Mobile Officing :: New York - Making Officing Mobile

Basic Essentials: Master the Ctrl+X/C > Ctrl+V Combination

Alan Zaks — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:02:30 +0000

Any mobile officing wannabe MUST know the basics of officing- without the mobile part.

And any officing pro will tell you that keyboard shortcuts are absolutely essential to zipping your way around a computer. Its a fact that the more k/b shortcuts you learn and incorporate into your workflow, the faster you’ll be- whether the application be Word, PhotoShop, Firefox, or just navigating your way around the OS.

Which brings us to todays k/b shortcut combo. Master this, and you’ll be on your way to joining the ranks of the “keyboard ninjas”, whose ranks include those geeky types that you always envied who could play the PC in front of them like a Stradivarius.

Now this is real easy…:

The next time you need to copy text, either a sentence or word, instead of right clicking>Copy, simply hold down Ctrl (or on Macs Cmd) and while holding, tap the “C” key. For cutting text, tap the “X” key. Then navigate to wherever it is you need to place the copied text, and do the same thing, but replace the “C/X” key with “V”. And thats it.

Try it now. Master it now.

You’ll thank me forever!

The next most important shortcut would be the Alt-Tab (or Cmd-Tab on Mac). This one allows you to quickly switch between open applications.

If you’ve already mastered this and are itching for more, shareordie has a more extensive list of Windows 7 shortcuts here, and here is the official Apple shortcut (thanks macsparky).

Mac Users Download: You can download a copy (in zipped PDF format) of Dean Pirera’s ebook on keyboard shortcuts for Office for Mac OSX here.

Update:
After I wrote this, I came across this interesting tidbit- according to PCPitStop, the most frequently used keyboard shortcut is the combo posted above!

(Photo by Herberger)

The Amazing Work of Microsoft ATC (Beijing) on Windows Mobile

Alan Zaks — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:20:26 +0000

The Windows Mobile blogosphere has been going gaga lately over some of the incredible work that will never be released, created by Microsofts’s design team in Beijing, known as ATC.

To take a look at some of the stuff, head on over to this link, and click on the different Chinese/English blue links at the top of the post, beginning with “Windows Mobile 6.5″. A lot of this stuff involves cool graphics, new UX designs, and other imagery that makes you just want to scream at MS for not rolling this stuff out.

And I do want to scream at MS, often enough.

FYI: Apparently one of these guys, Robin Zhu, worked on the T-Mobile Shadow UI design, codenamed “Neo” that I discussed with Jay Ongg here, who was the lead developer on the project. So apparently some of their designs do make it into the market.

But to put just a little perspective on this, take a look at this post by Mike Calligaro from the MS WM team. In it, explains with eye-opening detail the process that adding a feature to an OS like WM involves. And let me tell you, its involved! I guarantee you’ll never look at a finished Operating System the same way again.

[Pocket PC Thoughts via istartedsomething and wmpoweruser]

Review: My Mac is Tired, But I Don’t Want it to Sleep

Alan Zaks — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 11:56:10 +0000

I hate sleeping. Actually, I’m a fiend for sleeping, but only the physical kind. When it comes to my computer sleeping, however, I can’t take it. Specifically, closing the lid. Allow me to explain.

When one closes a Mac’s lid, it automatically goes to sleep. For my particular use case, I prefer it to stay on, but not go to sleep. You may ask, why not simply keep the lid open? The answer is twofold.

One, I enjoy simply closing the lid; it gives me a sort of finality, closure, to whatever I’ve decided to temporarily put on hold. Those of you who require flip phones for the finality that flipping your mobile closed at the end of a call gives you can relate to this. Two, and more practically, I often work in public locations, and having the lid open and display on would be both inconvenient and potentially may give rise to privacy concerns, especially when working on client’s information/projects. I have been closing lids on PC laptops for years like this. Its a simple Control Panel setting, and I was good to go. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that no such setting exists on Macs!

So for the first couple days of using my Air, I was forced to put the computer to sleep, and subsequently entering my password upon opening the lid again. A real pain. And then salvation came. It came in the form of…InsomniaX.

