Tip o’ the Week #225 – Surveys R Us

Posted on by ewand

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Have you noticed an increase in online surveys asking if you have a few minutes to complete them, when you visit web sites? Do you duck & dive when walking along the street and are confronted by a just-a-little-too-friendly student in high-vis and brandishing a clipboard?

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Surveys are undoubtedly useful to the people collecting the information (as long as they screen out the loonies) though there’s always the possibility that the people who bother to fill in surveys might not always be the typical user – who has a spare 5 minutes in their day to tell some website what they think?

All that said, there are many tools that can be of use if you’re the surveyor and you want to ask people their opinion. In SharePoint Online (see here for a tutorial) it’s really easy to create surveys that contain structured and unstructured questions, even branching logic (eg. If you answer “No” to one question, jump to the next relevant one rather than asking you further questions about the thing you didn’t do).

Thanks to Phil Cross for pointing out that there has been a super-simple solution available for more than a year, courtesy of SkyOneDrive – Excel Surveys. Ready for your Mum and Auntie to use, it’s a really simple way of asking a few questions and collating the responses you get – here’s an example survey.

It looks nice, but there are few fancy features like branching, however it’s really easy to set up a survey and it’s on OneDrive, so anyone can fill it in.

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One thing to note, though – the originator doesn’t get any more information than what’s entered in the actual survey, so you might want to add questions about who the respondent is, what date it is etc. Answers are retrieved in a straightforward Excel table, and can use Excel functionality to filter and analyse – if you think you’re going to get enough replies that you’ll need to do that.

Still, Excel Surveys are easy to initiate, simple to complete and can be filled in by anyone who can access OneDrive.

Tip o’ the Week #224 – Alarem Scarem in Windows 8.1

Posted on by ewand

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If you’ve installed Windows 8.1 Update 1, there are many great additions which will be  doubtless delighting you as you use clip_image004them, especially if you’re working on a PC which isn’t primarily touch-oriented. There are hundreds of incremental updates (more here), but there are still bits in Windows 8.1 which are commonly unknown.

Windows 8.1 introduced the idea of an “Alarm” function , and also debuted an in-the-box Alarms app, akin to the equivalent on the phone.

The new Alarms clip_image006app (just start typing alarm on the Start page to find it) does what you’d expect of the similar Windows Phone app – set one or a series of alarms that will throw an alert at the prescribed time, make some noise and generally be alarming.clip_image008

The idea of using your PC to wake you up might not be all that useful, however – if your machine goes to Sleep then the Alarm won’t wake it up unless your PC supports “InstantGo” – the new monicker for what was previously known as Connected Standby.

If you set an alarm on a PC which does not support the required mode, you’ll see a notification within the Alarms app that it will only work when the PC is awake… (Booo….)clip_image010

The good news is that even the original Surface RT supports the necessary sleep  mode, as do many of the SoC machines such as the growing band of 8” tablets running Windows 8.1. See here for a bit more info.

Even if your PC doesn’t support the ability to wake you, the Timer and Stopwatch functions are very slick and well worth a look, and the UI is really smooth, particularly for touch users.

Tip o’ the Week #229 – Cortana, let’s rock!

Posted on by ewand

(Another slightly out-of sequence tip as this could be more timely now than in a few weeks)

clip_image001One of the most written-about and eagerly-awaited features in the soon-to-appear Windows Phone 8.1, is Cortana – the “digital assistant”, named after the character in the Halo games.

If you’re desperate to get hold of the developer preview of WP8.1 – bearing in mind it is still a preview, and there’s no going back once you’ve installed it – then there’s still time. The preview did receive an update which made the battery life a bit better, so if that’s the reason you’ve been holding off, then maybe it’s time to dive in. Paul Thurrot detailed how to install 8.1 preview here, and if you are not US based and want to enable Cortana, then you’ll need to fool your phone into pretending to be Septic.

