Monthly Archives: December 2010

.net, adobe, amazon, apple, cloud computing, flash, intel, iphone, java, microsoft, mobile, nokia, open source, oracle, professional, silverlight, software development, Sun, visual studio, Web, web authoring, windows, windows 7

Ten big tech trends from 2010

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This was an amazing year for tech. Here are some of the things that struck me as significant.

Sun Java became Oracle Java

Oracle acquired Sun and set about imposing its authority on Java. Java is still Java, but Oracle lacks Sun’s commitment to open source and community – though even in Sun days there was tension in this area. That was nothing to the fireworks we saw in 2010, with Java Community Process members resigning, IBM switching from its commitment to the Apache Harmony project to the official OpenJDK, and the Apache foundation waging a war of words against Oracle that was impassioned but, it seems, futile.

Microsoft got cloud religion

Only up to a point, of course. This is the Windows and Office company, after all. However – and this is a little subjective – this was the year when Microsoft convinced me it is serious about Windows Azure for hosting our applications and data. In addition, it seems to me that the company is willing to upset its partners if necessary for the sake of its hosted Exchange and SharePoint – BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), soon to become Office 365.

This is a profound change for Microsoft, bearing in mind its business model. I spoke to a few partners when researching this article for the Register and was interested by the level of unease that was expressed.

Microsoft also announced some impressive customer wins for BPOS, especially in government, though the price the customers pay for these is never mentioned in the press releases.

Microsoft Silverlight shrank towards Windows-only

Silverlight is Microsoft’s browser plug-in which delivers multimedia and the .NET Framework to Windows and Mac; it is also the development platform for Windows Phone 7. It still works on a Mac, but in 2010 Microsoft made it clear that cross-platform Silverlight is no longer its strategy (if it ever was), and undermined the Mac version by adding Windows-specific features that interoperate with the local operating system. Silverlight is still an excellent runtime, powerful, relatively lightweight, easy to deploy, and supported by strong tools in Visual Studio 2010. If you have users who do not run Windows though, it now looks a brave choice.

The Apple iPad was a hit

I still have to pinch myself when thinking about how Microsoft now needs to catch up with Apple in tablet computing. I got my first tablet in 2003, yes seven years ago, and it ran Windows. Now despite seven years of product refinement it is obvious that Windows tablets miss the mark that Apple has hit with its first attempt – though drawing heavily on what it learnt with the equally successful iPhone. I see iPads all over the place, in business as well as elsewhere, and it seems to me that the success of a touch interface on this larger screen signifies a transition in personal computing that will have a big impact.

Google Android was a hit

Just when Apple seemed to have the future of mobile computing in its hands, Google’s Android alternative took off, benefiting from mass adoption by everyone-but-Apple among hardware manufacturers. Android is not as elegantly designed or as usable as Apple’s iOS, but it is close enough; and it is a relatively open platform that runs Adobe Flash and other apps that do not meet Apple’s approval. There are other contenders: Microsoft Windows Phone 7; RIM’s QNX-based OS in the PlayBook; HP’s Palm WebOS; Nokia Symbian and Intel/Nokia MeeGo – but how many mobile operating systems can succeed? Right now, all we can safely say is that Apple has real competition from Android.

HP fell out with Microsoft

Here is an interesting one. The year kicked off with a press release announcing that HP and Microsoft love each other to the extent of $250 million over three years – but if you looked closely, that turned out to be less than a similar deal in 2006. After that, the signs were even less friendly. HP acquired Palm in April, signalling its intent to compete with Windows Mobile rather than adopting it; and later this year HP announced that it was discontinuing its Windows Home Server range. Of course HP remains a strong partner for Windows servers, desktops and laptops; but these are obvious signs of strain.

