Okay, this is getting tiresome. Back in August 2007, I posted to this blog about a problem I had encountered whereby a Microsoft update broke Word 2007 – rendering it “crippled” in that after installing updates, I couldn’t open a .DOC file by clicking it in Explorer, nor could I click in a document to place the mouse pointer where I wanted it.

Then a few days later, I posted that I had tracked down the culprit: a patch for Office 2003 (KB36960) that was installing because I had Frontpage 2003 on the system. I did a system restore and then reinstalled the rest of the updates, blocking that one, and fixed the problem.

Well, until now. Several days back, I installed a slew of Office 2007 security updates that I had let pile up (I have my system set to automatically download but manually install). I didn’t have occasion to use Word for a while, what with all the holiday festivities going on and a couple of weeks off from my “real work.” When I did, I discovered that – you guessed it – Word is broken again. In exactly the same way.

And I’m pissed. I can understand a 2003 update messing up 2007 – sort of – but got rid of Frontpage 2003 long ago and replaced it with Expression Web. None of the updates I installed this time are for 2003. So why does Microsoft keep doing this?

I’m in the process now of uninstalling the Office 2007 updates one at a time to try to determine which one did the dirty deed. I really don’t have time to go through this on a regular basis. Word is almost worthless in this condition. I’m seriously considering either (a) never installing another Office security update or (b) switching to Open Office for my word processing (other Office programs, such as PowerPoint and Excel, are never affected when this happens – just Word).

UPDATE on updates:

Found it! After uninstalling KB 58439, Word is back to normal.

We’ve been talking about buying a new HD TV for a long time, and seriously for at least a year. The old Sony rear projection model we had in our media room was state of the art in its day – but its day was nearly a decade ago. It still displays an amazingly good picture from a DVD, but it was just time for an upgrade. So we decided to finally bite the bullet and get a new TV as a two-way Christmas present (from both of us to both of us).

The old Sony – it served us well

We agonized long and hard over which TV to get. There were some excellent deals out there this holiday season. Thanks to the economic downturn, retailers were running some great sales to try to move inventory. Mitsubishi 73 inch DLPs could be had for under $2500, and when we looked at them in the stores, the picture looked great – until you ‘rounded the corner and came upon the one product that almost every store had sitting in its most high profile spot: the Sharp Aquos 65 inch LCD. 

No matter where we went, this particular set stood out. First time I saw it, all I could say was “Wow.”  I took Tom to look at all the different TVs, and he would say “I like that,” and “I like that,” and when he came to the Aquos, he said, “Wow!” It always put the others to shame, and it was always the only LCD of that size to be had.

For a flat panel, it is huge – and it had a price tag to match: $3999 at most places (marked down from suggested list price of $4999). When we found it for $3599 (thanks to a 10% off sale), we felt as if we were getting a bargain.

The price was still $1000 to $1500 more than the same size DLP sets, which looked real nice BEFORE you saw the Sharp. That seems like a big difference, which was the reason that it took us so long to make the decision. But then someone pointed out that we’d had our current widescreen (which cost $3500, way back then) for almost ten years. So if you spread the cost difference out over ten years, you’re talking about $12.50/month, or less than 50 cents per day, to have the really fantastic set vs the “good enough” set.

Now, buying a 65 inch TV was not a simple matter. That’s because the old one was just 57 inches, so our entertainment center cabinets had to be modified to accommodate the wider size. Luckily, it was made to do that, so with the help of our favorite “handy guy” friends, James T., we were able to get the cabinet piers moved further apart. He built a new shelf and I stained it to match the rest of the center, and my other friend, cabinetmaker Pete M., built me a beautiful stand for the TV to sit on (the Sony was one of those big things that has a bottom section so for the LCD, we needed a bottom piece for it to sit on). I also stained it and it all ended up looking great together:

 
The new Aquos, in modified cabinets on the new stand

As you can see, I had Pete build the stand with a section for the media center PC to sit up vertically, and it also holds lots of our DVDs. Also note that it’s running Vista. :)

And it runs it very well, by the way. As shown in the following photo (click to enlarge), the WEI (Windows Experience Index) score is an impressive 5.4, and would be a 5.9 if not for the gaming graphics score (and we don’t do games on it).

