troubleshooting section of the brochure turned out to be interesting. It seems that Linksys 802.11G and Dell TrueMobile (1300 and 1400) WLAN Cards. I found it interesting that products that, I would guess, are in a large percentage of notebooks would be problem cases.

Digital Photography Weblog: 13 best tips for Improving CameraPhone Pictures
Just ran across an interesting entry in the Digital Photography Weblog…

13 best tips for Improving CameraPhone Pictures

I’m a huge fan of cameraphones even though the ones I’ve tried don’t even come close to the quality of a conventional digital camera. I even wrote a couple of cameraphone hacks for the book Digital Photography Hacks. You can find a free PDF of one of the hacks I wrote for that book that discusses creating panoramic scenes using cameraphone photos at: Get the Big Picture with a Little Cameraphone.

Here’s my weekly summary of Freeware, Open Source, and free web services mentioned in my personal blog last week.

DVD Flick
DVD Flick is an Open Source application for Windows that aims to be a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take a number of video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. It supports a wide variety of formats including AVI, MOV, MPEG, and WMV (and a lot more). Version 1.2.1.1 was released on Jan. 30, 2007.

Roadnav 0.17: Multi-OS GPS Navigation System
This, I think, is a rarity… A multi-OS (Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows) Open Source GPS navigation application.

Roadnav 0.17

Roadnav can obtain a car’s present location from a GPS unit, plot street maps of the area, and provide verbal turn by turn directions to any location in the USA. Roadnav uses the free TIGER/Line files from the US Census Bureau to build the maps, along with the GNIS state and topical gazetteer data from the USGS to identify locations.

The current version was released on Feb. 24.

Areca File Backup 4.2.3
Areca Backup is an Open Source Java-based backup software intended for file backups (not system backups). It supports data compression & encryption, incremental backup, and a file history explorer. Version 4.2.3 was released just this week (March 6).

GrandCentral: Free Net Voice Mail Service
I haven’t tried this free web voicemail service…

GrandCentral

However, a number of friends have and say good things about it. One of the interesting features GrandCenral offers is a WebCall Button (free during the beta period) that lets people leave messages for the website’s owner without revealing the called number.

Should I place a GrandCentral WebCall Button on this site? Why would anyone want to leave voicemail for a site like this one (not a social network site, etc.)? Let me know what you think.

Tumblr.com: A Micro-blog? Blog-ette? Something Else?
Tumblr.com (no “E” as with other Web 2.0-ish site names). The free web service’s slogan is: Tumblelogs are like blogs with less fuss. You might say, well any blog can be maintained with less fuss using any of the various blogging services. And, I tend to agree. But, Tumblr makes it easy to perform common blogging tasks in a single minded way: Add a photo (from desktop or phone), add a link to an interesting web site, add a video feed from some video website, etc.

Visiting Seattle for a Week: Check out my TumbleLog
I’m flying to Seattle on Sunday (Mar. 11) and will spend the week there attending the Microsoft MVP Summit. I’m planning to update this blog while visiting Seattle. But, hang in there if I don’t post as frequently (daily) as usual.

Check out my Tumblr.com TumbleLog (read the previous blog item about Tumblr.com). I’m planning to update it at least a couple of times a day with cameraphone photos while in Seattle.

See you on the net!

A little-noticed item is big news for Microsoft: The The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is putting Microsoft Office 2007’s Open XML format on a fast track to become an ISO standard. This may not sound like much, but big money is involved.

The O’Reilly ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanel Control Short Cut (previously known as the Atlas UpdatePanel Control Short Cut) has been completely updated by its two authors, Matt Gibbs and Bertrand Le Roy of Microsoft. The content of this popular tutorial now reflects the changes made to UpdatePanel and its attributes for the Version 1.0 web release of ASP.NET AJAX.

UpdatePanel is arguably one of two controls most central to ASP.NET AJAX (the other being ScriptManager). Among the topics added to the Short Cut is a new section on the client-side representation of ScriptManager and UpdatePanel, a discussion of PageRequestManager, how to write controls that you’ll use in an UpdatePanel and how to use ProgressIndicator. Best of all, the code for the three examples presented in the document has also been revised and can be downloaded by anyone at no charge.

ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanel Control is a free download for those who have purchased a previous version. For those who have yet to buy their own copy, now’s the time to get with the program. The cost is $9.99.

Here’s the weekly summary of a mix of Windows Mobile and general mobile tech related items from my personal blog.

Visiting Seattle for a Week/Attending Microsoft MVP Summit
I’m flying to Seattle on Sunday and will spend the week there attending the Microsoft MVP Summit. I’m planning to update this blog while visiting Seattle. But, hang in there if I don’t post as frequently (daily) as usual.

Check out my MobileViews TumBlog. I’m planning to update it at least a couple of times a day with cameraphone photos while in Seattle. If you are unfamiliar with Tumblr TumbleBlogs, check out the blog item I wrote about it on my other blog focusing on Freeware, Open Source Software, and free Web Services at: OgasaWalrus.com.

See you on the net!

Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 for (some) Windows Mobile Devices
Yahoo! announced the gamma release of…

Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 Goes Windows Mobile

You can find the Yahoo! Go site at go.yahoo.com

How far it Goes on Windows Mobile is debatable though. The interface looks pretty and slick at first glance. But, then you start to notice things like the soft-buttons at the bottom don’t work. And, wow, is it slow! Of course, this was tested on a relatively slow SDA Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone. So, what about other devices?

When I tried to install it on an i-Mate K-JAM Pocket PC Phone Edition (WM5), I got a message saying that it was not available for that yet but to check back. So, I tried it on a Dell Axim X50v running Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition (I have the WM5 upgrade disk but never upgraded it). The message there pretty much said that device would never be supported.

If you have a supported device and want a pretty interface, try Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0. If you want a useful fast experience even at the relatively slow EDGE data rates, go back to http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/. Yahoo’s WAP text-based interface is fast and easy to navigate.

NewsBreak 2.0 Released
Ilium Software released a new version of their RSS newsfeed reader client NewsBreak 2.0 on March 6. As I’ve mentioned before, NewsFeed is one of the few 3rd party applications I leave permanently installed on my Windows Mobile Smartphone (it works on Pocket PCs too). So, this latest release was of special interest to me. I’m going to resist the urge to download podcasts and vidcasts since it would probably take too long to download large files over an EDGE connection. However, the new navigation labels do seem much more intuitive and easier to use. I’m sure I’ll discover new things about NewsBreak as I continue to use it (daily).

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition Access Database Synchronizer
One of the many features that was lost when Windows Mobile 5 came out was the ability to sync Microsoft Access databases with a Pocket PC. A few weeks ago Microsoft provided a workaround that can synchronize data between Microsoft Access database on a desktop and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition database on a device. You can find it linked below…
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition Access Database Synchronizer

Windows Mobile 6 SDK
Read this on Microsoft’s Mr. Mobile (Jason Langridge) blog. Microsoft released…

Windows Mobile 6 SDKs

Wait a minute? SDKs? Plural? Yep, they have separate SDKs for the Standard (Smartphone) and Professional (Pocket PC/Phone Edition) devices. But, wait? I thought the whole point of this convergence (they took away the bottom menu bar on Pocket PCs in WM5 and replaced it with the screen real-estate wasting soft buttons) was to reduce the distinction between the two device types. Guess not….

Here’s my weekly summary of Freeware, Open Source, and free web services mentioned in my personal blog last week.

Password Safe 3.06
Password Safe is an Open Source utility that runs under Microsoft Windows. It describes itself as tool that allows you to have a different password for all the different programs and websites that you deal with, without actually having to remember all those usernames and passwords. The most recent version (3.06) was released on Feb. 15.

Album Shaper: Digital Photo Organizer
Album Shaper’s description reads: strives to be the most friendly, easy to use, open source application for organizing, annotating, framing, enhancing, stylizing, and sharing your digital photos.

You can find screenshots with descriptions of this product at: Album Shaper 2.0 Visual Tour.