The general feedback on the 8.1 preview has been very positive, though in some quarters, it’s a step back from the Hubs strategy that Windows Phone pioneered, in favour of more monolithic apps – it seems that’s more in line with what users expect. Also, there are some features which draw a parallel with Android – like the notifications that show when you swipe down from the top of the screen.

It’s a fun exercise to play around with the voice input on Cortana – ask her how old she is, where she comes from, who’s her daddy, what she’s wearing (warning: best not do these in public in case you get deservedly funny looks) and you’ll get some amusing answers. Ask her what she thinks of Steve Ballmer, whether she likes Google, or if she’s better than Siri… How we laughed! Still, there are a whole load of useful things you can ask Cortana – a non-exhaustive list appears here. clip_image002

There’s some nice reminder type functionality in there – like “next time Alistair calls, remind me to ask him about what the agenda is for sync week”. Sure enough, next time that person rings you, there will be a small text splash on the incoming call notification, reminding you of whatever it was. clip_image004

There are some less visible but even more awesome Cortana features behind the scenes, though – and some of them you’ll only discover by accident and by using the phone. Here’s just one example – Cortana, your pocket PA, can keep an eye on your calendar and prompt you when appropriate. Here’s an email, for example, where the phone has spotted various terms that correspond to dates and times, and has automatically hotlinked them… tapping on one of these links will offer to set an appointment, in context – so the “how about 4pm” link already knows that the day in question is the next Friday. Very smart indeed.clip_image006

Cortana will also make sure that you’ve got time to drive to your next appointment, if she can recognise an address in your calendar, and can even learn your routine too (e.g. if you visit the same place regularly during the working day, then the settings page will ask you “Is this your work place?”, and if you tend to return to the same place in the evening, she’ll ask if that’s your home).

clip_image007All of this could be seen as a bit creepy but remember that you can always switch any of it off, and that Cortana is using technology pioneered by the Bing search engine to build a model of your world, so she can help you without you always needing to ask, and she’ll never tell you that it looks like you’re writing a letter. Ask her “Do you like Clippy?” if you’re in any doubt.

Sadly, the subject line of this ToW doesn’t quite work – “Cortana, let’s rock!” merely results in a Bing search for the term. However, “Cortana, play some rock!” gets the response “Queuing up your Rock Music”. If you have any jazz music on the phone, that would be lined up instead. Nice.

Tip o’ the Week #221 – Stay safe on WiFi

Posted on by ewand

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Following last week’s misty-eyed retrospective on WiFi and Bluetooth, it’s worth pausing a little to pass on a few safety tips too. If you’ve a WiFi network at home which does not have encryption enabled (using a decently strong password – known as a Pre-Shared-Key or PSK – and a modern encryption method, such as WPA2) then you must hang your head in shame immediately, that is, immediately after you go and put a strong password on your WiFi.

What should you call your home WiFi network? Well, if it’s “NETGEAR” or similar, then make sure you call it something else (in case a well-known exploit is found in every NETGEAR router, in which case you’ve just told every kerbside hacker how to break into your network). Also, it’s worth making sure you change the admin password for your router – it’s a piece of cake to find out the default password for well-known routers, such as NETGEAR ones.

How to name your SSID might depend on where you live, if you have any neighbours, if you trust them and so on.

clip_image004Serial ToW contributor Paul “Woody” Woodman has the mischievous idea of setting his SSID to be something eye-opening – in fact, the WiFi network set up by his phone’s Internet Sharing (as covered in last week’s ToW) has an interesting name…

So, Woody’s on the train, using his phone to connect to the internet, and all the other WiFi users in the same carriage are on their best behaviour…

The Huffington Post wrote about this phenomenon a few years back.

To get a more reliable connection, it’s worth setting your WiFi channel to be something that interleaves well with your neighbours, so you’re not both trying to blast out on Channel 6 – as a guide, check here. Try using a bit of software called inSSIDer to sniff your neighbourhood, see what their networks are called and what channel they’re on, then set yours to something complementary, if you can.

