Microsoft Close to Releasing IE 8
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7852340.stm
Microsoft today announced that it had released Internet Explorer 8 "Release Candidate One", or RC1, which indicates that the browser is very close to General Availability (GA).
This surprises me, as I just uninstalled the IE8 Beta last Friday after being thoroughly disgusted with instability, rendering problems and other bugs with the version prior to RC1. Perhaps they've been burning the midnight QA oil, but somehow I'm skeptical.
In the meantime, Firefox has been enjoying steady market share growth, crossing the 20% barrier (to 21%). While I like Firefox for a number of reasons, and it remains my #1 choice in browsers, I have to admit that I've been using Google Chrome more and more due to its raw speed. Chrome doesn't seem to work very well on some sites, however, so I generally use it only for browsing news sites and, of course, with Gmail.
This should be an interesting year for browsers, and will tell if Redmond will be able to recapture any lost market share with IE8. Based on my experience so far, I'd have to vote no.
Monday, January 26, 2009
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Monday, October 08, 2007
Hilton Garden Inn - Stay 3 Nights in October, Get a Free Yamaha USB Speaker Offer
This is a great, little known promotion that Wired Magazine and Hilton Garden Inn are running.
Basically, just stay 3 nights at HGI in October and they will send you a $150 USB powered Yamaha speaker that will work with your laptop, iPod, etc, free of charge. Just make sure that you either book your stay through the link above or tell your travel agent to use Promo Code OHMS when they make your reservation.
I checked out the speaker (it's the Yamaha NX-U10), and it actually got pretty good reviews. It sells for around $100 street, so it's a heckuva deal.
This is a great, little known promotion that Wired Magazine and Hilton Garden Inn are running.
Basically, just stay 3 nights at HGI in October and they will send you a $150 USB powered Yamaha speaker that will work with your laptop, iPod, etc, free of charge. Just make sure that you either book your stay through the link above or tell your travel agent to use Promo Code OHMS when they make your reservation.
I checked out the speaker (it's the Yamaha NX-U10), and it actually got pretty good reviews. It sells for around $100 street, so it's a heckuva deal.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Fixing Microsoft Outlook's Email Address "Auto Complete" Nickname Problem
Microsoft Outlook, on the whole, is a good tool for managing email, contacts, calendars, and so forth. One piece of over-engineering, IMHO, is Outlook's email address "Nickname" feature, in which Outlook attempts to make things easier for you when you begin typing an email address in to the 'To:', 'CC:' or 'BCC:' fields. What happens behind the scenes is that Outlook captures email addresses you type in this way (as opposed to having it look them up in the address book), and stores them as "nicknames" in a file that's located at C:\Documents and Settings\{your user ID}\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.NK2 .
An annoying problem crops up when someone's email address changes, or if their email address in the Outlook address book is different from the one that's stored in the nickname file--also if you begin typing in someone's address and hit 'tab' to autocomplete the entry--sometimes you wind up sending messages to the wrong person.
Typically, the advice I would give to someone facing this problem would be to simply delete the .NK2 file--a somewhat heavy-handed solution, as it deletes all of the nicknames stored (which is not necessarily a bad thing, but most people actually *like* this feature). Unfortunately, the .NK2 file is not editable unless you purchase a utility to do so (which, for about $30, isn't worth it IMHO).
I just discovered an alternate solution, which allows you to simply delete the entries you don't want . To remove a contact from your Outlook address box so that it won't be suggested again, open a new message and begin typing in the address. Use the up and down arrow keys to select the address to be removed from the addresses suggested. When the address to be removed is highlighted, press the Delete key.
I tried it and it works great!
