#24: Googly Embalmer

Posted on April 26, 2024 by ewand

Late last century, when the big tech firms of the day were often led by sometimes spiky characters (McNeally, Gates, Ellison etc), one such luminary famously wrote about the two helmsmen of Microsoft’s push into corporate computing. Ray Noorda, erstwhile CEO of PC networking pioneer Novell famously referred to Bill and Steve as “the Pearly Gates and the Emballmer: one promises you heaven, the other prepares you for the grave”. Thankfully, they didn’t always take themselves too seriously (and here’s the original).

Modern day technology firms have a ruthless attitude to preparing their own products to go 6 feet under. Rapidly killing off failing projects or taking sometimes unpopular and abrupt changes in strategy are the underside of rapid innovation and shifting business models. Two of the most popular posts in the old Tip o’ the Week archive were Tip o’ the Week 350 – Killing me Softly, part I and 353 – Killing me Softly, part II, celebrating some of the old tech that has been and gone.

Apple somewhat aggressively moved the Mac from the Motorola 68000 CPU architecture to Intel X86 and then ARM (at the expense of backwards compatibility – you’re holding it wrong), though hindsight shows both shifts were smart when it came to the ensuing products. Microsoft tried to adopt ARM with Windows 8 and the Surface RT. And we all know how that worked out.

There have been several other attempts at shifting Windows from Intel to ARM architecture, and none have really taken hold – but reports have emerged of a forthcoming Surface Laptop which promises to take the fight back to the MacBook in terms of performance and battery life.

All about the Pod

The term “podcast” (a fusion of iPod and broadcast) might be 20 years old, but the last few years have seen an explosion of content as well-known faces take to putting out regular shows to be streamed, downloaded and listened-to on phones or watched on screens.

Some of the most popular podcasts are depressingly formulaic, but there are so many joyous, informative and hilarious ones that are worth seeking out. It’s no wonder that traditional media is both embracing the format at speed while presumably figuring out how to monetize it.

Google announced last year that they were deep-sixing their popular Google Podcasts mobile app (describing it as a “turndown” like they’re tucking it in for the night rather than euthanising it), in favour of the expanded YouTube Music offering. In some ways, this makes sense as popular podcasts are increasingly using YouTube to also publish video (mostly of headphone-wearing people speaking into a giant mic while looking at 45 degrees to their camera).

Why miss the opportunity to unify the podcast and video publishing process, while also finding ways to sell more adverts to the listeners?

US users had the rug pulled in April but the reprieve for international listeners has recently been announced as coming to an end, and Podcasts will retire for everyone in June 2024.

So what next? The lead contender for iOS users is probably Apple Podcasts, but for Android users or if you’re an existing Google Podcast user then you might want to try other alternatives. YouTube Music is clearly the preferred option in Google’s eyes, but there are many options – Spotify & Amazon Music both have podcasting support and might push fewer ads at paid-for subscribers.

Free podcasting apps and services abound but run the risk of suddenly disappearing or retreating behind a subscription paywall – current front runner is probably Pocket Casts.

For more fun looking at all the other product Google has binned, see Google Graveyard – Killed by Google and check out Microsoft Graveyard – Killed by Microsoft too.

#23: Licensing the overlords

Posted on April 19, 2024 by ewand

People might be using AI to create new art and for writing^† but most would prefer it to take the drudgery out of their life; and that doesn’t just mean summarizing your emails. One day, technology might fulfil that Keynesian idyll of having more leisure time than we know what to do with, but for now we’re reduced to automating a few tedious tasks while replacing them with new ones.

Robotics pioneers dreamt of having autonomous domestic servants. Aside from pervasive advancement made in manufacturing, most have been somewhat underwhelming, despite some amazing looking machines. Boston Dynamics recently unveiled the frankly terrifying new Atlas humanoid robot…

… as a replacement to the previous variant which had been the star of many videos (including the “Do You Love Me” viral hit)…

… even if its cost and complexity meant it was good for little more than making fancy videos. Why make a machine that looks and acts vaguely like a human if all it needs to do is move things around, where a machine dedicated to that specific task could be built more simply and with less money?

