Kurt Shintaku's Blog

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
I personally bought the HTC Windows Phone 8X today.

I wanted a phone NOW and I wanted something super attractive & sexy.  There is technology in the Nokia that is superior however this is honestly of less consequence to me vs “visual sexiness” which I really want considering I’ve been using a very mediocre looking phone for a long time & I’ve gotten to sit down with the 8X and see what it’s like to hold & use.  The Samsung ATIV Odyssey might have been my choice but I haven’t gotten any hands-on time with it & it’s not going to be available until December and I don’t want to wait. 

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DETAILED SUMMARY:

There are 3 devices using Windows Phone 8 that Verizon Wireless is/will be offering:

• HTC Windows Phone 8X
• Nokia Lumia 822
• Samsung ATIV Odyssey

Here’s the decision tree that I had in my head… for better or worse:

• APPEARANCE:
  Does the appearance of the phone matter to you?  Do you prioritize ‘eye candy’ at all?
  • HTC Windows Phone 8X
  • Samsung ATIV Odyssey
    (The Nokia Lumia 822’s body styling doesn’t appear particularly attractive & has a lower display resolution than the other two)
• AVAILABILITY:
  Do you want the phone this month?
  • HTC Windows Phone 8X
  • Nokia Lumia 822
    (The Samsung ATIV Odyssey won’t be available until mid/late December)
• STORAGE:
  Do you plan on needing a lot of storage to store music, apps, videos, etc. in excess of 16GB?
  • Nokia Lumia 822
  • Samsung ATIV Odyssey
    (The HTC Windows Phone 8X is not expandable with microSD Flash)
• BATTERY LIFE:
  Do you need extra long battery life?
  • Samsung ATIV Odyssey
    (Samsung ATIV Odyssey has a 2300 mAh battery which is about 30% more than the other phones)
• RADIATION:
  Is radiation dissipation a concern for you?
  • HTC Windows Phone 8X
    (The Nokia Lumia 822’s FCC SAR measurement is ~50% higher than the HTC Windows Phone 8X.  No rating is available for the unreleased Samsung ATIV Odyssey yet.)
• AUDIO:
  Is high quality audio important?
  • HTC Windows Phone 8X
    (The HTC comes with Beats Audio, an audio hardware specification defined by Dr. Dre for quality.  It also comes with a very large & loud speakerphone.  Nothing is known about the speakers on the Samsung.)
• CAMERA: 
  Is high quality photography – even in low light situations – important?
  • Nokia Lumia 822
    (It’s been widely reported that the PureView-branded camera technology on the Nokia Lumia 822 is demonstrably better than others, in the same way that the Lumia 920 has best-in-class technology.  Again, not much is known about the Samsung’s camera.)
• SERVICES:
  Are complimentary & exclusive services like Nokia Maps, Drive, and Transport important to you?
  • Nokia Lumia 822
    (The exclusive nature of these services may turn heads in that they are considered best-in-class)

If you want to view the specifications for each phone on your own, look at these sites:

• http://www.phonearena.com/phones/compare/HTC-Windows-Phone-8X,Nokia-Lumia-822,Samsung-ATIV-Odyssey/phones/7224,7487,7410
• http://www.unwiredview.com/2012/08/30/samsung-ativ-s-odyssey-with-windows-phone-8-and-samsung-ativ-windows-rt-tablet-announced/

… or more appropriately the motion capture actors that performed the roles of Master Chief, Cortana, & Thomas Lasky in Halo 4 – specifically Bruce Thomas, Mackenzie Mason, and Darren O’Hare:

All three were extremely pleasant people.  And we all knew they were doing a ‘corporate gig’ but they were patient with photogs, fans, and most importantly, children in attendance that were rabid fans of the Halo series.

This was possibly the most highly attended Midnight Launch the store ever had above and beyond Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 & Madden 13, both of which had over 100+ people in attendance.  Halo 4’s launch?  Roughly 150+ people, I figure.  Yeah – that’s a LOT of people waiting in line, eating pizza, drinking soda, taking photographs… and pwning noobs.

One of the neatest things is the free pizza, free drinks, and the free raffle in which they gave away an Xbox 360 (Halo 4 Edition).  The tournament also mandates that you bring your ‘A’ game because there are some REALLY experienced players competing.   And there were some hardcore fans in attendance, as you can see below.

