Feb 25, 2008 | blog
I’ve been enjoying some of the Adobe AIR apps during it’s development over the past year. Among several Twitter clients that have popped up in the last few months running on AIR, I’ve really enjoyed Twhirl.
Now, if you’re a Twitter user, you know that its a great way to share links and more. Works great – except when you’ve set a browser other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as the default web browser. I happen to be partial to Firefox, and use it constantly, so when an Adobe AIR based app launches IE when I click a shared link – it’s upsetting.
Luckily in the final version there is an Adobe KB article with instructions on how to fix that problem. Personally I think their reason that it doesn’t work in the first place is lame:
Windows Vista does not make the required additional registry entries correctly when a browser other than Internet Explorer is set as the default browser. When an attempt to load the URL is made, Adobe AIR uses Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) to connect to an open instance of the browser registered for URL requests. If that fails, Adobe AIR falls back on Shell Execution.
Other non-Microsoft (and Microsoft!) applications have consistently and successfully launched the correct browser for me. Why not AIR?
At any rate, here is how to fix the problem.
- Launch “Default Programs” off the Vista Start Menu
- Click on “Set Program Access And Computer Defaults” in the Default Programs dialog
- Select “Custom” from the list and choose your preferred browser from the list of recognized installed browsers.
- Click OK and your done.
Next time you launch your AIR app, you will be able to follow links and have them load in your preferred browser.
Dec 18, 2007 | blog
Hey there, ho there – with the current mini-meme of online office app’s getting a bit more attention, I thought I’d give ’em another go. That is, I have used all the major ones in the past year and a half, but have mostly come back to Microsoft Office.
Of course, I truly need MS Office Pro – my clients need documents in Word, drawings in Visio, sheets in Excel, projects in Project, you get the point. So I can’t get rid of Office anytime soon.
However, I can move my needs to the web. This is nothing new as I’ve done this before, and will continue to look at both online & offline solutions for the tasks at hand. What’s interesting is that, most of my existing data is already online. Either in Zoho or Google Docs, I’ve already migrated my “old” data to either one of these services.
Now, some of these posts today talk about the numbers of users, and how these must be an example of the lack of interest by the user community. While it may be true in many instances, my belief is that the applications are just now becoming really comparable to desktop-based solutions. I do think that there is a big future for online app’s, and as more tools like Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight are incorporated, there is very little limit to the things that can be done as a service.
The pieces are already in place, I’m switching back to online app’s instead of Office for my personal use. With the advent of things like Zoho Notebook – even my need of Microsoft OneNote can be addressed.
How about you? Do you use online app’s on a regular basis, just dabble, or avoid these like the plague?
Other people talking about online office app’s & suites today:
Nov 28, 2007 | blog
So I got just a little curious early this week about Windows XP performance over Windows Vista performance after reading how "bad" Vista performance has been described. Especially when reading (here, here, and here) about how Windows XP Service Pack 3 (still in beta) is supposed to have a pretty good performance boost over SP2.
Since I picked up my "new" (it’s now 7 months old) laptop last May, I’ve only run Vista on it. So, yep you guessed it, I wiped it and installed Windows XP on Tuesday.
That little experiment lasted all of 30 hours. I couldn’t stand it. I’ve gotten so comfortable with Vista, with all the improvements, all the changes, all the "hassle" that I can’t go back.
Now I see all my fellow Windows cohorts shaking their heads and wondering why I would be so foolish. Some will point at performance issues, others will bring up the application compatibility, others will go on and on about how the Aero interface "sucks" or whatever.
Depending on what your trying to do, any one of these can be valid arguments – but they’re meaningless to me, and I’ll tell you why. Vista is better.
I’m not a gamer or high-end video editing snob, so I don’t see performance issues. All the applications I use are written correctly (hint – follow the fully documented Microsoft programming guidelines folks) and have no compatibility issues. I like the Aero interface.
Maybe the thing is that I’m partial to Windows in the first place. I’ve worked with Windows since v3.0 as a professional IT guy. I’m the guy who has to deploy these operating systems to thousands of computers in enterprise environments. I’m the guy who has to manage systems with this OS on it and keep it up to date on security patches, updates, fixes and such. I’ve seen the arguments everyone has about Vista too many times from Win95 through WinXP. They’re always the same. Yes, compatibility is always the biggest compelling argument that a person can come up with – and there are a huge number of ways to go about correcting these things. Mostly by Microsoft themselves – providing tools to compensate for inadequate coders and program structure decisions.
In all honesty, Windows’ (not just Vista) biggest problem is licensing, rather than anything else. It’s obvious Microsoft needs to keep making money and the traditional way for them is to push an upgraded operating system and office solution. But that is fodder for another post anther day.