FreeCol: Colonization Clone (game)
Here’s another Open Source multiplatform game inspired by a Sid Meier game. This time the game is Colonization. And the FOSS game is…

FreeCol 0.5.3

This most recent version was released on Dec. 5, 2006. It is written in Java a requires Java 1.5.0 or newer.

MicroManager: Automated Microscope Control
I haven’t peered into a microscope in many many years. But, check out the description for this Open Source app: MicroManager is an Open Source software package for imaging and control of automated microscopes on multiple platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux). Together with ImageJ, a popular image processing package, ?Manager provides a comprehensive imaging solution - comparable to commercially available ones. You can find it linked below:

MicroManager: The Open Source Microscopy Software

Google Apps APIs
I’ll admit this might be a little bit of a stretch for this blog’s topic area. But, what the heck, it’s my blog :-)

Google Apps APIs

So, why mention this web API? I’ve been using Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets web apps quite a bit for the past few months. I’ve even trying, as an experiment, to write an entire article for publication (on another web site) using Google Docs (it is interesting but I think a client-side word processor or editor is faster, btw). If the web is the new computer, then we need to do things like backup Google Docs and Spreadsheets to the PC or Mac (is that a switch or what?).

AutoHotKey 1.0.46.08 : Mouse & Keyboard Macros
AutoHotKey is an Open Source utility that lets you create mouse and keyboard macros for Windows. It was just updated a month ago (Feb. 2007). Check out its tutorial to get a better idea of how mouse and keyboard macro automation can speed up your work when using Microsoft Windows.

I’ve written before that the confused Microsoft “Live” brand is an unholy mess, costing the company millions of dollars. Now it looks as if Microsoft may kill the brand, or at least take away its life support.

Here’s the weekly summary of a mix of Windows Mobile and general mobile tech related items from my personal blog.

Reader Tip:Omega One 1-Calc Lite Free from Microsoft
In response to a rant of mine, reader Thomas R. Hall pointed out that Microsoft has made Omega One’s 1-Calc Lite calculator available free of charge. You can find it at:

Applications for Windows Mobile: 1-Calc Lite

There are separate links for the Pocket PC and Smartphone versions (registration required). Try it and let me know what you think of it. Good enough to replace the Calc-98 I’ve been using for years?

SMS Notifier for Pocket PC
Here’s an interesting Open Source-ish app for Pocket PCs based on Windows Mobile 5 and .NET Compact Framework 2.0. The project description reads: SMS Notifier watches for incoming calls that are missed (i.e. not answered). Depending on configuration settings it does the following things: 1) Send an SMS message to the caller (configurable contents), possibly containing also the end time of current appointment (configurable). 2) Adds an item to calendar (containing the caller info).

SMS Notifier

You’ll find a CAB file installer at the page linked above (Microsoft’s CodePlex site).

More About the Zune Phone: Part II
My old friend Frank McPherson and I have some minor differences of opinion about the rumored Zune phone. He posted an interesting op-ed-piece in his blog about the rationale for a Zune phone. I responded in my blog. And, he volleyed another set of discussion items. To summarize Franks original points:

• The Zune Phone is in response to the Apple iPhone
  
• Microsoft Voice Command is the secret weapon to counter the iPhone’s multi-touch feature
  
• Microsoft doesn’t need a Zune Phone. It just needs to make the Windows Mobile Phone better
  

As far as I can tell, I think Frank and are converging towards mostly agreement. The only remaining issue is Microsoft Voice Command. Voice Command is a Microsoft add-on application for Pocket PC/Phone Edition and Smartphone that provides voice command faetures. In other words, you can use specific words to launch applications or dial a phone by saying a person’s name or the individual phone number digits. It is not a continuous speech recognition system that lets you, for example, dictate your weekly report into a text editor. Like handwriting recognition, voice command recognition is just too error prone and requires a change to the way you speak. Depending on your microphone, you may also have issues with ambient noise levels. It is not something you can trust while, for example, running through a busy airport and trying to reschedule a connecting flight. Voice Command is not going to be the killer feature.

In fact, the Apple iPhone’s main issue may be its own high price and its mobile phone carrier choice which for the past few years had its shares of customer relationship management issues as well as a relatively high data plan for smartphone.