 
The HP Media Center PC to which the Aquos is attached scores 5.4 on the WEI

We’ve been living with the new TV for a few days now, and the picture quality with HD input is just awesome. Of course, we’re connecting the PC to the TV with HDMI, and the Blu-ray discs and streaming HD content from the network websites (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX) is just beautiful. You feel as if you’re really in the same room with the actors, and you can see every blemish on their faces – that you couldn’t see on the old set. I’m sure that doesn’t make the stars very happy. :)

Of course, the downside is that every flaw in the non-HD signals is magnified by the high resolution and the large size of the picture. I think we’re going to be paying the cable company extra for the HD channels soon. Unfortunately, we’re in a location where we can’t get a decent OTA HD signal, even with a roof mounted antenna.

We had a few frustrating moments, getting everything to work – as always happens with something new – but now that it’s done, we’re happy with it. Contrary to what I’d feared, even our regular DVDs look better on it than on the old set, although of course they can’t compete with the HD content.

Anyway, it was a good early Christmas present, and neither of us will have to worry too much about doing a lot of shopping for the other this year.

As I’ve played more with the Omnia, I’ve discovered the solutions to some of the “cons” that I posed in my initial review a few days ago.

Selecting Multiple Email Messages

In WM 6.0, I could select multiple contiguous email messages by dragging my stylus or finger up or down over the messages I wanted to select. That obviously doesn’t work on the Omnia because that gesture scrolls the list of messages. Well, I’ve found out that you can indeed still select multiple messages, and in fact this feature is much improved because now they don’t have to be contiguous.

When you’re in the list of messages, just hit Menu, Select and you can choose to Select All, Select All Below, or Select Several. If you choose the last one, you can just tap whatever messages you want to select, contiguous or not, and they’re all selected. This is actually much more functional than the old way – you just have to find it. :)

My only gripe about it is that you can’t do the same thing in the file system (or at least not in the same way). If I’m in File Explorer, I can select all files, but I can’t select several to delete, copy, move, or send. That would be a very useful feature and maybe it’s included in one of the third party file management programs. I’ll have to check that out.

Missing Symbols Found!

In relation to one of my other previous complaints, I’ve found the parentheses (and the underscore symbol, which was also missing) on the soft keyboard. First press the sym key, then at the bottom left, press the 1/9 key. This takes you to the second of 9 pages of symbol keys, where you’ll find the parentheses and underscore, along with brackets, =, <,>, the symbol and copyright symbols and other useful things.

I would put a screenshot of the additional symbol pages here, but I can’t. Keep reading to find out why.

Turning up the volume

Another minor complaint I had was about the sound volume; it was too low. I found out that you can adjust this by running a file called SoundTester.exe in the Windows folder. By default, you may think you don’t have such a file. The trick is, in File Explorer, to select Menu and then Show All Files.

Here is a post on the Omnia message board that tells you how to make the adjustments: Make Your Omnia Louder!

More Winterface Fallout

Today I discovered that my restore from backup after the Winterface fiasco didn’t completely work after all. Two of the third party programs I had installed, which were working fine before I installed Winterface, no longer work. Magic Button, which closes programs when you press the X in the upper right corner of a window instead of minimizing them, won’t start. CapSure, my screen capture program, also doesn’t work. With both, I get messages that say “The file cannot be opened. Either it is not signed with a trusted certificate or one of its components cannot be found.”

Grrr. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the programs, with the same results. Both of these programs were freeware so I’m not out any money, but they were both very useful programs and I’m annoyed at no longer being able to use them. The program that I did pay for (spbBackup itself) still works fine. The issue seems to be the unsigned certificates of the free programs.

I can live without Magic Button. I’m willing to give WM 6.1 a chance to manage memory for me and see how that works. In searching for a replacement, I ran across this explanation of the reason why Microsoft doesn’t make the X button close programs, and it actually makes sense: The Emperor Has No Close.

