Windows Tips and Tricks

It is being reported that Microsoft upped its bid to $34/share for Yahoo. If true, a final deal may be near.

(Because of rampant “borrowing” of posts by spam blogs, I am including the following: this post is originally from Vic Laurie at tips.vlaurie.com.)

Certain questions about using computers keep coming up. One of the recurring problems that home PC users seem to have is being unable to open certain email attachments. Now I could go into an entire song and dance here about how opening email attachments is generally dangerous and should be avoided but I’ll skip that and assume that you have an attachment from a known source and that your email service or software has scanned it and found it to be safe. And that you really want to open it. So, when Windows tells you that it can’t open the file (figure below) what do you do?

The most likely reason for being unable to open a file is that you do not have a program for handling that particular file type. This is an example of why it pays to have the display of file extensions enabled. The file extension will tell you what kind of file you are dealing with. As the figure shows, Windows offers to find some software for you and that may be the way you want to handle it. Personally, I would prefer not to rely on the choices that Microsoft makes. I would go look up the extension myself to see what kind of software is involved (for example, at the links in this previous post). However, that is a fair amount of work if you are also going to have to research some new software just to open the attachment.

You can save yourself some time and aggravation if you prepare in advance for some of the most common types of file that give average PC users trouble. Here are the problem situations that I have seen most:

• Your correspondent uses Microsoft Word; you don’t and can’t open DOC files. The solution is to download a free viewer from Microsoft now and save future annoyance. DOC files are very common and you will keep getting them. Or get Open Office. Unfortunately, Wordpad no longer reads DOC files.
• Your correspondent has the entire Microsoft Office and you don’t. You only have Word. She sends you an Excel spreadsheet (extension XLS). In fact, the sending of Excel files to others without realizing that they need software to open them is quite common. Again, the solution is to download the free viewer from Microsoft or a program like Open Office now and be prepared once and for all.
• You have an older version of Office and someone sends you the new file format DOCX or XLSX from Office 2007. Older versions of Office won’t open these new XML formats. Get the converters here.
• Someone sends you a picture in a file format that won’t open. How do you know it’s a picture? You did enable file extensions, didn’t you? The problem of incompatible picture formats affects mostly older systems but new or old your system will benefit from installing a program like the freeware IrfanView and its plugins. You will then be prepared to handle almost any graphics format.
• You get a multimedia file that won’t play. There are a number of possible problems with audio and video files but lacking the correct codecs is the most common. Codecs are a subject outside the scope of this article so I will just say downloading additional codecs may solve your problem. Consult the information for whatever media player you use. Another common problem is that there are incompatible file formats; Windows Media Player won’t open RealPlayer or QuickTime files. You need to install players for these formats. Again, the file extension will identify what format a file is in.
• Your correspondent has an Apple Mac and sends you files in a Mac format that Windows doesn’t recognize. Checking the file extension will tell you if a Mac format is involved. Ask your correspondent to try another format.

Finally, it is less common but another possible reason that a file won’t open is that, although you have the proper software, your file associations are wrong. This can happen from installing and uninstalling a program that took over associations or from other causes. You can read more about file associations here.

In the previous post, I complained about the fact that Microsoft and other software companies keep adding features that aren’t used by most people. Actually, adding features to software at a big company is an involved process. Several years ago Microsoft programmer Eric Lippert described who’s involved in implementing even a simple feature:

• One dev to spend five minutes implementing ChangeLightBulbWindowHandleEx.
• One program manager to write the specification.
• One localization expert to review the specification for localizability issues.
• One usability expert to review the specification for accessibility and usability issues.
• At least one dev, tester and PM to brainstorm security vulnerabilities.
• One PM to add the security model to the specification.
• One tester to write the test plan.
• One test lead to update the test schedule.
• One tester to write the test cases and add them to the nightly automation.
• Three or four testers to participate in an ad hoc bug bash.
• One technical writer to write the documentation.
• One technical reviewer to proofread the documentation.
• One copy editor to proofread the documentation.
• One documentation manager to integrate the new documentation into the existing body of text, update tables of contents, indexes, etc.
• Twenty-five translators to translate the documentation and error messages into all the languages supported by Windows.The managers for the translators live in Ireland (European languages) and Japan (Asian languages), which are both severely time-shifted from Redmond, so dealing with them can be a fairly complex logistical problem.
• A team of senior managers to coordinate all these people, write the cheques, and justify the costs to their Vice President.

