Kurt Shintaku's Blog

This is just a list of Windows Mobile stuff I noticed that I found interesting while scouring the Central Hall

Windows Mobile: "Join the Windows Mobile Owner’s Circle"
Apparently, we’re doing a new online benefits gig for owners of Windows Mobile phones called the Windows Mobile Owner’s Circle. 
http://www.windowsmobile.com/wmoc

Windows Mobile CES Special:  $40 off any Windows Mobile Device
There’s a special CES floor special going on on Windows Mobile devices, however CES won’t allow you to sell any products on the show floor (@#$%$ ???) so there’s a special coupon that you have to use to get the show special on Mobile Planet’s web site. 

For anyone that want’s $40 off any Windows Mobile device using a CES Show special code, let me know and I’ll get one.  They’re one off codes – otherwise I’d post the ones I have on this site.

NEW Verizon Smartphone/Windows Mobile Standard Edition device
While walking by the Windows Mobile area, I found a new Verizon phone using Windows Mobile Standard Edition.  (i.e. the small form factor version)  It’s an UTStarcomcandybar design that has a sideways slide-out keyboard.  It should be released shortly at likely a very affordable price.  It’s got a 2Mpixel camera, 128MB ROM/64MB RAM, and EVDO-RevA capabilities. (Translation:  2.8Mb max bandwidth wireless data)

This is relevant because Verizon has not made a smartphone available other than the Samsung i600 Flip Smartphone, which was a great device albeit a little thick, and the Motorola Q9M, a squarish keyboard design with extra flash memory for music storage.
http://www.theunwired.net/?item=roadmap-verizon-wireless-to-launch-5-more-windows-mobile-smartphones-in-2007

Do you have Verizon Wireless? 

Did you know that VZW by default collects information about you and then apparently shares this information with their affiliates?  I sure as hell didn’t approve this but I discovered it purely by accident and discovered that it was set to "OK to Share my CPNI" (Customer Proprietary Network Information) 

Check this out.  It’s in your VZW.com profile.

Verizon Wireless and its affiliates (the "Verizon Companies") provide services to you. In doing so, we may each collect certain information that is made available to us solely by virtue of our relationship with you, such as quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, location and amount of use of the telecommunications services you purchase. This information and related billing information is known as Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI). The Federal Communications Commission and other regulators require the Verizon Companies to protect your CPNI.

In order to better serve your communications needs and to identify, offer and provide products and services to meet your requirements, we need your permission to share this information among our affiliates, agents and parent companies (including Vodafone) and their subsidiaries.

LINK:  https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/accountholder/CPNISettingsAction.do

I’ve been asked so many times how people can get the On10 "Bill Gates Keynote video for their Zune, here it is.  It’s formatted using Windows Media Video 9.1 codec at 320×240 at 330kbps running 30fps.

DOWNLOAD: 
http://www.evilkoala.org/media/CES_Keynote_Humor_s_on10.wmv

Here’s the video, embedded in this post for you to view, in case you haven’t already seen it.

So Bill Gates did his final keynote speech:  "The next Digital Decade".  But not before we had to stand in the line from hell.  I’ve stood in Bill Gates keynote lines before going back as far as Comdex 1996 and at least this one was the most organized. 

The Line… God help us all.
The lines wrapped around and around and around.  IN total, the wait time to get a seat was about 5 hours but at least line cutting was made EXTREMELY difficult due to the broadly separated curves in line (see photo) and everyone was handed a wrist band in order to get in.

Once in, the room filled very quickly, with press, media, bloggers, and the general population (in that order unfortunately).  

The Past Analog-to-Digital Transformation
Once the keynote began, he highlighted how in the past digital decade many technologies had been transitioned from analog to digital technologies:  Music, Movies, Books, TV, Phones, Radio, etc.  He then discussed Microsoft’s role in all of this including advances in Zune, Xbox, Sync, VOIP Phone technologies, Microsoft TV and IPTV, etc.

The Next Digital Decade
Bill then asserted that the next coming Digital Decade will focus on:

• Connecting People
• Being user centric
• Applications that will depend on both software that runs onn both the PC and in the cloud

Bill’s Windows Live Demo
He talked about Virtual Worlds on Internet existing in 3D using photographic imagery that is collected from the Internet, new types of Interaction focusing on User touch like the iPhone and Microsoft Surface and then had Mika Krammer (Director of Windows Product Dev), do a demonstration of Windows Live, and in particular how the Windows Live services integrate with each other to provide a seamless way to link all of one’s information together.