If the rise of AI and robots is giving you cause for concern, allay some of those fears with the Reddit group, /r/sh**tyrobots, which showcases epic fails of people with perhaps too much time on their hands. (The same could be said of much of Reddit but that’s another topic altogether).

One aspect of AI and robots that is conveniently overlooked is the huge cost of doing them well; don’t expect future technologies to do everything and answer all your questions without something in return, whether that’s sharing all your information with them or handing over all your money and other stuff.

Software robotics

In current times, using software to take care of tedious tasks imposed by other software can bring immediate benefits without costing the earth. Collectively known as RPA or Robotic Process Automation, the field varies from simple If-This-Then-That type logic which can knit different systems together, to altogether more engineered solutions that are part of a much bigger development.

Microsoft’s own Power Automate – formerly known as “Microsoft Flow” – starts off with an easy-to-use editor not unlike IFTTT but can encompass web-based logic or can be run on a PC to help automate repetitive tasks within installed applications. There’s a Copilot for Power Automate (of course) and AI can help to figure out what you’re trying to automate locally too.

Keep up to speed with what’s new in Power Automate on the Release Wave documentation or on the fairly frequently updated blog.

Licensing for dummies

Power Automate is free for some things, but costs money for others. Some external systems are free to connect to, while others need you to pay directly or have an existing license. If you were designing a licensing scheme, you certainly wouldn’t start from here, in fact you could make a profession out of understanding Microsoft licensing.

Dynamics 365 pricing is going to rise pretty significantly in October 2024, though it’s the first such hike in 5 years. Still, the recent Business Applications Launch Event showed where some of the money is going; the tl;dr summary is, “Ooooh, isn’t Copilot GREAT!”.

Sometimes, Microsoft’s licensing complexity is due to external factors, though. Various competitors have also been complaining about how unfair it is that Redmond has bundled Teams in with Office 365 rather than making customers pay for it separately, and the EU pressured Microsoft to remove it from Office suites sold in Europe.

Remember the EU forcing Microsoft to ship separate versions of Windows that didn’t include a media player, because Real Networks complained? Consumers all over the world must have rejoiced.

Rather than offer a specific version to EU customers alone, Microsoft has decided to revamp the M365 suite worldwide into “with Teams” and “without Teams” versions. What this means in practice is that if you do use Teams already, you can carry on running for the same money – for now at least – depending on how you license your M365. Details are set out here.

Some customers might welcome that they can now buy their M365 subscriptions for a few $/user less than before, if they don’t currently use Teams and especially if they do subscribe to Slack, Zoom, Webex (yes, it’s still there) etc. For anyone currently using Teams it either makes no difference, or it raises the prospect of one day having to pay a $/user fee on top of the core M365 suite, and at least on the plans for M365 Enterprise for new subscribers, that will cost them more than they’d pay today.

Currently, personal/family plans are unaffected, and “business” subscriptions for M365 are available as previously or newly-discounted without Teams. Enterprise users will need to get to grips with the idea of paying for Teams separately unless they’re existing subscribers, in which case for a while, at least they don’t need to. Easy as that.

Someone has to pay the ferryman.

^† No automated wirting here. If you enjoy the process of writing and the creativity it can unleash, the last thing you’d want is to have it machine-generated. AI drafting is for boring documents which will probably only get summarized by AI at the point of consumption, so who cares if they are dry and dull? Tip of the Week remains a 100% hand-crafted endeavour. Well, apart from some of the banner images because, you know, DALL-E et al can draw some groovy stuff.

#22: A Moment in time

Posted on April 12, 2024 by ewand

As the sun momentarily disappeared for many, strange things happened – like 50 year-old album-closing songs from moon-related LPs making into the iTunes charts, alongside that 80s power ballad about dove throwing.