The truth though is that these two companies need one another. I think they should kiss and make up.

eBook readers were a hit

I guess this is less developer-oriented; but 2010 was the year when electronic book publishing seemed to hit the mainstream. Like any book lover I have mixed feelings about this and its implications for bookshops. I doubt we will see books disappear to the same extent as records and CDs; but I do think that book downloads will grow rapidly over the next few years and that paper-and-ink sales will diminish. It is a fascinating tech battle too: Amazon Kindle vs Apple iPad vs the rest (Sony Reader, Barnes and Noble Nook, and others which share their EPUB format). I have a suspicion that converged devices like the iPad may win this one, but displays that are readable in sunlight have special requirements so I am not sure.

HTML 5 got real

2010 was a huge year for HTML 5 – partly because Microsoft announced its support in Internet Explorer 9, currently in beta; and partly because the continued growth of browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, and the WebKit-based Google Chrome, Apple Safari and numerous mobile browsers showed that HTML 5 would be an important platform with or without Microsoft. Yes, it is fragmented and unfinished; but more and more of HTML 5 is usable now or in the near future.

Adobe Flash survived Apple and HTML 5

2010 was the year of Steve Jobs’ notorious Thoughts on Flash as well as a big year for HTML 5, which encroaches on territory that used to require the services of a browser plug-in. Many people declared Adobe Flash dead, but the reality was different and the company had a great year. Apple’s focus on design and usability helps Adobe’s design-centric approach even while Apple’s refusal to allow Flash on its mobile computers opposes it.

Windows 7 was a hit

Huge relief in Redmond as Windows 7 sold and sold. The future belongs to mobile and cloud; but Windows is not going away soon, and version 7 is driving lots of upgrades as even XP diehards move over. I’m guessing that we will get first sight of Windows 8 in 2011. Another triumph, or another Vista?

microsoft, virtualization

Microsoft Hyper-V Annoyance: special permissions for VHDs

Today I needed to enlarge a virtual hard drive used by a Hyper-V virtual machine.

No problem: I used the third-party VHD Resizer which successfully copied my existing VHD to a new and larger one.

The snag: when I renamed the VHDs so that the new one took the place of the old, the VM would not start and Hyper-V reported “Access Denied”.

I looked at the permissions for the old VHD and noticed that they include full access for an account identified only by a GUID. Even more annoying, you cannot easily add those permissions to another file, as the security GUI reports the account as not found.

The solution comes from John Dombrowski in this thread:

1. Shutdown the VM
2. Detach the VHD file, apply changes
3. Reattach the VHD file, apply changes

This replaced the correct GUID for the VM.

Incidentally, this might not work if you use a remote Hyper-V manager. Permissions for remote management of Hyper-V are a notoriously prickly thing to set up. I have had problems on occasion with importing VMs, where this did not work from the remote management tool but did work if done on the machine itself, with similar access denied errors reported. If you use exactly the same account it should not be a problem, but if the remote user is different then bear this in mind.

microsoft, professional

Microsoft Outlook 2010 annoyance: tasks do not show in contact activities

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I discovered an Outlook 2010 annoyance over this long weekend. A user I’m in touch with uses Outlook 2007 as a simple CRM system. He creates tasks that are linked to contacts, using the Contacts button at the bottom of the New Task window, things like “Call John” with some notes. If he then looks at the Outlook contact record for John, he clicks the Activities tab and sees all the tasks linked to that contact listed.

Trouble is, he upgraded to Outlook 2010 recently and the feature no longer works. The Contacts button is not in the New Task window by default, but you can get it back by selecting Show contacts linked to the current item in File – Options – Contacts. Even if you do though, the Activities list in a Contact window is broken and the tasks do not appear.

It turns out that this is a bug, possibly caught in the crossfire as Microsoft develops the Outlook Social Connector, which has its own Activities record.

Bugs are unsurprising in a product as complex and multi-faceted as Outlook; but Microsoft could do much better in its communication. This thread on “Microsoft Answers” lacks any official response; we do not even know if it is fixed in the Office 2010 SP1, now in private beta, or whether the feature has been removed and it is just the user interface that needs cleaning up.

While it is unimportant to most of us, clearly if you do use Outlook as a simple CRM system it is crucial. In fact, I recall when contact linking was introduced in Outlook it was touted as a major new feature.