The Zune is a non-starter. It has not even dented the iPod’s market share. I doubt if a Zune Phone will do anything more than reduce the market share of Microsoft’s own Windows Mobile phone devices. That said, after my own irrational exhuberance about the Apple iPhone, I’m beginning to agree with other mobile device observers that the Apple iPhone may implode on itself if its initial rollout is not handled properly this summer. It should be interesting to watch what happens to the phone market this summer.

Handwriting Recognition is Not Ready for Prime Time Either
My previous blog dismissed Microsoft Voice Command as a useful tool under optimum conditions (something one blog reader disagrees with). Those of you use use Voice Command regularly and successfully probably also disagree with me. And, that is fine. I’ll chalk that up to differing user experiences.

The more surprising thing that occured to me as I wrote a response to the Voice Command fan is that Handwriting Recognition has also failed. I’m somewhat surprised to find myself saying this since I often use HWR myself daily. However, I only use it for short entries (entering a short calendar appointment). It is too slow and error prone for taking notes at a conference or during some other information-rich (take lots of notes) meeting.

The real slam against against HWR is the move towards mobile devices with thumb keyboards (following the lead of the Blackberry and Treo devices). The lack of update on the Tablet PC may be another indicator that the good ol’ QWERTY keyboard (whether full or thumb sized) still rules the input of data into computing devices.

Jott.com: Speech to Text via Email
In case you missed Frank McPherson’s comment on my previous blog rant on both speech and handwriting recognition losing to thumb keyboards…

Frank mentioned a web service I had not heard of before: Jott.com (not to be confused with JotSpot which has a jot.com URL).
Founded by two ex-Microsoft-ies, this web service lets you call it from your mobile phone, transforms your voice message into text, and then emails the text back to you.

I’m tempted to try it except for one little problem… I’m always leery of giving out my phone number to any web service. The thought of a security breach that reveals all phone numbers stored by a service or an errant piece of software that starts dialing madly concerns me a lot (obviously). The Jott service requires you to provide your phone number. It probably uses Caller ID to identify you to determine which email address to send text of your voice message.

If you are less paranoid than me and have tried this service, let me know how it is working for you.

BTW, you can find Frank’s own blog covering mobile technology at: Pocket pC Hints and Tips.

Here’s my weekly summary of Freeware, Open Source, and free web services mentioned in my personal blog last week.

Blender 2.43: 3D Modeling & Animation
The Open Source multiplatform (Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows) 3D modeling and animation software…

Blender 2.43

…got both an upgrade and a new site on Feb. 18. The announcement page only talks about the website :-). But, it looks like you can see what’s new in the 2.4 point release on…

this feature list page.

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 Released
Microsoft released the latest version of their Virtual PC product.

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007

It is a free download that runs under any 32- or 64-bit version of Windows (XP or Vista) except for Windows XP Home Edition. It lets you run other versions of Windows, DOS, Linux, and many other operating systems as a Guest OS at the same time Windows XP or Windows Vista is running. I use it a lot to test Linux and Windows Server projects. Virtual Machines built using Virtual PC can be copied directly to a server running Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2. I’ve been known to build a test server in a virtual machine on my notebook during long meetings and then pop it onto my server for further testing later on.

PostgreSQL 8.2.3 SQL Database Server
The blog entry I wrote for O’Reilly’s Inside Port 25 site this evening commented on the PostgreSQL installation on Windows primer announced on Microsoft’s Port 25 site on today (Thursday, Feb. 22). You can read my ramblings about the ease of installing PostgreSQL in Windows Server 2003 R2 on that blog.

If you are looking for a powerful relational SQL database server that runs under Microsoft Windows (FYI: it originated over in the UNIX/Linux world), you should take a look at Chris Travers’ primer and then take a look at…

Frets On Fire (game)
Frets On Fire is a game of musical skill and fast fingers. The aim of the game is to play guitar with the keyboard as accurately as possible.

This Open Source game is available for both Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows (as well as Linux and BSD).

You can find a demo video (19.7MB AVI file) available here: Frets On Fire demo video. It is quite entertaining (though slightly not work-safe).