Are The Technology Gaps Ever Filled?

First and foremost, I am a Windows user. I have been forever. I was a “blue badge” so I was very much a “fanboy” of Microsoft from the platform to desktop apps to mobile devices and still pretty much am. I have also opened my eyes to other computing technologies like the Mac and iPhone.

I used to try to make my Microsoft software work the way I wanted in every case. There really wasn’t any other solution. I have moved away from that thought process, and accepted that some other technologies do the job better.

Take Windows Mobile for example. I owned no less than 10 devices in a matter of less than five years because I thought that the issue had to be the device, not the platform. Last year, I finally purchased an iPhone. I absolutely love this device and it will take me a long time to go back to Windows Mobile. Perhaps if Microsoft controlled the hardware platform for Windows Mobile devices, they might share the same success that Apple has had.

I also have a MacBook Pro, which runs virtualization software so I can run Windows. Since most enterprise companies still use Windows as a primary platform, I too still use Windows for 95% of my work-related business. I have had few issues with the Windows platform for the most part; I was even a fan of Vista. I didn’t see all of the same issues that caused droves of people to jump on the anti-Vista bandwagon. I still prefer Vista to Windows XP, a sentiment that isn’t shared by many. But at the end of the day, I run it on my MacBook. I do most of my blogging from a Mac now, I get all of my newsfeeds on the Mac, and Twitter too! Bottom line, a lot of Mac apps offer better stability and robustness compared to their Windows counterparts. Whether this is related to the platform or just bad coding, that’s a topic for a different day. Microsoft wins at a lot of battles – I favor Visual Studio and Office 2007. Those have been solid, just as a lot of the server apps like Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint.

Since I have had my Mac I have looked for ways to synchronize files and folders. Between my Macs would be fine, but across platforms would be even better. Apple’s MobileMe is a nice solution, although I don’t believe $99/year is worth what it gives me. Yesterday I was searching around for file sync tools on the Mac again and came across Microsoft Live Sync. I’ve used Live Sync for file storage on the PC side, but I was surprised to find that a Mac client was available. I installed it on both of my Macs, as well as my Vista laptop and work laptop too. I started syncing folders and they appeared across the platforms. Amazing! (and free too).

Looking further, I started digging into Microsoft Live Mesh which bridges the gap for connected devices allowing them to sync files and access their desktops all over the Internet. This provides the ability to access applications on one system that might not be available on another. Better yet, Mesh incorporates mobile devices and Macs. File synchronization is great across platform, but I wish I had the ability to remote control my Mac from one of my Live Mesh PCs. Since the remote control uses an ActiveX control in the browser, this is not possible on the Mac, but bringing a Java applet into the mix might take away this barrier.

I would say that in the last 2-3 months, Microsoft has introduced some very interesting technologies like Bing and Live Mesh (beta). Bing is closing in on it’s Google competition, and I have even started using it as my primary search engine. We’ll see how the landscape changes when Google finishes their open source OS.

So, with all this being said, it’s really not about being an Apple Fanboy or a Microsoft Fanboy, but more-so about who delivers the best solution for the problems at hand.

Changes to Windows Live Maps

They are doing some cool stuff over at local.live.com.  These changes seem to have went live in the last day or so.  They have simplified the interface and added some new functionality.

How about the ability to have a traffic-based route?  Like take me the way the traffic isn’t?  It gives you the route with any notes on congestion or accidents as well as the time to get to the destination figuring any of the obstacles.  Pretty cool. 

One feature I heard about in the beta, but doesn’t seem to be in production is intelligent directing options.  These allow you to skip the first few directions that would get you to a certain point.  In other words, I know how to get to the major interstate from my house, so don’t give me directions for that part of the route.  Neat!

Changes to the Windows Live SkyDrive Beta

The Windows Live team announced some changes to the SkyDrive beta today.

Among the changes are an increase of space for users from 500 MB to 1 GB.  Also, being that you can have a public folder that is read and write for other users, they have incorporated an RSS feed feature that allows you to track changes to your public folders.  In other words, get notified when a new file is placed in the public folder including who put it there.

Windows Live SkyDrive allows you to store and share files online, for password-protected access from anywhere.  Simply associate your Passport account and have access to your data from anywhere.  A handy tool for sharing files between home and work.

Check it out at http://skydrive.live.com.

Windows Live Writer Beta 2 Now Available

Today, Windows Live Writer Beta 2 became available.  Beta 1 was released in Fall 2006, so this release was long awaited.  Major changes to the interface and APIs make this a definite “must download” for the serious blogger.

Windows Live writer supports a number of different blogging engines including MSN Spaces, WordPress, and Blogger.

You can download it here: http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/.

My favorite feature?  Being able to add new categories on the fly.

Windows Live Writer – my new favorite blog editor

My brother wrote about the release of Windows Live Writer in a recent entry.  I have been testing this application for some time and have found it to work great with most blog server implementations.

dasBlog support seems to be limited, although this is mostly because of dasBlog itself.  I made the switch last month to using my own installation of WordPress which means that I had to also install PHP and MySQL on my Windows Server.  So far, so good; the installation took me less than 15 minutes and worked on the first attempt.

Windows Live Writer has support for a number of different implementations including the new release of Windows Live Spaces, which is the new MSN Spaces.

Windows Live Writer is in the beta stage, but is very stable and has a full SDK available so you can write your add-ins.  Check out my brother’s post on WLW … He has some good explanations and screenshots to go along with it.