A Consuming Experience

Powerpoint - how to close the notes pane at the bottom

2012-06-28T09:14:00.000+01:00

In Powerpoint 2010, if you do a search and the text you're searching is inside any of the Notes to your slides, it will show the Note at the bottom of the slide in a separate pane.

The annoying thing is that there's no X to close that pane once you're done with it.

The simple solution? Move the mouse pointer over the divider tipbetween the slide, so that it becomes a double headed black arrow with vertical lines - as outlined in red in the pic below.

Then click and drag that divider down to the bottom of your window with your mouse.

That's it!

Powerpoint - how to get back the slides thumbnails list on the left

2012-06-25T10:08:00.000+01:00

In Powerpoint 2010, on the left there's normally a vertical display or pane listing thumbnails of all your slides vertically, outlined in red below, so that you can select or edit particular slides quickly (and copy/paste etc individual slides too).

If you click the X to close that vertical pane on the left, how do you get that pane or view back?

It's not at all obvious. But there are two possible ways:

Click on the Normal button in the View menu (outlined in blue below), or
Move your mouse pointer to the left border of the window until it becomes a double-headed arrow (see the red outline) - that's actually the divider, and if you click and drag to the right you can get the pane back!

Sharing Google Analytics data with Google - & how to disable data sharing

2012-06-18T09:25:00.004+01:00

The EU cookie law means all bloggers and websites have to be careful about cookies etc saved via their blogs or sites, even for personal rather than commerical blogs. I'll be blogging more about that soon, but that's the reason why I've got big Cookie and Privacy Policy links all over my blog now.

One issue that the cookie law doesn't specifically tackle, which I think is more important for privacy in practice, is one point about Google Analytics which, let's face it, is used by most or at least a vast number of blogs and sites.

The point is this. When a site adds Google Analytics code to its webpages, it's enabling Google to set cookies on the machines of the site's users, through which Google collects information about the users' browsing. Of course, the reason the site does this is so to enable it to view and analyse the metrics and statistics collected for it by Google, and Google provide some excellent analytics tools, reports and visualisations etc for that, all for free.

But the side effect of this is that Google gets the collected information too. It stores it on its own servers, and is able to use it - if you share it with Google. This data sharing is turned on by default. You have to take active steps to turn it off, if you don't want to share your Analytics data with Google (I'll explain how below).

Shouldn't whether a site shares analytics data with Google be more important than whether it uses cookies? Yes, we may all wonder that. For those who care more about controlling data usage than limting the mechanics of storing or retrieving, well, everything, here's the lowdown on Analytics data sharing.

Google Analytics data sharing

When you go to your Analytics settings there's a page (on which more below) all about "data sharing". The info on Google Analytics privacy is scattered around. Here are a few links (if anyone finds any I've missed please let me know):

Analytics privacy overview
Another, slightly different, page - Google Analytics privacy
How to disable tracking on your site (needs coding experience!)
Data sharing overview
Analytics data sharing FAQs

What can Google do with your Analytics data?

The FAQs say:

What will Google do with my data?

Shared data will be used to improve the services we provide you and will help create more powerful features for you to choose from. As they become available, only those who share their data with Google will gain access to these services and features (e.g. benchmarking and an enhanced version of AdWords Conversion Optimizer). The DoubleClick Ad Planner Publisher Center will also offer greater insight to the customers who have opted in to share their data in Analytics and Ad Planner.

As for data sharing specifics:

What does it mean to share my Google Analytics data anonymously with Google and others?

If you only choose the anonymous data sharing option, Google will remove all identifiable information about your website, then combine that data with hundreds of other anonymous sites in comparable industries and report them in an aggregate form. Google will use this anonymous data to improve products and services and provide you with a benchmarking report.

What does it mean to share my Google Analytics data with Google products only?

If you choose to share your site's data, Google will use the data to improve the products and services we provide you. Additionally, only users who have opted to share their site's data with Google may use these new or improved services.

There's a bit more detail once you get to your Analytics settings data sharing page (on which more below). There are two types of sharing you can disable or enable:

1. With other Google products only optional

Enable enhanced ad features and an improved experience with AdWords, AdSense and other Google products by sharing your website's Google Analytics data with other Google services. Only Google services (no third parties) will be able to access your data.

Example Use:Google Conversion Optimizer

If you are an AdWords customer, selecting this option will allow you to use Conversion Optimizer once it is available, with the following key benefits:

- Meet your ROI objectives by automatically managing your bids according to maximum CPA goals.

- Minimize your conversion costs while saving your time.

2. Anonymously with Google and others optional

Enable benchmarking by sharing your website data in an anonymous form. Google will remove all identifiable information about your website, combine the data with hundreds of other anonymous sites in comparable industries and report aggregate trends in the benchmarking service.

Example Use: Google Analytics Industry Benchmarking

- Use Benchmarking to compare your site's performance with those of other websites in your industry.

- Pinpoint performance problems and estimate how much you can improve your site metrics.

How to disable Google Analytics data sharing

The data sharing overview says "Data sharing settings may be edited on the Account Settings page."

The trick is to get to that Account Settings page. After hours, OK certainly tens of minutes, of clicking around, I found it. It's the hardest settings page to find that I've ever had to deal with, I won't venture to suggest why…

So here's how to find the Account Settings page for data sharing (should work until Google changes it!).

Log in to Google Analytics. You'll see something like this (but with your sites listed rather than mine, of course).
UPDATE: there's an alternative, you can just click the Accounts tab on the right, then drill down on the page itself by clicking each account/sub-site etc if necessary, until you can see the Account Settings tab shown in step 7.
Click the + against your site's name.
Click the + against the "UA-whatever" link under that.
Just keep going on the + signs till you've expanded it all, to find the site you want to change settings for.
Click the site's name, under all that (in my case, it's ACE). You'll see something like what's below. On the right, click Admin.
Now after "All Accounts >", along the top (ish), click the name of your site, the one where you want to disable sharing.
Finally, click Account Settings.
You're there at the Data Sharing settings page!
Here you can UNtick either or both of the data sharing options. Then click Apply, and that's it.

The cynical might ask, how do you really know whether Google are in fact honouring that setting, if you disable sharing?

Well, you don't know, you'll just have to take on trust - but at least you've done the best you can, and hopefully that will make your use of Analytics more defensible from a cookie law viewpoint.

Internet Explorer 9 - how to open History, Favorites, Feeds on the left

2012-06-09T12:53:00.001+01:00

When opening your History (Ctrl-h) in Internet Explorer 9, it opens the pane (or should I say "Explorer bar") on the right hand side. That's the way they made it - and it's a big annoyance.

To open the History bar on the left, you have to use another keyboard shortcut instead - Ctrl-Shift-h (ie hold down both the Ctrl and Shift keys, tap h, release them all).

And it's Ctrl-Shift-i to open Favorites on the left, Ctrl-Shift-g for the Feeds.

If you used the old hotkeys and it opens on the right, you can click the green arrow (top left of the pane) or use the Ctrl-Shift-h combo to move it over to the left. But if you close the Explorer bar, Ctrl-h will open it on the right, all over again. So it's best just to learn the "new" shortcut keys.

Prime example of if it ain't broke why fix it…?!!

Thunderbird - public holidays won't display?

2012-05-15T09:22:00.000+01:00

In my Thunderbird email app (with Lightning for calendaring), I'd subscribed to Google's public holidays calendar for the UK. but lately, holidays no longer show up. They used to display fine, but that's stopped working.

What finally sorted the problem for me, after many unsuccessful troubleshooting attempts to try to get the Google calendar to display, was a workaround rather than solution or fix, but it's good enough for me! So here's my tip to get round this issue, step by step:

download the ICS calendar file for UK public holidays (or other holidays of your choice) from Apple, and save it on your computer
in Thunderbird, go to the Events and Tasks menu, and choose Import
navigate to the saved ICS file and Open it
choose which calendar in Thunderbird you want to import the file to, and OK it
the public holidays should show up properly, hooray!

This should work with Apple ICS files for other holidays or events too. I tried Google's ICS file for that calendar first but it doesn't contain the necessary info for importing.

Apple 1, Google 0.

(Google Calendars of public holidays may display properly in later versions of Thunderbird, but I've stuck with Thunderbird 9.0 because add-ons I need aren't compatible with later versions.)

Windows Live Writer won't start or open?

2012-05-07T10:00:00.000+01:00

If Windows Live Writer won't launch, it can be a heart-sinking experience if you depend on it as much as I do - it's the best free blogging tool I know.

For me, trying to "repair" Windows Live Essentials via the Control Panel Programs and Features didn't work to get WLW to open again. Nada, not even an error message.

Here's how to fix it when Windows Live Writer stops working, or at least some steps to try:

Open up Windows Explorer or Computer.
In the address bar at the top, type or paste the following (not case-sensitive), then hit Enter or the right arrow:
%AppData%\Windows Live Writer\
You'll see folders like these:
Open the LinkGlossary folder. Copy the linkglossary.xml file there, then paste it somewhere you can find it again, as backup in case.
Now delete the linkglossary.xml file from the LinkGlossary folder. (Thanks to Scott Lovegrove).
Try opening WLW again. If that doesn't work, try opening the Keywords folder, and deleting all the files inside that folder that start with 'keyword..'.
I also found a registry fix - see this link (scroll down)

For me, step 6 didn't work, but step 5 solved the problem for me, so I didn't need to try step 7.

How to convert Word documents to clean HTML

2012-05-01T10:00:00.000+01:00

While you can "Save as" a DOC or DOCX document in Microsoft Word as "Web Page, Filtered", the resulting HTML includes all the MsoNormal etc classes. Which is bit messy for my taste - I often want clean HTML.

