Michael Linenberger's Blog

Nov 7, 2012

I mentioned in my last post about the Surface RT that, contrary to some reviews, it does have Dictation, and I used it to write that entire 2000 word article. And I promised to post a bit more about it—so here goes.

The dictation feature is an app that can be used to enter text and commands in nearly any app or program in the Surface RT. I’ve used it to write emails in the Mail app, and to write long articles in Word.

However, not everyone is going to like Surface RT’s dictation app. It is not as easy to use as dictation is on the iPhone, iPad, or Android. Why? Because there’s no little microphone button next to all your input fields like on those devices. Rather, it’s a separate program called Speech Recognition and it is hidden in the All Apps section of Surface RT—you have to open it when you want to use it (I pinned it to the Start screen for easy access). Once open, it floats above the current window—you use it on top of whatever you are writing into. It’s really more for writing several paragraphs at a time, not on-the-spot text input. But again, it works great when writing mail or when working in Word and OneNote.

By the way, this dictations app is the same speech recognition program that has been shipping with Windows for some time, the one based on Dragon Naturally Speaking. Since I happen to be a long time user of Dragon, I already know how to use it and I think it works great.

But you need to set it up and train it a bit, there’s about 15 minutes of prep before first use, so it’s not for everyone.

One advantage of this app compared to iOS and Android dictation is that this app runs locally on the Surface RT, so you don’t need to be connected and online to use it. One disadvantage though is it will not work in a noisy.environment..

Again, it’s called Speech Recognition, and you find it under the All Apps section of the Surface RT.

Michael

Nov 7, 2012

I’ve had my Surface RT for only few days now, and the best summary of my first impressions are simple: I love it!

Note: MYN/1MTD users, first, read my article about how the new Windows 8 tablets work with MYN/1MTD—that’s the most important information you need if you are a MYN/1MTD user. Only then read this article below, which is about general use of the Surface RT.

How I Like Surface RT

I’ve been using the Surface RT for about 5 days now. My expectations were a bit low because I had read a number of negative reviews. But I see now that those reviews were written mostly taking one of two perspectives, neither of which really fits me.

The first reviews were from technical PC early adopters who were expecting more of a PC power experience. The second type were from current heavy iPad users who were hoping they could replace their iPad with the Surface RT. If you are one of those two types, you’re probably not going to be happy yet. The first of you will only be happy when the Surface RT Pro comes out, with its uncompromised PC power. And the second will only be happy after a year or more when many more apps come out.

But the average windows PC user, who perhaps uses the iPad here and there, but who intends to do most of their work on that laptop—they will be delighted with the Surface RT, even now. Why? Because it really is the best of both worlds in combining an iPad-like tablet with a PC. You see, what Microsoft has done is provided a tablet with a top-level interface as easy as the iPad for simple operations, but with a PC just under the surface for more hardcore work. And I think “enough” apps are out now to make it compelling.

Continue reading →

Nov 7, 2012

Trying to modernize a bit, and consolidate our websites, so we’ve moved the blog and put a new theme on it. The main links have been changed to point here, so if you got here, then you’ve found it! But we have some more house cleaning to do. For example, articles with links to past articles still point to the old site. We’ll try to fix all that. Don’t forget to update any RSS feeds you might have to point to this new blog site. Let us know what you think!

Michael

October 30, 2012 [updated Dec 20, 2013]

If you have been playing with the Outlook 2013 Preview, one thing you may have noticed is that the To-Do Bar’s display controls have changed a lot compared to Outlook 2007 and 2010. These are the controls that open and close the To-Do Bar; they also control what data you see there. The overall effect of the changes is simplification, and that’s good. But as a result, in some ways the settings are now harder to use.

There are a ton of little changes in these controls, some good, some bad, and I cannot cover them all here. However in this post, I want to focus on one important change that may mess you up: it’s the manner in which you hide and show the To-Do Bar; I think Microsoft has simplified it a bit too much in 2013. The good news is that I am going to show you how to tweak Outlook and add a Quick Access command that will fix it, (sort of).  And I’ll show another method just pointed out to me by Bjørn Hopland, who I now see has an excellent Microsoft Office productivity blog. Continue reading →

October 26, 2012

Here are some links to some articles about Outlook 2013 that may be of interest to you.

Outlook 2013 has a new Quick Reply feature that allows you to write your reply right in the reading pane:

http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-gives-outlook-2013-new-quick-response-feature-lets-you-reply-faster

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Microsoft’s free webmail service, Hotmail, is being replaced by Outlook.com. Here’s an article that has  an overview of Outlook.com:

http://hothardware.com/News/The-New-Microsoft-Outlookcom-is-not-Your-Fathers-Outlook/

Michael

October 25, 2012

This Friday, October 26 (tomorrow), Microsoft releases Windows 8. It’s a major new release with a lot of good new capability. By the way, the full version of Windows 8 is now called Windows 8 Pro, which you’ll see below is an important point.