• Windows Live ID sign in
  • Sign in provides seamless identification across 6 different services
  • IDs can be cross linked to other Windows Live IDs
• Calendar overlay
  • Demonstration of Mom’s calendar, your calendar, and Husband’s calendar all viewable in a single calendar to see "who’s available" for dinner
• Windows Live Events
  • Demonstration of coordinating events like parties leveraging photos from Windows Live Photo Gallery, invites based on Windows Live Contacts, and date scheduling using Windows Live Calendar.
• Windows Live Photo Gallery
  • Free, downloadable PC application
  • Allows Stitch, Email, Publishing to Windows Live Space
• Windows Live Video Search
  • Autopreview videos by hovering over one video photo amongst dozens in a browser window

(And it should be noted at this juncture that for once, all the demos in Bill’s keynote worked perfectly.)

Bill’s Hands-on Live Demo of Surface
Bill then proceeded to do a demo of his own, on his own.  (Oooh… executive demo)  They brought out a Surface computer where Bill demonstrated how he could use Surface to design his own Snowboard including:

• Color, size
• Add drawn art or signatures
• Send via phone (Placed on desktop)

Silverlight & the Olympics Announcement
Bill then talked about interactive user experiences and the effort Microsoft will be making in that arena.  He started to talk about Silverlight, describing it as a runtime that brings development and design (MSN & NBC Olympics will be exclusively over the Internet using Silverlight) Bob Costas video on Broadband coverage NBCOlympics.com 3000 hours of live video

VIDEO:  What the last day of retirement might be like for Bill Gates
A video Bob Costas, Matthew McConaughey, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Jay-Z, Al Gore, George Clooney, Bono from U2, Jon Stewart, Brian Williams from NBC, was played to the delight of those in attendance.

Robbie Bach & the Xbox
Robbie had the following MediaRoom and Xbox Live announcements:

• Xbox Live had reached 10 Million Subscribers.
• ABC and Disney are coming to Xbox Live with all their movies & TV content available on-demand through Xbox Live Marketplace.
• MGM movies will be available on Xbox Live
• The addition of Disney & MGM to XBox Live Video Marketplace means that Xbox on-demand video has 2x as many programs than any other service provider cable or otherwise)
• Samsung/HP Extender for Windows Media Center will be available this year
• Microsoft MediaRoom now has 1M subscribers
  • MediaRoom will provide "DVR anywhere" – essentially recording tranmission to any device on home networks
  • TNT, CNN and NASCAR will be providing MediaRoom-enabled Interactivity during broadcasts
  • British Telecom (BT) will be the first to make the Xbox 360 a full DVR for their MediaRoom enabled customers.
    (Who will be the US’s first customer?  Wait and see… although this should be obvious for some.)

Robbie Bach and the Zune
Because Apple doesn’t attend CES, the public was a thorough dose of Zune at the show, and Robbie talked proudly about the end to end experience that the Zune provides.  Molly O’Donnell came on stage to demonstrate the Zune "Social".

• Zune card:  A identifier that shows a photo,
• Zune tag
• Listened to artists, songs, Favorites, Most played Social music discovery Zune social site for Shins Top fans for the Shins (Shows what music they like)
• Purchase and sync to Zune directly from Zune social site

Robbie Bach & Microsoft Auto "Sync"

• Lincoln, Ford, Mercury
• Plug and Sync for any music player
• Phone control over BT
• Announced upgradability 911 assist

Robbie Bach & Windows Mobile
Robbie talked about how Windows Mobile outsells Blackberry both IPhone

He also talked about how Microsoft considers voice recognition to be very important and announced "Say and Search":

• Find Movies based on GPS.  Speak phrase, "movies"
• Buy tickets directly Speak phrase, "buy 2 tickets to Sweenet Todd"
• Send text message to invitees. 

Robbie Bach & Bill Gates on Gaming
The two of them announced the Xbox and Windows are the number 1 platforms in gaming and to celebrate, they had a Guitar Hero 3 contest on stage but Robbie brought out Kelly "TipperQueen" Law-Yone while Bill brought out Slash from Guns & Roses.  (See photo below taken from Joystiq)

Wow.  As taken from Slashdot:

The resulting set of skills is insufficient for today’s software industry (in particular for safety and security purposes) and, unfortunately, matches well what the outsourcing industry can offer. We are training easily replaceable professionals.

and further:

Java programming courses did not prepare our students for the first course in systems, much less for more advanced ones. Students found it hard to write programs that did not have a graphic interface, had no feeling for the relationship between the source program and what the hardware would actually do, and (most damaging) did not understand the semantics of pointers at all, which made the use of C in systems programming very challenging.

They go on to compare Java programming to "a plumber in a hardware store."

