RIGUY

I spent a few hours trying to connect my new Lumia 920, Windows 8 to my laptop. I had Zune installed and working with the previous Lumia 900 (Windows 7) series phone. I was able to synchronize pictures, music and contacts. However, when connecting the new phone, Zune did not recognize it whatsoever. I tried uninstalling Zune, then reinstalling, but that did not work. Research with coworkers and online showed that the specific USB cable that came WITH THE PHONE must be used and also that Zune appears to be on the way out for synching purposes.

So, even though another phone connector will actually plug into both the phone and the laptop correctly, it will not synchronize. It may charge via the USB, but that is all. I was keeping the connector that came with the phone in my laptop carry bag as a backup. I had a spare connector from the previous phone. That was the culprit.

Once I used the proper connector, my phone was immediately recognized and there was a link to the Windows Phone App for the Desktop.

Maybe I should not be posting this on a GOOGLE Blog, but hell, it sure is interesting! Microsoft is using the term, “Scroogled” in order to compete with the mighty Google ad network.

“In the beginning, Google preached, “Don’t be evil“—but that changed on May 31, 2012. That’s when Google Shopping announced a new initiative. Simply put, all of their shopping results are now paid ads.
In their under-the-radar announcement, Google admits they’ve now built “a purely commercial model” that delivers listings ranked by “bid price.” Google Shopping is nothing more than a list of targeted ads that unsuspecting customers assume are search results. They call these “Product Listing Ads” a “truly great search.”
We say that when you limit choices and rank them by payment, consumers get Scroogled. For an honest search result, try Bing.
Don’t get Scroogled this holiday season. Watch the video

I noticed my Nokia Lumia 920 with Windows 8 gets VERY hot sometimes. It becomes so hot on the backside, that I need to turn it off. It does not seem to be a deal breaker. In other words, it does not stop the smart phone’s functionality. It is the same as with many laptops, Windows or Macs. After much use, they sometimes can actually heat up noticeably on the bottom. This is especially true when dealing with heavy video editing or other heavy duty multimedia usage or work.

My Windows 8 Lumia 920 last night became extremely hot after using the Nokia Maps version 3.0. The good news is that the Nokia Maps app is awesome. It not only shows directions, it actually vocally points you in the right direction via voice. I love it. And it is free. I just wish it did not get so hot!

Ok, so it’s not really related to Windows technologies per se, and I’m probably too old to like this song, but Thrift Shop is a great song!

It is actually very creative. The video has a Delorean in it. How cool is that? The song mentions  jammies, honky, RKelley, grandpa style, velcro sneakers, Gucci, 99 cents, fur fox skin, Goodwill, mamie, and poppin’ tags. D’oh!

Wait, Macklemore is from Seattle, Washington, very close to Redmond. Now this makes sense!

Warning –  this song has multiple cuss words ;>

Macklemore Thrift Shop Video

Speaking of Samba Server, I once implemented it in a Windows environment. I made a Windows domain completely inter operate with a Linux system. It was great fun. I am sure the Samba version 3 or version 4 releases are much easier to work with, as the one I worked on was a little tricky in parts.

I documented a Red Hat Linux and Windows Domain Samba Server set up completely.

It looks like a new Samba Server version is coming out. Samba has never been for the faint of heart. It is basically a technology or software used to bridge the gap between the Windows world and the Unix (Linux, really) world. Of course, it functions fine on its own, but many Administrators use it in mixed OS environments. It provides for similar functionality as Active Directory – in other words, user accounts and LDAP type of stuff. It utilizes the SMB Protocol to facilitate common file sharing as well.

“The Samba 4.0 file server contains an initial implementation of SMB3, which will be further developed in later Samba 4 releases into a fully-featured SMB3 clustered file server implementation,” the Samba team wrote. “Future developments of our SMB3 server and client suite, in combination with our expanding number of SMB3 tests, will keep driving the performance improvements and improved compatibility with Microsoft Windows that Samba users have come to expect from our software.”
Windows server with AD has been around since 2000 and the installed base is massive. While Samba will help enterprises deploy Linux as well, there’s no way Linux will immediately displace Windows out of the gate given the massive installed base and investments in the Active Directory infrastructure.
The availability of Samba 4 is a direct offspring of Microsoft’s antitrust settlement, which required the company to disclose specific protocols that the Samba team used.
But Microsoft went far beyond just releasing the protocols and has been helping the Samba team throughout the process — though slow and laborious as it was….”

The ZDNet Article here

More and people are looking to services like Dropbox as a way to quickly share documents. But there are dangers. Beware of security dangers!

“An example of such an exploit came to light this month, owing to a Dropbox employee having stored an unencrypted document on the service that contained Dropbox users’ email addresses. An attacker logged into the Dropbox employee’s account, using a password that the employee had reused on another–compromised–site, obtained a copy of the document, then used the email addresses to unleash a flood of spam at Dropbox users.”

This Information Week article spells it out.

Read About Dropbox

I am so tired of all Adobe software! Argggg.
It is bloated software and constantly has ongoing updates. It is not even an operating system and I am pretty sure it has more security and patch or enhancement updates than even Microsoft or Linux systems! Anyway, I was in need of some printing to PDF.

What is “printing to PDF”? For those who do not know: certain PDF related software is used to literally add a printer icon to your workstation. This software is installed and an icon is set up in your Printers folder so that you can “print” to it. Except it has nothing to do with printing. It just outputs the file to a .PDF. You pick where to save it. Pretty cool.

I recently ran into a situation where I needed to print to PDF. The catch? The need was on a server. I did not realize that you cannot use Acrobat Reader in order to print to PDF on a Windows Server 2008 (R2) system. Adobe Forum elders make it clear this has something to do with Licensing terms. As this was a test database server, I was not going to put a full licensed version of Adobe on this server. Only absolutely required software should go on a server, even a test one. After all, servers are not toys. So, I had to go somewhere else, away from the Adobe machine.

I remembered from several years ago that I used a very useful freeware piece called BullZip software for this very task, albeit on a standard PC. So I typed in bullzip.com to research and sure enough, it is still there. There is other software offered as well. I cannot vouch for the other programs, but BullZip PDF Printer is top notch. Not only is it still there, but I installed it on the server, tested it, and it works great. The download site let me know this freeware also works on Windows 8 and Server 2012. It appears they are forward thinking. This tells me they will be around for a long time!

Use and Support BullZip!

If you are a Microsoft Hotmail user, then you will be seeing solicitations in your Inbox to upgrade to “Outlook.Com”. Basically, this is a new interface that streamlines some services, for example, SkyDrive, Calendar, Skype (coming soon). But really it is a harbinger of things to come or things that are already here: Windows 8.

If you have used Windows 8, as I have, then you will notice that Microsoft is merging the Metro styled interface across the board: on tablets, on PCs, on laptops, on phones, and …online.

Go directly to Microsoft’s Outlook site for any questions

I do not mean to seem like an AT&T advertisement, but this is a really good deal. It is a Windows based phone that costs 1 Cent. Here is the catch: it is refurbished. That should be pretty self explanatory, but if you are looking to get an essentially free Windows based phone, then this is the time. It is a web only offer, and of course, you need to sign up for a voice and data plan with AT&T.

Hey, it is at least worth investigating and comparison shopping.

AT&T Store for 1 Cent Phone