Via Coding Horror

In order to keep selling more and more stuff, the computer industry keeps adding features. Microsoft piles them into Windows and Office and the rest of the industry does likewise. Most of these are never used by most consumers but everything continues to get more and more bloated in the effort to make you buy the newest new thing. The computer industry should take a lesson from the video recorder described by David Pogue. By keeping things to a minimum, a simplified video recorder has captured 13% of the camcorder market in a year.

Think about this: Windows 98 ran quite well on 64 MB of RAM but Vista needs 1 GB (or more).

I’ve often mentioned Karen Kenworthy’s collection of free utilities for doing many useful things. She has now updated her collection for Vista. Whether you use Vista or XP, her utilities are worth looking at. Go to this link.

Having said in my previous post that Microsoft Office is unnecessary for most home purposes, I should point out that Mary Jo Foley reported today that Microsoft may be developing a product aimed at the consumer market:

Microsoft has begun inviting selected testers to be part of a beta of a new, consumer-focused Office-family product, codenamed “Albany.”

One of the mysteries of life is why so many people waste their money buying expensive software that they don’t understand and barely use. A case in point is Microsoft Office. There is no question that it has a lot of features and is a versatile and powerful program. But I doubt that most ordinary computer users even know of the existence of most of what’s in Office, let alone actually use all the features. A standing joke in Office lore is that, whenever Microsoft asks users what they would like in the next version, the majority of suggestions are for features already present in Office.

There are a number of alternatives that make more sense for most home PC owners and for many small businesses. For home users, Microsoft itself offers the program Microsoft Works. But a better option may be the free program Open Office. This is a full-fledged suite and is compatible with various Microsoft file formats. InfoWorld has a preview of the new upcoming version and says that OpenOffice 3.0 will be a plausible challenger to Microsoft Office.

Another option is IBM Lotus Symphony. According to CNET:

Microsoft Office is not just overpriced–for most users, it’s overkill. That’s why I’ve been increasingly recommending IBM Lotus Symphony, a well-rounded office suite that just so happens to be free. It’s built on open-source favorite OpenOffice, but sports a sleeker, friendlier interface.

In fact, most home users need nothing more than a light-weight application and the various Web-based applications look like very viable options for home use. CNET has an article, Making the switch from Microsoft Office to Web apps, that describes using the service ThinkFree. Better known is the one provided by Google Docs. A description of switching from Office to Google Docs is at App Scout:

If you’ve been thinking about abandoning Microsoft Office on the desktop in favor of a Web-based solution, Google Docs is a natural solution. The nice thing about Google Docs is that you can upload Microsoft Word docs and Excel spreadsheets without a problem. If you have a lot of documents you’d like to import however, the Google Docs Uploader can save a lot of time.

Yet another Web-based alternative is Zoho. Some description is at TechCrunch:

Web-based word processors keep closing the gap with Microsoft Office. Since its launch, Zoho now has 650,000 users, a 30 percent increase from just last November, the company tells us. It is doing 2 million user sessions per month. And its users have created more than one million documents on Zoho Writer (1.6 million, if you include its online presentation and spreadsheet products, Zoho Show and Zoho Sheets).

I have commented before that consumers should hope for AMD to continue as a going concern so that Intel will have some competition. Unfortunately, AMD’s future is looking gloomier. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes writes:

So that leaves me worried about AMD’s future, and the effect that will have to the entire chip industry. Not because I have any affiliation with the company, and not because I buy AMD processors (I do like ATi graphics cards though, partly because I like the drivers, but to be honest I see 2008 being the year that I go back to nVIDIA) but because we need AMD to keep the pressure on Intel and to keep innovation going. I fear that without competition, the processor sector will start to stagnate and we’ll be plunged back to the dark days of the 486 when innovation crept forward at a snail’s pace.

There’s an interesting article at Wired Magazine about Apple and Steve Jobs. Actually, it’s mostly about Jobs, but as the article makes clear, Apple is Steve Jobs. Even confirmed Windows fans might want to read it.

There are a number of sites that will check how fast your Internet connection is by downloading and uploading files but I like the one at Speedtest.net. They have a lot of available servers at different geographical locations.

Via Tweakhound.