To convert the Word document to pure, simple HTML, rather than trying to email the document to yourself in Gmail (which no longer works the same way anymore, anyway) I've discovered a quicker, cleaner way.

Download and install Windows Live Writer (which I use anyway for blogging - it's the best free blog writing software there is).
Launch Live Writer.
Then simply switch to your Word document, and copy all (in the Word document press ctrl-a to select all, then press ctrl-c to copy all)
Switch back to Live Writer, click in its document window if necessary, then press ctrl-v to paste the Word document's text into Live Writer.
In Live Writer, now go to the Source view (bottom left) and then you can copy and paste the nice clean pure HTML from that view, into Notepad or other text editor to "Save as" an .html file.

That's it. Clean, simple HTML. And no MSo classes either!

Word footnotes - how to update cross-references to footnotes

2012-04-27T14:14:00.000+01:00

In Microsoft Word, if you insert cross-references to footnote numbers and later add or delete any footnotes, the footnote numbering as shown in the cross-references can be wrong.

You can click the cross-reference and be taken to the right footnote, but the footnote numbers that display and print will be the 'old' ones.

Here's a tip on how to fix that problem - it took me ages to find the solution.

You need to:

click inside the footnotes area first
press Ctrl a (hold down the Ctrl key then tap the "a" key then release both)
tap the F9 key, and
OK it all.

This was in Word 2010, but I believe it's the same for Word 2007 etc too.

Internet password security madness?

2012-04-16T22:36:00.001+01:00

We all know that password choice, although notoriously tricky, is vital for online or offline computer security. Longer passwords, indeed whole phrases not just words, are better against brute force attacks. Using varied types of characters should help make passwords stronger, ie mixing letters, numbers and symbols. There are tools like passphrase generators too.

So someone please, please tell me, what on earth was Barclays thinking when it came up with the following requirements for Barclaycard customers' "memorable word"? Yes I know it's not a password, but it's similar.

Note the length limitation - only 8 letters max - and you have to count them too to make sure you have more than 6. They positively ban the use of numbers / digits and symbols. (It doesn't say numbers are banned, but they are - I tried).

No consecutive letters allowed means that if you wanted to use, say "Absalom", that would be disallowed, although my main beef is that the fact that even 2 consecutive letters aren't possible is not at all clear from Barclays' example. "Absalom" won't be permitted because it contains an "a" and a "b", in a row. So customers can go mad trying to think of words that will work. Forget words that contain "de", for instance. Abd nothing Afghanistan-like allowed, not to mention Klingon-related! Now, that's not having a calming effect on customers, is it?

As for forbidding the use of the same character more than once in a row, it's well known to those interested in password security that the first word below is more secure, as well as more memorable, than the second:

D0g.....................

PrXyc.N(n4k77#L!eVdAfp9

Barclays also require users to remember a code - and it's numbers only, and limited to 6 characters. Another frustrated customer has blogged about the whole range of difficulties thrown up; take a look for more hair-tearing requirements. If we had to jump through any more hoops we'd be hulaing. Or something.

Perhaps financial institutions think that as long as requiring several tokens / items or questions is good enough to protect them (though not necessarily customers), that'll do - however hard it may be for customers to think up or remember them. In the USA, apparently requiring passwords and a few security questions may be considered to constitute adequate security measures for banks to take.

Now, Barclays say they want their online banking to be "user-friendly", and they've tried to take other steps on the security front, but really, this is ridiculous. It seems to be exactly the sort of thing security expert Bruce Schneier calls "security theatre" - stuff to make customers and others think they care about security and are taking decent security measures, when actually they're not necessarily doing that. As legal expert Nicholas Bohm and others have repeatedly argued, things won't improve unless the banks and others who control the infrastructure and systems truly bear the risk of security breaches or fraud, instead of being able to (as currently) offload the risk onto customers and merchants.

As for Barclays' "anti-fraud" technology, whoever devised their algorithm should - well I'm too polite to say what, but you get the drift. For instance, for a particular subscription, I have a regular monthly debit to my credit card, same amount, same payee. Every month. Why on earth should that transaction suddenly be thought suspicious one day, when it hasn't been for the LAST X MONTHS!!? I buy stuff from Amazon regularly, so what's wrong with that? Why should Barclays query it?

And what about extremely busy people who only have time to go shopping once in a while, and buy lots of stuff in one day in the Boxing Day sales - ooh, that's 2 pairs of shoes, a coat and 3 tops all bought all on the same day, that's not "normal", let's just nuke 'em all! And then, the icing on the cake, it blocks all transactions on the card automatically, so if you'd tried to pay a bill just before its deadline, tough luck, Barclays may now have made you overdue.

But back to passwords. Lest you think this rant is directed too much at just one target, let me finish with this example from UK government websites, from a few months back.

Businesslink - no symbols allowed.

HM Revenue & Customs, yep the good ol' taxman - password limited to 12 characters only.

Sites like these should know better, one might think. I'm not sure what it would take to get the message across. If a user's account is compromised because their password was too easy to guess due to the length/symbol etc limitations, who's going to carry the can?

How to network Windows 7 and Vista computers to share files, folders & printers from the Windows 7 PC

2012-01-16T10:09:00.000Z

If you've had trouble networking Windows 7 and Vista computers, and even when you've turned password protection off it keeps asking for a username and password when trying to access files remotely from the Windows 7 PC but won't let you login and says "Network logon failure unknown user name or bad password" or similar, this post suggests some possible solutions. Note that I've only looked at sharing specific folders on a Windows 7 PC to a Vista PC (and not vice versa).

To fix this problem, this is what worked for me, after steps like these didn't work. This gave the clue! Short answer: make sure you've enabled the Guest account, or (better) create an account on the Windows 7 computer for network sharing purposes.

Step by step:

First, make sure you've done all these essential preliminary steps (though I'd leave out the firewall settings for now), ie: put both computers on the same workgroup (any name you want for the workgroup, as long as it's the same for both computers); set their network locations to Home; turned on network discovery, file and printer sharing, and public folder sharing.
Then:
1. EITHER:
  1. in the settings above, turn OFF "Password protected sharing"
  2. turn ON the guest account (it was off on my Windows 7 computer by default)
  3. then, to access shared stuff from the other computer, go to Network (in Computer or Windows Explorer), doubleclick the name of the Windows 7 computer, and when it asks for username and password, just type in 'guest' for the username (or if that doesn't work, try YourWindows7ComputerName\guest), but leave the password blank, tick the box below if you want to save having to re-enter details during the same session, then hit OK.
  4. BIG RED WARNING - note that this is not very secure as it adds a "guest" account onto the Windows 7 computer which anyone can use to access that computer without a password, including accessing attached external hard drives. So, either rename the guest account or (better yet) secure the guest account, which may be a bit involved, or just create a special account on the Windows 7 computer as per 2.2. below, which may be easier.
2. OR, alternatively, and this better for security:
  1. create another account on the Windows 7 computer with username/password, just for networked file and printer sharing
  2. on the other computer, again in Computer or Windows Explorer go to Network and doubleclick the name of the Windows 7 Computer; when the login prompt pops up, enter the username and password you created.
    1. note: the box to tick to remember your credentials shouldn't be there for Vista Home versions, because even if if you tick it, it won't remember your user/password (cached credentials) for network shares, beyond the session. Next time you reboot or restart the Vista computer, you'll just have to enter them all over again if you want to access stuff shared from your Windows 7 computer.
      Easiest workaround: create the special account on the Windows 7 computer with the same username/password as on the Vista computer.
    2. this (go to the "Concealing…" section) shows how to hide the special account from the logon screen on the Windows 7 computer if you wish, so that it's not visible on the Windows 7 PC when you turn it on
  3. Note that the username may need to be in the form "Windows 7 computer name\username" (without the quotes)
  4. In this case, of course, you should turn "Password protected file sharing" in step 1 back to ON.
    
    Now if, after doing that, on the other computer you can see the shared files and folders on the Windows 7 computer, but on trying to open them you can't, and get a message like "The Network Path Cannot be Found - Error code 0x80070035", just try this Netbios fix on the other computer (NOT the Windows 7 one). Step 2 of that worked for me, no reboot needed and no need to tinker with firewalls!

Important - before the other computer can see files etc on the Windows 7 computer, you still have to take some extra steps on the Windows 7 computer first:

Set the properties of the folders or files that you want to share, so that they're Shared.

And don't forget to "Limit the number of simultaneous users" to the maximum number of computers in your network - it defaults to 20!
Also, check your printers to make sure the ones you want to share are shared, and share them if necessary:
1. Go to Start, Devices and Printers
2. Rightclick on the name of the printer you want to share, and go to Printer properties. IMPORTANT: don't go to Properties, don't go to Printing preferences, go to Printer properties!
3. Pick your printer, if more than one, and go to the Sharing tab and tick "Share this printer" - give it an intelligible name, and OK.
4. On the Vista computer, under Network you should now see the printers - just doubleclick on a printer to install it (if necessary).

Outlook 2010 unread messages – how to set font size and colour

2012-01-12T08:16:00.000Z

I'd previously blogged about how to make Outlook 2010 more readable and accessible by increasing font size ie enlarging and emboldening fonts in the different panes, etc

The problem with making the row font bold is that you can't distinguish between read and unread messages easily (unless you kept in the Read column, which I haven't for space reasons). This is because Outlook makes bold the text in Read rows, so if even unread text is bold, you can't tell the difference.

The secret is to set the font of unread emails to a different colour and maybe type, style and size too. In my case I've made them red, but also bold and the same type, size and style as I've made the other text.

