webdevmatt

I have been peppering some documents up on Office Live these days, and it is a “free” beta solution that provides value. That being said I would not be doing myself justice if I didn’t weigh in on the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good:

Single document access is as friendly as any other of a similar service, much better than an attachment. Friendly and highly visible viewing of the activity of your document, money. Ease of sharing documents from the “document owner” perspective, money. Oh yeah, with Office Live Update, publishing your documents from your Office products, is very very smooth (it is a download / install -> the bad).

The Bad:

Global sharing is still lacking. The boundary of the install has caught some of my collaborators off guard. I guess it can be said that “it’s still beta”, but acceptance will be hampered by the hurdle of an additional step that some business users may shy away from. The user is “not sure what they are getting into”, common IT issue.

The Ugly:

With the need for an install the challenge of not having the appropriate permissions to do the install for non IT types can make things ugly for your collaborators.

As a Windows XP and Vista user, as well as a licensed Office user, the bads and the uglys should not be present. Common guys, make it easy.

More to come, maybe with some objectivity.

Ok, so my Sportband crapped out after a very wet run so, the great people at Fleet Feet Syracuse or Nike, you can never be to sure took it back and replaced it with a new one, yippeee. I queried the owner of Fleet Feet and he mentioned that on the Fleet Feet owners forum, there were mixed reviews on what was going on with the Sportband, “there was one store who sold 100 and only had 1 returned, while others sold 27 and had 15 returned.” It appears that the store in Syracuse was one of the latter sceneries, and I may go into my theory on this phenomenon at a later date.

My first run with Sporty 1.5 was nearly an exact replica of Sporty 1.0, 5 miles on OLP with the calibration off almost 1.1 miles. I set the calibration, so easy, I do love that feature of old Sporty. I will run again today and see how it works out, my expectations are high. It’s about 83 degrees today so there will be a good deal of sweat trying to creep into the watch, the saga continues.

So, I have be training with my buddy Nike+ Sportband, I like to call him sporty for short, and he’s been treating me pretty well. After my first calibration on the street, it was pretty much dead nails on with road runs. Hit green lakes a few weeks ago and Sporty was off about 1 mile on a 10 mile run, I think there needs to be 2 calibrations, 1 for the road and one for the trail. No biggy, was going to calibrate the walk pace for the trail and I’m guessing my partner would be right back up to speed.

Well, before hitting a measured trail run again, a tragedy has fell upon young Sporty. After a very wet run on Onondaga Lake Park (OLP), life lights were quite fain. I couldn’t really see the display, but my live running partner said, “4.86 I think it says 4.86.” So I left Sporty on the counter for a few days off, and then it hit me. 3 days later as I put Sporty on my wrist to start the day, there’s nothing but a tiny black led  background staring back at me.

I though, maybe, just maybe all he needed was a little juice so I brought out the paddles in the form of my laptop and plugged him to see if he could be jumped. Sporty just hung off their like a lifeless kidney bean.  All the coaxing and chanting doesn’t seem to effect Sporty’s will to live. Sporty I will miss you, we had some good times together, maybe Fleet Feet will replace you with one of your brothers.

WOW. MSFT did this one right out of the gate. I’m not much of a photo guy, but have used and or have been exposed to many “photo album” managers, and this one ranks right up there.

Out of the gate I was able to easily import, and categorize my photos. Once imported; arranging, naming, touching up, modifying, and even publishing was cake. Close enough to iPhoto on my PC, providing me with the simple tools I need to manage, modify and publish my photos. I’ll keep you all up to date as I fall in or out of love with Windows Live Photo Gallery.

Well, there was no running on the day I got my sportband so I can just talk about it’s style, cuase I have so much of it, and it’s interface to my computer.

I will say that the band and it’s pod is sweet looking, and the packaging and instructions rival the iPhone (I personally believe that Apple has the best package design). I put the band on and it’s quite comfortable. All you out there that see me wearing it can comment weather it looks good or not ;). Now for the first issue. I have an HP laptop with it’s usb ports on either side of the device, maybe 1/4 of an inch from the desk. The curved pod that works so well for contouring to the arm is not so great for plugging in on the laptop for charging and syncing.

When connecting the pod to the laptop on a flat surface, the pod bends so you must elevate the front of the device to get a flush connection. If this is the only issue I have with this device, it will be awesome.

So, one of the great things about running is, all you need is shoes and some clothes and you can go running. No ball, no team, nothing by you, the road and some shoes. Then you start to run more and more, and like anything else you find special gear that you “have to have”. Maybe some special socks, sneaks, and who knows some neat things you can take on your runs (heart rate monitor, ipod, GPS). So this winter I got myself a pair of Gortex running shoes. I figured I could wear them outside and stay dry, and wear my other shoes indoors. Gortex has always been a great way to keep dry with boots, jackets and gloves, why not running shoes.

