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Over the last few days, there has been a big uproar over a blog post that Mozilla made regarding Firefox not being able to be developed for Windows RT. I feel that because the reasons behind why Microsoft made the decisions they did are complex (and often not communicated in the clearest way by Microsoft) that those reporting about this issue and the reactions that their audience have are automatically swayed against Microsoft, simply because they don't have the entire picture. This editorial hopefully will give the whole broader picture and demostrate why Firefox & Chrome can't and shouldn't be allowed to run on Windows RT. This blog post has been adapted from an email I wrote to Tech News Today (a fantastic tech show on the TWiT network @ www.twit.tv/tnt ) on the 11th of May 2012. I'm happy to take any feedback from readers who have any additional technical information about this issue (I'm not a Microsoft employee and so I can only report information that I have gathered from... - Andrew Birch

On February 24th 2012, I was kindly invited to the Brisbane Nokia Lumia 800/710 launch because someone at Nokia had seen my Twitter account and this website. I was very keen to go, because I've been following Nokia since February 11th 2011 when Stephen Elop announced that Nokia would be adopting the Windows Phone platform (that I had been keenly watching since February 2010 when it was announced at Mobile World Congress) to replace the aging Symbian OS. This article is just going to detail some of the information that Nokia shared about these two new phones that will be available in Australia in March as well as some of my thoughts about these devices and Nokia in general. - Andrew Birch

As a Windows Phone user, I absolutely love the People Hub, especially the Facebook integration. However, due to the way that either Microsoft or Facebook have chosen to implement the Facebook integration into the phone, it can become a broken experience depending on choices that your friends have made. The answer to this problem actually lies in a much deeper and what I believe to be murkier feature of Facebook around how 3rd party app permissions work. To explain the whole situation, I'm going to bring out an old friend who I've used in a previous article about Facebook's privacy settings: Johnny Technophobe to help demonstrate what exactly is happening to cause this problem. This article will explain exactly how the Facebook 3rd party apps system accesses your data and then explain how Windows Phone works in relation to this and the problems that stem from that. - Andrew Birch

At 2am on Wednesday September 14th Australian Eastern Standard Time (9am, Tuesday September 13th United States Pacific Daylight Saving Time) Stephen Sinofsky stepped onto the stage to deliver the opening keynote at the BUILD conference, held in Anaheim, California. This keynote is probably the most important keynote that Microsoft has given in the 36 years of it's existence and was entirely devoted to revealing details of the next version of Windows, currently codenamed 'Windows 8'. Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer has described the next version of Windows as 'Microsoft's riskiest product bet' and with what was revealed during that keynote, his comments now make complete sense. Windows 8 is what Microsoft describes as "a re-imagining of Windows" and will include a major redesign of the user interface, developer platform, chipset support and tightly integrated cloud support. This article aims to detail some of the fundamental concepts that Microsoft is pushing in Windows 8 and explain why... - Andrew Birch

Windows 8 was publicly demoed for the first time about three weeks ago now at the D9 conference and it is still wowing people who see it and it's causing a divide throughout the tech community over whether the radical new UI is a good idea or not. I've now had that 3 weeks to think carefully about what this all means and how I would write about Windows 8 in a unique way (there's plenty of articles on the web showing demos of the new Start Screen). I had originally planned to write 2 articles, one about Windows 8 and the other one about user interface design (more specifically the Metro design), but I'm going to combine them into this one article, because I think that it's hard to talk about them separately anymore considering we know what Microsoft's plans are in the future regarding the UI for their products. It's an exciting time, but you really need to understand the key principles behind what's going on before you can truly appreciate what's going on. When I first saw what... - Andrew Birch