To do this, go to the menu View, and click View Settings:

You'll see this:

Now click the "Conditional Formatting" button and you'll see the box below. Left click once on "Unread messages" to select it, then click the Font button, below.

Now you can choose the font type, style, size and colour that you want, and hit OK, OK and OK again.

You can apply this to other folders and sub-folders in your mailbox via the Change View folder – see my previous post on how to set all Outlook folders and sub-folders' view settings to match the current folder's.

Windows Live Writer ribbon and menu disappearing?

2012-01-03T11:06:00.000Z

When I recently moved to Windows 7, even though WLW came pre-installed on my new computer, I found that the ribbon and menus were not there whenever I opened WLW – see the pic above!

How to solve this problem? What worked for me was just click the restore or full size icon at the top right of the window (between the – and the X icons), and then click it again to get back your previous window size, and voila - the ribbon returns!

The fix is straightforward, but this is an annoyance as I have to do it every time I launch Windows Live Writer after starting up my computer. Windows Live Writer is to me the best free blogging software there is – it works for Blogger/Blogspot as well as Wordpress.com and many other blogging platforms - so I hope there's a permanent solution soon.

(And no, it's WLW, not my computer or monitor - the 'ribbon vanishes' issue doesn't happen with any other application, for me.)

Can't find Microsoft Office programs inside Program Files?

2012-01-02T17:07:00.003Z

If you've installed Microsoft Office in Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, and you can't find Office's Winword.exe for Microsoft Word, or other EXE files in the Program Files folder for Excel etc, here's how to find them. They're not actually missing, so you can stop tearing your hair out.

The solution to the problem is this: you may have installed 32-bit Microsoft Office, but the 64 bit Windows system creates two Program Files folders in your C drive - "Program Files", and "Program Files (x86)".

The weird thing is that the "Program Files" folder still contains a "Microsoft Office" folder with "Office14" subfolder (if you have Office 2010, or "Office11" if you're on Office 2007). Which is what threw me at first.

However, those folders will be rather empty - you won't find many Office files within them!

If you want to find the real Office 2010 programs and other Microsoft office files, you will have to look in "Program Files (x86)". It's the "Microsoft Office" subfolder there that you want, probably Office14 (or Office11 for Office 2007).

Some may think this is obvious, but, being new to 64-bit Windows, I missed it at first, and it seems and others have too, so I hope this saves someone else from going mad trying to find the Microsoft Office Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc applications inside "Program Files"!

Word 2010, Word 2007 – how to paste plain text without formatting

2011-12-28T10:55:00.002Z

This blog post shows how to change the default settings in Word 2010 or Word 2007 so that whenever you use Ctrl v to paste text into Word from a Webpage, PDF file or other source, it automatically pastes it without the original formatting as unformatted text, getting rid of all the font styles, bold etc formatting from the original source.

Paste Special is what I've always used when pasting text into a Word document. But in Word 2003, it took too many steps to go to menu, Edit, Paste Special, which has always been an annoyance for me.

In Word 2010 and Word 2007, there are two ways to paste text in unformatted form much more easily.

I'll cover both, but I'd recommend the quick way, which I cover first.

The quicker way

Here's how to get to the best way to paste unformatted text in Word 2010 and Word 2007. This way sets your defaults, so that whenever you use the Ctrl v keyboard shortcut to paste text into Word, it automatically pastes it as plain unformatted text.

Apart from the "Set Default Paste" button mentioned above, you can get to the correct settings window by going to the menu File, Options in Word 2010 (in Word 2010, it's the Word graphic at the top left, then Word Options button at the bottom). Now click "Advanced" in the list on the left.

Now go to the "Cut, copy and paste" section, and use the down arrows against the various itmes to set "Keep Text Only". I retain "Keep Source Formatting" when it's pasting within the same document (though I may change that to Keep Text Only as it can be a pain when moving text to footnotes from the main body).

Then OK, and that's it.

In future, Ctrl v will automatically paste without the original font style, size etc. You may still have to edit the spacing etc, but it's a lot less annoying, for me.

How to get rid of paste options popup too

While you're at the Advanced options, if like me you hate with a vengeance the "Paste Options" popup that appears as default in Word whenever you paste anything, and gets in the way by blocking what you're viewing.

You can also get rid of that and stop it popping up all the time.

The slower way

In Word, once you've copied text to clipboard, you can press Ctrl Alt V – then arrow up or down (or keep pressing u) to choose "Unformatted text" or "Unformatted unicode text".

Or in Word 2010, for mouse users, in the Home menu, click the down arrow under the Paste icon on the left of the ribbon.

This gets you to the same box as Ctrl Alt v above. However, there's a better solution here. Once you click the down arrow under Paste, you can click the "A" button show outlined in red below, to paste just the text.

Or, if you rightclick in the body of the document, you get the same Paste Options where you can click the A button.

But better still, click "Set Default Paste". This gets to a window that lets you set options permanently. I'll cover below another way to get to that window, and what to set in it.

For Word 2007, it's similar, but you only get a Paste Special option (which brings up the box where you choose Unformatted text), there's no A button.

How to do this - in the "Show Paste Options button when context is pasted" line also outlined in red above, just UNtick the box and OK.

The slower way

In Word, once you've copied text to clipboard, you can press Ctrl Alt V – then arrow up or down (or keep pressing u) to choose "Unformatted text" or "Unformatted unicode text".

Or in Word 2010, for mouse users, in the Home menu, click the down arrow under the Paste icon on the left of the ribbon.

Or, if you rightclick in the body of the document, you get the same Paste Options where you can click the A button.

But better still, click "Set Default Paste". This gets to a window that lets you set options permanently. I'll cover below another way to get to that window, and what to set in it.

For Word 2007, it's similar, but you only get a Paste Special option (which brings up the box where you choose Unformatted text), there's no A button.

Internet Explorer cookie contents - the new format analysed

2011-09-07T22:07:00.004+01:00

Microsoft changed the way that Internet Explorer cookie files work and randomised cookie filenames, for security reasons; the cookie text files now have random names which don't indicate the name of the website that saved the cookie, and you have to open up each cookie file individually to check what that is.

However, you can still view the contents of all your IE cookies, unmangled, by exporting your cookies to a single cookies.txt file. Then if you open up that cookies.txt file, you can see the cookie info, in a much more comprehensible, intelligible user-friendly format, eg:

Webtrends seems to be used by Microsoft for recording web visitor analytics & statistics info.

I compared the contents of a couple of the new cookies against the cookies.txt versions to try to figure out how they work. I found that if you copy and paste the text from the cookie file into something else (eg a new text document), the info is broken up into separate lines (ie there's hidden new lines to separate the different components of the info).

For example, the contents of a Twitter cookie file named J0R4GWEF.txt, which like the other contents of cookies appeared to run continuously on in the txt file, was split up like this:

guest_id
v1%3A131542058071389408
twitter.com/
214748475215010693123032155316242192030174605*

The cookies.txt equivalent of that was:

twitter.com TRUE / FALSE 1378897943 guest_id v1%3A131542058071389408

So that helps to figure out the new format of the cookie file. The elements seem to be in this order:

variable name (eg "guest_id")
variable value (eg "v1%3A131542058071389408") - the equivalent of the old "guest_id=v1%3A131542058071389408"
domain name (ie the website which set the cookie, eg "#topofpage")
something I haven't figured out yet (in the example above, it's "214748475215010693123032155316242192030174605") - but it must convert to the expiration date for the variable (ie 1378897943 in the example above), which traditionally is the number of seconds since 1 Jan 1970, and shows up as the "proper" figure in the cookies.txt version. Maybe this long figure also contains other info about the cookie file
* symbol - which marks the end of this variable, and the start of the next variable set by the website, whose name etc follow in the same order.

I worked out the purpose of the * from looking at a single Google cookie file, for example these contents, of a single txt file:

PREF
ID=15025770280c4f56:U=8cbfd7d77ff8ecf4:FF=0:TM=1315398473:LM=1315408615:S=zAzaJeJ5lq1Y-EEk
google.com/
1536
521981312
30321428
744646208
30174577
*
NID
50=IVMzsW2RssDmmdt21XYqM-m6GMBe731GqCispetEG495dEdHdl_tlLqIv8h8tINpCg1kI2lgsAgLheW-TVQzbGoBoiHfBjSJuhOPJSEfWVNTw-H-_Nt16tyNCyIL2zCf
google.com/
9728
2103298560
30211390
722926208
30174577
*

- showed up in the cookies.txt file as this:

google.com TRUE / FALSE 1378844158 PREF ID=15025770280c4f56:U=8cbfd7d77ff8ecf4:FF=0:TM=1315398473:LM=1315408615:S=zAzaJeJ5lq1Y-EEk

google.com TRUE / FALSE 1331583355 NID 50=IVMzsW2RssDmmdt21XYqM-m6GMBe731GqCispetEG495dEdHdl_tlLqIv8h8tINpCg1kI2lgsAgLheW-TVQzbGoBoiHfBjSJuhOPJSEfWVNTw-H-_Nt16tyNCyIL2zCf

Final example, from a Facebook cookie:

eLlnTol8k9yayreWIGxF-h6m
facebook.com/
2147492864
3767864320
30321455
3978419216
30174604
*
translates to:

facebook.com TRUE / FALSE 1378856079 datr eLlnTol8k9yayreWIGxF-h6m
datr

I've not yet worked out how the name of the cookie text file relates to anything in its contents (which no doubt is part of the purpose of the security fix!), so you still can't tell which file was set by which site without opening up each file. The order of info in the cookies.txt document doesn't match the order of the dates that the cookies were created or modified, and they're not in alphabetical order of domain name either. But at least it's possible to check out all the contents of all cookie files at once.

