It's been good and bad. Tears and laughter and happiness.
My Mozart experience has been surprising. Windows Phone 7 as an OS is by far nowhere near as bad as the memories of Windows Mobile x.x - but it's no iOS. That's likely an unfair comparison though, as Apple have had 4 years to get their OS to this stage and this is Microsoft's first iteration of WP7. Sure, there are some rough edges, but over the past two weeks it grew on me.
I couldn't abide the onscreen keyboard. My fat thumbs struggled to type on it accurately, and while the autocorrect built into WP7 is very slick... re-editing a tweet or e-mail afterwards is not what I want to have to do. I prefer it to be right first time 99% of the time. A friend suggested I should just type fast and it will catch up - and it did, mostly. I still found it hard to be looking at the keyboard and having letters next to the letter I want show up in words when I didn't want them to. Oh, teh lulz.
The gaming component of this WP7 device was pretty cool. Lots of great games, lots of cool gamer points to coll ...
The Apple implementation of their App Store has ruined me. So much choice, so many apps, such cheap prices… But what of the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace? Does it work? Is it slick? Who'll think of the children?! Won't SOMEBODY think of the CHILDREN??!!
The Marketplace implementation on Windows Phone 7 is actually pretty good – the apps are categorised in the first instance and also listed by in other formats (new, top, etc). The background changes to promote specific apps from visit to visit too, with the same ‘peek’ navigation style as employed with other WP7 natively designed apps. And there are some cracking apps too.
I’ve download a few apps, and a bunch of games(!). While I’ve had my share of hassles in downloading them – either through the app not wanting to download at all or not being able to purchase the app – that’s seemingly been atmospheric. Wait a few minutes and start again. Similar to the AAS (Apple App Store) the Marketplace will not allow you to download a massive app when you’re not on WiFi, with the aim being to minimise your telco data usage. This is necessary as some games are decidedly sizable and you could easily eat up your monthly data allowance by downloading a c ...
Not completely awesome, not completely shit...
I won't bore you with unboxing details or first impressions. Enough of the Social Review team have delivered that far more eloquently than I (damn there are some good writers in the group).
I've really been enjoying following the reviewers and hearing their successes and failures. Finding the common ground. Hearing their pain. A review like this takes balls on the part of Telstra (and Microsoft) and I applaud them for having a go and allowing 25 opinionated people loose with their gear to do with as they want and say what they want. Our opinions as reviewers are what they (and I'll assume you reading this) want to hear. So hang on...
I intentionally didn't read the manual as I figured most people won't. It bit me in the bum a little, as I had some questions that I'm sure people who'd read the manual wouldn't have asked. I'm a seasoned Windows Mobile user, having owned and used a number of devices for years. This couldn't be too much different. WRONG.
The Metro UI is ...
Ooh... teh shiny...
Yep. I applied here, and got selected! I'll be dropping my blog posts here at AuTechHeads and tweeting somewhat obsessively about the experience over at @themolk - and I'd love to know both what you think about the HTC Motzart running Windows Phone 7 (I willingly accept tips, hints & pointers) AND what you think about my experience using it...
It's not just me invovled, either. You can see the full list of people involved over here, and keep up with the goings-on from the social review and other Telstra Exchange blog happenings here. This is gonna be a lot of fun.
DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: I have been given a HTC Mozart with Windows 7 Phone by Telstra free of charge to review. The comments expressed by me reflect my own user experience and personal opinion and are not made on behalf of Telstra. Or Microsoft. Or AuTechHeads. Or my wife, even. ...
You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies...
This is a cross-post from http://molkstvtalk.com - my latest venture (follow me on twitter @molkstvtalk if your interested).
If you're reading this via some internet-based method, chances are you have either a Twitter account or Facebook account or both (at least). Social media is the now big thing, and anybody hoping it will run off to a dark corner to pass away is sorely underestimating how large portions of citizens of the Earth interact, share messages, look at photos, and tend their online farms & herds of cattle.
The Social Network is a film based on the rise of Facebook explicitly, set against a backdrop of two separate depositions agains creator Mark Zuckerberg, chronicling his rise from super-geeky Harvard IT student to majority shareholder in the largest social media franchise, currently valued (conservitavely, I might add) at $25 Billion US dollars. That's 9 zeros, people. Billion.
Having David Fincher as director (Fight Club, Se7en ...
Maybe new job. New device. Many challenges.
Well, the contract has been delayed. The iPad is still getting much use though, but hasn’t moved into its intended position of my primary computing device yet. But all is not lost.
I was at a workshop on Friday, and had the chance to talk to a HP rep about the upcoming Slate they are releasing & how interested I was in both versions (Personal version running WebOS from Palm due out Nov 2010; Enterprise version running Windows 7 due March 2011). He laughed in recounting a conversation he had with someone about an iPad: “Here, can I share this file with you on USB? No?! What about these photos on SD card? No?! Can I plug my USB keyboard in to type with it? No?! Oh, so many things it can’t do…”. Oh how he chortled. He’s right too, you can’t interface any of those things with an iPad. That said – you wanna give me files? E-mail them to me or point me at your SkyDrive/DropBox/iDisk/Public online storage space. Do we really still share files b ...