I've had to hold off on writing my article about the new Windows Phone 7 update coming in spring this year (codenamed 'Mango') because of my busy life as a uni student, but now that I've got around to writing it, hopefully I'll be able to write you a detailed review here. Like my Windows Phone Feature Availability Matrix, I plan to update this page throughout this winter as Microsoft slowly releases all of it's secrets about the Mango update. The Mango update will bring along over 500 new features according to Microsoft, some of them major standout features such as multi-tasking and others minor improvements such as the ability to connect to hidden Wi-Fi hotspots. Microsoft is categorising their improvements into 3 categories (Easier Communication, A Smarter Approach To Apps & Going Beyond The Browser), although I'm going to add an extra category for all the extra announcements that Microsoft makes throughout this winter. So let's take a look at what's coming in Mango from an... - Andrew Birch

Back in January I wrote an article titled the "Windows Phone 7 Feature Availability Matrix". This article was essentially a chart describing the feature availability in different countries around the world where Windows Phone 7 handsets are sold. That article is currently my most popular article to date with 10,000 more views than the article in 2nd place, which shows that this is a very important issue for many Windows Phone users around the world who are outside the United States. At the MIX '11 developers show this year in April, Microsoft made some announcements regarding expanding the countries where the Windows Phone Marketplace would be established as well, as new languages to support these countries in time for their 'Mango' update which is due to hit in Spring this year (Fall/Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere). These announcements were confirmed again at the Windows Phone Mango VIP event held around the world on the 24th/25th of May (depending on time zone). So I decided to... - Andrew Birch

Last Friday I wrote an article discussing Telstra's inaction and silence on the issue of Windows Phone 7 Updates, or more specifically the NoDo (March) update. If you wish to reread that article you can view the whole article (which includes the letter I sent to Telstra's CEO) here, but I'll recap the main points here. Microsoft released their March Update to Windows Phone (codenamed NoDo) on March 24 2011 and as of Thursday April 28th (when I wrote the letter) Telstra was still "testing" the update and instead of keeping their customers updated, they were directing their customers to an outdated update chart. Well after that letter (co-incidence or not), Telstra officially approved the update for the HTC 7 Mozart on Friday 29th April and promised to approve the LG Optimus 7Q in early May. Well today I received an offical reply from Telstra detailing some of the reasons why they took over a month to test some fairly small updates and it clears a lot of things up and even opens up some... - Andrew Birch

It turns out, if you and a group of others can protest hard enough and communicate your message to the right people, you can achieve action. Telstra, Australia's biggest phone carrier does NOT have a good track record of releasing phone updates, especially to their line of Android Phones, but when Microsoft last year announced how they were going to architect their phone OS (in terms of strict, uniform standards) and how they would deliver the updates to customers, Windows Phone users felt a lot easier that Telstra wouldn't get in the way for them on this particular platform. Well unfortunately, that changed somewhat between the release of the phone and the time the first update was actually released on February 22nd 2011. It turned out that while Telstra wouldn't need to actually modify the phone OS or work with the manufacturer to get the update working on the phone, they would be allowed to test the update that Microsoft had created and already tested to see if would impact their... - Andrew Birch

PSN... what went wrong? I'm sure you've all heard by now that Sony's online network, 'PSN' has been severely compromised and has meant that over 75 million users have potentially had their personal information and credit card information stolen by hackers. When I first heard of this, when Sony didn’t make clear of all the details I thought "Oh well, just some sneaky hackers being little jerks, fair enough." Then they told us the full story... it's just not good enough what happened. Hopefully the 'hackers' were simply trying to prove a point (whatever that point may be) and didn’t actually steal anything... unfortunately, we can’t risk anything other than assuming they did steal this information but the reality is, we will probably never find out. - Andrew Birch

One of the worst things computer manufacturers have done for computer security is to include trials of commercial anti-virus software on computers they sell. This may sound strange, because having these computers going out of the factory with commercial anti-virus software means that they have protection as soon as they leave the factory, but it also means the user thinks they're protected, well after the software expires. The user doesn't have to pay for this software when they buy the computer and yet it's pre-installed and working, so most users assume the computer manufacturer sorted that out for them and that they will be protected for a long time. I often have to go out to people's computers and remove viruses that get onto people's systems because the anti-virus software that was supposed to be protecting them had expired (and therefore deactivated) rendering it useless. The process of resolving the problem is normally a 2 step process. Firstly I needed to remove the virus that... - Andrew Birch