InsomniaX is a tiny little app coded by Andrew James, a.k.a. semaja2, that sits in the background of your computer (or taskbar), and when activated, doesn’t let you computer sleep.

Even when you close the lid. Salvation!

There is a small caveat, however. It seems that there is a potential danger of your MacBook overheating, as the inner circuit boards usually air out through the keyboard, which would now be closed. According to this thread and this page, however, this issue is irrelevant in all aluminum Macs (they run in “clamshell mode”). So far, I haven’t noticed any issues, but will report back if anything develops.

But the best is yet to come…InsomniaX is absolutely FREE! Note that there is another program that accomplishes that same thing, but costs money. Its called Sleepless, and you can find it here.

BTW, I especially love the Insomnia guy- a cool icon in the form of an angry little blue face. Not sure why. Perhaps he relates to my inner demon. Is he blue too? Hmm…

Also, the author of this amazing little app has apparently fallen onto rough times, so if any of you happen to use this, I’m sure he’d appreciate a donation.

You can grab InsomniaX here.

FYI, there is another application called Caffeine that performs a different function- it’s purpose is to force your MacBook from falling asleep or from dimming the screen, as per your Energy Saver preferences. A quick writeup of the two can be found here.

The MacBook Air: My New Baby

Alan Zaks — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:10:35 +0000

As indicated in a previous post, I’ve decided to make the switch to a MacBook.
The reasons for this are many…I’ll try to list a few:

1) The Air has an incredibly thin, clean look. Very much my style, although I’m not such a fan of the fact that every Tom, Dick, and Harry who’s either a graphic designer or college kid has one. I like my peripherals and devices to indicate at least a little unique style…don’t you?

2) The 13.3″ screen is a small step up from the Vaio’s 11.1″, although it isn’t an upgrade in terms of portability.

3) It was time for me to learn a new Operating System, and Linux/Unix is just too daunting for me at the moment, even a dumb flavor like Ubuntu.

4) I already have an iPod (have had one for years), so I already have something to add into the Mac cybersystem.

5) Chris Pirillo’s 50 reasons are all (or mostly) applicable to me. Although note that I do not agree with reason 1, and 4 (unless he just means more than before, not more than Windows).

Note that this had NOTHING to do with these infamous “Get a Mac” ads. I absolutely abhor them, and think they lack depth, if not sophistication.

And of course, I can run Windows on a Mac, (even Windows 7- as per TUAW), but can’t run Mac on a PC machine. Or at least not without complicated Hackintoshing.

Over the course of the next few months, I’ll spend some pots describing my frustrations, some about giddiness with Mac, and some about general ways to improve on the experience.

And, obviously, I’ll need a completely new set of software/hardware to complement the Air, so things should start heating up around here pretty soon.

Stay tuned.

Review: Vaja Leather Case for PDA’s (Universal)

Alan Zaks — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:40:01 +0000

A cover/case/holder has to be one of the hardest things in the world to get right. Its so hard, in fact, that I’ve long ago given up on carrying my devices in cases. Aside from the obvious issue of having to obtain cases for devices that just hit the market (case manufacturers typically have a 6 month or so lag time), I also change devices with such rapidity that it’d be a waste of time and money to keep ordering cases.

So what makes a case so hard to do after all? Well, for one thing, the case maker needs to appeal to a reasonably broad market, but simultaneously, the cover needs to work for each users specific use case (pardon the pun), which of course, so vastly differs from user to user. Case in point (pardon the pun)…

Personally, as mentioned above, I switch devices so frequently that custom device cases are out of the question. That left me with only the so called “Universal Cases”, which I looked into. Unfortunately, the vast majority of UCs I saw in the local phone shops were either crafted of shoddy materials, downright ugly, or bore some randomly odd symbol- like a peace sign crossed with a ying yang and New York Knicks logo. Just weird. Anyway, that effectively ruled out the case option for me entirely, until some time ago.