New job. New device. New challenge(s).
Next week I’m starting a 6 week contract that will have me travelling a fair bit. Knowing I’d be sitting on planes & in hotels for a big chunk of that I know I wanted to be able to entertain myself easily, and I figured this was as good a chance as any to get an iPad. You know: play games, surf the web, play games, watch movies/TV, play games, etc. Consume rather than create. Then I remembered listening to @Rog42 being interviewed in a @CoalFaceTech podcast (Ep14) talking about he uses his iPad for creation so much more than consumption. This got me thinking – can I do it too? A self-declared #Geek evangelist who has a very obvious lean towards Microsoft technologies?
So, the challenge I’m setting myself is to use the iPad as my laptop for the next 6 weeks. In the office, out having coffee, as I travel, onsite nationally and internationally. You can follow my progress as I’ll tweet using #iPadAsLaptop hashtag, and I’ll be dropping posts here for ...
If Twitter is the answer, who the hell cares what the question was?!
[This is cross-posted at http://www.gnomeangel.com/ as a guest post there]
When @GnomeAngel asked me to write about Twitter, I thought it would be really simple. As I pondered what it meant, I was very wrong.
Then, I saw a tweet from one of my favouritest humans ever:
Perspective. From a man who has been known for most of his life having his first name prefixed with the word "Weird".
I signed up for my first account 4 July 2007. 29,000+ tweets later (on that account alone), it's a fair call to say that I'm very close to being addicted and needing my own 12-step program. I now have 3 personal accounts (split to reflect the content & so as to not sully one stream of followers with info & views that may not be of interest to them); 1 account I set up for my team at work to share & connect with those we deal with; 1 parody account (which is a little ignored, but is there to u ...
Wanna have a great #AuTechEd experience? Here's a guidepost to help with that along the way...
For what this week will end up being, I'm up far too early already. But let's face it; if you work in technology and have anything to do with the range of Microsoft products available, this week is a five-day Christmas.
For those living under a rock - Microsoft's TechEd Australia event is their annual premier technical training and product conference. 2700 attendees will descend on the Gold Coast from today to take part in an amazing opportunity for learning, training, networking and, for some, drinking and shenanigans.
I'm excited about this year's conference for a number of reasons: A great number of products have or are about to experience a refresh/update which leads to a lot of new features and, in some cases, changes to the way they operate. This is leading to a number of technical tracks featuring these products with some quality speakers attached to the sessions. I'm expecting to learn many, many things. Brain fill, brain full, brain empty, repeat.
< ...
The policies of all major parties stand to alter the ICT landscape significantly in this election. This is your chance to hear about them first hand...
Today at 12.55pm AEST, Google and the Australian Computer Society (along with others) are hosting an IT Election Forum featuring Labor Senator Stephen Conroy, Liberal MP Tony Smith and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam. It's billed as a forum where the major parties will speak about their current policies and plans for the ICT footprint in Australia. More details here. It will be live streamed at http://www.youtube.com/australiavotes, among other places.
From the article:
"YouTube will live stream the ICT Policy Forum on (youtube.com/australiavotes) where each participant will outline their party’s stance and key election priorities in the ICT area, as well as strategic visions for the next decade."
If you are an IT professional in Australia: DO. NOT. MISS. IT. This is your chance to be informed and it will help you decide where your vote should go in the coming election.
A Twitter feed using the tags #ausvotes #ITElectionForum will also be in play, featured ...
My tweeterview with Senator Kate Lundy.
In the midst of a very busy campaign, Senator Kate Lundy (@KateLundy) took time out to have an interview via Twitter (tweeterview) with me. You can read the full transcript here: http://www.tweeterview.com/published-tweeterview/4d7a5131
During the tweeterview, one of her team (@PiaWaugh) did a quick video of her, which she posted to the Senator's YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfNT514qdfw
It didn't go without a stuff-up. The bit.ly link that popped up to tweet around linking to the tweeterview was this: http://bit.ly/cQfucK. Yeah, oops.
The Senator was very generous with her time and I did get to ask about the proposed internet filter and her interests/previous history with techology. She's quite the device freak too! Enjoy...
Edited by Elly Hart, 3.41am, August 6, 2010. ...
What? What is there to argue about? We elected them, surely our politicians know what's best for us?!
It hit me last night like a bolt of lightening: The proposed internet filter is a good thing.
Far too many Australians are at risk of accessing inappropriate data when browsing online. Far too few households take their internet security seriously. Far too many children are wasting valuable cyber-bullying time having to close pop-up windows, encouraging them to get involved in Chat Roulette and the like.
Knowing the filter is coming, even that there are trials of some of what the filter will do, helps me sleep at night. Friends, any kind of internet filter that will ensure I can not/will not be able to access information deemed to be inappropriate by a faceless group of hand-picked individuals who will protect my every click-through by blacklisting websites known to contain offensive material is a good thing. As a voting adult, I elect my officials to make these decisions on my behalf. I elect them to determine that twogirl ...