The loss of CapSure is much more irritating. I tried installing Ilium Screen Capture. It installed okay, but none of the hardware buttons on the Omnia seem to work with it so it’s useless. A search for additional screen capture utilities turns up several that put your WM screen on your PC monitor (not what I want; I want to capture on the device) or advanced capture tools that cost $20-50. I just want a simple little capture program that works as CapSure did before I messed everything up with Winterface. Unless/until I find one, I guess there will be no more screenshots accompanying these posts. :(

Okay, this has (temporarily) turned into the Samsung Omnia Windows Mobile blog, but that’s okay. If I can turn others on to this cool phone and perhaps save them some grief by letting them learn from my mistakes, that’s a good thing.

I read some good reviews of a program called Winterface and from its website, it appeared to be a nice shell that makes WM look like the iPhone (with similar icons and functionality, slide lock, etc.). One thing I noted was that a reviewer said it doesn’t take over the whole thing, that you could go back and forth between your normal shell and Winterface. Umm … not so much.

I had downloaded the free Weather applet from the makers of Winterface and it worked fine, so I thought it would be safe to try out the shell program. Well, I was wrong.

Winterface itself installed okay, but I quickly found that I could not go back to my Samsung Widget Today Screen. When I tried, I got an error message saying there was a problem with Shell32.exe. Worse, after working with the Winterface interface for a short time, I realized I did not like it. There was no easy way to get back to my regular main menu, I didn’t like the black and white look, and the slider lock was awkward and annoying to me. Guess I wouldn’t like the iPhone interface, either.

Thank goodness for spb Backup! I had made a backup just half an hour or so before installing Winterface, and the restore went fast and worked beautifully. I’m back to my nice Widget-based Today Screen with everything working as I had it set up before.

Now it may be that the conflict was caused by having the Widget interface enabled. Maybe Winterface would work as advertised if you use the regular WM Today Screen. I don’t think I’ll bother to find out. I like the Samsung interface much better. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

My Omnia (Samsung i910) arrived late Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately, I had to attend a bond committee meeting from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and so didn’t get a chance to play with it immediately. I spent most of the day Friday setting it up, investigating all the features, installing programs and getting used to the soft keyboard, the finger scrolling, and other multi-touch functions, and then took it with me Saturday and Sunday and used it “in the field.”

My new Omnia

I have to admit that I wasn’t entirely sure about it at first. Oh, I loved the way it looked, but … the screen rotation seemed wacky (it would either not rotate when I turned it, or rotate when I just moved it a little and didn’t want to turn it) and typing onscreen takes some getting used to after the i760’s excellent physical keyboard. But the more I used it, the better I liked it. I found the rotation sensitivity setting that fixed that problem, and I learned the nuances of scrolling and typing on the device pretty quickly. And it’s just so much prettier than the i760:

 
i760 vs. Omnia

There are three different Today Screen options: the first is the regular Windows Mobile screen (boooorrrriiiinnnngggg). The second is the Samsung Today screen, which is okay and more iPhone-like:

Samsung Today screen option

The third (although actually the default) is the Samsung Widget screen. Lots of folks don’t like it, but I do. Maybe it’s because I love the Vista sidebar and it reminds me of that.  To create my Today Screen wallpaper, I just took a picture (with the phone’s built-in camera) of my own backyard:

 
My Omnia Today Screen with widgets

You can also pull the widgets that you want out onto the main screen so they’re right there at a glance, as shown here:

Today Screen with on-screen calendar and Phonebook Favorites

Now I have everything the way I want it and I think it’s much cooler than an iPhone.

What I like most about it:

• The big screen (I always felt like too much space was wasted on the i760 by the physical number pad, which I rarely used and which could have gone to screen real estate). The colors are good and display quality for photos is great.
• The form factor: at first glance, turned off, it looks like an iPhone. It’s that thin and light. It slips into my pocket as if there were nothing there, unlike the i760 that left a big bulge. It fits nicely in my hand; I don’t feel as if I’m going to drop it as I often did with the i760 because I couldn’t get my hand all the way around it when trying to do something one handed.