LINK: http://developers.slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=455062

I’m here at Las Vegas at CES, attending this conference for the first time as an attendee and not as a exhibitor.

Registering as an attendee sucks
First of all, DAMN.  Not having exhibitor ‘powers’ sucks.  You’re blocked from going everywhere I’d normally be going.  The booth setup areas.  The technology review areas.  The Microsoft information booth.  Our exhibitor stash of water and snacks.

Second of all, let me say that if you’re an attendee and your hotel doesn’t have registration onsite, you’re basically up %$#@ creek.  CES attendee registration is somewhere past Tijuana near as I can tell:  I had to walk nearly a mile (I’m not joking… I walked clear around the entire convention center, which if you’ve ever done that at the Las Vegas Convention Center, it’s like taking the EcoChallenge through dirt, concrete, puddles of water, and GES Union Contractors) to get from the front Central Hall entrance to registration.  Y’see while Exhibitor Registration is up in front where the taxis let people off, Attendee Registration for some asinine reason is in the back end of South Hall was is directly opposite from the Central Hall entrance.  I had to walk past the loading docks for all the incoming cargo, which incidentally was really interesting to see who’s gear was being loaded up. 

In any case, CES’s planners really screwed up the placement of the attendee registration location and meanwhile, no one at CES’s information booths knew where attendee registration was.  I asked 6 different people and I got 6 different answers.  It was awful.  Most people got their materials in the mail.  Meanwhile, of course I didn’t receive anything so I had to go get them myself on site. 

[Edit:  I later concluded after a little investigating that that the attendee registration location that used to be out in front appears to have been sold to vendors as highly valued & coveted exhibitor space, hence the reason they moved attendee registration, a necessary yet non-revenue generating facility to outer Mongolia.]

…then I later found out that my hotel had a small registration booth for CES back in the corner but because I never got any registration materials, I didn’t know that.  How’s that for a catch 22?  GRRR.

Observations
Couple observations about CES so far.

1. Supposedly over 120,000 attendees are here.  Wait until you see my report on the Bill Gates keynote.
2. It’s a little chilly!  Should have brought warmer clothes but I like the cold in general so it sort of works out for me. 
3. Arriving early was SMART.  I flew in at 7:30AM and that was a stroke of genius because it was cool and there wasn’t sun beating down on you while you’re lugging your luggage around the airport taxi area, and also the taxi lines were no more than 3 minute waits.
4. The event is getting too big.  I’m sorry but it’s like Comdex was except with lots of stuff thrown in from every nook and cranny of the consumer electronics industry.  You find that in your planning, if you have a field of interest, you’ll probably have to jump from hall to hall and it’s really inconvenient.  It really should be two separate conventions – how you divide it up, I don’t know but it’s massive and judging by the overlapping areas (games and mobility, console gaming and online services, etc.) it’s going to continue to get out of control.
   (Nonetheless, it’s still a geek’s paradise.)
5. This is a trade show.  I never actually knew that but apparently, you have to be "affiliated with the industry" just like E3.  Fortunately, I fall into that category.
6. Bloggers get special privileges here at keynote functions and stuff.  Too bad I didn’t register as a blogger.
7. There are a lot of… well… non-technical folk here.  I mean a LOT.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course but let’s just say that I’ve run into my fair share of of people that are either complete noobs to the electronics/computer convention scene who just want to take the time to bitch about "how they hate Vegas" or they "wish their boss didn’t make them come"… or otherwise don’t seem to "get" what CES is supposed to be all about and how it can be a great opportunity for discovery and sales if you let it.

More later on Bill Gates’ keynote, which was apparently his last before he "retires".

The Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint provides authoritative guidance and tools to deploy a pre-built, customizable SharePoint solution that teams can use to collaborate with partners outside the firewall.  The toolkit has a web-based interface, so it’s easy to use.

Using this free toolkit, Administrators can set up a secure, SharePoint-based collaboration site in minutes.  End users can then easily create new site collections, posting sharable documents that are centrally located inside the firewall.  The toolkit also enables users to invite internal and external partners to collaborate on documents.  And the toolkit makes it simple for team leads to assign or revoke access rights for any team member.

IT Pros can stay in control by configuring the system to require administrative approval for any of these actions.  Or they can allow end users to set up and manage collaboration sites on their own—freeing up scarce IT resources to focus on higher-value projects.

The Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint helps enhance security by creating each collaboration site as a SharePoint site collection. This ensures that teams using one collaboration site will not be able to view documents on another site, unless they are explicitly given access.  In addition, the toolkit puts all external users in ADAM (Microsoft’s lightweight directory service), rather than in the organization’s primary internal directory.

