I was checking out Microsoft's Silverlight technology recently (especially the version 2.0 that is out now in beta). It looks pretty cool and Microsoft has probably taken it further ahead of Flash by giving it the capability to run .NET code.
But I think its unfair on the part of Microsoft to put those boxes around Flash objects and make you click on them before it activates the Flash controls in Internet Explorer. I see no such restriction for Silverlight objects. Is this giving Silverlight an unfair advantage at least in terms of ease of use (I've seen many users complain that Flash controls don't work on a website - since they didn't realize that they need to click on them once activate the control).
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Is Apple braindead or am I? - the saga of iPod Touch January update in India
I got an iPod Touch about 10 days back and was happy as a baby exploring a new toy until I realized that it came with outdated software. The so-called "January update" to iPod Touch that made it much more useful (such as adding a Mail app, etc) was not available even though I had purchased the Touch in the last week of January 2008.
So I promptly went to the Apple website and looked around. I did find a link that promised me the heavens with the January update and a link to buy the update. I thought "Ok so Apple is going to rip me off $20 in the process even if I did get the Touch only in end-January - so what?". So I went ahead and clicked the link to buy the update.
This then opened iTunes which started loading the iTunes Store and then asked me to register for an iTunes Store account but refused to allow me to register since I was in India and Apple did not have the iTunes Store available for India.
I didn't want to buy any music - I just wanted the Touch update. But I couldn't get it without an iTunes Store account which in turn was not available if you were unlucky enough to be in India.
So I called up the Apple support line in Bangalore (luckily they do have a support helpdesk in India). The friendly customer support representative took my Touch serial number and other details and finally proclaimed the obvious - "Sir, you need to go to iTunes Store and download the update via that". I said "Yes I tried that and it didn't allow me to create the account. That is why I'm calling you".
And to this the friendly guy replied, "You'll need to create an account with a USA or Australia credit card and address and then download the update". To this I said "How am I supposed to do that if I don't have a credit card from USA or Australia?". To that he says, "Sorry I can't help you with that".
OK... so why is Apple selling iPod Touch in India if they don't allow you to make full use of the products they are selling? Apple may be great at design - but I think they're braindead when it comes to commonsense (either that or they think they are so high and mighty they can get away with anything).
Why can't they just provide some sort of download area that allows customers in India (and the hundreds of other countries where there is no iTunes Store) to download the update from their site as long as they have a serial number that can be traced back to a retailer in that country. Or even provide the update on a disk to customers without iTunes Store accounts who want to buy it?
Not sure what is going on here. I would appreciate if anyone has any tips on how unfortunate people in India can get the January update for iPod Touch.
So I promptly went to the Apple website and looked around. I did find a link that promised me the heavens with the January update and a link to buy the update. I thought "Ok so Apple is going to rip me off $20 in the process even if I did get the Touch only in end-January - so what?". So I went ahead and clicked the link to buy the update.
This then opened iTunes which started loading the iTunes Store and then asked me to register for an iTunes Store account but refused to allow me to register since I was in India and Apple did not have the iTunes Store available for India.
I didn't want to buy any music - I just wanted the Touch update. But I couldn't get it without an iTunes Store account which in turn was not available if you were unlucky enough to be in India.
So I called up the Apple support line in Bangalore (luckily they do have a support helpdesk in India). The friendly customer support representative took my Touch serial number and other details and finally proclaimed the obvious - "Sir, you need to go to iTunes Store and download the update via that". I said "Yes I tried that and it didn't allow me to create the account. That is why I'm calling you".
And to this the friendly guy replied, "You'll need to create an account with a USA or Australia credit card and address and then download the update". To this I said "How am I supposed to do that if I don't have a credit card from USA or Australia?". To that he says, "Sorry I can't help you with that".
OK... so why is Apple selling iPod Touch in India if they don't allow you to make full use of the products they are selling? Apple may be great at design - but I think they're braindead when it comes to commonsense (either that or they think they are so high and mighty they can get away with anything).
Why can't they just provide some sort of download area that allows customers in India (and the hundreds of other countries where there is no iTunes Store) to download the update from their site as long as they have a serial number that can be traced back to a retailer in that country. Or even provide the update on a disk to customers without iTunes Store accounts who want to buy it?
Not sure what is going on here. I would appreciate if anyone has any tips on how unfortunate people in India can get the January update for iPod Touch.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Safari for Windows
Earlier this week Apple let loose the Safari 3 browser beta on its Windows brethren. And the world rejoiced!
Ofcourse, I'm about a week late in rejoicing.
I visited the pcmag.com home page this morning and lo and behold! There was this article on the Apple Safari 3 beta for Windows. I promptly installed it and within a few minutes it has become my default browser.