Internet Explorer cookie names change

2011-09-07T11:10:00.006+01:00

Worried that your cookie filenames have changed to incomprehensible random strings of letters and numbers? No need. Microsoft has, for security reasons, changed the way IE cookies are named. This is to improve security and reduce "cookiejacking", addressing one way in which attackers might be able to access your cookies (which could include your login information etc).

Side effects: some apps depending on the old cookies names system broke, eg CCleaner and WinPatrol. Also, it's now harder for users to figure out which cookies were set by which websites, as you can't tell the website name from the cookie name anymore. You have to open up the cookie file to check.

However, other browsers like Firefox aren't affected by the change - it's Internet Explorer only.

Old cookie names structure

Internet Explorer cookies used to have filenames with the structure: yourcomputerloginname@partialdomainname.txt eg johnsmith@microsoft.txt (or johnsmith@msdn.microsoft[2].txt etc).

IE cookies are typically located in your AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies folder (to find the AppData folder, click Start, in the search box type "appdata" without the quotes and hit Enter. If that doesn't work try "%AppData%" again without the quotes which may go straight to the "Roaming" subfolder).

The security hole, and update

However, in August Microsoft released a Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2559049) which (according to Microsoft Security Bulletin MS11-057) addresses a "Drag and Drop Information Disclosure Vulnerability CVE-2011-2383" which existed because IE (all versions) didn't properly restrict access to store cookie files.

In more detail for the techies, before the update Internet Explorer did not "properly restrict cross-zone drag-and-drop actions, which allows user-assisted remote attackers to read cookie files via vectors involving an IFRAME element with a SRC attribute containing an http: URL that redirects to a file: URL, as demonstrated by a Facebook game, related to a "cookiejacking" issue".

This vulnerability meant that "An attacker who exploited the vulnerability when a user views a Web page and performs a drag-and-drop operation could gain access to cookie files stored in the local machine."

What the security fix changes

To fix the vulnerability, this update modified how Internet Explorer accesses locally stored cookies, and how it manages cookie files. These changes included changing how Internet Explorer sets file names for cookies, to help make cookie file names less predictable.

Reportedly this change has been seen in several Windows operating systems, ie XP, Vista and Windows 7, and several versions of Internet Explorer including IE8 and IE9 (which would make sense as Microsoft's info says the vulnerability affects Internet Explorer 9 and previous versions).

A Microsoft blog explained the change - see the "Cookie Filenames are Randomized" heading. It's now harder for attackers to guess the location of a particular cookie as IE cookie files are now named "using a randomly-generated alphanumeric string. Cookies are not instantly renamed on [the security] upgrade, but are instead renamed as soon as any update to the cookie’s data occurs."

Consequences of the cookie name change

Now, cookie names look like this:

As mentioned earlier, certain software depending on the old system doesn't work anymore, and will have to be tweaked.

From the viewpoint of those protective of their privacy, while you can't see the website's name from looking at the cookie filename, you can still see it if you open up the cookie in Notepad or other text editor.

For example, here's the contents of cookies saved by Microsoft when I visited and then re-visited their webpage about the cookie change. You can see "microsoft" in there:

And here's the contents of a cookie saved by Google when I searched for info on the cookie change using the search box in Internet Explorer. Again, you can see "google.com" in there, although the filename is now "#topofpage", and no longer mylogin@google.txt:

For more details of how it seems to work behind the scenes, I've done a separate blog post on how to view the contents of your Internet Explorer cookies in a more user-friendly way.

How to batch crop JPEG photos, scans, images

2011-09-04T19:47:00.009+01:00

Here's how to crop a bunch of JPEGs with the free JPEGCrops (Windows), which I used where I needed to chop half an inch (of printer-ink-wasting-black) off the top edge of one set of scanned music score pages, and half an inch off the bottom edge of another set (where I'd turned the book upside down to scan those pages). I couldn't find a proper howto, so here's my step by step.

Cropping multiple files in a batch saves having to open, crop and save each JPEG individually. You just set the edges of the first image (where you want it to be cropped to), and the rest of the photos or pics can automatically be set to the same dimensions.

If all the unwanted bits are on the same part of every image, eg always the left margin or always the bottom margin, you can use the excellent free PDFill PDFTools. My problem was that for some images I needed to crop one edge, and for others another edge, so I couldn't do that - hence JPEGCrops.

I couldn't get JPEGCrops to work fully at first, so here's my step by step tutorial, including all the basic stuff most people skate over:

Download, install and open JPEGCrops. It's a bit blank looking, but that'll change.
See the folder name in the bottom right? That's the folder into which the software will automatically save the cropped images, in my case "C:\Users\myloginname\Cropped". You can change the location of that folder via the menu File > Select Output Dir to choose another folder, but obviously you need to do that before you crop the images in question.
Go to menu File > Preferences and choose your Default Aspect and OK. In my case, as I'm in the UK, it's A4 - your mileage may vary. Feel free to experiment and change it for each set of images and see how it looks.

(The Preferences box is weird on my system, many buttons aren't visible, probably something to do with my system.)
Now in JPEGCrops open up the pics that you need to crop. There are 2 possible ways -
1. use the menu File > Open Images (or click the "Open Images" button at the bottom left), then navigate to the folder containing your JPEGs, then select the files you want; you can select several files by holding down the Ctrl key as you click on the ones you want, and click Open, or
2. in Windows Explorer or Computer, navigate to the right folder, select the images you want (again Ctrl and clicking, or the Spacebar key for hotkey fans, does the trick), and drag the selected images into the JPEGCrops window.
Your selected images should now all be in JPEGCrops. Look at the first pic. You'll see parts of it are greyed out, and parts of it are more clearly visible with a white background. The cropping will get rid of the greyed out bits.
Depending on your situation, you may want to UNtick the "Flip aspect" button, as I did, to get a proper Portrait view:
There are white horizontal and vertical bars around the clearly visible bit. You'd drag these with your mouse to outline the area of the JPEG that you want to keep. But don't do that just yet!
This is the step I missed: first, go to the Edit menu, make sure "Synchronize Crops" is ticked (it isn't in the pic below), by selecting it if necessary.

This is to make sure that the crops etc you make to one image will automatically be done to all the others you opened in JPEGCrops. Otherwise you have to tediously do them one by one, which kinda defeats the purpose of using "batch" image editing software!
Now that sync is on, you can drag the white bars to outline the part of the image that you want to keep. There are right and left curly arrows at the bottom left which you can use if you also want to rotate all images at once.
Once you've done the edits, it's a good idea to scroll down through all the images in JPEGCrops to check that the correct parts are outlined in all the images. This is to avoid cutting important bits off the occasional image, especially if you haven't scanned them all in exactly the same way and sometimes had the book (or whatever) a few millimetres off.

You may find you have to tweak some of the edges one way or the other, so that you have the sections you need outlined in all the pages. Worse comes to worse, you could untick the synchronisation, then tweak it just for a particular problem image or two.
When all set, click the "Crop all images" button (NOT the "Crop" button):
It automatically crops them and saves the cropped images in a new folder, the folder mentioned in step 2. (You can open that folder quickly by clicking in the box, selecting the folder path info and copying it into clipboard, then pasting it into your Windows Explorer address bar.)
In my case, I then repeated this with a different set of JPGs where I needed to crop a different edge off. Then I stitched the cropped images together into a single PDF file for ease of printing, rather than having to print each cropped image one by one - PDFill Tools works great for that too (it's the "Convert Images to PDF" button, then drag and drop the image files, and reorder images in the list if necessary).

LinkedIn privacy - change your settings with fewer clicks

2011-08-14T20:14:00.008+01:00

If you're a member of business networking site LinkedIn and don't want your name or profile photo used for "social advertising" to endorse products or services on LinkedIn, you have to opt out. Here's a "howto".

How to opt out of social advertising on LinkedIn

The quickest way to opt out is:

click this link
login to LinkedIn with your username/password (if you aren't already logged in)
in the "Manage Social Advertising" box that pops up, UNtick the box against "LinkedIn may use my name, photo in social advertising"
click "Save".

Below are some further privacy-preserving steps you can take on LinkedIn.

How to protect your privacy on LinkedIn - shortcuts to other options

Other steps you may wish to take, while you're signed in to LinkedIn, are as follows:

data sharing with third party applications - click this link to opt out; UNtick the box, then click "Save changes":
"enhanced advertising" - click this link to opt out, again UNtick the box, save changes
who can see your profile pic - click this link to control the options
what info is shown on your public profile - click this link to control display of info from your profile in search engine results
how your name is displayed - click this link to change this; under "Basic Information", "Name", there's a "Display Name" option - select the last one to hide your surname (just the initial is shown), remembering to save the changes:
can others find out that you've viewed their profile? - click this link to control this; the first option allows people (if they've also enabled this) to see that you have checked them out! Some might want to show just their organisation, or prefer to be "totally anonymous":
email preferences - click this link to check and change eg who can send you LinkedIn invites
correcting or deleting info about you - click this link to contact LinkedIn

I've just linked to some of the key settings which may be relevant to those concerned about their privacy, because while the direct links are given in LinkedIn's privacy policy they're difficult to track down amongst the thickets of LinkedIn's long and winding privacy policy.

There are more options that you may want to check out, eg invitations to participate in research - see below on LinkedIn settings.

LinkedIn settings - the longwinded way

It's via your Settings page that you can opt out of social advertising on LinkedIn, and also other settings which may intrude on your privacy,

To access Settings, the quickest way is to click this link, then login if necessary.

Alternatively:

Login to LinkedIn.
At the top right, hover over your name or the down arrow by it, and click "Settings":
Enter your password again if required.

