My wife has been experiencing some problems with her Vista laptop locking up in the middle of her working when she has a few different programs open.

I’m hoping Windows Vista SP2’s final release will resolve or improve some of these issues. Still trying to determine if it’s completely a Vista issue or a Toshiba laptop issue.

Post from: EveryJoe

Windows Vista RC2 Available

You’ve got about 3 more days to get a copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student version for $99.99.

The original price is $149.95, but you get a discount before checkout. The order form defaults to including a software license lockbox feature for $14.99, but you can take that off and get your price down to $99.

Purchase Office Home and Student 2007 for $99.99 here.

Image: Promotion product email from Microsoft

Post from: EveryJoe

4 Days to Get Office Home and Student for $100

We initially asked about migrating the database over to a full SQL Server 2005 solution, but ran into some resistance for a variety of concerns, one of which was cost of setting up and installing SQL Server 2005.

We then started to take another look at potentially using SQL Server 2005 Express edition as the solution for this application. By comparison to other full-blown SQL Server 2005 this database requirement is fairly small. However, it’s pushing the boundaries of what can reliably be delivered with the Access Jet database performance.

I’m curious as to what other people’s real-world experience has been with developing application to be hosted with SQL Server 2005 Express as the backend database solution?

What hurdles have you had to jump, or have they stopped you completely in your tracks? Do you feel you’ll outgrow the Express version anytime soon. If so, are you prepared to migrate to the full SQL Server 2005 version.

Compare Features of SQL Server 2005 Versions

Post from: EveryJoe

SQL Server 2005 Express

We’ve been looking for some files lately that seemingly just can’t be found on Microsoft websites that state they should be there.

You can click on the image above to have a perfect example. When you click on the image it will enlarge to full-size and you can see what I’m seeing. On the page is the statement:

Please download the attached file that contains the previous service pack release notes.

Do you see a link somewhere that I’m not seeing? If you do, please let me know. You’d think this should be obvious, and it appears to be, except for the actual link to download something.

We just can’t find it anywhere.

Image: Snagit of Microsoft Support website

Post from: EveryJoe

Missing Microsoft FRx 6.7 Service Pack Files

I confess, I’m addicted to Bubble Breaker on my Windows Mobile phone. The problem is I’m actually getting bored with it. I need to find a good game or two to add to my device to break-up the monotony a little bit.

Solitaire is old as well, so wondering what everyone else is playing? I’m not really interested in any in-depth, drawn out games. Just simple stuff to play when you’re waiting in the car for someone or have a few minutes to kill between appointments.

I play Bubble Breaker as a bit of a de-stresser and opportunity to clear my mind a bit. Is there Free Cell for free for Windows Mobile? What about a free Sudoku game? Or Scrabble. Chess?

Images: Windows Mobile banner and product images of PPC-6700

Post from: EveryJoe

Need More Windows Mobile Games

One of the great tools you can get with the PowerToys I talked of earlier is the PowerToy Calculator. A feature you may not be expecting with the application is tools for converting a variety of measurements from English to Metric equivalents and more.

As you can see from the screen shot above, all the basics you probably wonder about frequently are available.

In addition to the conversions, you get all your basic calculator option, including graphing and trig functions too. You know all that cool stuff you used to use with your Texas Instruments T51 calculator in high school.

Post from: EveryJoe

Easy Conversions with PowerToy Calculator

After doing some research on my AutoPlay and autorun.inf questions earlier I was reminded about some of the features that are available for tweaking your Windows XP install with the PowerToys applications like TweakUI.

