Looking for a specific Group Policy setting?
This search tool will be very helpful when there is a need to figure out a setting or series of settings for a particular environment.
There is also a Windows Phone 7 App that works just as well as the online version. Check it out!
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
We just got offered the following:
The more info link takes us to this page:
Note that the latest listed update on the Windows Phone site says 7.10.8773.98 and ours says 7.10.8112.7. That's quite the difference.
A bit of searching brought us to this page:
According to the above site 7.10.8773.98 is Tango and provide an update method though we are a bit wary of using a third party tool to run this process.
Of course, the above was written while the update was running. Once it was completed though the following showed up:
It seems that Tango will be on the phone today.
We shall see if it makes a difference with the phone.
From what I can see, nothing outright. Still no mobile hot spot. :(
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
The Nokia Lumia 900 is coming to Rogers in Canada:
The second bullet link above is the following page:
It looks as though we would have to sign a contract in order to “pre-order” (whoever thought of using the prefix “pre” should be taught a grammar lesson or four :P ) the Lumia 900.
We have not signed a cellular contract for any Smartphone that we have had for quite a few years now.
We prefer to purchase our phones outright on a Month-To-Month contract.
We do so because it gives us the flexibility to move about as we please. It may be a bit more costly in up-front fees but in the long run it gives us the ability to be “mobile” with our cellular needs which is one of the things the carriers _don’t_ want. They want us locked in for the entire three years.
When the Lumia 900 comes available on Rogers we will be transferring my cell number to the 900 and purchasing one outright.
Thus, when the next new Windows Phone comes out that has more than 16GB of RAM in it we will be _jumping_ on it ASAP!
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
After plugging the HD7 in the following window came up:
The keyboard issue has been seen off and on over the last month. The voicemail issue was indicated as being fixed with the last update so we shall see if it happens this time around.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
We saw the update request on our Mango phone this morning.
After plugging in here at the shop where the phone is synchronized we saw:
So, we clicked the UPDATE NOW button and then:
Hopefully that does not mean that it will be backing up all of the tunes on there as there are roughly 12GB of media content.
As per the above snip the update is supposed to fix an Exchange issue and a “Voicemail notification issue”.
Hopefully that voicemail fix means that when we have 5 voicemails waiting the phone says that there are 5 voicemails in the queue. Currently, no matter how many voicemails there are waiting the phone only puts a 1 with the little tape symbol.
This can be really annoying on a busy day when folks have called and we do not realize that they have left us a voicemail! So, when we call in we get, “You have 5 messages waiting!” and boy are we surprised!
Total time to update the HTC HD7: ~10 Minutes.
On another note I finished the _entire_ Angry Birds version for Windows Phone with three stars at all levels. The only achievement not reached was the Rock Crusher or something like that (250K blocks). I had to use YouTube for six of the levels to figure out where the weak spot was in the puzzle because spending more than a day or two on one frustrated both me and the kids watching me! :)
Thanks for reading.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
I have not played any sort of game on a computer or other device in _years_.
Zuma was the last one that came to mind on MSN’s game site back when.
After seeing all of the discussion in various groups about Angry Birds I downloaded it to my HTC HD7 now Mango phone and played a few levels. It took all of 10 minutes before the game was purchased and levels were unlocked.
My kids love watching while I run through the various levels. We have even collaborated on them too! :D
The game is so successful that it has spawned an entire stuffed toy and t-shirt industry from the looks of their Web site.
Good on them as the game is an awesome brain buster.
It’s even available for PC!
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
Out of the box we left the Zune software to synchronize the downloaded music and playlists to the default locations.
This has proven to be a bear to manage as the device then locks a portion of its storage to the PC the downloaded content came from originally.
So, we needed to come up with a method where the path to the downloaded music was the same on both PCs (home and office) and have it synchronize between them.
Enter Windows Live Mesh:
In order for this process the following must be kept in mind:
So, since the profile names on both PCs on both PCs are identical we set up the following paths:
We then directed Live Mesh to sync the root Zune folder between the two PCs.
Once the synchronization process has completed between the two PCs we will wipe both of them and start fresh.
NOTE:
This methodology is certainly better than what we started to do. The reason why we looked into a different setup was because all of the music downloaded last night to the HD7 refused to be recognized by the Zune software on the office PC.
Windows Live Mesh can be downloaded from here:
UPDATE: Do _not_ seed one side. It Live Mesh will push those files _back_ to the second PC.
So, the best thing to do is to make sure all of the music needed is on one device and one PC and have that sync to the second PC and the second device.