Stay Safe Online

Yvonne Puley made a suggestion about checking what WiFi networks you connect to, after reading a report on the BBC website and seeing an article on the BBC’s Click programme. The gist of the piece is that public WiFi networks – a hotspot set up by your local coffee shop, or even well-known WiFi networks provided by telco’s and the like – are not necessarily all they seem. A simple scam could be for a ne’er-do-well to set up a spoof WiFi network on their own laptop, and the unsuspecting browsers could connect to it and all their online movements could be recorded and tracked. Other hackers could stage a “man in the middle” attack using software that intercepts traffic on legitimate networks and can even decrypt supposedly secured SSL traffic.

In short, there’s no way for you to guarantee that what you do on any public WiFi network is safe from prying eyes. Europol (not to be confused with Interplod, as Arthur Daley might have ventured) says, basically, don’t use public WiFi networks for anything private, like online banking. If you want to scare yourself silly, then watch this Click clip.

clip_image006Anything that goes over VPN or DirectAccess should be OK, as the encryption mechanisms used are less susceptible to having a breaker on the side. Even when connected back to base using a more secure connection, though, ordinary web surfing and background updating of apps will typically go out via the public WiFi network. It’s worth also making sure you don’t give too much away – like when you first connect to the network, unless you control it, then you don’t want to “find PCs, devices and content” etc.

For more info on this setting, see here. Looking in the PC’s settings at the connection properties (as described in that article) also lets you see what kind of encryption you have running on the network. If you’re connecting to a WEP network (the traditional method for putting a password on a wireless connection), then think twice about trusting it – Wired Equivalent Privacy is anything but, and can be relatively easily cracked.

Tip o’ the Week #220 – Wireless networking, 15 years on

Posted on by ewand

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It’s amazing how quickly technology goes from an expensive frippery to a cost-insignificant near-essential. It’s not so many years ago that WiFi and Bluetooth first arrived (remember the Ericsson T29 or T68, the latter of which not only had a COLOUR screen but came with Bluetooth support – all you’d need is a £100 “Socket” Compact Flash card†, and your iPAQ could be GPRS enabled).

Bluetooth went from a travelling salesman’s “look at me” blinking earpiece, to wirelessly enabling things that don’t really need to be wirelessly enabled (and the seller’s earpiece is now pretty-much the territory only of airport taxi drivers). WiFi was developing in parallel.

clip_image003Here’s a photo from 13 years ago, where the serving UK Prime Minister was entertained by a demo in the Microsoft TVP atrium, of a mobile app (equipped with smoke & mirrors) which used a WiFi network – but it pre-dated the Microsoft rollout of WiFi, necessitating about £500 worth of kit just to allow the hand-held device to talk to the network.

Nowadays, we’d rock up at an airport and be disappointed not only if there wasn’t WiFi, but there wasn’t some kind of freely available service. Buses have free WiFi. Often you can price-check online as you’re walking around the department store. We expect WiFi to connect our phones without racking up 4G charges. Time marches on.

It was 1999 (with the adoption of the 802.11b standard) before wireless networks (becoming known as WiFi or Wi-Fi depending on your degree of pedantry) started reliably working with kit between different vendors. This opened the door to successful adoption and eventual embedding in all sorts of devices. Bluetooth also developed apace, and has now carved out a niche (especially with Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE) for data comms over relatively short-range and comparatively low-power (against WiFi’s longer range, with higher power drain).

clip_image005Although both standards offered options for peer-peer communications and operating in an “infrastructure” mode where there was an established network to connect to, Bluetooth only ever took off as a means of linking devices directly, and the vast majority of WiFi is deployed as a network of base stations.

Windows Phone 8 GDR3 and Windows 8.1

One neat function that was included in the latest major update to Windows Phone 8 (released under the “Lumia Black” moniker for Nokia handsets), turns your phone into a WiFi hotspot that can be remotely controlled by Windows 8.1. If you go into settings -> internet sharing on the phone, and set up internet sharing for the first time, it’ll give you a broadcast name and a numeric password.