BENEFITS

• Boosts security.  The toolkit allows team members to store and share documents centrally on their organization’s server, instead of e-mailing documents to others across the Internet.  And instead of giving VPN access to external team members (therefore granting them access to everything on the internal network), site owners can give external members access to just the team collaboration site.
• Easy to deploy.  Automated tools and step-by-step instructions allow customers to deploy this Solution Accelerator quickly and easily – in as little as two hours, instead of weeks or months without the toolkit.
• Easy to use.  Once the toolkit is deployed, team members can set up their own SharePoint collaboration sites in minutes.  The toolkit’s web-based interface makes it simple for team members to share documents and collaborate with each other across the Internet.
• Reduces IT costs and boosts productivity.  Project team members can manage sites on their own, freeing up scarce IT resources to focus on higher-return activities.
• Thoroughly tested.  The toolkit is extensively tested in our labs, and verified by customers and partners under real-world conditions.

To Self Nominate Yourself for this Beta, go to the following link and sign in with your Microsoft Passport ID:
https://connect.microsoft.com/SelfNomination.aspx?ProgramID=1657&pageType=1&SiteID=14

More information:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb936676.aspx

It’s rare that I plug a 3rd party product and even when I do, they are usually very close partners of Microsoft’s.  With this product, I’m making an exception because it’s been so invaluable to me over the past 7+ years.  (And also, the fact that the developers are from Lake Oswego, OR, the hometown of UCLA Bruin basketball center, Kevin Love, a man who should be nicknamed "Windex" for the way he cleans the glass at Pauley Pavillion… go Bruins!)

Anyway, the product is called Hagel Technologies "DUMeter 4.0".  It’s a $24/workstation utility that hovers over your desktop and tells you what kind of bandwidth you’re seeing through your network adapter(s).

Dealing with multiple network adapters
Note that I said, "network adapter(s)".  Most people have multiple network adapters.  Take me for instance – This is what I’ve got:

• Wired 100Mb Ethernet adapter
• Wireless 802.11b/g Ethernet adapter
• Wired dial-up 54kbps Modem adapter
• Wireless Verizon EvDO Cellular Data modem
• Bluetooth Network Connection

DUMeter will present a single graphic and set of numbers of the total bandwidth going to and from your PC across all network connections.  If you have Windows Vista, you could use the Network Utilization gadget however it only works with a a single adapter. 

Working in Kb… and not in KB
So this is a personal preference of mine but I come from a background where all bandwidth was measured in KiloBITS… and not KiloBYTES.  Call me old fashioned but the issue is similar to how some people are used to Celsius versus Fahrenheit.  I grew up amongst 110bps and 300bps modems and my "sense" of bandwidth is attuned to bits not bytes.

Metrics & reporting around downloaded bytes
INHO This is primarily for people using Verizon’s EvDO cellular network.  If you use Verizon’s EvDO data networking through a passthrough Windows Mobile phone using the $20/month "unlimited PDA networking services", you should know that you have a cap on how much downloaded data you can consume over 2 months. 

The cap is something like 2GB every two months which might sound like a lot but if you’ve ever actually measured your data consumption, you know that simple web browsing and Outlook mail usage (much less SlingBox remote TV streaming) can consume 2GB VERY QUICKLY.  And the consequences of going over that 2GB is having your data connection rights revoked – or being charged $65/month instead of the $20/month you were used to.

DUMeter can meter and report against how much bandwidth you’ve consumed on a given connection and more importantly, alert you the moment you may be exceeding your monthly limit.

Windows Vista Gadget Plug-in
And speaking of Windows Vista gadgets, this is the first version of DUMeter that comes with a Windows Vista gadget.  Normally DUMeter hovers over all other desktop items and sit there are a small window however, now you can ‘plug it into the sidebar where it belongs’. 

When you install it, it automatically puts a Gadget version of DUMeter into your collection of installed gadgets that you can manually add to your Sidebar.  (See the snapshot of my Windows Vista Sidebar to the right.  Notice the "light blue" graph that shows bandwidth.

(Hagel Technologies – If you’re reading this, you should know that this secretly is really the only reason I bought the upgrade from v3.5… and it’s also the reason I’m getting a ton of people onboard within Microsoft to buying a copy.  Having a good quality bandwidth meter like DUMeter finally seamlessly integrated with my Windows Vista Sidebar was like scratching an itch that’s bothered me for more than a year.  It was enough to get me to cough up the $30+ bucks for a family pack and I’m sure others will follow.  It always bugged me that DUMeter never integrated with the sidebar… I guess it goes to show you that one should never underestimate the potential sales value of cosmetic changes!)

