NevOn

WordPerfect, Office 12 and a trip down software memory lane

CNET News: Corel on Tuesday announced an updated version of WordPerfect Office, its rival to Microsoft's dominant Office suite.

This news item triggered some synapses to take a short trip down software memory lane, so here goes.

I've been using Microsoft Word for over twelve years now, from version 6 when it was called 'Word 6 for Windows' to differentiate it from the DOS version. I beta-tested Word for Windows 95 and have moved with the various versions in the ensuing years to today's 2003 version as part of the latest Microsoft Office suite. Beta tested that, too, prior to release. (Good history of Word on Wikipedia, if that interests you.)

Before Word, I was a devoted user of Ami Pro, originally published by Samna and then by Lotus when they acquired Samna (and Lotus was subsequently acquired by IBM). Terrific application. But it didn't move with the times among other things. Before that, it was WordPerfect, specifically version 5.1 for DOS which was arguably the dominant word processor (that description sounds quaint today, doesn't it?) in the late 80s and early 90s. At least, that's what every company I knew was using.

Prior to WordPerfect, I was a WordStar diehard from waaaay back in the days of CP/M. That's another story, though. There's a great history of WordStar on Wikipedia.

Tucked away in my attic are boxes of museum-grade software from the early and pioneerings days of the IBM PC (remember the phrase 'IBM-compatible computer'?), which takes in just about all the 1980s especially the early part of that decade.

Filling the market gap for offline blog editors

Some readers of this blog have left some great comments to my post last week about offline blog editors. In that post, I talked about ecto for Windows, BlogJet and Qumana as examples of popular editors for Windows (and for the Mac, in some cases) which enable you to write your blog posts offline, on your own computer.

I'm now looking closely at Anconia RocketPost, a suggestion from Netanel Jacobsson.

On just a first quick look after install, I am impressed with this tool. It's the closest I've seen yet to a solution to what I believe is a yawning gap in the market for a robust and reliable blog editing application for Windows that's easy to use yet with powerful features. A sort of Microsoft Word for blogs. Could this be the one?

RocketPost offers a 30-day free trial which I'm on. Then it's $100 for the license for the professional version (there are three versions including a free one).

I'm writing this post with this app. Very easy and intuitive to use.More later once I've played a bit with RocketPost.

[Edit] Hmm. It didn't publish without my going into TypePad directly and publishing it. The post was in the list of posts and shown as published, but it hadn't been. I'll hold judgment on the reason as I suspect it's more to do with Typepad - the server response back to RocketPost from posting took a very long time (4+ minutes) and logging in to my account simply took ages.

More choices with offline blog editors

I use an offline editor to write nearly all my blog posts. This means I'm not dependent on a network connection nor the vagaries of the internet between my PC and the hosting service (TypePad for this blog), or even my own server where I have my WordPress blog.

Plus, I always have the original content on my local PC - peace-of-mind insurance if you can't connect to your blog host for some reason (or, nightmare scenario, a problem on the remote server means you lose your stuff and you didn't do a backup yourself).

But offline editors aren't perfect. In my experience during the past 18 months or so, one of the problems with those for Windows PCs is that they tend to be somewhat flaky. Crashes, peculiar behaviours, even puzzling interface glitches at times.

I use ecto for Windows as well as BlogJet, both of which you pay for (they do have free trial periods) and both of which are not bad in their different ways. Yet if you take a look at the numerous technical and usability issues continually raised in the support forums for both products, it's hardly surprising if you have less than full confidence in either of them.

Still, my editor-of-choice remains ecto for Windows, currently on version 1.8.8 and with a new version 2 in the works for release soon. BlogJet released a new version last month, currently 1.6.1.55. (I reviewed both of these tools in September 2004. A lot has changed with both apps since then, and I plan a new review sometime after the new version of ecto for Windows is released.)