You can now connect from some other device to the phone over WiFi, and use its data connection to get on the internet. Once you’ve set the connection up for the first time, with your laptop or tablet is running Windows 8.1, you can establish the connection any time without even needing to get your phone of the pocket – just swipe from the right, look under the network settings and tap to connect.

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† Whilst on the topic of old networking kit, here are some old Bluetooth bits that I found in my Man Drawer. The PCMCIA wireless cards have all gone the way of the Dodo – these ones evaded the net on the basis of their size and the amount of money they costs to procure in the first place.

How can you throw something away that cost hundreds of pounds in its day and is now worthless for any reason other than as a curio?

Might as well keep them and maybe someday they’ll be worth something as a museum piece…

Tip o’ the Week #219 – OneNote takes flight

Posted on by ewand

clip_image001In case you missed it, OneNote had some interesting news a few months ago. The application has a great following amongst fans who crave being organised (at least some GTD aficionados too), more so than maybe any other application (even Outlook). If you’re a user of OneNote, make sure you check out the brilliant & free OneCalendar and OneTastic add-ins.

OneNote is now free, on all platforms. That’s right – free download on Windows (desktop and “Modern”), Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad, Android, Web and even now, Mac. It is worth noting that the free Windows version isn’t quite as functional as the regular full flavour OneNote, and it’s for home/school use only.

A change to the way add-ins are surfaced online also coincides with the release, with extension apps providing additional functionality like the ability to snap a web page with a single click and add it into OneNote. There are a bunch of Featured Apps listed, including others like mod, a company selling Moleskin-style paper notebooks that include a service of scanning them in when you’re finished, and uploading them to OneNote for you.

clip_image003Clippy is back

To set up the Clip to OneNote feature, see this page. Essentially, it adds a snippet of script to your Favourites bar, one click of which will snap the current web page to the “Quick Notes” section of OneNote. If you don’t use the Favourites Bar (or you’d like to use the feature in Modern UI IE), then add it to any regular Favourites folder, and you may have to use 2 clicks…

clip_image005The snip just drops an image of the web page into OneNote, however once you have the page, then OneNote can extract text from the image and can be indexed to make it searchable too. It’s a quick and easy way of grabbing whole web pages; perfect for when doing online research, price comparisons and others when copy & paste is a little hit & miss.

Tip o’ the Week #218 – Have you got the touch?

Posted on by ewand

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Using “touch” in computing has evolved so much in just the last five years. First phones then tablets evolved a new UI around using your fingers rather than a pointer & mouse, and with Windows 8, touch really got mainstream on regular PCs too. How many times do you prod the screen of a laptop then realise it’s not touch-capable?

Well, more advanced means of using touch have sprung up in ways other than just the screen. Most laptops nowadays have ditched the “Pointing Stick” (careful if you go searching online for the other terms one might use) and have adopted a touchpad of some sort. Originally, this was just an annoying way of moving your mouse around with repeated swipes, but as people are more used to them, and they’ve got more effective, it’s generally the preferred way of pointer movement on a laptop.

Unless you have a real external mouse, of course, which is always better.

clip_image004Microsoft’s been working with partners for a while now on a new generation of touchpad, called a “Precision Touchpad”. The idea with the Precision TP is that it replicates the gestures you might use on-screen – see more information here. Check if your machine has a PTP by looking under the Mouse and touchpad section in PC Settings. (sorry about that last link).

If you prefer using one of the growing band of touch-enabled meeces then you should make sure you have the Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center installed on your PC. If you’re equipped with an appropriate rodent, you can do all sorts of one, two and even three-fingered gestures and your machine will respond without fuss or complaint. Well, it will once you’ve practiced a bit…

The excellent Wedge Touch Mouse (essential equipment for anyone with a laptop not bristling with USB ports – ie most of them – since it doesn’t need a USB dongle to work, given that it uses Bluetooth) sadly doesn’t support the full gamut of multi-digit expressions, however it does allow you to scroll horizontally and vertically – useful for navigating the Windows 8.1 start screen or simply moving around in long documents.