 
The good old i760 looks fat and kludgey next to the Omnia

• All that storage space. Even without the micro SD card, there’s 8 GB of internal storage. And I can expand that to 24 GB with a 16 GB card. This is way more storage than I had on my “top of the line” desktop computer in 1995.
• Some of the cool extra features/programs like the flashlight (you wouldn’t think of it, but it’s actually handy to have), the Smart Converter, and the built in Phonebook program that lets me assign photos and ringtones to contacts and put my four most frequently called friends/family members on the today screen. With the i760, I had to buy a separate program (Photo Contacts Pro) to do all that, and it took up a lot of memory and took a long time to load when you rebooted the phone. It’s much easier to scroll through this phone than the regular WM Contacts.
• I like the Widget screen, the Main Menu screen and the Program launcher – these Samsung additions make it much easier to navigate and I find that I never use the Start menu.

  
Main Menu and Shortcuts screens

• The Opera mobile browser is great; it will display a whole web page or you can zoom in on the part you want. You can move the window around with your fingers or zoom in by tapping on the screen. It uses the whole screen to display the web page and doesn’t waste space on the title bar and address box:

Opera Mobile browser is great

• The web is fast on EV-DO, about as good as a typical home broadband connection (although understandably not as snappy as my FiOS connection).
• The 5 MP camera is really good – noticeably sharper than the i760 and with many more adjustable settings. Photos aren’t super saturated, but it’s easy to fix that after the fact with any basic editing software, including Vista’s built in Photo Gallery.
• The phone voice quality is very good and clear, just like the i760. The phone keypad, like the keyboard, gives tactile feedback and the keys are easy to use:

Omnia’s phone application works well

• Voice command worked like a dream, better for me than on the i760.
• Bluetooth works great. I beamed several of the files from my i760 to the Omnia.
• Everything was easier to set up, from Exchange email to wi-fi. I don’t know if that’s because I’m more experienced after using the i760 or the Omnia really is more configuration-friendly. I suspect the latter, at least to some extent.

Cons:

• The xt9 autocomplete feature drove me absolutely mad at first. I was ready to send the phone back until I figured out how to turn it off. Trying to type a URL in the browser’s address bar was impossible – it kept putting in something different from what I was trying to type. With it off, everything works fine (and I still get suggested words, but they’re only suggestions as they were on the i760; it doesn’t actually put the substituted word into the text as it was doing with xt9 turned on.
• The onscreen keyboard is way better than any other onscreen board I’ve ever used; the tactile feedback really does make a huge difference. That said, it can in no way compete with the i760 keyboard. I always heard about “Blackberry thumb” but I never experienced it on the i730 or i760. On the former, I never used the bottom slide-out keyboard because it made the device unbalanced. I used the tiny soft keyboard with the stylus. On the i760, I used the side-slide keyboard all the time. I could type on it all day without any strain; it’s extremely ergonomic. With the Omnia, I pretty quickly got used to the soft keyboard and figured out how to type pretty fast on it – but after a full day of using it, I woke up the next morning with a right thumb that was painful to move. In using the device one-handed, I did almost all the typing with my right thumb and it obviously was not used to that.
• I realize I’ll probably almost never use the stylus, but was it really not possible to make a way to store it in the phone as with the i760, in case you need to do a soft reset? Not a real big deal, I guess – I can usually manage to carry a paper clip. Just a tiny annoyance.
• Instead of a separate headset jack, it requires that you plug the headset adapter into the same port that’s used for the charger and the USB connector. Then you plug the headset into the adapter. That isn’t really a problem, as it’s small – but it means you can’t have the headset plugged in at the same time the charger is plugged in (for instance, to listen to music on the phone with it plugged into the car charger).
• Thus far, it seems that you can’t highlight multiple email messages to delete all at once, as you could with the i760 by dragging over them. I guess this is a tradeoff for the ability to scroll with your finger. There may be another way to do it that I haven’t figured out yet (I hope).
• You have to take the battery out to insert or remove the micro SD card. What fool designed that? Yeah, I guess most of the time you’ll just buy a big card and leave it in, but … there are times when I would pop the card out of the i760 and into a laptop (that doesn’t have BT) to transfer files rather than go to the trouble of setting up an ad hoc wi-fi network. Or I’d put the micro in the card reader on my PC when I had a large number of photos I’d taken on the phone that I wanted to copy over.
• There are no parentheses on the symbol page of the keyboard (I’m big on parenthetical asides). :)

I tried the Smart Reader for business cards and got mixed results. You take a photo of the card and the software recognizes the relevant information and puts it into format to save as a Contact. On a very standard white card with black or dark print, it did a good job of extracting the name and phone number. On a more creatively designed or multi-color card, not so much. It’s a great idea and when it works, it’s very cool.

