RHFtech Help Desk (and more)

Use a finger or use your whole hand: this is the basic difference between Apple and Microsoft. I bet Steve Jobs excelled at finger painting in kindergarten and that Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s current CEO, and Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder, did not. This is why Apple succeeds with the iPod, iPhone and iPad, and is an also-ran in the keyboard and pointer device world.

After thirty years of working with personal computing devices, I conclude that Microsoft understands hands. Apple does not. Steve Jobs and Apple understand fingers. Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates and Microsoft do not. I believe this explains many of the differences in their consumer product offerings and why Apple is succeeding in the mobile world, while Microsoft is foundering in handheld devices.

Keyboards and pointing devices—mice, trackballs, touchpads and styluses—are known as Human Input Devices (HID) in the computer world. They have been necessary adjuncts to computers since the beginning of the digital computer. They require one or two hands to operate properly. Imagine using your desktop or laptop computer without a keyboard and pointing device. If you can you would have an iPad, a tablet computer that eschews these traditional HIDs for the finger.

Microsoft and its hardware partners, particularly Logitech and Kensington make many good keyboards and mice. Some are great. Apple does not make great input devices. Apple keyboards and mice go from okay to awful. None are great. They recently eliminated the number pad from the iMac standard keyboard. I suppose having those extra keys was too confusing for iMac owners. Apple’s long string of mouse design failures is well documented. They avoid having extra buttons on their mice. Their mice don’t fit your hand as well as the competitors. This gibes with Apple’s form-before-function designs. I wonder if it isn’t because Steve Jobs has problems using more than one finger at a time.

A reverse issue occurs with Microsoft. Microsoft’s tablet offerings predate the iPad by several years. They never succeeded like the iPad, which has already sold more than 2 million units worldwide. I doubt that Microsoft’s hardware partners have sold as many tablet devices over the years as the iPad has in two months. The reasons for this are many but a major reason is that they required a pointing device other than your finger. Even if the device allowed for finger-input many of the controls, e.g. menus or hyperlinks, required precision that a finger is not capable of performing. Microsoft’s solution was to add a stylus to the tablet rather than change the user interface (UI) and retool the operating system to work with fingers. Apple was masterful in recognizing this and adopting a non-desktop UI for its iPods, the iPod touch, iPhones and iPads. Most of the time, a single finger is all you need.

Typing on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad is doable but not desirable. The UI is not designed for hands. It is designed for one or two fingers. You can attach a Bluetooth keyboard to an iPad. However, you quickly realize that the inability to use a pointing device, other than your finger, reduces functionality to the point that it may not work as you want. It is hard to exactly select text or other objects, copy it, delete it, move it, or alter it with only your finger. A mouse would come in handy.

Who would have thought that kindergarten skills would play such a significant part in 21^st century technology? Not me.

On a related matter, I haven’t divined why Google gets cloud computing, while Microsoft fumbles and Apple fails. If you have any thoughts on this please let me know.

Office 2010 is here. Large Microsoft customers can buy it now. Consumers or smaller businesses will be able to buy it June 15.

I have a fair amount of experience with it as I have used different versions of Office 2010 for over a year now. I like it. It is fast. It feels faster than previous Office versions.

The user interface (UI) is better than Office 2007. Office 2010 expands use of the Ribbon to all Office apps, including Outlook 2010. The Quick Access Toolbar is more usable and allows the power user to avoid the Ribbon for many activities. The Office Button, found in 2007, is gone, replaced by the File button, a much improved item, which takes you to the Backstage View.

So should you buy it? My answer is yes, maybe or no. The answer depends upon which Office applications you use, how you use them, how much you use them and your budget.

I recommend you upgrade if you are dependent on Outlook XP (2002), 2003 or 2007. By “dependent”, I mean you live in Outlook. If you are a casual user, primarily using it for email, there is little reason to upgrade.

Office 2010 has lots of new features—a built-in screen capture tool, found on the Insert tab in Word and PowerPoint: Protected Mode pumps up security on downloaded documents helping to protect you from malicious files: better auto saving of open documents; improved Save File dialogs; lots of new Smart Art templates—to name a few. Word, PowerPoint and OneNote 2010 have co-authoring, which allows for simultaneous editing of a document by multiple people or by one person on multiple computers.