Family Pack Licensing!  Yay!
Let me first say that I’m a staunch advocate of Intellectual Property rights.  MP3 music trading networks and unauthorized digital movie distribution is every bit as illegal as software piracy.  That being said, I’ve historically used my single license DUMeter on 3 machines in my home.  I’m sorry but I saw no reason to pay $75 for 3 licenses of DUMeter, when I never actually have a running copy on any more than 1 machine.  I don’t even keep the PC’s running simultaneously and the installations aren’t providing any value.  I primarily only really need it running on only 1 machine but once in a blue moon need it on one of the other 2… and I don’t plan on uninstalling/reinstalling it between PCs.

But Hagel introduced family pack licensing:  This I quickly and readily jumped on.  It permits the usage of DUMeter on 5 machines in the home (not business) at a cost of $50 (or less with upgrade discounting).  Now this is rationale I can deal with.  It’s like car insurance:  I own 3 cars.  If I don’t drive my "Sunday driver" car much more than 2 days out of the week, why should I pay full insurance on it relative to my "Primary" vehicle.

RANT:  Wouldn’t Family Pack licensing for Windows & Office be great?
BTW, one could argue that the same should apply to Windows & Office:  Why should a home user (not a business user) buy 3 fully licensed copies of Windows Vista Home Premium and Office 2007 Standard when they only really use 1 copy at a time.

Folks – I couldn’t agree with you more.  In fact, I think there a lot of reasonable people out there that would be more than happy to license Windows & Office in Family packs to legally and rightfully install it on all their home computers. 

And while some might argue that people buy their licenses through OEMs when they buy their PCs, I would argue that upgrades to new operating systems are different.  For people that have existing hardware or folks that bought Windows Vista Home Basic systems, people should be able to upgrade "in volume" for home use and get good discounts to upgrade all their home PCs to Windows Vista Home Premium… or Ultimate.  (Note:  There really should be no need to upgrade a person’s PC to Windows Vista Business since this is a HOME Family Pack upgrade and not a BUSINESS one.)

Now that’s a head-turning headline if I ever saw one.  Here’s a nice little excerpt:

Late last month, Info-Tech Research Group said its survey of 1,850 businesses found .Net the choice over Java among businesses of all sizes and industries, thanks to its promotion via Visual Studio and SharePoint. Microsoft is driving uptake of the .Net platform at the expense of Java," says George Goodall, a senior research analyst at Info-Tech.

Full article below:
INFOWORLD:  Java is becoming the new Cobol
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/12/28/52FE-underreported-java_1.html

File this under the "SAY WHAT?" category:
While deleting all the random friend requests I get, I stumbled upon some unknown person that wanted to "add-me-as-a-friend" that appeared to be a link spammer from Thailand but the person’s site name had the word "SMS" in it, so naturally, being a geek, I think to myself… hmm.  A Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 admin… maybe?  After all, we do sell SMS2003 translated into Thai.  Welllllll, it turns out to be some girl trying to get people to watch some Thai beauty/talent content and get them to "vote" for her using SMS text messaging.  And it’s all written in Thai making it fairly unreadable for us English speaking types.  And admittedly, yeah, she’s pretty cute.  Albeit 19 years old.  For the curious, here’s the site:  http://nutta086.spaces.live.com/default.aspx.  But I digress.

Windows Live Translator:  Japanese –> English
This got me thinking about Microsoft’s Windows Live Toolbar and it’s Language Translation technology.  Admittedly, I haven’t loaded up the Windows Live Toolbar in a long time because basically, I try to run as few plug-ins and services as I possibly can in an effort to maintain my OS and browser performance.

But many Japanese sites have some great information on them about sake, Information technology, gaming, Japanese cuisine, and other things that I’m interested in.  Hence… it’s time to install the toolbar for what is essentially a "one-click" translation function and let ‘er rip.

DOWNLOAD:
http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=9ca66480-2d87-4341-87f6-86875d9a0908&bt=2&pl=3

So, if you install the Live Toolbar, and press the "translate" button on a foreign language page, it will translate the whole thing into English and put both versions side by side.

Pointing to Translations – Link based Site Usage
The web-based translator site is located at http://www.windowslivetranslator.com.  Basic usage for pointing people to specific translations is simple enough.  All you really need to do is stick the URL of whatever site you want and append it to the end of the following URL string:  http://www.windowslivetranslator.com/BV.aspx?&MKT=en-US#

Example:
A sake sommelier I know, Yuji Matsumoto maintains a Japanese language web site at http://jizakeworld.blogspot.com/, which can be translated by going to:

http://www.windowslivetranslator.com/BV.aspx?&MKT=en-US#http://jizakeworld.blogspot.com/

Happy translating!