The final version of Internet Explorer 9 was released today to the general public after 6 months of beta testing by around 40 million users. The key point I will emphasise now is that any previous perception or opinion you have about Internet Explorer needs to be forgotten when looking at this new version of the browser. Thanks to competition from Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome and a rapidly declining usage share for Internet Explorer, the team at Microsoft who build the browser have had to refocus priorities and rewrite Internet Explorer to be standards compliant, fast, simple to use and secure, to compete with the new competition that has emerged since the last version they released, and they've actually done a very good job with this version. So Internet Explorer 9 is radically different to all the previous versions of Internet Explorer and that's what this review is going to focus on: What Microsoft got right in this version! You can download the final version of the browser... - Andrew Birch

I'm a big fan of smartphones, I absolutely love them. I own and use a HTC 7 Mozart running Windows Phone 7 and it's changed the way I do things. Being a fairly technical savy person though, you might expect that I would have purchased an Android phone which allows you to customise the phone to your heart's content OR an iPhone because of the compatibility and popularity of the devices. I'm going to discuss why I haven't chosen either of those systems and instead picked the more limited and underdog Windows Phone 7 platform and why I simply cannot recommend Android phones to regular consumers. I'm probably going to get a lot of disagreement from Android users, but I stand by my claims. - Andrew Birch

Microsoft today launched a new feature on Hotmail that I think will change the way we hand out our email address to websites across the internet. Many people who are technically savy have for many years created 2 or more email addresses for themselves. One might be a personal address and one a business or address or more commonly, one is an email address for people and websites they trust and the other one is for people and websites they don't trust. These secondary addresses are somtimes known as disposable addresses, because if they become too spammy and bogged down with unwanted addresses, they just delete them and create a new clean one. Microsoft has just taken this concept and made it into something that anyone with a Hotmail address can set up in a couple of minutes. It's called Email Alias. - Andrew Birch

Windows Phone 7 is available in many different countries across the world, but where you live depends on how much of the experience you are able to get. The 3 major features on the Windows Phone revolve around availability of online services and they are the Zune Marketplace, Xbox Live and Bing Local search. Microsoft has not made each of these 3 services available in every country that they are launching Windows Phone in and therefore have created a mess of what services are available on the phone in each country (with some countries even having partial access to some services). - Andrew Birch

The Zune MP3 player and associated marketplace and PC software were first launched in the US in 2006. Between the launch and October 2010, these services were available only in the US and Canada, but on October 11th 2010 the PC software and the marketplace were made available to other countries in the world to coincide with the worldwide launch of Windows Phone 7 which links in with these services. The marketplace is only available in some parts in some countries, such as in Australia where we can access the video, movie rental and Windows Phone 7 apps sections of the marketplace, but not the music section that's available in some other countries. So you can download here in Australia is version 4.7 of the Zune PC Software and it's actually a very decent media management solution which is extremely stylish, simple and quick unlike iTunes 10. The user interface is based on a style called Metro which is now used on the Windows Phone 7 devices and Windows Live Messenger 2011. This... - Andrew Birch

Audacity is a very powerful tool that you can use to record and edit audio. It's pretty easy to use, very powerful, works on Windows, Mac and Linux and is totally FREE! This is a tutorial for those who need a bit of help using Audacity for the first time. For those of you on the Mac who wish to use GarageBand, I'd recommend that. GarageBand has a specific podcast section that will make life easy for you. For everyone else on Windows, this is how to use Audacity on Windows. It goes through every step from installing, to setting up the LAME MP3 Encoder to recording, editing and exporting. If you find this tutorial useful, please tell me, and if you think it needs updating or something extra added, also please let me know. You can find contact links on the left of the page. - Andrew Birch