The different types of Settings are listed at the bottom left, grouped into 4 sections:

Profile;
Email Preferences;
Groups, Companies and Applications; and
Account.

The "social advertising" opt-out is accessible by clicking the Account link, then "Manage Social Advertising" -

You might want to look at the other links too.

For example under the "Profile" section is "Select what others see when you've viewed their profile".

And the "Groups, Companies & Applications" section is where you can turn off data sharing with apps (although the link I gave above is the quickest way to get there).

Similarly, controlling the display of your name is under the Profile section (Edit your name etc):

More info

LinkedIn's changed privacy policy, which was announced in June 2011, says that (I added the bold):

"In order to deliver relevant and valuable ads to you and your network, LinkedIn may use your name and profile photo in connection with social advertising based on content shared on LinkedIn. This advertising may include the fact that you have recommended or endorsed a product or service on LinkedIn, followed a company, joined Groups or conversations, established or added content to your profile, etc., and will only be displayed to your LinkedIn network."

After criticism of its social advertising changes by security firm Sophos and others, LinkedIn said that they now won't initially show photos against ads, and will just show the number of people in your network who like that product etc.

Here's LinkedIn's "before outcry" and "after outcry" mockups, from their blog post:

However one important issue is still not very clear, as one commenter pointed out. When you click on the "X people in your network" link, what happens? Does it at that stage then show the names or photo of the exact people concerned? Who knows, so some people may well want to opt out anyway, just in case.

Freedom of information requests by Twitter!

2011-08-12T10:15:00.000+01:00

You can tweet a freedom of information request to public authorities, the Information Commissioner has said. Even referring to the authority's name in an @mention may be effective.

However, for a FOIA request to be valid, you have to:

give your real name, or at least link to it (eg in your Twitter profile) - a pseudonym isn't considered good enough, and
provide an "address for correspondence".

The Information Commissioner asked, but didn't directly answer, the question: does "address for correspondence" include Twitter names?

I'd argue that in the internet age it does, because people can reach you and correspond with you via your Twitter name. (Or indeed via email addresses.)

Furthermore, the Information Commissioner has said, "The authority could ask the requester for an email address in order to provide a full response. Alternatively, it could publish the requested information, or a refusal notice, on its website and tweet a link to that".

All this is good news for transparency, freedom of information and open government generally, and may perhaps be a lesson to those public authorities who are only willing to provide a postal address or a long online web form for accepting freedom of information requests. If they won't provide an email address for FOI requests, then tweet requests to them, some may say…!

If all public authorities were to make available on their websites an easy to find email address for accepting freedom of information requests from the public, it would be so much better for everyone concerned.

All this may perhaps be less good news for staff at public authorities who may now have to monitor tweets. Or maybe they'll just decide to terminate their Twitter accounts…

Note - this is only for England/Wales/Northern Ireland. Scotland has its own Scottish Information Commissioner, who may (or may not) share the Information Commissioner's view.

Via Computers & Law.

Outlook 2010 - how to change fonts etc for readability and accessibility

2011-07-29T20:57:00.006+01:00

This post is about how to change fonts and other settings to make the Outlook 2010 email window easier to read, if you have poor eyesight like me. In terms of accessibility, I consider it a step down down from Outlook 2003, but there y'go.

If you want Outlook 2010 to be easier to view and read, and want as much information as possible to be visible to you without having to scroll, the steps I had to take to set up Outlook 2010, below, may be of use to you.

(For anyone interested - I had to change to Outlook because Thunderbird kept freezing for ages everytime a new email arrived, and when version 5 still didn't fix it, I gave up on Thunderbird. I just can't function with the constant hanging. I've tried disabling reminders, visual and audio, it doesn't help. Yes Outlook stops too when I receive new emails, but only for a second, which I can live with.)

Themes

The default "Silver" theme is in my view the least bad of a bad selection - I found the other two choices to be even harder to read. Whoever thought that making the background grey, without giving users the option of a changing to a white background, was a good idea? I bet they had 20-20 vision and are 20 years old.

If you want to try the other 2 themes in case they work better for you:

Go to menu File > Options (why they've reduced the size of the font for the Options menu entry, beats me - but it's there, just above Exit)
Under General (it should be preselected but if not it's the top item in the list on the left), the option is "Color scheme" - the dropdown only offers 3 options, as mentioned.

Again why isn't there a high visibility or accessibility-friendly theme, I don't know. Or even a "Windows Classic" which was great for visibility.
Pick what you like, then OK it. There's no Preview so you have to just try the different ones out and see what's least bad for you personally.

Navigation Pane

To make the Navigation Pane (the one on the left) easier to read:

Click once on the folder eg Inbox to select it
Go to menu View > Navigation pane (in the Layout group)
Click on the Navigation Pane button or the down arrow in its corner, then click Options
Click the Font button
Set it as you want, then OK and OK. I found Arial Black, Bold, 9 works best for me as a compromise between being able to read the text and the pane not taking up too much space, but experiment and see what works for you(there's no Preview option, you just have to OK everything to see the changes)
While you're in Options, you might want to untick things in the "Display buttons in this order" list, so that the bottom left of the Navigation pane doesn't take up so much space - and move items up and down as you wish, too.

This just fixes the text for the list of folders - Inbox, Sent etc - on the extreme left.

Lists of emails

To make the font bigger for the lists of emails in the middle of the window, including column headings (From, To, Date) as well as the contents of the Subject line etc:

While you're viewing your mail, eg Inbox still selected, again make sure you're in to the View menu view, then click the View Settings button
In the popup box click the "Other Settings" button
Here you can click Column Font, which is the font in the headings, then change the size (I made mine 10), and OK, and again click Row Font and increase the font size - this is the font for the email messages' subject line, From, etc
In Other Settings I also chose to UNtick "Automatic Column Sizing" as I prefer to control it myself, dragging the column borders as I need
In View Settings I also clicked the "Group By" button and UNticked "Automatically group according to arrangement" because I don't like the auto-grouping, the titles take up precious space and I can tell, yes all by my lil self, what day is Today or Yesterday, from looking at the Dates!
The Columns button by the way lets you choose the column headings and change their order if you wish (except Flag status, which I'll come to)
Now once you've set all the View Settings options as you wish, and OK'd everything and returned to the main view, at the left you should click the Change View button
Then click "Apply Current View to Other Mail Folders", to save yourself having to repeat the font size increases and your other View Settings changes in every single folder of your email one by one!

Tip: first tick the "Apply view to subfolders" at the bottom left as well as selecting the main folders, before you click OK, to save having to manually select all subfolders.
(For me personally, I then clicked on Inbox, View menu and ticked "Show as Conversations" as I quite like the threaded view as in Gmail, as long as I have the option to turn it off when I need to - but I didn't want all emails in other folders to be threaded, just the Inbox, so I did this step only after I applied the current view to other folders.)

Incoming and outgoing emails

To change the font size here (where possible - it depends on the type of email, plain text is best for this):

Go to menu File > Options
Click on Mail, 2nd down in the list on the left
Click the "Stationery and Fonts" button, then the "Personal Stationery" tab
Click on the various Font buttons for different options (new emails, replies etc) and set the font size/type as you wish, and OK
While you're in Mail options, you can also click the Signatures button (again outlined in red in the pic above) to set your auto-signature; you change its font etc there. Also if you set up a signature, you might want to select it in the dropdown on the right against "Replies/forwards", as otherwise Outlook will not add your signature when you reply or forward an email!
Also in Mail options, as mentioned I prefer to compose messages in plain text or rich text (not HTML), and that can be set here too - in the dropdown towards the top of that box.

Reading pane

Doing the above seemed to sort out the fonts for the reading pane too, for me.

EDIT: I meant to add, you can also zoom what's shown in the reading pane by using the % -/+ Zoom slider at the bottom right of the general Outlook window. This works even with HTML emails.

Other space or time saving etc things

I also did these:

Changed the unhelpful Outlook startup view so that Outlook 2010 starts up in my main email account's Inbox.
Got rid of the (to me of no use) "People Pane" - menu View, click the People Pane button and tick against "Off".
For better security, set received emails to be displayed in plain text only:
1. Menu File > Options
2. Click Trust Center, bottom left
3. Click the Trust Center Settings button, bottom right
4. Click E-mail Security in the list on the left
5. Under "Read as Plain Text", tick "Read all standard mail in plain text", and OK everything
6. If in future you want to read an email in pretty HTML because you trust the sender, just click on the Infobar (which is the horizontal, not at all bar-looking section, just under the email address of the sender, that says "This message was converted to plain text"), and click "Display as HTML".

Gripes

Apart from the lack of readability of Outlook 2010 (and lack of a standard Windows theme), regarding the email element of Outlook I'm unhappy about:

The impossibility of setting it so that it starts up with all IMAP folders and subfolders automatically expanded - I have to manually expand them each time
Lack of Follow up flag or Tag options with IMAP email - if Thunderbird can do it… (there's this workaround which I've not tried yet)
The impossibility of moving the Flag status column to the far left, which is where I've always had it in all my email clients - it's not so obvious on the right, for someone using a language where you read from left to right. (Yes, I tried changing the order of columns in View Settings, Columns - still on the right!)

I'll blog about the Outlook Calendar (which I use with Google Calendar) in another post.

How to remove Nuance PDF reader from Firefox (& short review)

2011-06-08T09:53:00.000+01:00

If like some people you install the free Nuance PDF reader, then uninstall it but it's still taking over PDFs in Firefox, here is how I got rid of it. It worked for me, but your mileage may vary.