I was surprised to find that the FM radio works great and that I actually found myself using it. Pair it with a set of Shure earphones and the sound quality is fantastic. It would be nice if you could turn the volume higher, though. I don’t really like to listen to my music super loud but someone who does is not going to be satisfied with the top volume.

At first I was annoyed that the GPS is locked and can only be used if you subscribe to Verizon’s VZNavigator service (for $9.99/month). Then I realized that I probably wouldn’t use GPS on the phone for much of anything even if I could. It’s just too small to be able to see or make selections while you’re driving. My Mio GPS unit was only $249 and it’s way more full featured than the GPS software I’ve seen for WinMobile, and is designed to be finger friendly and very viewable while driving. In just over two years, the monthly fee for VZNavigator would pay for a good dedicated GPS that does many other things, too.

The phone gets more functional as I use it more and as I get used to how it works. It already includes many of the functions that I needed third party programs to get with the i760. So far, I’ve only found the need to install three programs and only one of them costs anything:

• Magic Button: a little freeware program that makes the X on the title bar actually close the program instead of just minimizing it, to save memory. It’s the first thing I install on any Windows Mobile phone.
• CapSure: a free screen capture program for WM that I used to take the screenshots for this review.
• Spb Backup: I used Sprite on the i760 but their web site said it wasn’t supported on the Omnia (although some folks in the PDAPhoneHome forums have mentioned using it) so I went with Spb this time. It costs $29.99 but that’s a small price to pay, to not have to do all the configuration again if I should have to do a hard reset.

All in all, despite the “cons” listed above, I’m very happy with the phone and consider it the best smart phone I’ve owned.

It’s amazing when you consider the evolution of the Samsung PDA phones over the years. Here are all three of the phones I’ve had over the last five years; note how much more attractive and thin each generation has gotten:

 
From left to right: Samsung i730, i760 and Omnia (i910)

In last week’s WXPnews, I did an editorial titled Safe Computing: Whose Responsibility Is It, Anyway? I got many great, insightful responses, and printed as many as I could (within word count limits) in this week’s Follow-up.

Some, though, were too long to include, but were so good that I want to share them here. In particular, Victor B. wrote the following (excerpted):

I use all three major OS’s in my business and I never have viruses and very little, minor spyware. I have clients who seem to get viruses all the time. So, I have to agree that it is something they are doing. But I am not sure what to tell them when they ask what they can do to not get viruses. You can say, they need to practice safe computing, but what does that look like. For the most part, it is my experience and understanding of the internet that protects me from more than the software running on my computer. If my clients had the same experience and understanding, they would also receive far fewer viruses, but I would be out of work because they would probably also have the ability to do the network management that is my bread and butter.

The people who produce the bad stuff, play on peoples ignorance. I remember a movie my kids like to watch called “Beauty Shop” where a hair stylist at a high end salon in the upper class area of town is fired and opens a small salon in the hood. One of her rich former clients comes to her knew salon. When the lady gets out of the car, she hands her keys to the young man sitting next to the curb and asks him to park it. She thinks he is a valet. Had the hair stylist not come out and taken the keys away from him, he would have stolen her car. Someone who knew that area of town, would never make that mistake.

That is the way of internet security.

What a great analogy!

Another good one came from Jonathon T.:

I have to be honest and say that I maintain a file on my computer which is basically a goldmine with regards to my identity. It contains everything about me – driving licence number, health service number, employee number, PIN numbers for my bank accounts, passwords for my e-mail accounts, details of next of kins date of birth, maiden names, passport number etc. etc. etc.! Armed with this file alone, anyone could convince anyone working in a bank etc. that they are me (at least over the phone)…

My point is, as we rely more and more on computers, there will me more and more of us who use them for storing this type of highly sensitive information …

In a worst case scenario, if someone was able to steal your identity and set up credit cards in your name and redirect your (paper) mail it could take months and possibly years to re-establish your credit rating. Now, you tell me, who’s problem is that? It’s certainly not SEP!