The winter went by and my feet got wet. I attributed this to my aggressive sloshing in the puddles to take the shoes to the extreme, and essentially getting water over the ankle of the shoe, but now, I’m not so sure. It was a beautiful day for a run, 49 degrees and a slight drizzle, are there any better conditions for the Gortex shoes? I got on the road, and not more than 2.5 miles in, sure enough, my left foot was soaked. Not just wet, when I finished the run, I could have got a few shots of hydration directly from the shoe. Any runner knows this phenomenon adds about 1 or 3 lbs to your feet and a nasty swamp foot upon finishing (not to mention the swimmers prune foot as well K).

Nike, I know Gortex doesn’t make a faulty product, I think I’m coming for my money or a new pair of shoes.

So we are looking at a new challenge facing IT and it’s users. A shift from security v. usability to green v. usability. We have made the pledge for green and we must comply. We as users have to understand the commitment we are making and look at this as a positive change, not an inconvenience.

History
Security policy has always been a mode of contention between IT and it’s users. Whether it’s entering passwords, or even more obtrusive the old time out for inactivity. “15 minutes isn’t enough time.” has been an age old rumbling.

Next Step
With that short piece of history. Now we are going green with IT, and will be following EPA recommendations which has the potential to compound these rumblings.

1. The screen will go dark after 5 minutes, a definite challenge for those doing presentations. Will there be any reprieve for this type of activity.
2. The hard drive will go to standby or hibernate mode after 30 minutes. I have heard the occasional rumble of “45 minutes isn’t long enough.” This action will require a press of the power button and a logging in at the security window.

A new battle has begun. We must change our thinking once again in order to adhere to our commitment to lowering our carbon footprint. This is a good thing, and maybe even a point of discussion when our screens time out during a presentation, it’s all positive.

It’s been a full day. I got out the running email early, we’ve got a location but no accompanying runs, they are supposed to follow later in the day. Fast forward to 5pm, oh shit, I forgot to send out the runs :(.

In steps Listas, what if previous runs were posted out on the web, I would not be in this dilemma. But, you can do that anywhere matt. True, but the wiki esque feature in Listas makes it a little bit more compelling than some other means :|, and I’m trying to see if people like Listas as well :). So runners, come one come all, it’s time to put out some runs from some of our favorite Central New York bars, I’ll start em up, and please feel free to add to them. Let’s see what Listas is all about, and oh yeah, don’t forget to show up at the meeting spot (no one showed today :(). It was a beautiful day to run :), and at least I made the most of it :p.

Here’s the first list, pretty lame : Dark Horse Runs

So I was talking to a buddy of mine at Microsoft, and I was asking about Listas (its an online list creation and management software in Microsoft’s Live Labs).  He wasn’t very familiar with the project but after a little research he cam back with some  info.  From the information he brought back and what I’ve seen of  the project, I could not think of a reason to use this tool.

It’s 7:50pm and I’m about to hand over my machine for re-imaging. “Take off all you data,” says the tech, but I have no resident data on my machine that can’t be found somewhere securely in the ether :). I’d like to thank Kishmish, Microsoft, Google, Asigra, and countless other solution providers for helping me live paperless and virtual.

While I don’t have any data on my machine, what about my applications. The things I use every day and take for granted, oy, vizzle. Well, a practical use of Listas, kind of. I’ve posted my MSFT and third party apps, with download links to my Listas account, whoopdee doodle. Granted there are a large finite number of other places to put this stuff, but I have chose you Listas. That list is posted forever now for editing and viewing, or until they pull the plug on the project :).

So as I’m finishing my list and about to go to trivia night I think to myself, maybe this could be useful, let’s see if it’s linked into Live Mobile ishtar. It appears that List is not. Ok, I can still use those online lists remotely on my Windows Mobile device right. Maybe I can have my employees, or clients, or girlfriend …. posts list of stuff they are looking for and if something familiar comes to mind I can whip out my handy list from Listas, and deliver the asset in my journeys while I’m PCless. Sorry can’t do that either.

Well, I do know one thing Listas will provide me, another place to login to get my information, and the list of what’s on My PC right now.

The look is nice, just like Sharepoint Document Library, and a bit more friendly (nice icons :)). The ability to add and share documents with anyone is clean and simple. Next step’s not so great. The viewing of Office documents by others or myself is easy enough, but if you are going to be an editor, they recommend you install an update that takes some time, and a reboot. I’m hoping when it’s install the experience is as good as Google docs :|, we’ll see.

So Office Live opens the document in it’s native application (word, excel, …)  requiring a username and password (this is on edit and save). You see this in Sharepoint as well, we will have to see if the fix for Sharepoint works here (just have to put the site into my trusted sites, and all will be good in the world) single logon.

Pros: Looks nice, easy to share, easy to view. Can create multiple document workspaces with specific “permissions”

Cons: requires an install with reboot. Must click to see simple things like tasks, contacts, etc. Ability to customize does not jump out at me (I’m not saying you can’t customize, just at first glance (15 min)).

More to come at later date.