I don’t recall exactly how I stumbled upon Vaja’s site; I believe it may have been through a magazine reference/ad a while ago. However I found them, their site makes it quickly obvious that class and quality go hand in hand here. Highly suggestive of many designer’s websites, a designer is, in fact, what Vaja is. After requesting a review sample, I was pleasantly surprised by the overseas delivery just a little bit later (custom color combinations take longer).

The Vaja box is above average, even for a high end case. A quality, textured white box with the logo embossed job. One then slips the inner box out, and voila- the actual case is revealed.

When it comes to color combinations, everyone will have a different preference. Being a plain old fella, I went with the basic black/black look. Can’t go wrong with that, right?

I must say, that in the time that I first ordered that Vaja case, I’ve seen quite a few high end pieces from various case manufacturers around the world.

No one, and I mean, nobody does it like Vaja. The quality is beyond description. The fit for the my device was snug, at first, but after a bit, the leather got “worked in”. The built in belt clip is a little annoying- it means that I need to belt in on every time I put on a new pair of pants, and it can’t be removed without taking off my belt. The good news, here, however, is that I realized that I know longer perform those hourly, unconscious checks to see if my device is still attached to me. Hallelujah!

I would post a picture set, but the Vaja designer site I mentioned before has close ups, of every part, of every case, in better quality than I could ever manage with my point-and-shoot. Just head over to Vaja’s Homepage for a look at their saliva worthy pieces. The particular unit I reviews is the Classic Horizontal Pouch.

After so long without a case, I must thank Vaja and the team there for changing my mind- a job VERY well done!

Where In The World Is Alan Zaks?

Alan Zaks — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:10:02 +0000

People have been wondering where I’ve been. A legitimate question. As friends, clients, and editorial contacts know, I’ve been touring the world for the last year or so. Lately I’ve slowly been starting to rejoin the mobile society.

Watch for the latest and greatest in reviews, opinions, articles and more, right here on Mobile Officing.

Sony Vaio TZ170 – R.I.P.

Alan Zaks — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:06:45 +0000

Well, its been a great ride. If I had to define the TZ in two words, they’d be “portable elegance”. Like no other laptop on the market, the TZ series screams class from every pore of its sleek, refined ebony chassis. From the green glowing charger port on the right, to the chrome-like not too overdone VAIO scrawl on the front, I truly enjoyed carrying around the TZ.

I remember the time I once sold I client just by pulling out the TZ and jotting down some notes on it in the middle of an introductory session- the second he saw that baby, he had to have one.

But it wasn’t all about the looks, mind you. An optical drive, stunning screen, and much more equipped this Sony wonder with everything I needed to be on the go, all the time.

All good things come to an end, however, and the TZ’s time has come.

What am I switching to? Ah. The million dollar question. Watch this space for the incredible surprise…

(Picture by sticky-vicky)

Review: Worldmate LIVE – The Ultimate Traveler’s Companion – Part 1 of 2

Alan Zaks — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:39:44 +0000

Just over one year ago, at the ShowStoppers convention at CTIA, MobiMate demo’ed an unbelievably exciting travel concept to me, then called Worldmate i10. MobiMate is known for their popular travel tool Worldmate which won acclaim for being the first smartphone client to effectively leverage and provide real time flight information as well as numerous other travel utilities in a neat, nicely designed package for many smartphone platforms.

The concept I’d seen was the next step in travel “on the edge”. According to MobiMate, i10 would be the perfect virtual travel agent. At the core of the system would be a dedicated Worldmate servers that would accept traveler’s itinerary confirmations from airlines. The idea was that a simple forward of an e-itinerary would automatically add the flight into your Worldmate LIVE plans, eliminating the hassle of having to enter in flight details into your calendar in the process. Once i10 would “know” where you are, it could track your flight’s status for you, and notify you of changes in real time via a “push” message to the i10 client.

Unfortunately, at the time, i10 wasn’t available at all, and was still in the planning/alpha stages. And so for the next year or so, I relentlessly hounded the Worldmate PR rep (who by the way deserves serious kudos for her forbearance and patience) for the Worldmate i10 Windows Mobile client availability. Since then, it’s undergone a name change (it’s now Worldmate LIVE), and some slight cosmetic facelifts, but thankfully, it’s core utility hasn’t been compromised in any way. After playing around with the Windows Mobile client for a while, I can attest that my initial wow reaction hasn’t diminished with usage, as is so often the case with many wowser concepts that simply don’t convert into bottom line productive applications.