One of the neat things that they did was they made it possible for every attendee to have their copies of Halo 4 signed by the mo-cap actors as well as the producer of Halo 4, who was on hand for the Los Angeles festivities:

Folks with pre-orders of Halo 4 were, like I’d posted before, treated with a $25 GIFT CARD for anything in the Microsoft Store:

BTW:  I would have gotten this recap posted earlier… but I’ve been busy.  Playing Halo 4.

This is a chart that lists out:

• All the Exchange Features available on Windows Phone 8.0
• All the Exchange Policies available on Windows Phone 8.0

…and identifies whether or not that feature or policy is actually enabled in the version of Exchange Server that you have deployed. 

The following Exchange Server versions are documented in this chart:

• 2003 SP2 (2.5)
• 2007 (12.0)
• 2007 SP1 (12.1)
• 2010 (14.0)
• 2010 SP1 (14.1)
• Office 365 (14.1)

DOWNLOAD: Windows Phone 8.0 Exchange ActiveSync Comparison Chart
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=DA410C7F7E038D!8840

I, along with a few others, run the Los Angeles Windows Phone Users Group.

We’ve got the Regional Business Dev Manager, Utena Yokoshima, from HTC coming to the next meeting on November 14 @ 7:00PM-9:00PM.  She’s bringing HTC’s devices and going to be doing a demo & such… along with bringing some chotchkies. 

So for those of you looking to replace that ol’ HD7 or Trophy, this will be your best opportunity to get a look-see at what your future may hold.

I’ve got a few giveaways of my own that I’m going to bring to step it up for this meeting since Utena’s being nice enough to join us on her own time.  I’ll be raffling off probably about $500 worth of accessories.  And to celebrate, I’ll be putting up funds so we can get Panda Express again.  Or something better than pizza.  Yay.

NOTE: User Group dues are $7 for all attendees. 

Microsoft Store Los Angeles
(Westfield Century City)
10250 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Phone: (310) 228-3550

See you there on November 14th @ 7:00PM.

• LINK:  Los Angeles Windows Phone Users Group
  http://www.windowsphoneusersgroup.com

This downloadable guide to the basic touch gestures available within Windows 8 from Official Windows Magazine can be a nice handout to give to end users not familiar with the conventions used for touch on Windows-based devices.

Gestures covered include:

• Select or perform action
• App-specific commands
• Get more options
• Drag & move items
• Find recently used apps
• Close application
• Zoom in & out
• Settings commands & search
• Turn & pivot
• Switch between apps

DOWNLOAD: Windows 8 Gestures Guide
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=DA410C7F7E038D!8761

Ready to do it again?

Monday, November 12 at 10:00PM, the Microsoft Store in Century City/Los Angeles is doing another Midnight Madness launch for Activision’s popular & highly anticipated title, “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” for Xbox 360.

Microsoft Store Los Angeles
(Westfield Century City)
10250 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Phone: (310) 228-3550

Don’t forget to pre-order your copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 from the store (Requires a deposit of $10, which goes to the cost of the game when it’s available later that night) which will get you:

• $10 Microsoft Store Gift Card
• 1600 Microsoft Points

As usual, there will be a tournament as well as food, drinks and giveaways care of the raffle.  Pre-ordered games will be available at 12:01AM that night.

————————
UPDATE 11/8/12 3:10PM:
Ooh!  Looks like they updated the Microsoft Store Century City Meetup page to reflect the CODBO2 Launch!  Check it out and RSVP for the event there!

• Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Midnight Launch – Microsoft Store Century City
  http://www.meetup.com/Microsoft-Century-City/events/90572922/

For anyone that’s looking for a quick primer on Surface basics from this blog:

• Windows 8/RT or Surface has a lot of keyboard shortcuts that can be very convenient to remember.  Here’s a one-pager with all the shortcuts listed on it.
  https://kurtsh.com/2012/10/28/download-windows-8-keyboard-shortcut-quick-reference-sheet/
• If you’re interested in using the Citrix Receiver Preview for Windows 8/RT/Surface, you should read the following post as there are backend requirements to using it.  https://kurtsh.com/2012/11/01/info-using-the-citrix-receiver-preview-for-windows-rt8/
• I get this question a lot: "Can I VPN to our Cisco x000 VPN with a Surface?"  In the event you do too, here’s a little bit of information.
  https://kurtsh.com/2012/10/30/info-cisco-compatible-vpn-solutions-for-windows-rt-surface/
• If you want to bridge the microSD flash card to the Surface internal storage using the MKLINK command, here’s some instructions on how to do it:
  https://kurtsh.com/2012/10/29/howto-extend-internal-surface-rt-storage-to-the-microsd-card/
• Here’s how you take screenshots of your Surface screen for your own use/archival:
  https://kurtsh.com/2012/10/29/howto-take-screenshots-with-your-microsoft-surface/
• If you want a quick reference card of all the "gestures" that you can do on Windows 8 (and Surface) here’s a document that you can download to read about them.
  https://kurtsh.com/2012/10/28/download-windows-8-quick-reference-card/
• And finally… if you want to read about nifty new stuff on the Surface, there’s a blog called Shiny Surface that you’ll want to check out:
  http://www.shinysurface.com

In case you haven’t heard the comments from tech pundits & media journalists, Mary Jo Foley & Paul Thurrott about the HTC 8x, you’re in for a treat.  (FYI: Windows Weekly is the largest, most broadly distributed podcast for Microsoft technology in the world.)

• Windows Weekly 285: My Tongue Hurts
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SKW_G4hKd8&feature=player_detailpage#t=2736s
  (HTC 8X discussion – time mark:  45min 40sec – 47min 50sec)

Key quotes include:

• Mary Jo Foley (ZDNET, All About Microsoft), on the HTC 8X
• “I think this [HTC 8X] is my next phone.”
• “It’s really nice… really light.  It just has been a really good experience using it so far.”
• Paul Thurrott (Windows IT Pro Magazine, WinSuperSite), on the HTC 8X
• “Yeah, this [HTC 8X] is also my next phone.”
• “This phone is so beautiful… when you look at Windows Phone 8 in the past, the software’s always been excellent… the one area that’s always been lacking has been the hardware… The beautiful thing about this phone – the thing that really sets it apart – is that this is the most beautiful smartphone there is on the planet.  Including the iPhone 5.  It is BEAUTIFUL.  And you can put this right next to an iPhone 5 or an S3 or whatever… and this is the nicest looking phone… it’s an amazing achievement.”
• “You used to put up with a bland phone that no one was ever going to question… with this phone though, people wanna know what this is. This is beautiful and people hold this and say “Oh My God, this is so awesome”.  It’s just so NEAT.”

Attention Surface or Windows 8 / RT tablet owners: 
You have Bluetooth 4.0!  You have a mouse pointer on your device!  Why not use them both… and avoid the USB dongle?

Get a small portable Bluetooth mouse for use with your Surface or Windows-based Tablet!  I keep one with me all the time.  My all-time personal favorite is the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter 8000 which we sadly do not sell any more, however the following mice are really nice alternatives, especially if you have a Windows Tablet!

All our mice – including Bluetooth enabled ones – are located here:

• LINK: Microsoft Hardware
  http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/mice

The Bluetooth mice that you will want to look at are the following:

• Microsoft Wedge Touch Mouse
  http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/wedge-touch-mouse/3LR-00004#details
• Microsoft Sculpt Touch Mouse
  http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/sculpt-touch-mouse#details
• Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000
  http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/bluetooth-notebook-mouse-5000/69R-00025#details

Having the scroll wheel on your mouse is revolutionary when you start using it with Windows 8 / RT.  And when you’re seated, you can feel your productivity go into turbo when you’re using the mouse & keyboard instead of poking around.

I’ve used the Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 for a quite a while.  It’s been around for a long while and is reliable as all heck.  The Bluetooth receiver on the mouse maintains a solid BT connection (unlike a lot of other mice) and so you will probably appreciate that.   The other two mice are brand-spanking new (less than a month old) and are designed for the next-generation of tablets & Windows-laptops so you can’t really go wrong.

Check this out:  It’s an Election Tracker template for Excel 2013!

This template contains an Excel app for Office that connects to real-time data. It allows you to track the 2012 US elections. It includes the presidential and Senate races, as well as popular polling. It uses predictions from PredictWise.com.

• DOWNLOAD: Election Tracker for Excel 2013
  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/election-tracker-TC103673262.aspx