Some users have resorted to re-installing Outlook 2007, which turns out to be rather awkward thanks to the interdependence between Outlook and Word, though it can be made to work.

Incidentally, I was interested to note that Microsoft performed a u-turn with regard to the availability of Business Contact Manager (BCM), an Outlook add-in and companion product. This used to be installed by default with Office Small Business edition, and was something that I used to uncheck or uninstall as I never used it and it could cause problems. Nevertheless, some people did use it, and were upset to find it missing from Outlook 2010 Home and Business. The updated Business Contact Manager was only available by download if you had a volume license for Office.

This was a silly decision, since Business Contact Manager targets very small businesses (including one-person businesses) who are least likely to have a volume license. Microsoft therefore changed its mind:

After careful consideration, we decided to simplify the Office 2010 lineup by including Outlook with BCM, a business product, only in volume licensing. We understand it is not ideal for every user. When we made this decision, we underestimated the importance of BCM to our small business customers and those who purchased previous versions of Office in retail stores or pre-installed on PCs. Worse yet, we left many of our customers, who didn’t want to buy through volume licensing, stranded with their data locked in previous versions of Office.

Since September, you can download BCM if you have any licensed copy of Outlook 2010.

exchange, microsoft

Microsoft Exchange 2010 annoyance: certificate wizard incompatible with certificate services

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I’ve used the holiday break to do some testing on Exchange 2010. I have a virtual network which includes a machine running Microsoft’s Certificate Services. The wizard generates a .req file which you can submit to a certification authority. In my case I submitted to my own certificate server using the certreq command.  Here’s what you get:

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The error message is “Certificate not issued (Incomplete)”

Kudos to Vadims Podans on the Network Steve Forum who has the answer. The Exchange 2010 wizard creates the request in a Unicode file. Certificate Services only understands Ansi. You have to open the request file in Notepad and then Save As specifying Ansi encoding. Then it works.

Actually it doesn’t work, but you get a more intelligible error. When you submit the request using certreq you have to specify a template by adding the argument:

-attrib "CertificateTemplate:WebServer"

Podans has that information too.

I realise that the majority of Exchange admins submit certificate requests to commercial authorities rather than internal ones. Still, you would hope that a Microsoft certificate wizard would be compatible with Microsoft’s own certificate server, at least if you check the right box.

.net, microsoft, professional, sharepoint, windows

Remote access to files in Microsoft Small Business Server 2011

Among the most interesting features in the new Small Business Server 2011 standard edition – I suspect it is in the Essentials version as well – is the ability to access shared folders remotely via a web application.

This is actually a feature borrowed from Windows Home Server, which also exposes shared folders in its remote access web application.

Note this is different from SharePoint, which is also available in SBS. SharePoint stores files in a SQL Server content database and publishes them in document libraries. Shared Folders by contrast are simple file shares. Although they lack the rich features of SharePoint, such as discussions, or check in and check out, they are faster and more convenient when all you want to do is to share files. Another benefit is that on the local network you can access shared folders directly with Windows Explorer. This can also be done with SharePoint, but under the covers it uses WebDAV – web distributed authoring and versioning – which is slower and can be tricky to get working, especially on Windows XP. SharePoint is also less suitable for files of types that it does not recognise, whereas a shared folder will accept anything you care to put into it.

While these may seem subtle distinctions, in practice they are not, and the matter of SharePoint versus shared folders is one that some businesses struggle with.

Now that you can publish shared folders through the Remote Web Access web site, this issue will be less pressing, since remote access without the need for VPN (virtual private network) is often the key reason for moving files into SharePoint.

The Remote Web Access site is not itself a SharePoint site; it is an ASP.NET application that you can find in C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Bin\WebApp\RemoteAccess. I noticed two ASP.NET user controls, one called filesgadget.ascx and one called richupload.ascx.

If you browse to this site, you can access folders and files in the SBS Shares to which you have access, controlled by NTFS permissions. The file sharing application will pick up any shared folders on the server. When you open a folder, the files are listed in the browser with options to upload, download, delete, rename, copy, cut or paste.