Microsoft Outlook, on the whole, is a good tool for managing email, contacts, calendars, and so forth. One piece of over-engineering, IMHO, is Outlook's email address "Nickname" feature, in which Outlook attempts to make things easier for you when you begin typing an email address in to the 'To:', 'CC:' or 'BCC:' fields. What happens behind the scenes is that Outlook captures email addresses you type in this way (as opposed to having it look them up in the address book), and stores them as "nicknames" in a file that's located at C:\Documents and Settings\{your user ID}\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.NK2 .
An annoying problem crops up when someone's email address changes, or if their email address in the Outlook address book is different from the one that's stored in the nickname file--also if you begin typing in someone's address and hit 'tab' to autocomplete the entry--sometimes you wind up sending messages to the wrong person.
Typically, the advice I would give to someone facing this problem would be to simply delete the .NK2 file--a somewhat heavy-handed solution, as it deletes all of the nicknames stored (which is not necessarily a bad thing, but most people actually *like* this feature). Unfortunately, the .NK2 file is not editable unless you purchase a utility to do so (which, for about $30, isn't worth it IMHO).
I just discovered an alternate solution, which allows you to simply delete the entries you don't want . To remove a contact from your Outlook address box so that it won't be suggested again, open a new message and begin typing in the address. Use the up and down arrow keys to select the address to be removed from the addresses suggested. When the address to be removed is highlighted, press the Delete key.
I tried it and it works great!
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
How to fix Outlook's annoying "nickname autocomplete' problems
A number of friends have asked me over the years how to reset or disable Outlook's "nickname cache" feature. If you're not sure what this is, it's what happens when you are composing an email message and begin typing a name or email address into one of the address fields in Outlook. Outlook will try to be helpful and suggest a list of names (nicknames) based on a cache of previously entered addresses. The problem with this is that over time the cache gets populated with a litany of old or incorrect addresses, and it can become quite an annoyance if you don't pay attention to what you're doing.
After a bit of research, I stumbled across two solutions to the problem: 1) turn off the feature all together, and 2) reset the cache.
1. Turning off the nickname cache feature
This is much simpler than I thought it would be. First, start Outlook, and then select Tools...Options, followed by Email Options, and then click the Advanced E-Mail Options button (this was tested in Outlook 2003--other versions are likely to be the same, only different ;-) ). In the advanced options dialog, toward the bottom, there is a check box titled 'Suggest names while completing To, CVc, and Bcc fields'. Simply uncheck, click OK, and the "feature" will go away permanently.
2. Resetting the nickname cache
If you happen to *like* the nickname cache/autocomplete feature, but want to clean out all of the junk that's accumulated, you'll need to find the nickname file and delete it. The nickname cache file always has an extension of '.nk2' on the end of it, so finding the file is as simple as searching the hard drive for all files that end in .nk2. I prefer to use the search assistant (hit the Start button, followed by the 'Search' icon...if you're using Windows Desktop search, you'll need to click on 'search assistant' toward the bottom left of the screen). Then select 'All files and
folders', and be sure to click the advanced options and select 'Search System' and 'Search 'Hidden' files. In the file name field, type *.nk2 and then click the 'search' button.
On my machine, the file was named 'Outlook.nk2'. Once it's been found, shut down Outlook, delete or rename the file, and then restart Outlook. Outlook will recreate the file from scratch and begin the process of caching nicknames anew.
References
Microsoft Outlook Auto Complete enable or disable?
How to reset the nickname and the automatic completion caches in Outlook
A number of friends have asked me over the years how to reset or disable Outlook's "nickname cache" feature. If you're not sure what this is, it's what happens when you are composing an email message and begin typing a name or email address into one of the address fields in Outlook. Outlook will try to be helpful and suggest a list of names (nicknames) based on a cache of previously entered addresses. The problem with this is that over time the cache gets populated with a litany of old or incorrect addresses, and it can become quite an annoyance if you don't pay attention to what you're doing.
After a bit of research, I stumbled across two solutions to the problem: 1) turn off the feature all together, and 2) reset the cache.