Yesterday, Microsoft finalised its Windows Live Essentials 2011 suite and made it available for download. The Windows Live Essentials are pieces of software that are designed to compliment Windows and add extra functionality not built into Windows itself. Many of the applications in the Windows Live Essentials are applications that used to be included with Windows (such as an email program, a photo editor, a movie maker, instant messaging program and parental control software). Microsoft took most of the programs that weren't a key part of an operating system (such as all those programs mentioned above) out of Windows 7 (they were all included in Windows Vista) to make the operating system less bloated, to allow them to update them more frequently outside the Windows schedule and probably to avoid another anti-trust case against them. So there is a new version of this suite of software with plenty of changes and many little features and additions designed to make the suite integrate... - Andrew Birch

Facebook Places, the new location tracking service which is a copy of FourSquare was launched in Australia yesterday and already it is concerning me. The service works by tracking where a Facebook user on a mobile device is using the GPS in that mobile device and then when the arrive to a location that has GPS co-ordinates registered with Facebook, prompts the user to Check-In that they are currently at that place. That information is then shared to their friends in the news feed. A few people I know have commenced using it and already I know where someone's house is (with a map) and that someone was at my local McDonalds at 2am last night. Anyone who is friends on their profile could see this information and with the number of friends that some people have on their profiles these days, that's a lot of people to be telling where you are currently. The service I personally believe is dangerous and will encourage stalkers and so here is a guide on how to disable it if you do not wish to... - Andrew Birch

With the Windows Live Essentials 2011 reaching the RTM stage today and being made available publicly to Windows Vista and 7 users + Facebook Chat integration being rolled out to Australian users, it's time to prep your Windows Live IDs so that you can take advantage of these new features (especially in Messenger). Microsoft realised a few years ago that creating another social network would be a complete waste of time, money and resources because the public had already chosen the services they want and would stick with them (Facebook, Wordpress, Youtube, Digg etc). Accordingly, Microsoft decided to turn it's Windows Live service into a place that simply aggregated all the content from those other services into one place so that it is easier to keep a track of and then link that into it's extremely popular instant messaging and email services (Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail) to create a central social dashboard. For all this to work though, the user needs to link up... - Andrew Birch

Microsoft today announced some new security features that have now arrived for Windows Live users to take advantage of. A massive problem for users of many services but especially services like Hotmail which are very popular, is getting their accounts hacked so that they can be used to send spam out. Today Microsoft has added 2 more important features to their arsenal of defenses to allow users to protect their account from being hijacked and also to allow users to recover hijacked accounts.These additional features are called Proofs and are basically ways to verify that you own the account without having to know the password, so that if you forget the password OR the account is hijacked and the password is changed, you can still prove that you own the account and get it back into your control. - Andrew Birch

On Thursday 16th September (Friday 17th for me) Microsoft released the final version of the initial release of the Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools, 2 weeks after the Windows Phone 7 RTM'd and went to phone manufacturers to build some nice new Windows Phones for us. These Developer Tools are free and are available for anyone to download and use some of the best development environments to build Windows Phone 7 applications with ease. I downloaded these when they were released and thought I'd show them to you. This article will stay fairly short as these tools are only aimed at people who wish to write apps for the phone, not for people who just want to buy and use one. - Andrew Birch

Internet Explorer has not been known for being a good browser since the mess that Internet Explorer 6 which was included with Windows XP turned out to be. I think that is about to change. Microsoft has released the beta version of Windows Internet Explorer 9 and just like the first Windows 7 beta that was released in January 2009; this first beta of Internet Explorer 9 feels like a nearly finished, well-polished product. Also like Windows 7, the product was based on a few basic goals and the result is a program which is cleaner, faster and smarter than previous versions. This should only get better throughout the next 6 months before the final product is released in early 2011. This is what the Internet Explorer 9 beta looks like on Windows 7 at the moment. Please note that Internet Explorer 9 will only work on Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 or later and Windows 7. It cannot work on Windows XP (as will all future Microsoft software, Windows XP is a dead operating system). - Andrew Birch