Do you often share or collaborate on Word, PowerPoint or Excel documents? Then consider upgrading. I mentioned the new co-authoring features above. There are other sharing features. You can easily send a document, save it to the web, publish to a blog, or fax it without a fax machine. (You need an Internet fax service. Go to http://j.mp/dCkbf7 to find out more.) Office 2010 integrates seamlessly with Microsoft’s Windows Live web-based services.

Separately, Microsoft has created Office Web Apps. This is their response to Zoho Office and Google Docs. They are a work-in-progress. It is hard to assess their usefulness. They are limited function versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It appears that there are four versions:

• Windows Live paired with SkyDrive
• Docs.com – Facebook affiliation
• SharePoint 2010 self-hosted
• SharePoint 2010 web-hosted

Microsoft Web Apps response times can be frustrating. Google Docs is faster. The interface is the Ribbon. The feature set is crippled so that you still need the desktop applications to access anything beyond rudimentary application features.

If you are buying a new Windows 7 computer get Office 2010. Windows 7 and Office 2010 work very well together. Go ahead and get Office 2010.

However, if you use Office applications infrequently, because you primarily use your computer for socializing and surfing the web, or you are a photographer and live in Photoshop rather than Office, or your current version is good enough, or you do not want to spend the money then do not upgrade. If you are a Mac user you have to wait for Office 2011 to get a refresh.

Microsoft almost never makes things simple. Most of you have four versions to choose from:

• Home and Student
• Home and Business
• Standard
• Professional

There are also Academic, Enterprise and Starter Editions. Wikipedia has a table showing the versions’ differences.

There are trial editions you can download and install to test it out. Be careful it you do this. Do NOT uninstall your existing version when installing the trial.

When Microsoft introduced the Ribbon in Office 2007 they took away our ability to easily customize the menus and toolbars that existed in previous versions of Office. Microsoft added the Quick Access Toolbar, a weak replacement for that lost customization.

The Quick Access Toolbar (“QAT”) lets you place frequently used control icons in one place so you don’t have to find them on the Ribbon each time you want to use them. The QAT has File Save, Undo and Repeat controls installed by default. You probably have your favorites that you use all the time. Why not add them?

Many Office 2007 users ignore the tiny QAT because they don’t know about it and can hardly see it. I suggest you get out your magnifying glass, locate it in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc., and use it. It will speed up repetitive tasks by reducing the significant extra number of mouse clicks that the Ribbon requires over a menu and toolbar interface.

Microsoft has improved its functionality with the soon-to-be-introduced Office 2010. Some of the following items will work in Office 2007 others may not.

Position the QAT below the Ribbon rather than above

1. Click on the drop-down control on the right side of the QAT.
2. Select Show Below the Ribbon from the drop-down menu.
3. The QAT is now underneath the Ribbon.

This saves you moving your mouse all the way across the Ribbon to get to your most frequently accessed shortcuts that you’ve added to the QAT.

Right-click Ribbon icons to add to the QAT

1. Right-clicking  on most icons will display a context menu with an item to Add to Quick Access Toolbar
2. Click the Add to Quick Access Toolbar to add it it the QAT.

Thanks go to my friend Ed Bott for teaching me/us this.

Take your QAT customizations with you

Do you work on multiple computers? Would you like to easily install your QAT customizations on all your computers?

1. Click on the File menu item (upper left).
2. Select Options
3. The applications Options dialog opens.
4. Click on the Import/Export button.
5. Select Export All Customizations.
6. Make a note of the file name where you are saving the file.
7. Copy the file to the other computer.
8. Open the Office application.
9. Click on the File menu item (upper left).
10. Select Options
11. The applications Options dialog opens.
12. Click on the Import/Export button.
13. Select Import Customizations File.

Do this for every Office application you customize. This will also export/import other Ribbon customizations you have made, if any.

Hide the Ribbon and use the Quick Access Toolbar

Click on the chevron control on the far right side of the application’s Ribbon tab bar, next to the question mark   in the blue circle. This will hide the Ribbon giving you lots more vertical screen space to work in. The QAT is still visible. If you need the Ribbon click on the same control to restore it.