1. Turning off the nickname cache feature
This is much simpler than I thought it would be. First, start Outlook, and then select Tools...Options, followed by Email Options, and then click the Advanced E-Mail Options button (this was tested in Outlook 2003--other versions are likely to be the same, only different ;-) ). In the advanced options dialog, toward the bottom, there is a check box titled 'Suggest names while completing To, CVc, and Bcc fields'. Simply uncheck, click OK, and the "feature" will go away permanently.
2. Resetting the nickname cache
If you happen to *like* the nickname cache/autocomplete feature, but want to clean out all of the junk that's accumulated, you'll need to find the nickname file and delete it. The nickname cache file always has an extension of '.nk2' on the end of it, so finding the file is as simple as searching the hard drive for all files that end in .nk2. I prefer to use the search assistant (hit the Start button, followed by the 'Search' icon...if you're using Windows Desktop search, you'll need to click on 'search assistant' toward the bottom left of the screen). Then select 'All files and
folders', and be sure to click the advanced options and select 'Search System' and 'Search 'Hidden' files. In the file name field, type *.nk2 and then click the 'search' button.
On my machine, the file was named 'Outlook.nk2'. Once it's been found, shut down Outlook, delete or rename the file, and then restart Outlook. Outlook will recreate the file from scratch and begin the process of caching nicknames anew.
References
Microsoft Outlook Auto Complete enable or disable?
How to reset the nickname and the automatic completion caches in Outlook
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Compuware Buys Proxima Technology for $31M
Compuware Corporation (NASDAQ: CPWR) announced on January 2 that it has entered into an agreement to purchase privately held Proxima Technology of Denver, Colorado, for $31 million in an all-cash deal. Proxima Technology's flagship product, Centauri Business Service Manager, will become a key component of the Compuware Vantage management suite, providing business service management and service level management functionality previously missing from the company's offerings.
For Proxima's part, Compuware's ownership will provide significant new opportunities for Centauri. Putting the might of Compuware's sales and marketing force behind Centauri will not only allow it to penetrate new markets and customers, but it will also enable Compuware to penetrate further into large system integrators and outsourcers like EDS and IBM Global Services, which are key Proxima customers.
Centauri could also be leveraged inside of Vantage as a centralized integration point for the Vantage products, providing dashboard, reporting and notification functionality across the product line. Centauri could also ease the integration between Vantage and other products in the Compuware portfolio, including Changepoint, not to mention third-party vendor products.
Overall, the acquisition is a good move for both companies: Compuware was the last large systems management company to add service management to its portfolio, which will allow it to compete on a more level playing field against the "big four" (IBM, HP, CA and BMC). Proxima gains the might of a $1.2B software company, and of course its employees will enjoy a much anticipated "liquidity event."
If Compuware plays its cards right, it could leverage Centauri in a number of key ways, further establishing Vantage as a systems management force to be reckoned with.
Compuware Corporation (NASDAQ: CPWR) announced on January 2 that it has entered into an agreement to purchase privately held Proxima Technology of Denver, Colorado, for $31 million in an all-cash deal. Proxima Technology's flagship product, Centauri Business Service Manager, will become a key component of the Compuware Vantage management suite, providing business service management and service level management functionality previously missing from the company's offerings.
For Proxima's part, Compuware's ownership will provide significant new opportunities for Centauri. Putting the might of Compuware's sales and marketing force behind Centauri will not only allow it to penetrate new markets and customers, but it will also enable Compuware to penetrate further into large system integrators and outsourcers like EDS and IBM Global Services, which are key Proxima customers.
Centauri could also be leveraged inside of Vantage as a centralized integration point for the Vantage products, providing dashboard, reporting and notification functionality across the product line. Centauri could also ease the integration between Vantage and other products in the Compuware portfolio, including Changepoint, not to mention third-party vendor products.
