CyberCoyote — March 26, 2009

NEWS and NOTES
Next week

We'll meet again next week for Questions and Answers. It will probably be the last meeting for the season.

True Image 2009

How's it going with your new copy of True Image 2009? While they are not fatal flaws, you may experience bugs in the way progress indicators and automatic shutdown work in this new version. I imagine they'll get some attention after Donn's publicity. ;-)

CLOUD COMPUTING and SERVICES

Today we took a quick look at a few of the document, calendar, and other online services that Microsoft, Google and Zoho offer. This move to the "cloud" offers big benefits for people who are mobile.

Zoho Docs

http://www.zoho.com/ Zoho Docs, with Write, Sheet, Notebook, Mail, Planner, Presentations, is less known, but more polished and complete than Google Docs — particularly for business use. If I had a heavy documents load, I'd use Zoho, but then I'm retired, ain't I? ;-)

Google

You really don't need to install Microsoft Office or other office software anymore. Google has similar but simpler online services that would probably meet your needs, along with Gmail, Calendar, [Feed] Reader, and other online "social" functions. Like many people like me, I'm a heavy user of all things Google. ;-)

https://docs.google.com/ Google Docs
http://docs.google.com/templates Templates for Google Docs

http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ More Google stuff

http://gears.google.com/ Google Gears — work offline with Docs, Gmail, Reader, etc.

http://www.google.com/sites/overview.html Google Sites — make your own website

Microsoft Office Live

Microsoft is trying to merge "cloud" computing and services with Microsoft Office in a way that doesn't cannibalize their fat profits from legacy Microsoft Office programs. I think what they're doing makes a lot of sense for businesses that rely on Microsoft Office. It costs more, but they get the best of both worlds.

http://www.officelive.com/ Office Live — Free website, document storage, etc., but primarily designed to integrate with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, ...)

Windows Live

Windows Live is the compliment of the Office Live element of Microsoft's strategy. They are making a huge investment in "cloud" computing. They stumbled around for two years or more, but I think the current combination of Office Live and Windows Live will put them in a strong position to maintain their lead in the Enterprise segment. They may not be able to compete as well in the Home and Small Office segment.

http://home.live.com/ Windows Live — Home
http://www.windowslive.com/Explore Windows Live — Explore

http://home.live.com/allservices.aspx/ All online services (almost)

http://download.live.com/ Essentials (downloads) — Windows Live Mail, Writer, Messenger, Photo Gallery, ...
http://download.live.com/wlmail Windows Live Mail — replaces Outlook Express (XP) and Windows Mail (Vista)

Online storage, sync, collaboration, ...

http://skydrive.live.com/ SkyDrive — free online storage
http://www.windowslive.com/Online/SkyDrive SkyDrive — explore

https://sync.live.com/ Live Sync — synchronize the contents of folders between computers
https://sync.live.com/learnmore.aspx Live Sync — learn more

https://www.mesh.com/ Live Mesh — remote sync/access/control between computers.
https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/overview/Overview.aspx Live Mesh — overview

http://gallery.live.com/ Gallery — mostly widgets

TECH TOPICS
More on IE 8

If you're like me, you like to know what you're getting into before you get into it. I hinted last week that you might not find installing IE 8 to be trouble free. From an article that has mostly positive things to say about IE 8, there's further evidence that you won't find installing IE 8 as smooth as, for example, installing Firefox:

Word to the wise: Installing IE 8 on Windows XP is a huge test of patience. After downloading the installer, you'll be asked to verify Windows through Windows Genuine Advantage, then install additional components and numerous updates, then reboot, then check for malicious software, then install more updates, then reboot again. The whole time, you're never shown a progress bar, told where you are in the process or given any indication of how much longer the installation might take. Expect the full installation to take as long as 30 painful minutes.

IE 8 has many new features that are going to become more useful over time. It may be a long time before you discover or appreciate them unless you have a guide and spend some time learning to use them. Paul Thurrott's review of IE 8 would be a good place to start (and look for his index at the upper right of the page). Here's what he has to say about upgrading:

I will say this. If you're on IE 7 [using it as your main browser], upgrade. Yes, you will occasionally find yourself clicking the Compatibility View button to render some sites in an IE 7-friendly fashion, but those instances are already quiet rare. And you can always uninstall IE 8 if it doesn't work out. I do think that the many advantages of IE 8--the Favorites bar with Web slices and RSS feeds, visual search suggestions, and the many tab-related changes chief among them--will in general outweigh any minor compatibility issues you may encounter.

If you're on IE 6, you're either not reading this site anyway or you're in a corporate environment where you have no choice. If you actually do choose to use IE 6, please get a life. It's time to upgrade. Now.

Dan Tynan puts it all in perspective.

SECURITY
Microsoft Updates

Microsoft has tried to make it as easy as possible to keep your computer updated. Of course, they're congenitally incapable of doing anything but the opposite. Some of the confusion comes from the fact that Windows Update includes updates for other software if you're running Vista, but only Microsoft Update includes those other updates if you're running XP. Brilliant. The upshot is, you may be missing out on critical security updates if you don't go about it right.

To start with, make sure that you use Internet Explorer, and that it's not restricted from running administrative tasks (probably not a factor for users who don't know what I'm referring to here).

Then, just follow their instructions very carefully and you should come out OK. Now you'll get updates for Microsoft programs beyond Windows when you need them. You may have not even realized that you needed them.

ODDS and ENDS
Pomegranate Phone

My cell phone is better than your cell phone. :^) Give this a minute to load.

Duck in a truck...

I know that shotgun is not a word that ducks want to hear, but you've got to watch this duck ridin' shotgun.

That's all, folks.