Bing just announced a new version of the free Bing Application for the iPhone that fixes a number of stability and usability issues.

The new version is only available currently on the US version of iTunes and over a million downloads have already been racked up.

I’ve had the fortune of using Bing on my iPhone and its actually quite a cool looking application and does what it promises. Its interesting to see where this goes especially given the fact that Google and Apple are going head to head with their respective phones. Bing just may become the default search engine on the iPhone.

For me as a consumer, this in combination with Google Apps meets most if not all my needs on my iPhone.

In addition, they have added additional features such as:

• Ability to bookmark maps, sites, businesses and weather.
• Sharing of results via email
• Copy and Paste is now supported within the application
• Search settings and Search history
• Support for all versions of iPod Touch

You can get Bing for the iPhone via the following iTunes Link

Microsoft Translator is a free translation service to allow you as the user to get the most out of on the fly translation of web pages and excerpts and provides tools to users and webmasters alike to deliver these types of services to the web user.

It is API based and there are several applications that use this API that would be useful to both webmasters as well as developers in addition to IE8 users.

Today, we’ll look at 4 ways to use Microsoft Translation services:

1. Translation Accelerator for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0
2. Translation Bot for Windows Live Messenger
3. Windows Live Toolbar Translator Button
4. Webmaster uses for Microsoft Translator (via Widgets)

1. Translation Accelerator for IE8

With the release of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0, there is a built in accelerator to translate languages on the fly. First brought out with IE8.0 Beta 2, it allows the user to highlight any selected text and translate to various languages immediately.

It is as easy as highlighting a section of text in IE8, and clicking on the little blue arrow that brings up a context window. At this point you have two options:

1. If you hover your mouse over “Translate with Live Search”, another window will pop up with choices to translate from and to different languages.

2. Clicking on the “Translate with Live Search” will actually take you to the microsofttranslator.com site (opens in a new window) with the text pasted in and ready for you to translate.

That’s excellent for translating quick blocks of text on the fly (rather than the whole page).

2. Translation Bot for Windows Live Messenger

If you add mtbot@hotmail.com to your Windows Live Messenger contacts, you can call the translation service on the fly via your messenger client. This is a robot translator that you can converse with and you can type “Tbot ?” to get a list of commands that it understands.

The first thing to do is to set up your language preferences. To do this type “TBot Change”. You will be led through a couple of menu choices to choose your source and target languages. Once set up, feel free to converse with the bot as if you are talking to another human, and everything you say will be translated and returned accordingly.

Really easy to use once you get used to the interface and an excellent use of the translator API’s. You can go to the Bot’s Live Space in the Relevant Links below for additional information.

Hint: You can add this user to any chat client that can understand MSN contacts (such as Pidgin for Linux!)

3. Windows Live Toolbar Translator Button

If you use the Windows Live Toolbar, you can easily incorporate online translation by adding the Translation Button to the toolbar. This is achieved by clicking the “+” icon in the toolbar and following the menu to add the Translator button.

You will be taken to the Live Gallery where you can Download and install the button.

Clicking on the Add button will download and add the button to your toolbar automatically. Now, whenever you are at a webpage that you need translating, simply hit the button on the toolbar and a new window will appear with the original and translated text.

When you mouse over any sentence in the original webpage, it even highlights the translated sentence in the translated page view. This is excellent for pinpointing which sentences go where.

If you don’t like the side by side view, you can click on the various view options on the top left to change to a top/bottom or a hover type navigation (where you can be on the original or translated page and hovering over the sentences shows a tooltip with the appropriate translation in it.

4. For Webmasters

Microsoft Translator Services have two services for Webmasters. You can add a Microsoft Translator easily into your website by including a quick line of code in your website code

This puts a small drop down into your page and allows the users to quickly select a language and translating the page. Hitting the arrow will take the user to a similar full page translation as above.

In addition, there is now a Widget available that allows on the fly translation without having to go through to a separate page. This increases user experience significantly. To get the widget code, you will need to get an invite from here: (http://www.microsofttranslator.com/Widget/)

I’m in the process of getting that widget installed on newbtech.

In Conclusion

Microsoft Translation services are good and easy to use. They provide value to both users as well as website authors and provide a better user experience overall. The Microsoft Team behind Translation Services have done a splendid job in expanding our capabilities to view information on the web that may have been otherwise hidden behind a language we may not understand.