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If you choose Upload, you can add documents by dragging them into the browser.

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I also tried the site in Google Chrome. It worked, though not the drag-and-drop file upload. You can still upload files using a standard file chooser.

This looks to me like a great and overdue feature for Small Business Server. The only snag I can foresee is that some users may still find the SharePoint vs Shared Folder choice confusing and wonder why documents in the “Internal web site” are presented differently and with more features than those in shared folders. It may still be difficult to decide which to use; but at least the choice will no longer be driven solely by whether remote access via the browser is required.

audio

How to get better sound: higher resolution, or something else?

A topic of enduring interest for me is the audible benefit (or otherwise) of high-resolution audio such as SACD, the near-obsolete DVD Audio, or increasingly downloads offered in 24-bit/96 kHz or better resolution, versus the 16/44 resolution of CD, also known as “redbook” because this part of the CD’s specification was defined in a red book.

I wrote a piece on this last year, which is still among the most-read articles on this web site, so I am not the only one.

Today I came across some old articles by Dave Moulton which I enjoyed. He is an audio engineer who has also worked on the subjective measurement of audio systems – in other words, if you are a maker of audio equipment you can go to him and say, “this new feature of ours, does it really make a difference or sound better?”

Moulton wrote a series of pieces starting here which examine the human aspect of audio technology. One of them explains why we exaggerate small differences. He is also, as I suppose I am, sceptical about the benefits of high resolution audio:

… the resolution benefits of 20-bit and 24-bit signals are not only hard to hear, they’re, well, inaudible as we currently do it. Uh-oh!

and I like his awareness of the “system” – not just the equipment in our living rooms, but the entire chain:

When we have a SYSTEM with really smooth response (say, +/- .5 dB) from 30 Hz. to 17 kHz., from microphone diaphragm to eardrum, well, then we really have something to brag about. And UNTIL we can do this, it doesn’t do a lot of good to invest a lot of bucks in dramatically extending the response of a single stage.

Another series of articles is specifically on high resolution audio.

Of course high-resolution is valuable for mixing, mastering and audio processing, where there is a danger of cumulative error; and I accept that there could be cases where there is some small benefit in high-resolution playback equipment. That said, this is a much-misunderstood area; and audio vendors are happy to exploit our natural instinct to believe that bigger numbers must mean better sound.

I still see people drawing sound curves with steps in them to show that increasing the sample rate must improve the accuracy of the curves – when it has been shown that this is not the way digital audio works. There are some excellent papers here (click the link for Support) by Dan Lavry of Lavry Engineering, makers of high-end digital audio converters, which explain the mathematics:

Let us review Nyquist Sampling Theory: A sampled waveforms contains ALL the information without any distortions, when the sampling rate exceeds twice the highest frequency contained by the sampled waveform. Note that once we agree on what constitutes audio bandwidth, we need not sample much faster than twice that bandwidth to have the ability to retrieve 100% of the original signal.

Despite my high-res scepticism, I am still keen on getting the best sound I can afford at home. In fact, this is why it is important to have this debate. We need to know what it is worth spending money on.

In the end, it makes sense to invest in differences that you can easily hear, such as those between loudspeakers, rather than in differences that are subtle to the point where you can debate whether they are audible at all.

.net, apple, blogging, development, google, microsoft, software development, windows

What you read in 2010: top posts on ITWriting.com

With three days to go, traffic on ITWriting.com in 2010 is more than 50% up over that of 2009 with over 1 million unique visitors for the first time. Thank you for your attention in another crazy year in technology.

So what did you read? It is intriguing to look at the stats for the whole year, which are different in character from stats for a week or month. The reason is that over a short period, it is the news of the day that is most read – posts like The Java Crisis and what it means for developers. Over the year though, it is the in-depth technical posts like How to backup Small Business Server 2008 on Hyper-V that draw more readers, along with those posts that are a hit with people searching Google for help with an immediate problem like Cannot open the Outlook window – what sort of error message is that?