Want to learn more? Here is a Microsoft video tutorial. And I suggest you get a copy of Microsoft Office 2010 Inside Out by Ed Bott and Carl Siechert.

I installed the final version of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 on my main Windows 7 rig this week. It will be released to the general public in June 2010. I had been using the beta before this. The final version installed with a bit a difficulty. I first had to uninstall the beta and then reboot before I could install it.

However, I received the above error after rebooting and trying to install it. It took some time and effort to track down the issue. DynDNS Updater, a program I run in the background, was blocking the Office 2010 installation. I exited DynDNS Updater and the installation proceeded without further issue. I restarted DynDNS when the installation was complete.

Office 2010 is quite similar to Office 2007. It tweaks the UI/UX in many small ways. These add up to an improved experience over Office 2007. I still prefer Office 2003’s menu and toolbar interface over the Ribbon. I find the Ribbon sucks productivity out of my work by requiring more mouse clicks than Office 2003 and by using up too much vertical screen real estate. The Ribbon has been added to Outlook 2010.

While working on a Word document this morning I was surprised by a new Word dialog.

Microsoft wants us to help improve Office’s dictionary and thesaurus tools. I clicked the Send Now button. If you are concerned about privacy you can find out more at http://office2010.microsoft.com/en-us/privacy-statement-highlights-for-microsoft-office-2010-HA101098558.aspx

Office 2010 has different SKUs than Office 2007. The ones in green in the image below will be available for retail purchase.

File extensions are important and useful. These are the characters that follow the final period in the file name. They are usually 3 or 4 characters long. They tell an operating system whether or not a file is an application, like Excel.exe, or the file’s associated application. The EXE extension tells Windows that the file is a program. The Mac parallel is APP. Microsoft Word documents use extensions like DOC, DOCX, or DOT. This informs the computer that they are opened with Word.

File extensions are hidden by default on new computers. I guess the smart people at Apple and Microsoft think these important bits of information will confuse a computer user like you. I disagree. They inform us about our files. Since computers have hundreds of thousands or millions of files this extra information helps us navigate.

So how do you show extensions?

Apple OS X Finder

1. Open a Finder window.
2. Click on the Finder —> Preferences… on the menu bar.
3. The Finder Preferences dialog should open.
4. Select the Advanced tab.
5. Check the checkbox Show all filename extensions.
6. Close the dialog window.

Windows Explorer (XP)

1. Open a Windows Explorer window such as My Documents.
2. Click on the menu items Tools —> Folder Options…
3. The Folder Options dialog should open.
4. Select the View tab.
5. Uncheck the Hide extensions for known file types checkbox.
6. Click the OK button to close the dialog.

Windows Explorer (Windows 7 and Vista)

1. Open a Windows Explorer window such as Documents.
2. Click on the menu items Organize —> Folder and Search Options…
3. The Folder Options dialog should open.
4. Select the View tab.
5. Uncheck the Hide extensions for known file types checkbox.
6. Click the OK button to close the dialog.

It took Microsoft 24 years but today they release a version of Windows that is the best client operating system they have ever sold. The UI/UX (User Interface/User Experience) is a big improvement over Windows Vista and XP. I believe that Microsoft Windows 7 surpasses Mac Snow Leopard in many ways particularly in the UI/UX and that Apple is now playing catch-up.

Kudos to Stephen Sinofsky and his team for a job incredibly well-done.

I just sent the following comment to the Microsoft employee, Alex Kochis, Director, Genuine Windows, responsible for the Windows Genuine Advantage program. (It should be named Windows Genuine Pain-in-the-ass Program.)

I am a TechNet member and a Microsoft Partner. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate RTM (64bit). Windows 7 reports that "Windows has been activated".

I keep getting alerts "You may be a victim of software counterfeiting…"

I am not. Your god awful Genuine Advantage software is in my face and only because you don’t know what you are doing. I once had a Vista machine terminated by your servers going down. I am more than a little tired of this.

I am frustrated and angered by your incompetence. Either get this right of go away but stop annoying me.