In Windows Vista, Microsoft added a stack of new programs into the operating system, including a photo manager and editor, an updated movie editor (although Movie Maker was added in Windows Me), an updated Mail program, parental control software, a calendar, integrated contacts and much more. In Windows 7, to remove the bloat that had plagued Windows Vista, Microsoft took out most of these extra programs. The replacements that were available when Windows 7 shipped in October last year was actually built 18 months beforehand and was designed with Windows Vista in mind. A lot of us expected the fourth version of the Windows Live Essentials (these extra programs) with Windows 7, but nearly a year later we finally have the beta version of this software, with the final version to ship alongside Windows 7 Service Pack 1 in September or October. This is a brief review of the Windows Live Essentials with the exception of the Bing Bar, Messenger Companion and Family Safety. I won't be... - Andrew Birch

Facebook is the world's most popular social networking website and has attracted over 400 million active users in only 6 years. For quite a while it appeared to be a very safe place to put information to share with friends, without having to worry about the general public seeing it, unlike Myspace which has dropped it's members significantly since 2007. In the last 9 months though, the sugar coating has started to drop off and more and more people are leaving the service. In the last week, high profile tech broadcaster Leo Laporte deleted his Facebook account live on air during his 'This Week in Google' show to make a point that he did not wish to encourage people to use the service. A Sydney teenager was allegedly murdered after she met a stranger who she met on, you guessed it Facebook. So why has Facebook lost its popularity over the last 18 months? The key here is privacy! - Andrew Birch

Today has been big in the Microsoft world. Microsoft finally unveiled their latest version of their IM client - Windows Live Messenger 2010. The software isn't available to download in beta form yet, but they've posted screenshots and videos of what will be available when it's released. The rumors that have come from allegedly leaked documents which state the timeline say that we'll start to get access to the web services from May 23 and a beta of the Windows Live Essentials June followed by final versions of everything in August. That's the rumors anyway. Hopefully we'll see stuff before these dates, because Windows Live 4 and especially Messenger 2010 look very exciting. Microsoft is turning Windows Live into the only place you need to go to find your social online services. Whether you want to IM you friends, send an e-mail, check what's happening on Facebook, Twitter or Flickr or just see what your friends have to say about websites, Microsoft wants you to think of Windows Live... - Andrew Birch

Ever since Windows 98, Microsoft has provided a My Documents folder for you to store all your files in. Most programs written for Windows automatically open the Save As and Open dialog boxes to the My Documents folder so that if you don't know anything about how folder structures work, then you will save it in My Documents where you will mostly be able to find it again. In Windows 2000/Me, Microsoft added a My Pictures folder, in Windows XP along came the My Music and My Videos folders and in Windows Vista it expanded so that there was a Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, Favourites, Links, Saved Games and Searches folder (many of these were already there, but hidden to the user before Windows Vista) in addition to the Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos folder. Windows 7 Added a Podcasts (If You Install Zune 4.0) and Virtual Machines (If You Install Windows Virtual PC). - Andrew Birch

I've been using Adobe Reader for many many years now, stretching as far back as when it was called Acrobat Reader. Adobe has continued to update it's reader and is currently up to version 9. To most people though, the functions of the reader they use have changed very little. For few more advanced users, who use all of the extra features of Adobe Acrobat to make PDFs then you probably have enjoyed the additions Adobe has made over the years, but regardless of whether you use them or not, they're making the PDF reader more insecure (and bloaty at the same time, Adobe have it auto load in the background when you turn on the computer because otherwise it would be too slow to load when you opened a document). - Andrew Birch

John Parr St Elmo's Fire via Blip.fm - Andrew Birch from Blip.fm

via Blip.fm - Andrew Birch from Blip.fm