The most-read post in 2010 though is in neither category. In July I made a quick post noting that the Amazon Kindle now comes with a web browser based on WebKit and a free worldwide internet connection. Mainly thanks to some helpful comments from users it has become a place where people come for information on that niche subject.

On the programming side, posts about Microsoft’s changing developer story are high on the list:

Lessons from Evernote’s flight from .NET

Microsoft wrestles with HTML5 vs Silverlight futures

Microsoft’s Silverlight dream is over

Another post which is there in the top twenty is this one about Adobe Flash and web services:

SOA, REST and Flash/Flex – why Flash does not PUT

along with this 2009 post on the pros and cons of parallel programming:

Parallel Programming: five reasons for caution. Reflections from Intel’s Parallel Studio briefing

This lightweight post also gets a lot of hits:

Apple iPad vs Windows Tablet vs Google Chrome OS

It is out of date now and I should do a more considered update. Still, it touches on a big theme: the success of the Apple iPad. When you take that alongside the interest in Android tablets, perhaps we can say that 2010 was the year of the tablet. I first thought the tablet concept might take off back in 2003/2004 when I got my first Acer tablet. I was wrong about the timing and wrong about the operating system; but the reasons why tablets are a good idea still apply.

Watching these trends is a lot of fun and I look forward to more surprises in 2011.

apple, audio, mobile, reviews

Review: Audyssey iPhone Audio Dock South of Market Edition

How good can a dock for an Apple iPod or iPhone sound? Pretty good, as this high-end South of Market Audio Dock from Audyssey demonstrates. If you think all iPod docks have thin, tinny bass, think again. It also turns out to be a neat speakerphone.

The dock has a distinctive bulbous shape, measuring around 24cm (9.5”) square on its largest side, with the dock mounted on the front edge. The unit is designed to sit on a desk or table and is surprisingly heavy for its size – probably an encouraging sign. Viewed from the front it looks tall and compact.

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The side view though shows that the speakers do have some room to breathe.

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As you can see, the speakers are firing more or less sideways. This is not ideal for stereo imaging, but in practice the dock delivers a wider image than you might expect.

Here is what you get out of the box: the dock, a remote with a battery, a USB cable, and two 3.5mm audio cables.

image

Getting started is just a matter of putting the battery in the remote (slightly fiddly), plugging in the power cable, docking your iPod or iPhone, and playing some music. There is also an app you can download that provides some additional settings.

Before going into more detail about what this dock is capable of, let me say immediately that the sound quality is excellent. Words that come to mind are crisp, deep, rich, smooth and powerful. Vocals have real presence. The dock successfully conveyed the drama of a Mahler symphony, the growl of Tom Waits, the complex rhythms and pace of Santana, and the tender emotion of English folk singer Sandy Denny. Once I started playing music, I did not want to stop.

The secret of this high quality is twofold. First, the electronics follows high-end principles. There are four speakers – two 4-inch woofers, two .75 inch tweeters – which are powered by four separate amplifiers controlled by an active crossover. By contrast, a typical home hi-fi would have two amplifiers driving speakers with passive crossovers. Active crossovers mean that the musical signal is divided into the optimum frequencies for each speaker driver at a low level, introducing less distortion and improving control.

Audyssey takes further advantage of this, by using software processing to mitigate the limitations of the speaker drivers. That’s no surprise, since Audyssey specialises in audio processing technology for other manufacturers, which gets incorporated into home theatre and in-car equipment.

According to the specification, there are several techniques implemented in this dock. BassXT extends the bass response by boosting the signal dynamically to flatten the frequency response at a point when it would normally be dropping off. Audyssey EQ corrects “time and frequency response” imperfections introduced by the loudspeakers and cabinets. Dynamic EQ performs frequency response correction to preserve a flat response as volume changes. Dynamic Volume evens out the volume level to compensate for differences in the volume of the source.