Here’s a quick reminder about some of the other tools that are available:

• Color Control Panel Applet: Professional-level photographers and designers know that getting consistent, accurate color from file to screen to print and beyond is a requirement for great results. This new tool helps you manage Windows color settings in one place.
• SyncToy: With new sources of files coming from every direction (such as digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops), SyncToy can help you copy, move, and synchronize different directories.
• RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer: Are you a serious photographer? Now you can organize and work with digital RAW files in Windows Explorer (much as you can with JPEG images). This tool provides thumbnails, previews, printing, and metadata display for RAW images.
• ClearType Tuner: This PowerToy lets you use ClearType technology to make it easier to read text on your screen, and installs in the Control Panel for easy access.
• HTML Slide Show Wizard: This wizard helps you create an HTML slide show of your digital pictures, ready to place on your Web site.
• Open Command Window Here: This PowerToy adds an "Open Command Window Here" context menu option on file system folders, giving you a quick way to open a command window (cmd.exe) pointing at the selected folder.
• Alt-Tab Replacement: With this PowerToy, in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open.
• Tweak UI: This PowerToy gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more.
• Power Calculator: With this PowerToy you can graph and evaluate functions as well as perform many different types of conversions.
• Image Resizer: This PowerToy enables you to resize one or many image files with a right-click.
• CD Slide Show Generator: With this PowerToy you can view images burned to a CD as a slide show. The Generator works downlevel on Windows 9x machines as well.
• Virtual Desktop Manager: Manage up to four desktops from the Windows taskbar with this PowerToy.
• Taskbar Magnifier: Use this PowerToy to magnify part of the screen from the taskbar.
• Webcam Timershot: This PowerToy lets you take pictures at specified time intervals from a Webcam connected to your computer and save them to a location that you designate.

Some of the ones that I’ve already enjoyed and played with before are the TweakUI and ALT-TAB Replacement, SyncToy, Power Calculator. The Virtual Desktop Manager seems cool and looks like it might be part of what we were looking for when managing virtual workspaces while working on different client locations or projects.

What are you favorite Windows tweaks and toys. Have you used PowerToys before?

Image: Windows PowerToys icon from the PowerToys website

Post from: EveryJoe

Revisiting Some Windows PowerToys

Awhile back I blogged about hearing of the Kinoma mobile browser for media. In that time I’ve used the application to take advantage of finding some YouTube videos and browsing flickr for some images to share with friends and family while on the go.

I’ve been very impressed with the browser overall. It took some getting used to it’s own way of navigation and user-interface, but it absolutely lets you view content that’s nearly impossible to enjoy with the default Internet Explorer browser that’s on my phone by default.

I could be wrong, but I think in the time since I originally downloaded the software they’ve done a complete redesign and revamping of their website. The new website does a much better job of telling you what Kinoma is all about and what features to expect from them.

If you’re looking for a better way to enjoy media from your phone when you’re on the go, you should give Kinoma a try. You can verify if your phone works with the browser on their website.

If you do give it a try, let me know what you think.

Post from: EveryJoe

Kinoma Mobile Media Browser

A few days ago I finally caved in and went ahead and downloaded and installed the Windows Search tool. It looks like they’ve made some improvements on it because it appears to be returning better results for me than the last time I had it installed and tested everything.

This evening I get a new comment on my old post that gave me instructions for disabling the constant nagging that Outlook was giving me to get me to install the search tool.

CD’s comment stated simply to go to Tools > Options > Other tab and then look for and disable "Show Prompts to enable Instant Search".

The only problem with that is that I don’t have that option. Part of me is thinking I’m not seeing the option available for me now because I now have Windows Search installed again. I’m using Outlook 2007, can anyone confirm or deny this assumption?

Post from: EveryJoe

How To Disable Enable Instant Search Nagging

Without Kinoma FreePlay, your smartphone is just a phone. With Kinoma FreePlay, it’s a mobile media powerhouse. Kinoma FreePlay is the world’s first mobile media browser—it’s everything you need to find and play video, audio, and pictures, whether the media is on your phone, on your home PC, or on your favorite web sites.

I’ve been playing around with the SkyFire browser on my phone lately since the mobile version of Internet Explorer on my phone is just about useless for any site that’s not specifically developed for mobile phone use.

I’m just hoping this install works okay on older versions of Windows Mobile. I’d love to upgrade to version 6, but that’s not available on my phone hardware it appears.

Post from: EveryJoe

Kinoma FreePlay – Mobile Media Browser