Relevant Links

• Microsoft Translator Official Team Blog
• Microsoft Translator Forums
• Microsoft Translation Bot Space
• Webmasters and Blog Authors: Adding a Translator to your webpage

Lets face it, the grass is always greener on the other side. Whether its moving jobs, houses or operating systems, people are always lamenting their present situation and looking for changes. That’s natural human behavior. Mix that with the other human trait “procrastination”, and you have a lot of people who are unhappy where they are but refuse to move on.

There may be a lot of reasons why people need to change, but there are always more reasons to delay the change as much as possible. We tend to get comfortable living with the inadequacies of our current situations and finding workarounds to get things done. While at the same time we complain about how our current world can be a whole lot better. Funny thing is that it can, but putting a change into what we perceive as a working environment, can be like jumping off a bridge.

If you want to move jobs or houses, its very much a situation where you cannot revert back if things go bad. IE, you’ve jumped off that bridge and now find yourself in a whole new environment from which you have to learn your “workarounds” all over again. And face it, there will never be a perfect environment where you won’t have to make any changes at all. Every change brings with itself some joy and some regrets. Its in our nature to miss what we no longer have even if we changed willingly.

Thank god its not the same for operating systems. Technology these days allow us to experiment with different operating systems all the while having a back up ready to revert back to if you don’t like what you see. It gives us the opportunity to leap over the fence and truly see if the grass is greener.

We as users are spoilt for choices. With the latest builds of Linux and Windows coming out and developers listening more and more to their followers, the quality of operating systems are increasing with every release. With that comes better application interfaces that allow developers to create amazing software.

There are alternative application solutions to practically every software out there. See my post on alternative applications for Linux as an example. Also, check out http://alternativeto.net/ if you want to see alternatives for Windows and Mac based software.

People can also dual/tri boot or use Linux Live CD’s or use Virtual Machines to experience other operating systems. We’re truly spoilt.

With so many choices available as well at the ability to revert back, I still see many people wanting to go one way or the other. So, its either Windows or Linux but not both. People gravitate towards the two extremes and always looking to get rid of one or the other.

I am happy.. in both the Linux and Windows worlds. I can honestly say I’ll never get rid of Windows. Applications like Adobe Photoshop and Windows Live Writer while having alternative solutions, will never be replaced in my toolbox. They have become a staple part of my daily user experience and I cannot see that changing in the near future. However, it will always allow me to play with other software knowing I have those as my “back up”..

As long as we have a choice to come back, we will continue to experiment and will eventually change on our own. We don’t need to be pushed, coerced or actively look for a reason to change. That will come naturally.

Its important that people continue to have choices and our need for change will always result in corporations striving to ensure that we all have quality user experience. And that is something to look forward to.

I’m now starting to use offline blogging software to write some of my posts. I had a look at a couple of offline blogger applications to see which one suited my needs best. The two that looked most promising were Windows Live Writer and Zoundry Raven. Both has had an excellent feedback recently especially when blogging to engines such as Blogger and Wordpress.

While I had the latest version of both installed at home, I had a major issue installing Windows Live Writer at work. I run Windows Server 2003 on my desktop at work and the installer for Windows Live simply refused to work on it.

After a bit of research, i found that it was only the installer that had the issue and I could install Windows Live Writer via the .msi. In the end, I found the .msi file in my temp folder on my Vista machine at home. (I also found an .msi on the net, but that was for either Dutch or an older version). This one is for Windows Live Writer 2009

For others who are running Windows Server 2003 and the installer complaining, I’ve uploaded the .msi file to my Skydrive. You can download it from here:

http://tinyurl.com/gimmeWindowsLiveWriterMSI

NOTE: This is the 32 bit version!

If you need any other MSI’s (eg, Live Messenger, etc), please leave a comment or send me an email.

I’d appreciate a comment if this helps you in any way :)

Related Posts

One of the more popular online storage providers out there currently is Google with their GoogleDocs application. This is a pretty cool application that allows you to upload and share all manner of documents.

Microsoft has done it one better with their latest offering called Microsoft Skydrive. Similar in concept, it’s one of the services provided by Windows Live that gives you your very own online drive where you can store just about anything.