But more exciting to me is that this Friday Microsoft also releases the much anticipated Microsoft Surface RT tablet—a tablet that runs the new Windows 8 RT operating system. RT is a simplified, tablet-only version of Windows 8. There’s been a long wait for an iPad competitor from Microsoft, and Surface RT is it.

And even more exciting to me is that Friday is also the release date for a number Windows 8 Pro tablets. These are tablets that run the full Windows 8 just as if it were a regular laptop but on an iPad like device. The new Lenovo ThinkPad 2 is an example.

Many other manufacturers are also releasing varieties of these starting Friday and beyond. All of this represents a major productivity tool evolution for knowledge workers—you come out ahead because you can have PC power on an iPad-like tablet.

If you are considering getting one of these new tablets, the point of this article is to discuss specifically what they mean for MYN/1MTD users—can you use them successfully with MYN/1MTD?

The short answer is this:

• Windows 8 RT tablets will have limited use with MYN/1MTD;
• Windows 8 Pro tablets will have full use with MYN/1MTD.

To dig into that answer takes some discussion; let’s start with Windows 8 RT, as there are some issues there.

Continue reading →

October 25, 2012

I don’t know about you, but my head has been spinning in the last months as I consider all the different Microsoft offered e-mail programs, and how they relate to Outlook and Exchange. I watch these because MYN/1MTD is often closely tied to Outlook, and as new e-mail program variants come out, we all start to wonder which we can use with MYN/1MTD.

First, let me list all the various mail programs from Microsoft that I am aware of—it’s quite a list! You’ve got the many versions of desktop Outlook (usually part of the desktop Office suites that include Outlook). You’ve got Outlook Web Access/App (OWA). You’ve got Windows Mail in Vista. You’ve got the Mail portion of Windows Live, Windows Live Essentials, Windows Essentials (and Windows Live Mail). You’ve got the mail portion of the new web-based Office 365. You’ve got the new Outlook.com. You’ve got the new Mail app in Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8 RT. You have Hotmail. And a while ago you may have had Outlook Express. Did I miss anything?

Only One for MYN/1MTD

Now, let me try to simplify things, especially for MYN/1MTD users. Out of all of the above, only one has tasks support for MYN/1MTD, and that’s desktop Outlook (all versions from 2000 to 2013). Only desktop Outlook is supported because it’s the only software that fully implements the Outlook Tasks module—and that’s what we need for MYN/1MTD, the full Outlook Tasks module. If you cannot use desktop Outlook, then, no matter which other e-mail program you use for mail, you will need something else for tasks (in that case, I recommend you use Toodledo for tasks for MYN/1MTD).

All the Other Microsoft Mail Programs

What about all the other mail programs above? How do they relate to MYN/1MTD? How do they relate to my daily business mail?

What follows are some FAQs that may help.

Continue reading →

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If you’d like free access to this first issue and the next two, you can use a code to get that; here’s how:

1. From the App Store on your iPad search for “Time Management Magazine” (or just click the image above from your iPad) and download the free app.
2. Open the magazine in Newsstand, and the magazine home page is displayed.
3. The code can be entered by pressing the “Subscribe” button and then selecting “Current Subscriber” then entering the code: “ThreeMonthsFree“

Once the code is used, the user will be able to access the full magazine for three months, and will be sent an email at the end of the three months asking if they would like to subscribe. If the above steps get confusing, here is a link to a video that shows how to do it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqVp0jp_y9E

Michael

October 5, 2012

Has your Exchange-based Outlook mail client performance gotten slower over time? For example, is Outlook Search getting slower? Or do you often get a message saying something like “Requesting data from Microsoft Exchange Server” that is slow to clear before you see your mail update?

If so, you may have a problem that most people are not aware of: you may have reached Exchange’s single-folder item count limit. The good news is, if you have exceeded that limit, it can be fixed fairly easily as I discuss below, and your speed should come back.

Continue reading →

October 3, 2012

Why do many of us need to check e-mail all the time? Why do many of us choose to work on e-mail and other things even in our free time? In other words, why are we so obsessed with busyness?

One view is we are trying to get ahead. It’s the competitive American way. We work hard to try to get the big rewards (or at least to keep up).

That may be true for some of us. Our constant busyness is part of a thought-out strategy to achieve more—for ourselves and our family.

But I wonder if for many of us, rather, this constant search for busyness is an attempt to fill a void. Continue reading →