There's only one word that I have for the Safari browser as of now - awesome! The pages do indeed load much faster. And the interface is absolutely out of this world - press CTRL-D to bookmark a page and a panel "flips" out from top of the browser to ask you where you want to add the bookmark!
And I would say that the inline page find (go ahead, press CTRL-F and then type in some text - see what happens) on its own makes it worth having Safari as your default browser.
Though Apple has not created an "official" extensions architecture for Safari it does have several extensions available (see www.pimpmysafari.com) like Firefox. I'm not sure if these work on the Windows avatar as well, need to check some out soon.
Finally there's one thing I need to ask of Apple (that is, if they read this blog!) - what took you so long? Come on, release Windows versions of the other great Apple software out there. I can't wait to use GarageBand and Pages 2 on Windows.
Or perhaps you just want all of us to buy the Intel Macs after drooling on iTunes and Safari, dreaming about the better life that awaits us...
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Error code 0x80040116 in Outlook 2007
When trying to click 'Settings' on a PST file in Outlook 2007 (File > Data File Management) I kept getting an error code 0x80040116.
I had the problem with both my Archive PST file as well as the main Personal Folders PST file. I was able to resolve the problem with Archive PST by just closing and re-opening the Archive Folders i.e. right click 'Archive Folders' and then select 'Close Archive Folders'. Then go to File > Data File Management and click 'Add' and add the 'Archive.pst' file (or whatever its called on your system) back to Outlook. You can use this method for other PST files too (except for the main Personal Folders outlook.pst file - which you cannot 'close').
For the Personal Folders PST file the procedure is as follows.
1. Click File > Data File Management and then click "Open Folder" to open the folder where Outlook stores the data files. Keep this Explorer window open.
2. Exit from Outlook.
3. On the Explorer window that you opened in the first step you'll see a file called 'outlook.pst' and this is the main Personal Folders PST file (at least all systems I've seen so far always call it 'outlook.pst').
4. Now copy and paste this outlook.pst file to some other folder (lets say you put it on your desktop and rename it to outlook1.pst). And just to be sure you have a backup, copy and paste the outlook.pst again to another folder too! This process may take a while especially if you have a large PST file.
5. Now open Outlook and delete all of the folders you have under 'Personal Folders' (yes go ahead and do it!). You should be able to delete all of them except for the system folders such as Deleted Items, Drafts, Inbox, Junk E-mail, Outbox, RSS feeds, Sent Items and Search Folders.
6. Now empty the deleted items by clicking 'Tools' and then 'Empty Deleted Items folder'.
7. Next open the copy of outlook.pst (i.e. the outlook1.pst file from step 4) by going File > Data File Management and then clicking 'Add'.
8. Outlook will now open one more 'Personal Folders' folder. This would have all of the email etc that you originally had in the main Personal Folders.
9. Now just drag and drop the folders and email back into the main Personal Folders folder (the one at the top). E.g. email in the Inbox of the second Personal Folders folder goes into the Inbox of the Personal Folders at the top, email in the Sent Items of the second Personal Folders goes into the Sent Items of the one at the top, folders in the second Personal Folders go into the first Personal Folders and so on.
10. Once that is over close the second Personal Folders (the outlook1.pst one) by right clicking it and selecting 'Close Personal Folders'.
11. You can now go to File > Data File Management and click 'Settings' on your Personal Folders and see the Settings dialog.
**MANDATORY WARNING** You're playing with your email here, so be extra careful! You don't want to delete hundreds of years of stored messages in one click!
** NOTE ** I am assuming you don't have an MS Exchange connection from your Outlook or any similar fancy stuff. If you do then the above procedure may not work for you. I don't use an Exchange server so I don't know if the procedure works in such cases.
I had the problem with both my Archive PST file as well as the main Personal Folders PST file. I was able to resolve the problem with Archive PST by just closing and re-opening the Archive Folders i.e. right click 'Archive Folders' and then select 'Close Archive Folders'. Then go to File > Data File Management and click 'Add' and add the 'Archive.pst' file (or whatever its called on your system) back to Outlook. You can use this method for other PST files too (except for the main Personal Folders outlook.pst file - which you cannot 'close').
For the Personal Folders PST file the procedure is as follows.
1. Click File > Data File Management and then click "Open Folder" to open the folder where Outlook stores the data files. Keep this Explorer window open.
2. Exit from Outlook.
3. On the Explorer window that you opened in the first step you'll see a file called 'outlook.pst' and this is the main Personal Folders PST file (at least all systems I've seen so far always call it 'outlook.pst').
4. Now copy and paste this outlook.pst file to some other folder (lets say you put it on your desktop and rename it to outlook1.pst). And just to be sure you have a backup, copy and paste the outlook.pst again to another folder too! This process may take a while especially if you have a large PST file.