Steven Sinofsky versus x Steve Jobs

The User Interface (UI) is the point at which we interact with all sorts of devices. System designers control the UI. They hope to create a positive, seamless User Experience (UX). The UX is a feeling based upon the ease and pleasure we experience in performing common or infrequent actions. Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch have a great UI that delivers a marvelous UX. Newer automotive UIs break established automobile control practices placing the uninitiated at sea. That is not a good UX for them.

Snow Leopard (SL) is the latest iteration of the Mac operating system. Windows 7 (W7) is Microsoft’s. The SL UI is little changed from Leopard, its predecessor OS. There are subtle tweaks that many users will not notice or access.

The W7 UI enhances the Vista UI. Vista implemented significant UI changes from Windows XP, most noticeably a redesigned Start menu and Windows Explorer window. W7 adds some neat eye candy via its Aero features that are fun to demonstrate and to use, and make the UX better. The redesigned Taskbar and the addition of Jump Lists to Start menu and Taskbar application links are a big change from Vista or XP.

Menus/Shortcuts

Apple separates application shortcuts from its menu bar. These may appear on the desktop, the Dock or in the Application folder. The menu bar is a relatively static object that displays whichever application has the system focus, even if it has no exposed or open window.

Many users do not appreciate what an unwieldy bit of UI the Dock is because it is great eye candy. It has bouncing, zooming icons and the Genie effect when we minimize windows. This entertains but masks the Docks deficiencies. It takes up a significant part of the window. Its functionality is non-obvious and is limited.

The W7 Taskbar and Start menu are more integrated. You can pin application or document shortcuts to either one. Aero Peak makes it easy to navigate to different windows or tabs within an application or across applications. The Taskbar consumes a small amount of the screen. (Advantage: Windows 7)

File Manager

Finder is the Mac file system application. It is kludgy by comparison to Windows Explorer. You can only resize the Finder window from one location, the lower right corner. Windows Explorer has 8 places for resizing, the 4 corners and the 4 sides. Finder has 4 views: Icons, List, Columns and Cover Flow. Windows Explorer has 8: Extra Large, Large, Medium and Small Icons, List, Details, Tile and Content. It also has a very useful breadcrumb navigation menu and links to favorites, libraries, Homegroup, Computer and Network locations. (Advantage: Windows 7)

Search

Search in both operating systems is robust and mature. Apple has Spotlight , which appears on both the Menu bar and in Finder windows. It is simple to access Spotlight by pressing the "CMD key + Space". Spotlight search is almost instantaneous and incredibly accurate.

W7 improves on the Vista Start menu search bar . It is faster and more accurate. It is a little bit slower than Spotlight but as accurate. It is easier to configure Spotlight preferences than Windows search. (Advantage: Snow Leopard)

Media

I find it easier to play or view media on Snow Leopard. But I don’t like the limitations imposed by Apple on how many and what machines with which I can share my iTunes.

I like most of the Windows 7 media applications better. I suggest you try the new Zune player application to see why.  Also Windows 7 lets you network your media files with any machine you want without limit. (Advantage: Tie)

Networking

x

Macs used to be much easier to network than Windows. W7 changes this. Its network wizards are easy to use and understand. Homegroup, networking 2 or more W7 computers, is simple. W7 is not as good at connecting to Macs as SL is at connecting to Windows. (Advantage: Tie)

Conclusion

x

I find the Windows 7 UX more pleasing than Snow Leopard’s. I think you will too.

Updating to Windows Live Movie Maker (version 14.0.8091.0730) from a beta on my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit machine was typical of many Microsoft software installs, fail upon fail upon fail. This should have been a simple process. It wasn’t. 

I saw the dialog window pictured to the left many times this morning.  Clicking on the link “Get more help with this error” was useless.

I finally had to uninstall every Windows Live application, reboot and then reinstall the whole kit and caboodle. I invested close to an hour this morning fiddling with this. It would be nice if Microsoft paid me for my time. It would also be nice if they fixed these type of problems with the Windows Live applications installer the way they have cleaned up dealing with issues in Windows 7.

One positive emerged when the applications were finally reinstalled. I was worried that I would lose my settings for Windows Live Writer and Windows Mail. Setting these up is not difficult for me but it does take time. I was concerned that I would have to lookup and re-configure my credentials for email accounts and accessing my blog’s administrative console. Fortunately, these two applications’ settings were retained and no new configuration was required.