Try these steps (screenshots are from Firefox 4):

In Firefox find your Plugins - in Firefox go to menu Tools, Add-ons (or in the address bar type about:addons and hit Enter), then on the left click Plugins
In the Plugins list, look for all PDF plugins that are NOT "Adobe Acrobat" - in my case the culprit was DocuCom PDF Plus rather than Nuance, go figure. Click the Disable button for that plugin, so that it now gets greyed out and has "(disable)" after its name:
Do this for each non-Adobe PDF plugin. Make sure you scroll down to the end of the plugins list to disable all non-Adobe PDF plugins.
You may also have to disable and then enable the standard Adobe plugin, again go figure but I had to before it would work.
Restart Firefox, just for luck. And hopefully now PDFs will open using Adobe Reader instead of Nuance.

Nuance PDF Reader

Why did I decide against Nuance's free PDF reader? I want to make it clear that I do love their Dragon Dictation app for the iPhone, which is remarkably accurate and quick (and, generously, free).

However, their PDF reader, although it's quite fast, insists on defaulting to the hand tool when I open a PDF, whereas I need it to default to Select to copy/paste text etc.

More importantly, when I rightclick on a PDF in Firefox, Nuance won't show me the document Properties, which I need in order to check the publication date of some PDFs.

There may be a way to change its settings to do what I need, but it's not obvious, and I've not had the time to find it - whereas Adobe defaults to what I need, so I may as well go back to that.

Convert files free, online - PDF to Word DOC, etc - review of tool

2011-06-04T17:14:00.003+01:00

ConvertFiles.com, which I've just discovered, is a very useful online tool, especially to convert Adobe Acrobat PDFs to editable word processing documents eg Microsoft Word DOC format.

You just give the website the URL of a file (starting with http, https, ftp), or you can upload a local file, and it will automatically recognise the file type and offer you a choice of suitable formats into which it can be converted.

Tip: sometimes it won't recognise PDF files where the URL doesn't end in .pdf - so in that situation just download the file and upload it from your computer.

There's a decent range of formats available (see lists below).

Speed - you can download the converted file quite quickly, even for big files.

Maximum file size limits - it will accept files of up to a very generous 200 MB.

OCR - it will even do OCR (optical character recognition) of image files, ie convert scans of images etc to editable text - and, though they don't mention this (they should!), that includes PDF scans, I tried some.

It converted a massive PDF scan beautifully into an editable Word document, with very few errors.

What's more, it's all free, although in gratitude I've checked out some of their advertisers!

Supported formats and conversions

From their FAQs, here's their full list of supported conversions:

DOCUMENT

DOCX to DOC, ODT, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
DOC to ODT, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
ODT to DOC, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
RTF to ODT, DOC, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
SXW to ODT, RTF, DOC, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
TXT to ODT, RTF, SWX, DOC, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
ODS to XLS, CSV, RTF, PDF, HTML, ZIP
XLS to ODS, CSV, PDF, HTML, ZIP
XLSX to XLS, ODS, CSV, PDF, HTML, ZIP
PDF to DOC, PNG, JPG
XPS to PDF
CHM to PDF, EPUB, FB2, MOBI, LIT, TXT
PAGES to PDF

PRESENTATION

ODP to PPT, PDF, SWF
PPT to ODP, PDF, SWF
PPTX to PPT, ODP, SWF, PDF

E-BOOK

EPUB to FB2, MOBI, LIT, PDF, TXT
FB2 to MOBI, LIT, EPUB, PDF, TXT
MOBI to EPUB, FB2, LIT, PDF, TXT
LIT to EPUB, FB2, MOBI, PDF, TXT
PRC to EPUB, FB2, MOBI, PDF, TXT, LIT

DRAWING

ODG to PDF, JPG, PNG, SWF
DXF to PDF, JPG, PNG, SWF
DWG to PDF, JPG, PNG

IMAGES, PICS, PHOTOS

BMP to GIF, JPG, PNG, TIF, ZIP, PDF
GIF to BMP, JPG, PNG, TIF, PDF
JPG to GIF, BMP, PNG, TIF, PDF
PNG to GIF, JPG, BMP, TIF, PDF
TIF to GIF, JPG, PNG, BMP, ZIP, PDF

OCR

BMP to DOC, TXT, RTF
GIF to DOC, TXT, RTF
JPG to DOC, TXT, RTF
PNG to DOC, TXT, RTF
TIF to DOC, TXT, RTF

AUDIO

AAC to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
AMR to WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, FLAC, AU, M4A
AU to WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, FLAC, AMR, M4A
FLAC to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, AU, WMA, AMR
M4A to WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR
MP3 to WAV, OGG, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
OGG to WAV, MP3, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
WAV to MP3, OGG, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
WMA to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR
MKA to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR, WMA

VIDEO

3GP to AVI, MOV, WMV, M4V, MP3, JPG
AMV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, WMV, MP3, JPG
ASF to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, WMV, MOV, AVI, M4V, MP3, JPG
AVI to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
FLV to 3GP, AVI, MP4, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MKV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, WMV, MOV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MOV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, WMV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
M4V to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, WMV, MP3, JPG
MP4 to FLV, 3GP, AVI, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MPEG to AVI, 3GP, MP4, FLV, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MPG to AVI, 3GP, MP4, FLV, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
RM to AVI, 3GP, MP4, FLV, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
VOB to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
WMV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
M2T to WMV, 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
M2TS to WMV, 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MTS to WMV, 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG

OTHER

EPS to GIF, JPG, PNG
PSD to GIF, JPG, PNG

The downside?

Don't expect any support (I emailed them with a query which they never responded to). But hey, it's free.

Travel more cheaply on London public transport - online tool

2011-05-28T10:04:00.011+01:00

Update: this blog post has been mentioned on the BBC site, thanks @TomSEdwards!

This online tool calculates the cheapest Transport for London ticket or Travel card for travel in Zones 1 and 2 by bus, Tube or DLR (Docklands Light Railway).

I created it based on data from the graph by University College researcher Neal Lathia (@neal_lathia). Neal Lathia's blog post summarises the 2011 research paper from which the data was derived, by N. Lathia, L. Capra on Mining Mobility Data to Minimise Travellers' Spending on Public Transport (links to abstract and paper are on his publications page).

I heard about this research via BBC News (Tom Edwards): consumers don't always buy the most cost-effective ticket or travelcard for their travel needs (surprise surprise) so hopefully my tool, based on that valuable research, will help some passengers.

Of course, as and when prices changes, the interactive decision tree might not be accurate anymore, but here's hoping that the researchers will keep updating their graph - if they produce a new graph when TfL change their fare prices, I'll update the tool too.

I produced the cheapest London public transport ticket or Travelcard calculator using the Interactive Decision Tree tool by Warren and Josh.

Thanks also to 24 Ways for their info on how to use Google App Engine to host the files and scripts (but note that there's an error on that page: the index.html file should be in the top level of the assets folder as shown in their diagram, not the top level of the app folder as they state).

Try the tool.

How to install 1-Wire drivers for iButton / OneWireViewer

2011-05-02T13:37:00.004+01:00

If you want to use the Maxim 1-Wire and iButton and have had problems with your computer not properly installing the device drivers for the Maxim DS9490R# USB adapter via WinUSB, you might try the solution outlined below, particularly if you've had these error messages (shown in the screenshots above):

"Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device
Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install it.
USB Host Adapter for 1-Wire Network using WinUSB
This operation returned because the timeout period expired.
If you know the manufacturer of your device, you can visit its website and check the support section for driver software."

and/or:

"Driver Software Installation
Installing device driver software
Unidentified Device
Failed"

and/or:

"Device driver software was not successfully installed
Please consult with your device manufacturer for assistance getting this device installed.
Unidentified Device Failed"

I know this is a niche area, but as I've done the troubleshooting and fixed the issue for a friend who needs to use iButtons for temperature logging (though not humidity logging), I'm documenting the steps to take, in case it helps any other ecologists, field biologists, conservationists or indeed caterers, restauranteurs or food industry people etc!

The steps below worked on Windows Vista; let me know if they worked on eg Windows 7 too.

Do NOT plug in the USB adapter yet!

Follow the instructions in the official Quick Start guide for OneWireViewer and iButton.

In particular, make sure you install Java, and download the OneWireViewer and 1-Wire drivers for your Windows computer eg Vista. (If you don't know whether your PC is 32 bit or 64 bit, it's very likely to be 32 bit, but they've got a tester on their site to check so use that if necessary.)

Run the .msi file, as instructed in their step 3. Allow it to "Continue" if Vista asks for confirmation.

Their step 4, after plugging in the USB adapter, is where it went wrong for my friend, and for me too when I tried it on a different Vista computer.

Make sure you click on the popup that appears at the bottom right immediately after you plug in the adapter ("Installing device driver software Click here for status"), so that you can view the details of the driver installation - then something bigger will pop up at the bottom right to show the progress.
Though this is not in their instructions, it's likely that after a while you'll get this message coming up (but it may be hidden behind something else, so you have to look for this window eg by Alt-Tabbing):

If you get that window, the progress/status info at the bottom right will also probably be showing this:

In order to get any further, in the window shown in my step 7 you must click "Locate and install driver software (recommended)", or you won't get anywhere.

If, after clicking that, you wait a long time and then you get one or more of the error messages shown at the top of this blog post, don't despair. Try these next steps.

Do NOT unplug the USB adapter. Leave it plugged in. (If you've already unplugged it, then plug it back in and go through my steps 6 to 10 - you'll just have to be patient there.)

Now, open your Device Manager. Scroll down the list till you see "Unknown device" under "Other devices" or under "1-Wire", like this:

or

If you have more than one "Unknown device" showing, you need to make sure you're working on the right one for the USB adapter, eg trying unplugging it and seeing which one goes away in Device Manager (but you'll have to then go through steps 6 to 10 again when you plug it back in). If it's under "1-Wire", then it's the right one.