Some of these features can be controlled or disabled by a companion iOS app, free to install. Specifically, you can disable Dynamic Volume or set it to optimize for Background Listening; you can apply tone controls including a single tone control called Tilt or traditional bass and treble; or you can set your own custom EQ.

image image

I admit that seems a lot of processing; and it would not have surprised me if the results were worse than pure straight-through audio reproduction. That is not the case though; the unit sounds very good indeed. Given the challenge of getting high quality sound from a relatively small enclosure, taking advantage of digital processing makes sense to me, provided it is carefully implemented at it is here.

Controlling playback

Once you have docked an iPhone and set it playing, you can control it either from the iPhone itself, or from the supplied remote, or pause and play by tapping an illuminated icon on top of the unit (It is not obvious that this is a button, but once you discover it, it is a handy feature; it also has some other functions including answering phone calls and showing Bluetooth status).

The remote has buttons for volume up/down, pause/play, and skip forward or back.

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The Audyssey dock supports Bluetooth and for full features you should pair your iPhone with it and keep Bluetooth on. Now you can stream music from an iPhone even when it is not docked. This can be handy, since the iPhone is easier to use in your hand then when docked. Using Bluetooth, you can undock it with only brief interruption in playback, for example for selecting music. Range seems good, and I was able to detach the iPhone, walk through the door of my study and into the corridor, and the music kept playing – though note that the audio quality will not be as good. I found the quality acceptable though noticeably inferior.

When docked, the iPhone will charge provided the dock is not in standby mode.

There are also buttons on the remote intended for the dock’s speakerphone feature, which deserves its own paragraph.

Audyssey as conferencing speakerphone

The most intriguing feature of the Audyssey South of Market dock is its speakerphone feature. For this to work, you must have Bluetooth enabled.

Scenario: you are enjoying music, when a call comes in. At this point the music pauses, the iPhone invites you to decline or answer the call, and a ring sounds through the dock’s loudspeakers. Tap the phone icon on the remote and you can answer the call while using the dock as a speakerphone.

It turns out the Audyssey dock makes a rather good speakerphone. It performs microphone array processing and echo cancellation to improve voice quality, using front and rear microphones, and in my testing this worked well.

You can also wire up the dock to a computer, using its line in and mic out connections. This lets you use it as a speakerphone with Skype or other Voice over IP providers. Nice idea, though my guess it that this is too inconvenient for most users. Working with the iPhone is more compelling.

Connections

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This is the back panel, showing the microphone output, line in, and USB port. Above the panel is a button for pairing a Bluetooth device. If you connect the USB port to a computer, the docked iPhone will sync with iTunes, though auto-sync can be a nuisance if you frequently dock and undock the device.

Annoyances

Not that many. However, I would like some way to select music from my seat when the iPhone is docked, beyond the simple track skip on the remote. Of course you can do this using Bluetooth streaming, though sound quality may be compromised.

Even with Bluetooth set up, I find that removing the iPhone from the dock pauses the music. I have to tap play to resume it. Re-docking the iPhone interrupts the music briefly but it resumes automatically.

Considering the cost of the device though, it’s a shame that Audyssey does not supply a proper manual; there is an excellent one online [pdf], but the one in the box is just safety warnings and limited warranty, pleasing for the lawyers but not for users.

The stereo separation is good considering it is a single box, but poor compared to two speakers set apart in the normal way.

Summary

The Audyssey South of Market Dock costs more than most iPod/iPhone docks, but in return it delivers superb sound quality along with some well thought-out speakerphone features.

The B&W Zeppelin makes an interesting comparison. The Zeppelin is a little more expensive but has better stereo separation thanks to its 640mm (25.2 in) width, and has a sub-woofer for extended bass. On the other hand, the Audyssey is more compact and could be considered less intrusive depending on what you think of the Zeppelin’s distinctive styling, and the Zeppelin has no Bluetooth streaming.

In the USA it is an easy decision. The Audyssey dock at around $400 is better value than a Zeppelin at around $600. In the UK the fact that B&W is a UK company whereas Audyssey is based in Los Angeles seems to bring the prices closer together: £400 for a Zeppelin versus £350 for the Audyssey dock. Try to hear them both; but the Audyssey dock is not shamed and is still well worth considering.