5. Now open Outlook and delete all of the folders you have under 'Personal Folders' (yes go ahead and do it!). You should be able to delete all of them except for the system folders such as Deleted Items, Drafts, Inbox, Junk E-mail, Outbox, RSS feeds, Sent Items and Search Folders.
6. Now empty the deleted items by clicking 'Tools' and then 'Empty Deleted Items folder'.
7. Next open the copy of outlook.pst (i.e. the outlook1.pst file from step 4) by going File > Data File Management and then clicking 'Add'.
8. Outlook will now open one more 'Personal Folders' folder. This would have all of the email etc that you originally had in the main Personal Folders.
9. Now just drag and drop the folders and email back into the main Personal Folders folder (the one at the top). E.g. email in the Inbox of the second Personal Folders folder goes into the Inbox of the Personal Folders at the top, email in the Sent Items of the second Personal Folders goes into the Sent Items of the one at the top, folders in the second Personal Folders go into the first Personal Folders and so on.
10. Once that is over close the second Personal Folders (the outlook1.pst one) by right clicking it and selecting 'Close Personal Folders'.
11. You can now go to File > Data File Management and click 'Settings' on your Personal Folders and see the Settings dialog.
**MANDATORY WARNING** You're playing with your email here, so be extra careful! You don't want to delete hundreds of years of stored messages in one click!
** NOTE ** I am assuming you don't have an MS Exchange connection from your Outlook or any similar fancy stuff. If you do then the above procedure may not work for you. I don't use an Exchange server so I don't know if the procedure works in such cases.
Friday, February 16, 2007
svchost.exe - application error
If you get this error:
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
svchost.exe - application error
The instruction at "0x745f2780" referenced memory at "0x00000000". The memory could not be "read".
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
And also a error dialog about "Generic Host process for Win32 services", then do this to resolve the problem:
1. Boot into safe mode
2. Disable automatic updates in Windows
3. Reboot system into normal mode
4. Do a manual Windows update
5. Enable automatic updates in Windows
4. Reboot once again
It looks like a recent Windows auto-update messed things up and Windows kept giving the above error on startup. I got this error this morning and was in "safe mode" till I found the above solution.
I actually found "safe mode with networking" much faster and better than the regular "unsafe" mode of Windows. More about that later. :-)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
svchost.exe - application error
The instruction at "0x745f2780" referenced memory at "0x00000000". The memory could not be "read".
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
And also a error dialog about "Generic Host process for Win32 services", then do this to resolve the problem:
1. Boot into safe mode
2. Disable automatic updates in Windows
3. Reboot system into normal mode
4. Do a manual Windows update
5. Enable automatic updates in Windows
4. Reboot once again
It looks like a recent Windows auto-update messed things up and Windows kept giving the above error on startup. I got this error this morning and was in "safe mode" till I found the above solution.
I actually found "safe mode with networking" much faster and better than the regular "unsafe" mode of Windows. More about that later. :-)
Friday, May 19, 2006
Microsoft strikes back? - Windows Live Messenger, Windows Media Player 11, etc
I just installed the latest beta of Windows Live Messenger and Windows Media Player 11. Though I haven't played around with WMP11 yet I should say that Live Messenger is looking good. But one downside - it has tons of stuff I will never use but which still clutter the interface.
After some searching on Google I found A-Patch for Windows Live Messenger - a cool program that strips out many (and I mean many!) unwanted interface enhancements from Messenger. Check out the screenshot that shows my Messenger window after I stripped it down with A-Patch.
And for those that upgraded to Yahoo Messenger 7.5 and got a shock when they saw the bottom ads on the contact list window - there's
a registry fix for that.
And finally about Windows Media Player 11 - it looks very retro-modern but I will have to actually start using it to see if it can be any serious competition to iTunes. Watch this space. :-)
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
A yawn, Hamachi and Stormy Weather
I awake from deep slumber to post again.. tada! OK I know no one is going to be surprised or even looking forward to this post. Its been a rather whirlwind schedule these past few months and I conveniently shelved my blog during this period. So here's a short post to keep things live.
Hamachi - this is a 'cute' piece of VPN software that is virtually zero configuration required (except to make the necessary firewall settings to allow the Hamachi adapter access). Pretty useful if you want to use the Internet to form a private network (home office use, playing LAN games etc).
Stormy Weather - this is a book by Carl Hiaasen. I just finished listening to it on audible. Its seriouslly comically and the author sure knows how to weave a tale.
Hamachi - this is a 'cute' piece of VPN software that is virtually zero configuration required (except to make the necessary firewall settings to allow the Hamachi adapter access). Pretty useful if you want to use the Internet to form a private network (home office use, playing LAN games etc).
Stormy Weather - this is a book by Carl Hiaasen. I just finished listening to it on audible. Its seriouslly comically and the author sure knows how to weave a tale.
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