Rightclick on the correct "Unknown device", and choose "Update driver software"

In the next screen, click "Browse my computer for driver software":

Next, click "Let me pick…"

In the next screen, "1-Wire" should be highlighted; if not, click on it, then click "Next":

The next screen should look like this, click "Have Disk":

The next screen should look like this, click "Browse":

Now you've got to navigate to the WinUSB_Driver folder that was previously installed when in you ran the .msi file.

Mine was located at C:\Program Files\Maxim Integrated Products\1-Wire Drivers x86\WinUSB_Driver.

Click on the ds2490winusb_x86.inf file in that folder, then click Open.

It should now look like this:

Click OK, and you'll see this as it tries to install it (properly this time, hopefully!):

With any luck, after waiting a while you'll now see something like this:

Notice that it says you have to restart your computer, so do so (having first unplugged the USB adapter). It'll say it's updating stuff in Windows, don't turn off your computer - so leave it to do its thing, which may take a while.

After Windows has fully restarted, plug in the USB adapter, and hopefully this time you'll see something like these:

(Optional) If you want to go check your Device Manager again, it should look like this, with no "Unknown device" for the adapter:

You can now proceed to attach the other bits and bobs to the plugged-in USB adapter, and open the OneWireViewer.exe program from your Start menu to view the data collected by the iButton.

Note that if you plug the adapter into a different USB port, it will go through step 26 again, just once per new USB port, but hopefully you only have to do the longer-winded earlier steps above once per computer and operating system.

Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center 1TB - review and practical tips

2011-03-15T13:25:00.001Z

This is a review of the WDTV LiveHub media centre / media server, which the folks at WD and Chilifish PR kindly lent me.

Overview

As with most media servers you can:

hook it up to your TV
store media files on it (1 TB means a lot of files!)
play those files on your TV, or a networked computer or smartphone - including music and photos as well as video - all at the same time

If you connect it to your router, you can even play or show, on you TV, stuff over the internet from YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and some other sites. Indeed, one feature they emphasise is the integration with Facebook.

The full specs are on the WD site. Also general info.

Currently it costs around £150-£160 on Amazon:

Connectivity

Ethernet port: to connect it to your home network, typically via a spare port on your router. When connected, you can access the internet as well as files on your networked computers, and also play on a networked computer or smartphone any media stored on the Hub.

Audiovisual connectivity: HDMI, component (hi definition) or composite. (For the non-technical - see my guide to connecting AV equipment to your TV generally, and tutorial on how to connect your PC to your TV to play videos etc.)

No cables are provided however.

Operating systems

The Hub is said to be compatible with Windows 7, Vista and XP, and Mac Leopard and Snow Leopard. I tried it with Vista.

In the box

The Hub, power supply, remote control with 2 batteries, quick start sheet. No hard copy or CD manual and no software, you have to download that yourself.

No cables, except the power lead. The power plug was continental (2 round pins) in my review unit, and no adapter was included - hopefully the units they sell in the UK market will have the right plugs, or else you'll need to buy a separate power plug adapter yourself.

What types of media files does it play or show?

See the manual p.152 for the list of supported formats. My own experience was however mixed.

From my tests, it played or showed these formats: flv (only some files, not others), gif, jpg, m2t, mp3, mp4, mpg, png, wav, wma (very jerkily!), wmv (some files, not others).

But, it just wouldn't play any files I tried in these formats: avi, mov, swf. (To be fair, they don't claim to support SWF Shockwave Flash files. I just tried them out.)

The files I tested all played fine on my computer however, and also were OK if I played them on a computer over the network via the Hub media server. They just wouldn't play on the TV using just the Hub itself. Go figure… maybe my files were in older unsupported versions of those formats.

One folder of music which I copied over wholesale got split into 2 folders in the Music view on the Hub, with 7 tracks in 1 folder, 3 in another. Again, I'm not sure why. It's rather frustrating as I wanted it to cycle round playing all tracks in that folder repeatedly, but couldn't get it to. The playlist feature seems too basic - just adding stuff individually to the queue, and if earlier items are to be repeated in folder, it never gets to later added items!

They say you can access non-WD content via the Hub that's on another networked drive, as long as it supports DLNA media server or samba server. I didn't test that.

Setup tips - the missing steps

The Quick Installation Guide isn't complete and misses out important steps after step 3 (ie after connecting the Ethernet cable between Hub and router).

So here's my version of the quickstart, including some essential info not in their guide:

buy the extra cables that you'll need for steps 3 and 4!
connect the Hub to the mains with the power supply & mains lead
connect Hub to your TV (see my introductory guide to connecting PC to TV which has info and links about connectors)
connect Hub to a spare networking port on your home router
turn on the Hub
via the onscreen menu or the Setup button on the remote control, go to Setup then Network Setup, and select Automatic (works in most cases they say, certainly worked in mine; if it didn't work, see the full manual).
in Network Setup note down what it now says against IP Address, eg in my case it was 192.168.1.67
in Setup > Audio/Video Output, choose the output that suits your own TV connections eg HDMI (the default), Composite or Component
in Setup > Appearance > Screen Size Calibration, change it so that the screen fits on your TV - on my system the top or bottom of the Hub's screen output was cut off, until I adjusted this to 90%. I tried a zillion things till this worked!
in Setup > System > Timezone, you may want to set it to your own timezone. It's preset to Pacific.
in the AccuWeather service (Services > AccuWeather) you can set your home town. NB London in the UK is listed after the longer towns that start with "London.."!

How to transfer files from PC to Hub

The Quick Installation guide said in step 4 to download the WD Discovery Tool. I didn't need it, and in fact it didn't work for me at all, even though I had set my firewall to let it through:

Step 4 really should have explained how to access the Hub from your computer using Windows Explorer or a web browser. So here's the missing explanation.

There are 2 ways:

1. in the Windows Explorer or My Computer address bar, type \\wdtvlivehub (case insensitive but include the backslashes) - then OK or Enter. You'll be able to navigate to and view the contents of the Hub and its folders (doubleclick WDTVLiveHub icon in there, you'll see a Sample Media folder inside that).

You can create subfolders, copy/paste or drag and drop multiple media files there, etc, in the normal way.

2. in a browser, enter the IP address you noted earlier. Then you'll see this (the pic below is from my iPhone):

The password is "admin" (without the quotes), tick to accept the Agreement (and to keep signed in if you wish), and click Login. Once you're in, you see this (screenshot from my Vista PC):

(Don't bother with using the Network icon in Windows Explorer: it just brought up 2 icons for the hub, one of which when doubleclicked only opened Windows Media Player, while the other opened the Web interface to the hub.

And don't bother trying to enter \\wdtvlivehub in a browser; it doesn't work in Firefox, while in Internet Explorer it just opens a Computer/Windows Explorer window, ie same as using the \\WDTVLiveHub method in Computer.)

How to play files from the Hub

To play or show media on the connected TV, just turn on the Hub and use the remote control to select Music, Video etc.

There's a "Now Playing" button as a reminder of what's currently playing! Audio files will continue to play in the background as you do other stuff like check Setup; video files won't, as you'd expect.

To play media from the Hub on other networked devices, the best way is to go to the Hub's IP address (as noted in step 6 above) in a browser. Login, click Media

Launch Twonky Media (the server), and navigate to the files you want to play or view, which the Hub categorises by type (Music, Video etc).

You can also upload files to the Hub using Twonky but I wouldn't recommend it as it only seems to cope with one file at a time.

Online services

One of the features touted is the integration of the Hub with certain online services.

However, it started off being too US-centric, showing services you could only get in the US. Progressive firmware upgrades have got rid of the US-only services and added some new ones, but BBC iPlayer and SeeSaw are still missing. If they'd included those (or just a plain web browser!) from the start, they could have done very well with this product.

See their list of current services (NB that includes US services you can't get in Europe.) Basically, apart from Accuweather, it's Facebook, YouTube, photo sharing site Flickr, various internet radio stations and internet TV channel compilations - as I write that's Flingo, Deezer (mainly French so yay for Europeanisation there), Live365, Tunein Radio (lots of UK radio stations) and MediaFly.

The closest integration is with Facebook - you can upload pics etc from the Hub to Facebook. (You could update your status too, but that's painful unless you have a USB keyboard hooked up to the Hub, or use a wireless keyboard).

Oddly enough, you can't upload to Flickr or YouTube.

My biggest comment here is that it's too closed. Maybe they did deals with the services available via the Hub, I don't know. But if they'd made it more open, it would have been much, much more attractive to users - eg if they'd included a web browser so you could play BBC iPlayer TV shows, LoveFilm movies etc over the internet via the Hub, or failing that an API allowing developers or site owners to add extra services, increasing the range available to Hub users.

At the London Girl Geek Dinner in late 2010 where they demo'd this device, they said BBC iPlayer integration would come - but ideally it should have been available from the start, when targeting UK customers. And it's still not available.

In my view it's very important for WD to broaden as much as possible the range of online services which users which can access to play video on the Hub over the internet, whether by streaming or download. This is because, strictly, it's illegal in many countries, including the UK, to rip CDs and DVDs, eg to store on a Hub - so, in terms of video, if you want to be legal you're pretty much limited to online services. (Personally, I only tested the Hub with videos or audio that I'd shot or recorded myself or to which I had rights, and which I then exported to a few different formats.)

The other issue is that the integration with what services the Hub does offer just isn't slick or user-friendly enough. For starters the search capability falls short. Flingo includes Blip.tv, for example, but the search didn't bring up some videos I know are on Blip.