Tip o’ the Week #216 – Bing Smart Search in Windows 8.1

Posted on by ewand

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Hopefully, everyone who was on Windows 8 should be running Windows 8.1 by now. There’s so much that was improved since Windows 8 released, some very noticeably (such as the return of the Start button, if you consider that an improvement) and some, less so – like all the Enterprise functionality that changed. Not to mention the changes that have come in as part of the Windows 8.1 Update 1, as featured in Tip o’ the Week #222…

One of the more obvious new features is the Smart Search capability, and yet it can take a bit of getting used to  before it changes the way you use your PC.

You could still use the normal methods for getting to Bing – clip_image004viewing the lovely picture or video on the homepage and searching from there, try just typing your query into the address bar of the browser and let it make suggestions or just carry out the search terms… or use the Bing Desktop App.

clip_image006If you type your search query into the standard Search mechanism in Windows 8.1 (just start typing at the Start screen, or press WindowsKey+S or swipe to bring up the Search charm), then the PC will be able to combine results from your own documents, from popular web sites like Wikipedia, it’ll show you images and videos that correspond to the same term as well bringing results from certain apps (even from sources who have apps you haven’t installed yet).

Try a few special terms out, and you’ll get even more context – a flight number will show you current status and related searches (such as the historical performance and the current position, from Flightradar… who also have Apps for Windows Phone and Windows 8.1 should you want to interact some more, as Paul Barlow recommends).

Type in a place name and you may well be greeted with weather reports, links to restaurant recommendations, details from Bing Travel and other apps in the store that might be relevant.

Enter a musician and you may see results from the Xbox Music app Xbox Music app (latest updates, here), allowing you to play their tracks directly from within Windows 8.1 – and did you know that streaming Xbox Music is free for 6 months for Windows 8.x users?

For more tips on using Smart Search, see here, here and here.

There’s a great opinion piece by Ed Bott at ZDNet, which discusses the role that Bing plays in Microsoft’s future. Well worth a read of the whole thing.

Tip o’ the Week #223 – Clear your inbox

Posted on by ewand

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Some people live a disciplined existence and manage to keep a very tidy desk, their to-do list at the end of each day is empty, and their inbox is clean. Many others aspire to be so organised but either convince themselves that they’re too busy to tidy everything up, or they try hard but just don’t quite manage to make it. History loves a tryer.

Well, this week’s tip covers an awesome add-in to Outlook which could make the difference between finishing your week with a clean slate and a happy mood, or working in the evenings to clear your backlog. What price that peace of mind?

That is a salient question since ClearContext Professional provides some really powerful tools to help get your mailbox and task list under control, but it does cost a reasonable sum to do so. Try it for 30 days, free, first…

clip_image004When you first install the addin, it will set up some new menu options on the MESSAGE tab in the main Outlook Window, and also adds a new ClearContext tab with additional functionality. At a simple level, ClearContext gives you a quick ability to move individual messages and threads to any folder – it will show the last few folders you’ve filed into. If the mail is part of a thread you’ve already done some filing on before then you’ll see the destination for those other messages, and you can start typing the name of a folder to see a list that can quickly be selected from. So much easier than dragging & dropping, expanding out hierarchies etc.

If you’re into the GTD methodology, then ClearContext can help implement that easily given its “project”-oriented view of things. A Dashboard side panel lets you see an overview of your filing, set up auto-filing rules, and a whole lot more.

There’s a very cool Email Stats view that will show you information such as how many emails you send and receive each day, and how long it takes you to respond to them on average.

clip_image005(I’m not going to show you a screen shot as I’m too ashamed of the results – here’s a library picture instead… ->)

How much do YOU think this advanced productivity environment is worth? $500? $1000? Even more??? NO!
Ask BrianV …

As mentioned earlier, there is a cost to ClearContext – normally $89.95 for ClearContext Professional, or $99.95 for the “Master Your Now” edition, which comes pre-populated with a bunch of rules to implement another methodology, this time specifically developed for Outlook by Michael Linenberger, called Total Workday Control. Find out more about TWC & MYN here.