Since Live Mesh has a remote desktop feature built-in we will be using it to connect to PC1 to download any additional music.
Thus, this method, while it will work, requires a bit of self control over music downloading on PC2. :S
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
Microsoft announced last week that we would be getting the new Zune Pass today. After checking earlier this morning the old page was still there.
Not any more!
Oops . . . click on the Get Zune Music Pass link and we get:
Just in case, we signed in using the LiveID that is hooked into both the ZuneHD and the HTC HD7 devices.
And we waited:
And waited . . . and waited. :(
Eventually we saw the first page above with the get it button. And then back to square one: Country not supported.
We now see the following after a long wait:
After selecting the 12-month option and clicking next we were presented with a credit card verification page. We verified that everything was correct and then after waiting yet again:
There must be more than a few Canucks attempting to get one their Zune Passes as the servers are seemingly overloaded! :(
We will try again later on tonight. Hopefully things will not be so overloaded.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
“Is this my phone?!?”
The first thing that has been noticed is that the HTC HD7 (Bell Mobility) runs quite a bit faster than it did before.
Apps come up a lot quicker with menu animation and flip happening in a much smoother manner along with that speed.
Big pluses seen so far:
The one drawback that will take a bit of getting use to is the loss of the Folders access button in Outlook to allow us to get into the Inbox’s subfolders quickly. It is now hidden behind the “…” More option at the bottom.
In the end Mango is a big win. It is as though the phone is new! :)
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
Thanks Leen Kleijwegt of CORBUS for an e-mail pointing us to instructions on how to force the Mango update onto our Windows Phone 7 devices! :)
The instructions are here:
To quote from the above site that takes a long time to load due to the comments the process is as follows:
Steps to force a Mango update on phones for which Mango has started rolling out:
- Connect your Windows Phone to a PC and launch the Zune software
- Click on Phone > Settings > Update. Allow the software to tell you whether an update is available. If so, skip this guide. If not continue to the next step.
- Time to force the update. Click another button (any of the options above or below the word Update). Then click the Update button again, and this time disconnect your computer from the internet after 1-2 seconds. Do this by pulling out the Ethernet cable, disabling Wi-Fi, etc. If it says your phone is already up to date, you didn't disconnect quickly enough and need to try this step again.
- Wait 30 seconds or so and Zune should display a notification that an update is available. This is 7392, the first Mango pre-update.
- Now reconnect to the internet and continue with the update process through the Zune software.
- After 7392 is fully installed, you may receive a notification that another update is available. If so, install it now. If not, proceed to the next step.
- If the second update isn't popping up on its own, repeat steps 3-5, causing the 7403 update to appear.
- Install 7403, brave reader. Speeding right along, isn't it? ;)
- Mango time! At this point, Zune should automatically start installing the last update, 7720, aka Mango. If it doesn't happen automatically, force it like we did in previous steps.
- This last step is very important! Celebrate your phone’s new found Mango status by purchasing a mango smoothie at your nearest Smoothie King, Jamba Juice, Baskin Robbins, or similar establishment.
After a few tries with the Zune software and Ethernet cable process we received:
But Zune wants to be updated first:
Once that update finished we saw:
Update 7403 is Mango! Whoo Hoo! :)
Ah, but wait! All is not well in Zune update land:
Something burped in the process and the Zune software dropped out. So, off to flip between the update and Ethernet cable again to see what happens. That failed because the Zune software had seemingly disappeared.
We needed to restart the Zune software manually because it did not start when the phone was pulled and then plugged back into the shop PC again.
Once we started the Zune software, ran the Update/Ethernet step, we received the following:
We were finally able to run the Mango update on the phone!
Note that a full backup of the phone was done but we only have about 4GB of data on it so it should not take too long. The process is looking to take an hour or more. So, patience is definitely on order . . . whether it gets here in time is another story. ;)
Anticipation . . .
Hat Tip: Again thanks to Leen Kleijwegt of CORBUS
Now to get some reading in on all of the new features.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
So far there has been no update flag on my HTC HD7 phone. :(
According to this grid, Bell Mobility is “Delivering update”:
What does this mean? Well, I suppose that it means that we just need to be patient! ;)
But, I don’t want to. :(
Rick Claus of Microsoft showed me a lot of Mango goodness well at the iTech Summit in Calgary last week and they sure looked great.
One of the features that would make life a lot easier will be the ability to transition text messaging with someone to Windows Live Messenger and then back again to text messaging seamlessly. We text a lot here with those conversations moving to WL Messenger and back again with IT support folks.