One other editor for Windows which I've never really used to any extent is the free Qumana, currently on version 2.0.2.96. I tried it mid last year at Tris Hussey's urging but fell back to ecto, which I'm most comfortable with (ie, I know its quirks)

Now, though, there's a new cross-platform (Mac/PC) version of Qumana in preparation, planned for launch early next month. I'm trying out the by-invitation beta of it, the latest build of which I've just installed. My first acid test - writing this post with that beta.

What do I think? Well, I'll likely be posting the odd commentary as I play with it in the coming weeks, mostly focusing on usability.

On first use, it looks promising.

Powered by Qumana

Skype 2.0 out of beta

Lots of interesting news about Skype and some of the things they're announcing at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. (Heads up for visiting the CES website: loud Flash intro page.)

More interesting news - version 2.0 of Skype software for Windows is coming out of beta today and will be available for download from Skype's site at 13:00 Eastern time (18:00 GMT), according to an overnight email from Skype's PR agency SparkPR.

I tried an early 2.0 beta last month and didn't like it at all. But I've been running the latest beta build for the past few days and it is just great, no negative issues with it.

So I for one will be grabbing the gold when it's available later today.

Who do you pay attention to for advice on Windows vulnerability?

When news about the latest Windows vulnerability gets talked about in the news all over the place, you tend to pay close attention.

If you haven't been doing that, here's what this latest issue is all about, involving a Trojan called Exploit-WMF which is spread via some instant messaging software and email.

It's actually hard to tell what to do with so much conflicting and downright wrong advice being bandied about.

Microsoft's advice yesterday is to wait until an official patch comes out on 10 January:

[...] Although the issue is serious and malicious attacks are being attempted, we have found that the scope of the attacks is not widespread. AV companies have also indicated that attacks are being effectively mitigated through up-to-date signatures.

On the other hand, some experts advise using an unofficial patch to combat this latest Windows vulnerability rather than wait a week for Microsoft's fix.

If you decide not to use the unofficial patch and instead wait for Microsoft, at least make make sure all your antivirus and antispyware signatures are up to date. And take extra care with your IM sessions.

The rigmarole of Norton Internet Security

Notwithstanding the Dell Hell saga of last year, I love my Dell Dimension XPS Gen 5 which I bought in August. From a hardware point of view, it works perfectly. No issues whatsoever, so I'm a more than satisfied Dell customer.

I wish I could say the same about some of the software running on it, especially Norton Internet Security 2006 (NIS) for Windows.

I've been a user of Symantec's Norton product line for at least six years (and from long before that, when Peter Norton first rolled out Norton Utilities for DOS in the early 80s). So Norton is a brand I like, respect and am willing to lay out hard cash for.

Yet NIS drives me nuts.

Twiddling thumbs

Waiting for chkdsk to complete its diagnostics including a free space hard drive scan on a Windows XP computer is like watching paint dry. And about as thrilling.

Continuing my housekeeping mode from yesterday, I'm now spending too much time this morning trying to nail down an irritating little issue that seems to revolve around Norton Internet Security (cathartic rantlet on my MT blog).

So rather than just twiddle my thumbs while I wait, let's have a quick look around the PR blogosphere to see what's going on at the moment:

Looks like a real hornet's nest has been stirred over PR measurement. This stems from a post by Katie Paine where she expounds on her new PR Value Ratio measurement concept. My podcasting co-host Shel Holtz supports Katie's theme (we discussed it in show #98 of our bi-weekly podcast), and takes John Wagner to task on his dissenting views about PR measurement. John weighs in with a robust defence.

This is a terrific topic for some trenchant debate. No doubt we'll see the conversation continuing (maybe I'll contribute a eurocent or two's worth of opinion once I've absorbed the full conversation flow: sounds like a promising thought for post New Year's Eve partying tomorrow, depending on the Alka-Seltzer XS quotient).