Is your effectiveness at work and resulting happiness at home worth £60/$90 of your hard-earned dough?

You can try CC out for 30 days free of charge and decide if you’re willing to part with the readies to keep on top of your mountain of mail. If you decide you’d like to invest, then… ClearContext have kindly offered a $15 discount to loyal Tip o’ the Week readers, here, so you can clear your inbox for only £50/$75 instead. Valid until the end of May 2014. What a bargain!

Tip o’ the Week #222 – Windows 8.1 Update 1 is here

Posted on by ewand

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Another in the occasionally out-of-sequence Tips: since this is quite topical, it’s jumping the queue (as will next week’s tip) before we settle back to ToW #215.

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that Windows 8.1 arrived, promising universal salvation from the blight of the empty Task Bar by reinstating the Start button. Huzzah! And lots of other good stuff too, of course.

Now, we march onward with the widely acclaimed Windows 8.1 Update 1, itself a pretty big series of changes to Windows. The Update 1 was unveiled at the Build conference at the beginning of April, though there may have been a little confusion over what was coming imminently and which demos were showing functionality due in “a future” update.

Terry Myerson clarified that the revisited Start Menu is something to look forward to, rather than expect in the imminent release. Terry also commented on developing a “Windows for the Internet of Things” running on Intel Quark chips, CPUs the size of a pencil eraser yet promising to run full x86 Windows.

Anyway, to see what’s new in Update 1, check out this great blog post for a nice overview. clip_image003In short – if you primarily use a keyboard and mouse to interact with Windows, then 8.1 Update 1 will have a lot that’s good for you.

Some highlights:

  • If you have a PC with no touch screen, you will boot straight to the desktop, bypassing the Start screen – which is still there, just not shown by default unless you have a touch laptop or a fondleslab
  • The Power and Search icons now appear on the Start screen, so it’s easier to sleep/shutdown and find stuff
  • You can right-click on Start-screen tiles with a mouse to get a context-menu, rather than having to select them and then bring up the menu at the bottom of the screen like before.
  • The Store icon is now docked to the Task Bar so you can find new apps even more easily. clip_image005This also means you can pin Modern Apps to the Task Bar too. In this example, my Task Bar is pinned to the left of the screen rather than the bottom – if you have a widescreen laptop panel or monitor (as most of us do), try dragging the Task Bar to the side – it makes better use of the screen real estate.
  • clip_image007Modern App IE gets useful tabs for mouse toters. It arguably makes the Modern IE app better than Desktop IE for most sites unless compatibility determines that you need the old desktop mode.
  • clip_image009Move the mouse to the top of a Modern App, and you’ll get a window title bar with minimise and close buttons on the top right, and an app icon on the left – click on that, and you can snap (or “split”) the app to the left or right as well as minimise or close it. Note that Maximise is greyed out – see the screenshot here, observe the Mail app running in a window, and you’ll see why it’s greyed, for now…

OK, OK, How do I get it?

To install the update, you can get it from Windows Update now – just type Windows Update on your start screen, check for what’s new and you’ll see the biggie show up, possibly hidden amongst a bunch of other Office updates or more minor Windows ones. Depending on whether you prefer the Modern Windows Update app or the trad. Desktop one (which is busier but gives you more info), you’ll see the update show up, possibly unchecked…

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Watch out, however – on a not-so-recently updated desktop with Office 2013, all of the cumulative Office SP1 and Windows 8.1 Update 1 came to 2.5Gb. Just make sure you allow plenty of time for the whole thing to complete.

If you’d like to download all the Windows 8.1 updates offline (if you have wet-string broadband at home, and want to shuttle the binaries home from work), see here for full intructions.