I’ve split up this review into two sections- one focusing on the PC/Online sections of WM LIVE, and one focusing on the Windows Mobile side of the WM LIVE system. The truth is, however, that the LIVE system is meant to be used as an integrated system- without the mobile side of it, all it really is is a glorified online trip planner. The review was conducted on a Vista Ultimate (SP1) PC using Outlook 2007 (SP1) and a Samsung Blackjack II running WM 6. Below is the PC/Online section. The mobile section can be viewed here. For the purposes of the review, I’ll call the Worldmate Live system “WML”.

The first step is getting your travel itinerary to WML. This can be done in one of three ways. Number 1 is for those trips where you either don’t have or can’t access the airline confirmation email. Number 2 requires Outlook and an itinerary email, and Number 3 requires access to the email, but is email client generic- that is, you don’t need to be using Outlook.

As far as the automated conversion that the WML servers perform from airlines, when I tested I got a 100% accuracy result; in other words, the system gave entered in the correct travel details for the flight I was on. It’s important to note, however, that this is to be expected- unlike a voicemail, where I’d accept 90% accuracy, I do not want to headed to airport for my flight a day early, or worse, late! According to MobiMate, the system can process XX? amount of e-itineraries from various airlines and travel providers, like Orbitz.com and other travel agents/web booking sites.

1) Go to the web section of WML and manually enter it in. While a fairly straightforward process, once you get used to the ease of the Worldmate Outlook plugin, it seems to be a downright laborious task. The web interface is clean and Web 2.0ish, with a nicely done Ajax page.

2) Use the WML plugin for Outlook (2003/2007) and simply click on the forward button. This is obviously the way to go, but as noted above, requires both Outlook 2003 or 2007 as well as having the actual e-itinerary from your airline.

3) Forward the confirmation to a user-specific XXXXXX@worldmatelive.com address. This is your personal Worldmate live address, and is essentially what the WML Outlook plugin above does for you- it forwards the airline itinerary to that address.

Once Worldmate Live has your travel deets, (as long as you’ve created the “Trip”), it will match up the flights that you send it and add them to your itinerary.

A trip can consist of various parts, like

Gartenberg Says "XP Lite" Needed for the Ultraportable Notebook Market- Why Not Beef Up Windows Mobile

Alan Zaks — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:04:19 +0000

Michael Gartenberg, analyst extraordinaire at Jupiter Research, just wrote an article for ComputerWorld about the necessity for Windows to introduce and market a slimmed down version of Windows XP for the so called Ultra-Light Mobile PC space.

Gartenberg had been using the Asus Eee PC, an incredibly small, light laptop based on Linux when he realized the potential of an Eee meets Windows XP, and he installed XP-on-a-diet on the Eee using a tool called nLite. According to Michael, however, Windows Vista simply isn’t designed to run on the specs of most current ultraportables. Although there are exceptions, like HTC’s new Shift, OEM’s don’t pre-install the bulky, hardware draining beast that Vista is on their ultraportables.

Palm Foleo

And with the continued proliferation of the ultraportable space, this means that there is a burgeoning opportunity for Windows based, small laptop like devices. Palm’s oft ridiculed Foleo device, would have, in my opinion, crashed and burned due to it’s non-Windows based architecture. It was based in a Linux core, and was meant to serve a device companion, although unlike the REDFLY below, it could run on its own…or walk. Evidently, Palm shared my, and many others view, since they nixed it last September…in pace requiescat. More on what it would have been here by Alan Grassia.