Next, Alaska Airlines and their growing PR crisis if commentaries in the blogosphere are any indicator. This is about the blogger who was on the flight a few days ago which suffered cabin decompression. (Shel and I discussed this, too, in show #98.) Very interesting comments in one of Jeremy Hermanns' (the blogger concerned) posts - 125 at the last count.

How will this play out for Alaska Airlines who clearly have not grabbed any communication initiative here? At the very least, lots of bloggers won't be flying with that airline in future. Watch this space.

Ah, chkdsk has now finished its 45-minute diagnostic. Jeez! At least it gives the hard drive a clean bill of health. And in case you're wondering how I can be writing this post when the desktop PC's undergoing a disk check, I'm using my laptop ;)

So, back to housekeeping and nailing down Norton.

Organizing for the New Year

Housekeeping's on my mind today.

After enjoying Christmas in the UK with family, and being almost wholly switched off from the blogosphere for the best part of a week, I'm finding it quite refreshing to sit in front of my desktop PC today and think not about blogging but about hardware, software and sorting out a few things.

So with clients on holiday and little work pressure for another week or so, I'm focused on spending some quality time on re-organizing my computing environment as well as playing around with some cool toys I picked up while in the UK.

First up, putting in place a better file backup system than I currently have. I bought a new external hard drive, a Western Digital Essential External USB2 Hard Drive, 160 gigs capacity (but will that really be enough?). My first purchase of a WD hard drive: I've always bought Maxtor until now. Mind you, I'm still keeping it in the family.

Already installed - literally, just plug it in - and the first full system backup done with Norton Ghost.

Ghost isn't the software I'll use for regular file backups, though. A great review in PC World magazine took me to SimpleTech and their StorageSync product which fits the bill nicely for easily backing up documents, images, podcasts, video, etc. I'll also be able to access the WD drive from other PCs on my network.

Which takes me to my next housekeeping task - sorting out my home network.

Getting back up to speed with TypePad

A welcome sight for every TypePad customer - you can access the TypePad service again and you can update your blog to reflect accurate content.

(Quick jump: I've included some tips below on how to republish your blog and how to make a backup of its post content.)

If you didn't visit this blog at all yesterday, you won't have noticed the lack of latest content nor that the blog was offline for much of the day as a consequence of the complete outage of TypePad service for about 18 hours. As I have a WordPress blog in addition to this one on TypePad, I was able to post during Friday, including further commentary about this matter here. (Take a look at the comments in both of those posts.)

From a quick scan around this morning on what bloggers are saying and what some mainstream media are saying about yesterday's service outage, it's pretty clear that Six Apart have quite a job on their hands now to rebuild some credibility as to the ongoing reliability - perhaps even its viability - of the TypePad service.

More on this later.

In the meantime, I'm sure one question on every TypePad customer's mind will be - did I lose any of my stuff during this loss of service?

According to Six Apart, no. I'd agree with that view purely from what I'm seeing on this blog. Everything is there and now up to date (but see below). If you have a blog with lots of photos - a photo album, for instance, or a moblog like mine - you'll likely encounter lots of blanks where you expect to see your photos.

Don't panic, though - all the data is still there, according to Six Apart. While they will be working during the weekend to get everyone's blogs up-to-date, you can do this yourself by republishing your entire blog again, as follows:

Republish your blog

1. Log in to your TypePad account.
2. Click on the names of one of your blog accounts (or the only one). You should now be at this location: TypePad home > Your Weblogs > [Blog name].
3. in the Weblog Editing Shortcuts column on the right, click on the link under Design that says "Edit your current design." You should reach a page entitled "Edit current design for [blog name]."
4. Location: TypePad home > Your Weblogs > [Blog name] > Design.
5. Scroll down that page until you see at the bottom two buttons: "Preview" and "Republish weblog."
6. Click the obvious one!
7. You'll get a pop-up window with a drop-down list of choices. Make sure that list says "Publish all files" (it should as this is the default choice).
8. Click on "Publish."
9. Wait until it's done and then visit your blog to check. All should be up-to-date. You might need to force a refresh so that your browser reloads the blog from the server rather than from your browser's cache. In Windows, you can do this by pressing F5 or holding down the shift key as you click on the refresh icon in your browser.