I appreciate all these contributions.

Yesterday, on the way home from my CJ Training Advisory Board meeting, I stopped off at the Verizon store to check out their new phones that I discussed in my previous blog post. They didn’t have the Omnia in stock but did have a display model. Unlike most super models, it looked every bit as good in person as it did in the photos. Like those models, it’s super thin – making my fairly compact i760 seem downright chubby. I was ready to buy right then and there, had my credit card out and everything, until the rep told me it would cost $249. Wait a minute – I can buy it on the web site for $199. So I came home and did that.

Got confirmation email this morning that it had already shipped, so I’m hoping to have it in my hot little hands by the weekend, and I’ll put it through its paces and post a full fledged review sometime late next week.

 
Samsung Omnia (i900)

The form factor of the iPhone with the functionality of Windows Mobile 6.1 plus a user-removable battery and the ability to add lots more flash memory: that’s what I’ve been waiting for. Looks as if my patience finally paid off.

It’s that time of the year again, when a young man’s (or a not-quite-old lady’s) fancy turns to … a mobile phone upgrade. I love my Samsung i760 but darn it, those multi-touch screens are just so cool. No, no, no – I’m not going over to the Dark Side. This Eve will never take a bite of that Apple. :)

But thanks to all those iPhone competitors, now we can have our Windows Mobile cake and eat up the touchy-feeliness too. I was going to be really happy if Verizon Wireless released a nice big screen touchscreen phone before Christmas. They did me one better, and came out with not one, not two, but three contenders.

So now I’m looking at:

• The HTC Touch Pro: nice slide-out QWERTY keyboard similar to that of my i760, but that makes for a fatter phone – and a higher price. It’s $150 more than the other two choices, and has the smallest screen of the bunch (2.8”). It also has the shortest talk and standby time (250 min./350 hr). It supports a 16 GB micro SD card, but has no extra onboard storage.
• The Blackberry Storm: I’ve never even seriously considered a BB before, but this one is nice. It’s compact, the 3.25” touch screen looks great with 480x360 resolution, and it has 1 GB of onboard memory with support for a 16 GB micro SD card. Like the Touch Pro, it has a 3.2 MP camera. I was really tempted by this one, until …
• The Samsung Omnia: This one has an advantage out of the gate, since I’ve had great experiences with my two previous Samsung smart phones and have thus developed a bit of brand loyalty. But that’s not all. Along with the 3.2” touch screen, it has 8 GB of additional internal memory and support for that 16 GB micro SD card, meaning you can have a whopping 24 GB of storage space. Suddenly carrying all your songs and even movies on your phone makes sense. It also looks the most like an iPhone, and even weighs slightly less. And with 346 min. of talk time and 464 hours of standby, it has the longest battery life on the block. I’m really leaning toward this one.

“Outlaw” C&W singerDavid Allen Coe, in an intro to the last verse of the Steve Goodman song You Never Even Called Me By My Name, said that the perfect country and western song has to say something about Mama, trains, trucks, prison and gettin’ drunk.

Well, just as there are certain criteria that must be met by the perfect country and western song, there are “must haves” before a phone can be considered the perfect Windows Mobile smart phone. The Omnia (on paper, at least) comes pretty darn close. Take a look at the video on this site to see it in action.

It slices, it dices, it does everything but the dishes. It runs on wi-fi or the super fast EV-DO Rev A network. It plays DIVX and XVID movies “out of the box” and has a TV Out connector so you can display them (or your PowerPoint presentations or your photos) on a TV. And you can take those photos – or video – with its built-in 5 MP camera. Heck, it will even play the perfect country and western song.

I think I’m in love.

Now, to see whether the infatuation survives a closer encounter. Tomorrow I’m trekking down to the Verizon Store to try it out for myself. Will I come home with a new iPhone Killer in my pocket? Tune in to find out.