Coincidentally, Microsoft Security Essentials (beta) just informed me that a new version was available. Updating MSE went off without hitch.

I just posted the following on my FriendFeed feed:

#Windows7RTM 64-bit box final – 75+ apps 36 good Windows updates 5 failed 17 hrs tot. Whew! glad it’s over. Process stinks. Macs are easier.

I am my own guinea pig. I never recommend products that I haven’t tried myself. My experience with Windows 7 betas and the release candidate were overwhelmingly positive on all the machines on which I installed it. So I was excited by the prospect of loading the final version (RTM or release to manufacturing copy). I downloaded my copies of the 64-bit and 32-bit installation files on Thursday.

Yesterday, I started first thing in the morning the process of installing Windows 7 RTM on my main computer. I built this computer over the Memorial Day weekend in anticipation of getting Windows 7 64-bit. It is a tower computer running an Intel i7 820 CPU (quad core, 8 virtual cores) with 12GB of RAM, 4 TB of storage and using a premium ASUS motherboard.

1. The first things I did were to run the Windows Easy Transfer application to collect settings and files I wanted to migrate from the RC version to the RTM. I also took screenshots of key items like the arrangement of the taskbar so that I wouldn’t have to remember how the desktop was arranged. I recorded the drive letter arrangement since in my experience Windows has a habit of being somewhat random on this from install to install. I also deactivated programs like iTunes and Adobe Fireworks CS4 so that I would be able to reinstall them without running into installed machine limits. (Ain’t DRM a bitch?)

2. I then copied the Windows 7 RTM files from the downloaded ISO to a USB drive which I thought was properly prepared. It wasn’t. I had to get it ready to be bootable and then recopy 3GB of files. I planned on using this drive as the installation medium.

3. Next I installed Windows 7 RTM 64-bit on the machine as a fresh install. Paul Thurrott, a Windows expert, suggests that it is better not to corrupt a new operating system with beta cruft. I agree. This process segregated the old Windows directory, program files directories, and a few other folders in a new folder named Windows.old.

4. Then I waited. But not too long. Windows 7 installed in about 15 to 20 minutes.

5. The first thing I did after Windows 7 was done installing was to run Windows Easy Transfer to copy over my settings and selected files from the now defunct Windows 7 RC version (see step 1 above). This worked well.

6. I ran my first Windows Update. Five of the updates failed to install. I do not know or care why.

7. I began installing applications, beginning with Microsoft Security Essentials.

8. Seventeen work hours after I began, after installing and configuring over 75 applications, 36 good Windows updates, numerous application patches and updates, and tweaking system features, I pronounced the setup done.

During this process I wasted two hours on a failed install of Apple iTunes/QuickTime and the Safari browser. I do not know what went wrong. But after rebooting, uninstalling what was there and reinstalling these applications, they now seem to be properly installed and working.

I also wasted about the same amount of time wrestling with Logitech webcam software and Skype. The newest version of Skype would not install. I kept getting an "error 1601" message. Fortunately, I have a copy of an older version that installed without issue.

I also had some issue with Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview (a beta) that seemed not to install but after a reboot everything was there and working.

Other than the above every other application installed without apparent issue.

So where do I stand after the above?

Seventeen hours is much too long to spend on setting up a new computer. Yes, I do have many more applications and customizations than the ordinary user. I would guess that an XP to Windows 7 conversion, which is similar to what I did in going from RC to RTM, will take about 6 to 8 hours of total time. This assumes that a user has all their application installation media handy. This is uncommon in my experience. Vista to Windows 7 upgrades should be much easier.

Windows 7 is the best version of Windows ever. However, upgrading from XP to Windows 7 will be similar to the above. It will be more complex than it need be, take longer than you think and leave you exhausted if you try to do it all at once, as I did. But go ahead and make the leap. XP is too insecure for my liking. It is long-in-the tooth and should be retired.

Note: I have not installed XP Mode on the Windows 7 RTM 64-bit as it is still a release candidate version (RC). I had so much trouble last week moving from the XP Mode beta to RC under Windows 7 RC that I intend to wait for the RTM version until I next install it on this hardware.

XP Mode is a complete, free, licensed virtual Windows XP machine that will be available for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate versions.