You might think days like these don’t happen very often, but they’re probably more regular than you think, though often the path of totality is not over such a populous area as the latest eclipse. Book your Airbnb in Cornwall ready for the next total eclipse in only 66 years, or hang out in London for the one after that? Still, this time at least, we survived the Rapture.

For more moon-related shenanigans, do go and see The Moonwalkers in London before October 2024, and check out the ever-engaging The Rest is History duo interviewing Tom Hanks and shooting the breeze about the fascination with the Apollo lunar missions.

Back on terra firma, this past week saw Microsoft push out the latest stack of updates to Windows 11 which provide fixes to known issues as well as tweaks to the operating system, including the previously-discussed ability to remove the click-bait “news” stories from the Widgets board that may be visible on the lower left of the task bar or by pressing WindowsKey+W.

Windows 11 “Moment 5” (remember the days when Service Packs didn’t need to be all Saturday Night TV with their names?) has been available for a while if you sought it out. You should see it – masquerading as the less exciting KB5036893 – in Windows Update; if your PC says you’re up to date, you should see it under Update history…

As well enabling the switching off the stupid ads and AI-selected stories on the widgets board…

… you’ll get undreamt of delights like tabs in Notepad, snap layout suggestions, accessibility improvements and more reliable nearby sharing, as well as new AI powered stuff in Copilot for Windows and in the Photos app (with Generative Erase to cut things out of photos).

#21: Dating OneNote

Posted on April 5, 2024 by ewand

It’s not hard to find websites listing “the best apps for … in 2024”, usually covering the same options that were doing the rounds in 2023 and 2022, with a few tweaks. The category of note taking, across web, desktop and mobile, is a common theme, sometimes offering head to head comparisons between leading options like Evernote vs OneNote. If you’re committee to one note-taking app, you’re not very likely to switch, but maybe there are people who scatter their stuff across multiple services and apps and are looking to centralise on just the one.

OneNote has had plenty of attention in ToW’s passim – see the archive – but even with decades of familiarity, it’s easy to miss some really useful capabilities that can improve the user experience. Let’s have a look at some, concerning the topics of date (and time, probably, since the continuum thingy means the two are inextricably linked).

Inserting dates & times

This one is easy, and its utility will depend on how you go about taking notes. If you start a new page for each conversation or topic, then you’re probably covered to a large extent. When you insert a page, OneNote will automatically tag the top of it with the current date and time…

In the days when (at least) two OneNotes (yes) were jostling for position, the new One wouldn’t let you edit the date or time of an existing page, but the old One did … and since it vanquished the upstart, still does. Just click the date (or time) and then the calendar (or clock) icon that appears next to it, and you can set the appropriate measure.

If you’re more the type who has one long page of notes (around a single topic, or a single person who you meet multiple times, for example), then inserting the present date/time is near essential when appending or updating stuff – just go to the Insert menu and choose your datum | data.

Of course, keyboard warriors will want to remember the handy shortcuts to insert the current date (ALT+SHIFT+D), time (ALT+SHIFT+T) or both (ALT+SHIFT+F). The first two also work in Word and in Old Outlook (which uses Word as its editor), but don’t work in New Outlook, which doesn’t.

Reviewing old edits

One easily-missed trick in OneNote is to see when a piece of text was last updated. It’s pretty clear if you’re sharing the workbook with someone else, as their updates are (optionally) highlighted and can also be searched for.

Look at your own notes and if you hover the mouse over any text or other content, you’ll see a small grey paragraph marker on the left; right click on the text and you’ll see, at the bottom of the context menu which appears, the author who made the last change, and when.

Search and find by Date

If you have a lot of notes, searching for a specific term might return many results, possibly spread across multiple notebooks and not necessarily presented in a useful order:

Look at the bottom of the search results dialog, however, and you’ll see an obscure feature: Pin Search Results (ALT-O), which will open the results in a side window, allowing you to filter and sort them more effectively.

This clearly makes it easier to find the most recent edits you’ve made with your search term. Add this ALT+O to your OneNote arsenal. While you’re at it, make sure you also install OneCalendar, which shows a view of your previously-edited pages on the days you edited them.