Compatibility

The South of Market Audio Dock fits:

  • iPhone 4
  • iPhone 3 and 3GS
  • iPod Touch
  • iPod Nano (4th and 5th generation)
  • iPod classic

Price and availability

The Audyssey South of Market Dock costs around $399.00. You should find it at Apple stores among other retailers.

Amazon.co.uk is advertising this dock for availability from 15th January 2011, at £349.99

 

gaming, retro

Fixing Age of Empires 2 graphics in Windows 7

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Age of Empires 2 is one of my favourite games, especially multi-player. Age of Empires 3 was better in some ways, worse in others; somehow it is not as much fun. One of the problems with version three is that the scenarios are more constrained; and the introduction of home cities and colonies changes the game in a radical and not altogether welcome manner.

The good news is that Age of Empires 2, also known as Age of Kings or with the expansion pack Age of Conquerors, still runs on Windows 7 – impressive for a game that was released ten years ago. The bad news is that the graphics are messed up. Here is how it looks:

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It’s playable, but that purple-stained sea and mottled grass is just not how it should be.

Fortunately there is a fix, and you can get Age of Empires 2 looking like this instead:

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The fix? Terminate the Explorer process. Here’s what you do:

1. Run Age of Empires 2
2. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and click Start Task Manager
3. Click the Processes tab, find explorer.exe, select and click End Process
4. Switch back to Age of Empires 2 with Alt-Tab

Presto! the graphics now work.

Once you are done playing, exit Age of Empires. If Task Manager is no longer running, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to get it back. Then click Applications, New Task, and type Explorer in the dialog. Click OK and your taskbar and desktop will return.

The only remaining question: why does this work?

Note: kudos to TechSmith Snagit which was able to capture the screens successfully; the first two capture utilities I tried could not do so. I had to set DirectX as the input type and use a timed capture.

apple, gadgets, mobile

iPhone plus Amazon app = shopping revolution through magic of barcode scanning

Amazon has added barcode scanning to its Apple iPhone shopping app. It is an amazing feature. Here’s why.

Among the questions that shoppers ask themselves, two of the biggest ones are first, is it any good; and second, is it good value? Barcode scanning helps with both of these. The scenario is that you are in the shop looking at a book, CD or DVD – or almost anything really, from kettles to MP3 players – and you wave your iPhone over it. Up comes the entry for that item in Amazon’s store, where you can see the rating, read customer reviews, and check the price both new and used.

OK, there is a little bit more involved than waving the iPhone, but not much. Here is how it works. Tap the Amazon app on the iPhone, then Search.

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Tap Scan a barcode and hold the iPhone over the barcode.

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You adjust the size and position by moving the iPhone until the code is roughly central between the guide lines. At this point, the guide lines turn green.

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No need to tap; the app will now look up the item and show you the results. Tap the right-pointing arrow for more detail.

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Confession: I am sufficiently an Amazon addict that I have done this in shops even before the advent of the barcode feature. One reason is price-checking. We all know that you pay a premium for the instant gratification of bricks and mortar shopping; but how bad is it? This will tell you instantly.

That might not help if you need a gift at the last minute, but the reviews might. I use this for video games, or for CDs that I have not heard or DVDs/Blu-rays that I have not seen. It has saved me from some expensive mistakes.

Of course reviews are subjective and some are likely planted by publishers, authors or competitors; but there are usually enough to give you some idea of the range of opinions.

It is also handy for electronic devices. Is that MP3 player any good? How does that iPod dock sound?

When I was at school we learned about the concept of perfect competition. One of the requirements for perfect competition is perfect information – for example, knowing the price charged for an item in every outlet which sells it. We are a long way from that, but thanks to the Amazon marketplace, where third-party sellers compete, we are closer than we were. The barcode feature in the Amazon iPhone app makes it easy to access that information while shopping, which is a big feature.