I guarantee for the general business and personal user, Vista is better. Yes, it is a change and requires YOU to adapt (a failing of ALL computers STILL at this time in history), but it is much better at day to day tasks than XP.
I know you’ve got an opinion on this. What are you points on why Vista isn’t ready for prime time?
Nov 14, 2007 | blog
That’s what my technical focus is for the next several months. I’ve been working on a Windows automated deployment environment for a client and will also be planning the next steps for them.
With that in mind, and the upcoming release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 along with Windows Server 2008, managed deployment systems are crucial to their success. Since I’ve gone out on my own as a consultant, I now find the need to build a full “lab” environment at home to be able to explore the latest release of Microsoft’s deployment solutions.
The stage is being set, with Server 2008, Vista, virtualization of servers/workstations/applications, the needs of successfully deploying any and all of these software packages is becoming more important than ever. The next couple of years looks to be a lot of work for organizations as they investigate, plan, and implement the next generation (the Vista wave) of system software and platforms.
So I’ve got to do something that I’ve not done for a number of years. Build a full testing environment of my own for development, prototyping and testing ideas and solutions. Being a part of a larger organization, in previous years, has allowed me to rely on other resources. Most companies have rooms filled with equipment, just for R&D purposes. Because of this I got rid of my home server “farm” that supplied all those testing requirements, web, email, file server, management server, etc…
This time, however, my plan is to go fully virtual, of course. This requires a *lot* of RAM, HD space and use of virtual environments – including virtual networks. It’ll be fun, it’ll be a lot of work – and I think I need one more machine, but we’ll see how it goes.
At any rate, I’ll be posting a bit on deployment technologies over the next few months, but don’t worry. I’ll not be forgetting any personal branding or social media items either – I’m actually interested in leveraging both of these as I work through some of the technology.
Anyone else out there a Windows Deployment architect?
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Deployment, Operating Systems Deployment, Managed Deployment, Rick Mahn
Sep 9, 2007 | blog
Ok, I’ve been using WLW for over a year now and really enjoy the tool. However, there are a few nit-picking things that I have to be fixed in the darn thing along with some ideas that would benefit the product.
In the last two beta releases, they have improved the product substantially (download beta 3 here) with many visual and feature enhancements. My current favorite update was the ability to (finally!) schedule posting to my hosted WordPress blogs.
- Complete Blog Integration – I happen to be a WordPress (hosted on my domain – not wordpress.com) user and expect that all the features will work with it. Others use TypePad, Blogger, and others. Integrate the product work the same with all these blogging platforms as well as it does with Live Spaces.
- CSS Classes – I wish that the editor would parse the CSS from a selected blog and allow the user to use the CSS Classes to be applied to text/items in the post creation area. For example, I have a uniquely formatted class called “tags” for each of my blogs, and it formats my “Technorati Tags” with a right-justified arrangement with a border and background combo for each blog. Same type of class formatting for my abbreviations.
- Tag Info – Wish that the tags for the post itself (again the Technorati tags) could be fed to the blog as entries to the “tags” field in the database. This way, the tagging information can be appended to the post by the blogging software with my formatting, and without putting too much space and visual clutter into each post.
- Custom Tagging Tool – The ability to insert tags and have them pre-formatted with the proper URL each time is great. Here’s what would make it better. Allow me to completely write the HTML code for the tool – you’re close now, just get rid of any WLW specific HTML.
- True XHTML – This is one of the big ones. GET RID OF ANY CUSTOM “WINDOWS LIVE WRITER” HTML OR “WINDOWS LIVE” SPECIFIC HTML. The output of this editor MUST be pure XHTML to be truly cross platform usable. Luckily I’ve figured out how to work around this every time there is a new update to the editor, but others may not be able to do these workarounds. Simply, if a blog that the bloggers is publishing to is not Windows Live Spaces, then the custom HTML used by WLW should be disabled and the blog theme and CSS should be followed by WLW.
Well, that’s a handful of suggestions that need to be worked into the final release of Windows Live Writer. Didn’t plan on it being exactly five, but that’s how it works sometimes. Come on WLW team, let’s get this stuff right, you’re so close to matching my expectations, it’s not too hard to finish it properly.
Anyone else have some suggestions to the Windows Live Writer team?
UPDATE: Thanks to Kent Newsome’s Evening Reading post, I noticed another blogger mentioning WLW. Claus over at Grand Slam Dreams has written a quick review of WLW beta3. Also, for those of you looking for more information on the XHTML support in WLW beta3, check out Joe Cheng at whateverblog where he elaborates on WLW’s XHTML support
Technorati tags: Windows Live Writer, WordPress, Rick Mahn