Another feature that looked really neat was the ability to text message someone totally hands free. Though the interpretation may or may not come across properly. I love spell check’s occasional replacement for a mistyped “things” with “thongs”. We all know where that could lead depending on the recipient if not paying attention! 8*O
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
We are getting notice of an update that is related to fraudulent digital certificates:
While the update helps to mitigate the malicious use of Web site SSL certificates ultimately we need to be very wary of any and all Web sites that we visit where we are planning on logging or making any purchases. It should be second nature to check that URL.
Hat Tip: Susan Bradley
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
And in a sense, quite literally.
One of the recent subject lines that caught my interest was a “Favourite Mobile Apps” conversation between some fellow MVPs.
One of the apps that was mentioned across all platforms is called Shazam.
Essentially, when one hears a song that they want to find the title and artist for they start the app, tap the Listen button, and hopefully the app comes back with the title, artist, and album.
It’s great for those moments where one is in the elevator and hears Henry Mancini’s Baby Elephant Walk or Pink Panther for the first time! ;)
It may not be your cup of tea, but I grew up grooving to these beats among others! :D
Just in case, the original Pink Panther movie (Wikipedia entry) was and is absolutely hilarious!
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
We get to work with all sorts of devices from a large variety of vendors.
There was something about the HTC HD7 experience that did not quite sit right with me though it was not quite possible to figure out just what that was. . . at least until now.
When using an Apple iDevice the touch interface is probably one of the best out there.
The ability to touch, hold, and move the cursor about on the iDevice while working with text in the various Apps and the GUI is excellent.
The HD7 Windows Phone 7 (WP7) on the other hand was Neolithic in its implementation. Trying to get the cursor to move about precisely in IE, Word, e-mail, texting, and other places in the HD7 was nothing short of painful.
The WP7 March update that included the ability to Copy and Paste changed all that.
Not only do we now have the ability to copy and paste, which works really well, but now have the ability to move the cursor about with an almost absolute precision.
The cursor movement improvement will make, and already has made, the HD7 usage experience that much better.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
The HTC HD7 just made us aware that there is an update available for the Windows Phone 7 OS:
It is refreshing to see that the Windows Mobile experience where carriers would essentially release a phone and then avoid any updates for the WM OS to “encourage” us to move to a new phone has essentially ceased.
Copy and Paste eh? Hmmmm … a Windows feature that is a part of an update. :| Ooops.
So far, the phone has more than met our expectations though there are a few little things that may or may not be OS related that can be annoying.
Still, the SharePoint integration is totally kewl, e-mail management is really smooth, and I like the ability to link people’s various accounts under one contact.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
We had a few calls this morning with clients having problems with their machines due to Windows 7 Service Pack 1.
While working from a client location we sometimes need access to the audit notes that we keep on all of our clients. Those notes reside in a secure SharePoint Foundation site. It can take time to fire up the Tega v2 or the Tecra laptop to get into our SharePoint libraries.
Two feature discoveries were made this morning that made the payback on the HTC HD7’s purchase readily apparent.
This is a screenshot of the Word 2010 Navigation Bar:
When the document is opened on the HD7 the Outline view looks just like that. We can then tap on the required heading and be brought to that point in the document just as we do within Word 2010.
This one feature set, that is the ability to quickly access a SharePoint site, open a Word document, and navigate to the needed information is going to save us a lot of time over the life of the phone. Payback on a risk is sweet! :)
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
My old HTC Touch Pro died this last weekend. So, despite wanting to wait until the summer before picking up a new Windows Phone 7 based device my hand was forced.
After evaluating the three main cellular provider’s Windows Phone 7 (WP7) devices I settled on the HTC HD7 offered by Bell Mobility.
This essentially killed two birds with one stone:
First off, engadget has a couple of really good posts on the HD7 and WP7:
Now, since I have had a Zune HD since last year that gets used a lot the Metro GUI on the HD7 has been pretty straight forward to get used to.
I like it. :)
The phone did require an update right from the start. In order to do that though the Zune software was required.
Once done, the Zune software picked up the phone right away though it required an update for itself:
Once the Zune software was up to date we were able to move forward with updating the phone.
The update was downloaded to the phone and then:
Once the phone rebooted it came up into an update mode with an icon of a laptop tethered to a Windows phone. There was a progress bar that ran up the left hand side of the phone’s screen.
I was not able to watch the update complete, but the first third took about 10 minutes. The progress bar then sat there for quite a while.
Once completed, the phone was sitting at the lock screen. The approximate time for the update was about 30-45 minutes.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