Overall, the acquisition is a good move for both companies: Compuware was the last large systems management company to add service management to its portfolio, which will allow it to compete on a more level playing field against the "big four" (IBM, HP, CA and BMC). Proxima gains the might of a $1.2B software company, and of course its employees will enjoy a much anticipated "liquidity event."
If Compuware plays its cards right, it could leverage Centauri in a number of key ways, further establishing Vantage as a systems management force to be reckoned with.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Lessons from the James Kim Tragedy
As you probably know, CNet journalist James Kim died this week trying to find help for he and his family, who had become stranded in the backwoods of Oregon. Hopefully this tragedy can help others, however, by reinforcing the idea that we should always be prepared for this type of situation--and a few lessons can be learned from James' mistakes that might save someone's life in the future.
First, I came across a website that someone put together that illustrates James' path using GPS coordinates provided by the rescue agencies that tracked him, combined with technology from Google Earth. The data shows that James followed the road that they had become stuck on for a while, and then struck out off-road, proceeding down a ravine. Press reports indicate that he had been tracked by a bear, which is probably why he left the road. The most heartbreaking item from the track is that he basically wound up going in a circle, passing away not far from where he started--and if he had only started out by going the other way on the road, he would have come across a lodge in a very short period of time.
So what lessons can be learned from this? If you're planning on taking a trip through unfamiliar territory, consider the following:
As you probably know, CNet journalist James Kim died this week trying to find help for he and his family, who had become stranded in the backwoods of Oregon. Hopefully this tragedy can help others, however, by reinforcing the idea that we should always be prepared for this type of situation--and a few lessons can be learned from James' mistakes that might save someone's life in the future.
First, I came across a website that someone put together that illustrates James' path using GPS coordinates provided by the rescue agencies that tracked him, combined with technology from Google Earth. The data shows that James followed the road that they had become stuck on for a while, and then struck out off-road, proceeding down a ravine. Press reports indicate that he had been tracked by a bear, which is probably why he left the road. The most heartbreaking item from the track is that he basically wound up going in a circle, passing away not far from where he started--and if he had only started out by going the other way on the road, he would have come across a lodge in a very short period of time.
So what lessons can be learned from this? If you're planning on taking a trip through unfamiliar territory, consider the following:
- Carry a detailed map of the area you plan to travel through, along with a quality compass and basic map-reading and navigation skills (GPS is great until the batteries die!). A good map would have quite likely saved Mr. Kim's life--he would have seen the lodge on the map and started up the road the other way.
- Carry an emergency kit in your car that includes non-perishable/high-calorie foods, drinking water, matches, flares, blankets, flashlight, etc.
- Invest in a GPS; they are available for less than $100, and make sure that you have spare batteries. If you're gadget-minded like me, you can get topographical maps of the area you're traveling through and load them into the GPS.
There is an excellent, much more complete list available at http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/wilderness-survival-kit-gadgets-and-ideas-that-could-save-your-life-220100.php ; highly recommended reading.
Rest in peace, James Kim--I'm really glad your family survived. I'm sure that was the one thing that you hoped for, regardless of your personal fate. I would feel the same way about my family!
Thursday, November 02, 2006
CA's Ex-CEO Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison
Sanjay Kumar, former CEO of CA, was given 12 years in prison and an $8M fine for his role in the company's $2.2B accounting scandal.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Red wine molecule helps mice live longer
Hmm...now, if only they could show that it helps *humans* live longer....but at least it appears that having a bit of red wine doesn't hurt!
Red wine molecule helps mice live longer Top News Reuters.com: " A compound found in red wine and grapes can extend the lifespan of obese mice and help them enjoy a healthier old age, scientists said on Wednesday."
Hmm...now, if only they could show that it helps *humans* live longer....but at least it appears that having a bit of red wine doesn't hurt!
Red wine molecule helps mice live longer Top News Reuters.com: " A compound found in red wine and grapes can extend the lifespan of obese mice and help them enjoy a healthier old age, scientists said on Wednesday."
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
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