Celio REDFLY Mobile Companion

Celio has just recently entered this space, albeit with a completely different approach to the platform question; the Celio REDFLY is essentially a big Windows Mobile phone with a screen and keyboard in the form factor of a laptop- video review here. Except that it isn’t a phone. REDFLY uses a Bluetooth or wired connection from your current Windows Mobile cell, and blows up your phone’s screen to 8.9". For your data entry needs, there is a 92%? size keyboard included. The idea is that such a platform (Windows Mobile), software wise, is really not all that much more than what your average user requires. Problems arise from the physical dimensions of current Smartphones…they just aren’t large enough to accommodate serious data entry keyboards or screens suitable for viewing web pages without scrolling strain.

HTC Shift

Another innovator in this space is the HTC Shift mentioned earlier. To understand Shift, think really small laptop meets AT&T Tilt- see ample pictures in this review. Shift’s entry card to this post of platforms, however, is not it’s unique form factor. HTC actually includes a dumbed down version of Windows Mobile on the UMPC. Ostensibly designed for MS DirectPush use and quick access to basic PIM data, enthusiasts have hacked the Shift WM UI (called SnapVUE, by the way) to run the full version of WM.

Solution- New Windows Mobile should be Beefed Up.

Which brings me full circle to the title of this post. Since XP is not something MS wants to support going forward, and the Windows Mobile group is something MS wants to develop, why not simply offer a another, more powerful version of WM. So we’d have four versions; Standard, Classic, Pro, and Pro Plus (or whatever else they’d want to call it- I would never underestimate the MS marketing folks at coming up with yet one more dreary and dull name). The biggest issue that this solution presents is the application compatibility problem. Currently, programs written for the x86 platform won’t run on the WM platform (which in it’s current iteration is based on a Windows CE 4.2 core).

Enthusiast Tangent: There are a number of ways around this, with all sorts of creative folks going to extreme lengths to be able to successfully run desktop class applications on their PDA…for instance, check out the software mod that allowed Windows ‘95/98SE to run on an old Asus Pocket PC…

(Screenshot credit to PocketGamer.org)

Project Xanadux has ported a Linux environment that on handhelds…

(Screenshot credit to XDA-Dev Wiki).

And then there’re always the RDP/VNC folks, who use free or paid tools to remotely login to their desktop on their smartphone…

(Screenshot credit to InspectMyGadget.com).

OK- Enthusiast Tangent over.

The easiest solution I can see for Windows Mobile is to take the Windows Mobile core and work it up so that it can run low level x86 applications. Clearly, as demonstrated above, the hardware is there. So why can’t the Windows Mobile group develop a fourth version that can run x86 apps? We know that standardization is always a priority for MS- in fact, I’ve heard that Windows Mobile 7, the upcoming Touch/Gesture based mobile OS should be mobile OS agnostic with regards to application compatibility. That is, applications written for any version of Windows Mobile (Standard, Classic or Professional) should work on any of the others. Or perhaps there will only be on version. Whatever the scenario, surely it’d behoove MS to look into the feasibility of a Windows Mobile core that could run desktop class applications.

So there you have it. My solution for world hunger, peace in the Middle East, and the rest of it.

Vista SP1 for the other 31 Languages Released- Perfect Timing

Alan Zaks — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:23:07 +0000

Unreal.

Not 8 hours ago I posted about my Vista SP1 woes, and how I finally had to uninstall an added language in order for WU (Windows Update) to push SP1 to me. This was because, as Nick White described last month, SP1 was only released for the 5 most popular languages. The other 31 languages had to wait for an update. So, being overly excited for SP1, I uninstalled the added language on my PC, and the update popped on my machine.

Somewhere, however, there are a bunch of MS dudes secretly laughing up their sleeves at me, since Chris Flores just posted on the availability of SP1 for machines with the other 31 languages…starting today.

MS dudes- way to go for timing. Couldn’t you have released this yesterday?

Anyway, after I’m going to try to install the language over the SP1 installation, and I’ll update this post with the success/failure of the process. The Vista Team Blog doesn’t discuss the viability of doing so, but I can’t imagine that it would be a problem.

Oh. Two more things. For those of you who are wondering if they should upgrade or not, Paul Thurrot has a pretty good review up of SP1 over here. And Brandon LeBlanc has a decent SP1 Upgrade FAQ up over here, if you have any upgrade questions.