I did precisely that for this blog and for my moblog (although the moblog didn't update all the pics - blank ones sport the legend "Image being restored this weekend"- so that will wait for Six Apart to complete their updating).

Next, do your own backup of the content of your blog. Here's how:

Backup your blog

1. Log in to your TypePad account.
2. Click on the names of one of your blog accounts (or the only one). You should now be at this location: TypePad home > Your Weblogs > [Blog name].
3. Above the blog name towards the top of the page, you'll see a row of links. The one you're looking for says "Import/Export."Click on that.
4. Location: TypePad home > Your Weblogs > [Blog name] > Post > Import/Export.
5. Scroll to the very bottom of the page, where you'll see a link called "Export Posts from your TypePad Weblog: [blog name]."
6. In Windows, right click on that link and choose "Save link as..." (Firefox) or "Save target as..." (Internet Explorer).
7. You're done.

What you'll have a is a plain-text file saved to your computer that contains all the text content of your blog, including all comments and trackbacks. What the file doesn't have is any image from your blog. But you have the originals on your PC, right?

Now, back to normal blogging!

Technorati: Six Apart, typepad.

Yahoo! hammered by users over poor successor to Konfabulator

In my post on Monday about software hits and misses, I gave the new Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.0 a definite 'miss' verdict for the moment as this version for Windows really doesn't appear to be worthy of unleasing on an unsuspecting public as this growing comment thread in the support forum clearly indicates.

When I posted on Monday, that thread had two pages of comments. It's up to five pages now where users are bitterly complaining about so many issues with this successor app to the really great Konfabulator product.

What's interesting is how many of the comments include highly negative opinions about Yahoo! and the perceived damaging affect its purchase of Pixoria, the original developer of Konfabulator, is having on application development. Undoubtedly there are some trolls in there commenting but, nevertheless, here you have lots of Konfabulator users - many of them passionate about that product - who are connecting the problems with this new version with Yahoo's take-over of the original developer.

I doubt there's any connection at all. But it's perception we're talking about here. This perception/connection situation prompted an embattled Ed Voas, the member of the original Konfabulator team in charge of the Windows version, to make this exasperated comment in response to one poster -

Why is this all about Yahoo!? Yahoo's purchase of K is not what caused your upgrade issues. We have always moved older Widgets to an Older Widgets folder when we are moving in the newer ones. That said, it was NOT supposed to move ALL of your Widgets out. I definitely apologize that this is happening, because it's just plain wrong. I was told that Update was working properly. I guess it was not, and it's not something I'm happy about either.

It looks like there are some major disconnects somewhere within Yahoo! application development. It also looks as though they are finalizing a quick fix: from a reply by Ed to another poster -

[...] In any case, I believe I have this fixed now and the fix will be in 3.0.1.

I wonder how many people will treat even the fresh installer with some caution in light of what's happened this week. I for one will get it when it's available but, before installing it, I'll be seeing what's being said in the forum. Meanwhile, I'm comfortably staying with Konfabulator 2.1.1 which works just great.

If I were Yahoo!, I'd be getting that 3.0.1 fix out there asap. There doesn't appear to be any meaningful commentary about this in any blogs - it's all just within the support forum. I'd be surprised if that remains the case if the issues aren't resolved quickly. I'd also be posting some kind of explanation on the website of what happened, with an apology. I'd say the apology will go a very long way indeed in smoothing some very ruffled feathers, and helping keep the situation to no more than that: ruffled feathers but still broadly happy customers.

If I were Yahoo!, I'd be taking a look at the The Social Customer Manifesto if I hadn't already done that.

As I write this post, that fix version 3.0.1 is not yet available for download.