Other tips

Remember Setup > System > Device Restart (you may have to scroll down) - if switching it on and off doesn't work, even at the mains, the Restart function seems to do the trick, at least for me. That's Restart, not Device Reset! (which is really really only as an absolute last resort as it'll wipe stuff). At one point during my tests the Hub inexplicably stopped outputting audio that was anywhere near audible, possibly because of the crash mentioned below, and fiddling with power on/off, plug fittings etc did nothing - but the Device Restart fixed it for me.

When it shows a big green tick, that's not a confirmation message to indicate that it's already done something and everything's OK. You actually have to hit the OK button again to actually whatever it was that you selected - the tick is kind of like an "Are you sure?" rather than "Yes it's done".

If you're going to use the online services a lot, get something like Netmeter to monitor your bandwidth usage so your broadband costs don't go through the roof (see my post on how to connect PC to TV).

Pros

(Note that many of the pros aren't unique to this product, other gear (eg NAS servers) will share the same advantages.)

1 TB, a very very very decent capacity. Enough for tons and tons of media.

Tiny, so it's great if you have a space-challenged AV setup.

Nice and quiet in operation.

You can access and play the files on it from a smartphone eg it worked on my iPhone, as well as networked computers - and several devices can play different files from it at the same time. This is limited by what your device can play, eg the iPhone will of course play .mov files happily:

- but not .avi:

It's said to offer full-HD 1080p playback - I don't have a HD TV yet, believe it or not (unless someone wishes to offer me one to trial!) so I couldn't test the HD.

It has onscreen buttons for Videos, Music, Photos and Files. And it automatically categorises everything neatly; no matter in what scattered folders I (deliberately!) stored different types of media, all the videos got displayed under Videos, all music files under Music, etc. If the right tags were added to your audio files, it will let you filter by Genre etc.

After you start playing one item in a folder it also automatically plays everything after it in the same folder.

For video, it remembers where you played to and offers to start again from there ("Resume").

2 USB slots, one front, one back. You can plug in eg a wi-fi adapter, USB keyboard, external hard drive, camcorder, digital camera etc.

Automatically prompts you to update the firmware when a new version is available.

Can sync with external USB drive that you plug in, and also sync with a folder shared on your network.

There are some thoughtful but somewhat hard to find features - eg you can change some (not all) of the remote control buttons' commands via the Setup > Operation > Remote Settings menu, to program the button to do something else. And you can control the Hub via your computer or smartphone's web browser (iPhone or Android), by calling up a "virtual remote control" that you can click on within your web browser:

While you can enter letters with the remote control (onscreen keyboard, or tap certain keys a certain number of times), the Hub also works (mostly) with a wireless keyboard whose dongle is plugged into the USB - at least, it mostly worked with the model I tried (review to follow). That keyboard's arrow keys also worked. However, there's an inconsistency in the services integration: that keyboard would not work at all with the Flingo search (hence my use of "mostly").

Facebook integration, for avid Facebook users.

Cons

Doesn't play some video file formats; plays some in one format but not others in the same format, no idea why.

No cables supplied, so you can't use it straightaway - you'll need first to buy your own HDMI or other AV cable to connect it to your TV, and also your own Ethernet networking cable if you want to connect it to your broadband router to access internet content. It's understandable that no AV cable was included as everyone's setup varies, but it would have been nice if they'd included an Ethernet cable.

You can add items to a queue, but don't be fooled by the name - that's not a playlist function. In fact it seems little different from a version of a Favorites function (quick access from the Dashboard). I couldn't see any way to create a playlist, a glaring omission!

It's a computer - so it can crash or freeze. It did once when I was trying a search on Flingo.

Services - too closed, see comments above.

No wifi. In my home, I can't connect the Hub both to my TV and to my router without having to run a cable across the middle of my living room, which I'd trip over. (For review purposes I simply tried not to fall over the cable, and to remember to disconnect it when done using the Hub!)

If only it came with wifi, so it could talk to my wireless router without wires… but, wi-fi isn't built-in. There's a USB port to plug in a wireless USB adapter, but you'd have to buy that separately. I can't be the only person whose living room set-up is such that using this box is simply impracticable, unless I fork out for a USB adapter or a very very very long Ethernet cable to try to go round along the walls.

Niggle - no CD supplied, you have to download the manual (which you'll definitely need) and, if you want it, the WDTVLiveHub software from the WD site, although I got by without the software (which didn't work, for me).

Wishlist - improvements I'd like to see

I ran through some of these with a non-technical friend, who agrees with my assessment - she says she wouldn't have been able to set up and use the WDTV LiveHub herself, even at a basic level, without the missing instructions which I've flagged.

As well as addressing the Cons mentioned above, a small practical point - on the remote control, the Options button should be swapped with Back, given that most people are right-handed.

The Hub was said to be aimed at consumers who aren't technical, so it's a shame the Product Overview info wasn't in the box, or indeed on the outside of the box to tempt prospective buyers! And also that they didn't do more to tailor it for a European and indeed UK market before releasing it here, although subsequent firmware updates have improved that a bit.

Conclusions

There are a couple of issues with the Hub, in my view.

First, it doesn't seem to hit the target market squarely enough, if WD have decided what target market they want to aim for with this product. The tech-savvy have probably set up their own NAS and media servers already, while the average non-techie consumer might well find the setup too difficult.

There isn't enough info in the quickstart to help non-technical users (I've outlined above the main missing info), there are some other usability difficulties with it, and it's not made clear enough that people will also have to go and buy their own cables - so some consumers may find it frustrating. Also, the branding could be confusing. Some consumers might be puzzled by what "Twonkymedia" is and why it's there, for instance, and similarly with "Mochi". (Twonky is the server software on the hub that lets you view and play its media files from another computer on your network - why not just say, "Access your media"?)

Geeks will already know how to set up their own servers, so instead of buying this they may just go for cheaper hardware and install free server software (it's possible to get 1 TB external hard drives or NAS servers more cheaply, including some with server software and even Ethernet cable included).

Second, networking. To me, there's no point having a media server that isn't permanently connected to my home network. But, as mentioned above, my setup doesn't make that easy. If they had built into the Hub the technology from their WD Livewire Powerline AV Network Kit (4 Ports, Twin Pack), which enables networking through power points (though I've not tested one), or even included wi-fi as standard, they'd have solved this problem for potential buyers. I'm sure that others besides me may have the same problem. Buying a wireless USB adapter or trying to run ultra long networking cables round the walls is an extra expense and hassle, which may put some people off.

So, overall, I think this is a nice bit of kit, but it works better as a media server for networked computers (or other networked devices) than as a stand-alone player, given the issues I've noted with playing certain files. And, particularly given its price, it's let down by some usability issues for non-technical consumers, the lack of built-in wi-fi or livewire technology, some shortcomings in the integration with the featured web services and indeed the lack of online services: you just don't get the broad range and freedom of choice as you do when you simply hook up your PC to your TV and play stuff from the internet on your TV that way, even though the Hub's sound quality is much better (in the case of my home setup at least).

If Western Digital had built in wi-fi or livewire capability as standard, included cables or at least one cable, made the services more open by adding a simple browser or at least provided more services particularly for BBC iPlayer, 4od, Demand 5 etc and TV/movie rental outfits in the UK like Lovefilm, made the interface more user-friendly and included just a few more instructions in the box, and (ideally) lowered the price a little, that would have made the Hub much more desirable, at least for more technical consumers. As for an API, we can only hope!

A Consuming Experience

Powerpoint - how to close the notes pane at the bottom

Powerpoint - how to get back the slides thumbnails list on the left

Sharing Google Analytics data with Google - & how to disable data sharing

Google Analytics data sharing

What can Google do with your Analytics data?

How to disable Google Analytics data sharing

Internet Explorer 9 - how to open History, Favorites, Feeds on the left

Thunderbird - public holidays won't display?

Windows Live Writer won't start or open?

How to convert Word documents to clean HTML

Word footnotes - how to update cross-references to footnotes

Internet password security madness?

How to network Windows 7 and Vista computers to share files, folders & printers from the Windows 7 PC

Outlook 2010 unread messages – how to set font size and colour

Windows Live Writer ribbon and menu disappearing?

Can't find Microsoft Office programs inside Program Files?

Word 2010, Word 2007 – how to paste plain text without formatting

The quicker way

How to get rid of paste options popup too

The slower way

The slower way

Internet Explorer cookie contents - the new format analysed

Internet Explorer cookie names change

Old cookie names structure

The security hole, and update

What the security fix changes

Consequences of the cookie name change

How to batch crop JPEG photos, scans, images

LinkedIn privacy - change your settings with fewer clicks

How to opt out of social advertising on LinkedIn

How to protect your privacy on LinkedIn - shortcuts to other options

LinkedIn settings - the longwinded way

More info

Freedom of information requests by Twitter!

Outlook 2010 - how to change fonts etc for readability and accessibility

Themes

Navigation Pane

Lists of emails

Incoming and outgoing emails

Reading pane

Other space or time saving etc things

Gripes

How to remove Nuance PDF reader from Firefox (& short review)

Nuance PDF Reader

Convert files free, online - PDF to Word DOC, etc - review of tool

Supported formats and conversions

ARCHIVE

DOCUMENT

PRESENTATION

E-BOOK

DRAWING

IMAGES, PICS, PHOTOS

OCR

AUDIO

VIDEO

OTHER

The downside?

Travel more cheaply on London public transport - online tool

How to install 1-Wire drivers for iButton / OneWireViewer

Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center 1TB - review and practical tips

Overview

Connectivity

Operating systems

In the box

What types of media files does it play or show?

Setup tips - the missing steps

How to transfer files from PC to Hub

How to play files from the Hub

Online services

Other tips

Pros

Cons

Wishlist - improvements I'd like to see

Conclusions