This community is what you make of it - seriously...
Dear AuTechHeads member,
We're glad you stopped by. Really, we are! This online community is all the better for you being involved, if for no other reason than to acknowledge that we all value what you know, and we'd love it if you would share it with us.
AuTechHeads prides itself on being a 'superset' of User Groups - we aren't here to replace the user group(s) you're already involved in, rather we're a collaboration point to draw together many diverse ideas and specialties so that we all benefit. Here the Dev lies down with the Sysadmin; the Desktop Support PhoneJockey teaches the Manager. No one person has all the answers or all the knowledge. Here, you can come to learn, share and connect with a growing number of like minded #geek professionals.
Once you're a member (FREE membership!), there's so much to see & do!
About - http://www.autech ...
Twitter. Connecting people. And #geeks. Now an interview medium too!
With #AuTechEd in August, I felt it was time to return to my roots. Share the love. But this time, with a little bit of a dual purpose.
Last year I ran a series of Tweeterviews (interviews using twitter rules, published on twitter) with people associated with #AuTechEd, as well as people I met while there - offering their impressions of the event, finding out the inside information, helping to build the vibe. On the whole (I believe) it was entirely successful. Lots of great feedback and I made a lot of good friends from it. From my involvement in the event last year, the community development was so much more beneficial because of the use/integration of Twitter. The community developed online through the event is what birthed #AuTechHeads!
In 2010, I wanted to do more of the same and spread the word about #AuTechEd. Additionally I wanted to start to shout about #AuTechHeads (naturally), so this year I'm tweeterviewing people on both. I've completed 2 so far, with others con ...
No way. NO. WAY! You did NOT just say that...
The phrase that strikes fear into the heart of every IT Professional I've ever met: "I don't know".
Nobody likes to look stupid. Nobody likes to give the impression that they don't know something about computers, especially when they are talking to people who are not IT Professionals. ESPECIALLY when those people are your bosses.
The general public amplify this pressure. If you mention you're "in IT" and if someone asks you a question about their WiFi modem at home and the stupid problem they keep having with it, they look at you with a puzzled disgust if you can't give them the 3 easy steps to solve their problem (sight unseen). Awkward much?
Doctors see it too. Any professional where the task they perform is often seen as being beyond the general public (certainly, I'm not up to performing an emergency appendectomy) creates an ethereal aura around their profession such that any person close/related to ...
“We’ve come a long, long way together,
Through the hard times, and the good…”
When I first started my career as an IT professional, it was supporting both PC’s and Apple Macs. Next role moved me into a support/consultant role where I worked with customers running PC’s connected to an application running on either AIX, Solaris, SCO or NT4 (shudder). The job after that brought me wholly into a Microsoft environment (Windows2000 servers & upgraded PC’s from Win2K to WinXP). Since then, my career has almost exclusively had me supporting MS software on various vendor’s hardware.
I will admit to spending some time during the first decade of the 21st century being a massive Microsoft fanboy. If they didn’t make it, I didn’t want to know about it. I religiously purchased Windows Mobile device after device; I strongly & loudly advocated Windows XP as *THE* operating system to run on your PC, at work and at home (not hard, given what had come before); I transformed the companies I worked for by implementing SMS, Exchange & Win ...
When was the last time you had a really, really good customer service experience? I'll bet pennies to pounds it wasn't at work.
Good. Bad. Average. Just plain horrible.
We’ve all experienced it, & we all have war stories from “that time we spent an hour and a half on hold on and off just to get to the answer I needed”.
Sadly, our tech company experiences of customer service are often the worst. I don’t mind being diverted to Delhi or Darwin, as long as the person I’m speaking to on the end of the phone is intelligent enough to work outside the script at times & be responsive to why I’m really calling. Some tech companies have caught on to this & now offer a premium service that lets you speak straight to the server tech people or even, once properly certified, log call for parts for your machines yourself on the internet. There’s lots of solutions.
Internal Help/Service/Support Desks cop even more flack – and rightly so.
I don’t want to tar all IT Support professionals with the same brush. There are lots of good guys & gals going a ...
It's a brave new world... Staff being allowed to manage their own machines. Lions laying down with lambs. Brothers marrying their sisters. Tiger Woods in trouble for liking the women. Has the world gone topsy turvy?
It hit me like a concrete block to the face the other day... if staff managed their own PC's & laptops, we all might be that bit more productive.
I do preface this by saying that I work for an education body currently, and with the sudden influx of laptops due to the National Secondary Schools Computer Fund (NSSCF) - thanks Prime Minister - a "user-managed" model is what most schools are moving to. The implications are many:
Machines will not be joined to a domain - they will have no computer account - all stand alone devices.
Machines will be delivered with a school image (and a school image as the recovery image in most cases).
Students & staff are responsible for the first line of support for the machines (some schools are engaging in a warranty service with the hardware provider that allows 24x7 phone support to the student/staff member).
Inside the next four years, there will be a LOT of them (average 800 in years 9-12 in a normal sized secondary ...