More impressively, the space you are allowed to store is a mind boggling 25gigs! Thats a whole lot of space :)

So what would you store in these 25 gigs? Here is an idea.. practically everyone out there now has a digital camera of their own (my four year old has her very own.. in pink). And how many people out there keep back ups of their photos? I bet a lot of folks out there have no back up strategy and dump all their photos on their local hard drive only to lose it in the next boom-event (ie, virus, hard drive failure, accidentally formatting your hard drive while trying to install Linux on a separate drive – yeah.. that happens too ;) ).

So how do you get access to this free space and use it as an alternative to Google Docs and other sharing systems (such as Picasa and/or Flickr, etc)?

Right.. lets start shall we? 

Pre-requisites

We have to have a Windows Live account. If you use MSN Messenger or Hotmail, its likely you already have a live account. If you don’t use MSN Messenger, or you know you don’t have a live account, don’t fret.. we’ll create one on the way. (not really a prerequisite aye?)

Step 1

Open up your favourite web browser and go to http://skydrive.live.com

At this point, one of two windows may pop up. If you have already used live.com before and have marked yourself as always log on, then you’ll go straight to your home screen. If you haven’t yet (and i’m assuming you haven’t), then you get the following window pop up (left)

If you don’t have a Live id, then here is the time to create one. Its free and easy to follow through. Simply hit the Sign Up button on the left and follow through the wizard to get your live id.

You can also associate your live id with your current email address so are not creating yet another email address just to use Windows Live.

Once you have got it, return back to Step 1 and go back to the login page and log in with your Live Id.

Step 2

Right, we got the login page and our live user id. Simply log on by filling in your username and live password on the right hand side of the screen. You can use your own judgement if you want the user to be remembered on your computer or not. Ideally, if you are in a public or friends place, i would suggest not ticking the tickboxes :)

Click on Sign In when you’ve entered your information.

You will be taken to your Skydrive. The main parts of the screen are:

• Your Recent Folders (as well as any new folders you may create here)
• Amount of space free (at the top right corner)
• And anything new in your network (note: you get a whole bunch of options similar to facebook that you can play with by clicking on the "Profile" menu on the top of the screen. I’ll let you play with those).

Step 3

Lets create a folder to hold some photos. Click on "Create Folder" (a link just on top of Recent Folders). A small wizard will appear to ask for the name you want to give your folder as well as sharing options.

You can make this folder Public (ie open to all) or limit it to people you trust or just yourself.

Hitting next then shows you an upload page. You can upload documents in one of two ways, either using the "browse…" button and locating a file, or installing the upload tool. You’ll get a link on the top of the browse boxes if you haven’t installed the upload tool yet.

I would recommend installing it as it offers a nice drag and drop functionality. Simple enough to install. Email me or leave a comment if you need specific instructions.

Step 4

Lets upload some things into our new folder. If you have installed the load tool, you’ll see see a large box on your screen with "Drop files here" instructions. Open up My Computer and navigate to the document you want to upload and simply drag it into this box.

It should upload and appear in your new folder :)

The "Drag here" box will drop down and the photo will appear on the top window. If you want to add more files, simply drag more into the Drag box.

Step 5

Once you have finished adding the files you wish to upload, simply hit the Upload button. At this point all the documents you have selected will now be uploaded into your folder. It may take a while if you have chosen large files or large number of them. Once they are all done, a successful message will appear and you’ll be taken to the gallery.

And thats about it :)

Clicking on an individual photo will open it up in its own page. You even have facilities to add captions and if you share with people, they will be able to add comments against your photos too.

As an exercise, i created a Public folder to hold Windows 7 Wallpaper that someone released around the net :) You are welcome to browse my public folder by clicking on the gallery picture below:

I have only shown Image type files being uploaded here. Its also possible to upload other types of files and share them if required. I haven’t gone through all the features of Skydrive, so feel free to play around and leave a comment here to tell us if you like it or not :)

Above all, its 25gigs of space that you can put to use.. and for free.. and you can’t beat that.

Relevant links:

• Exploring Windows Live SkyDrive
• Wikipedia for SkyDrive
• Windows Live SkyDrive Team Blog (on live spaces)

Erm.. surely it can’t be true? Where has Firefox and Chrome gone? Could this be just another marketing hype released to coincide the release of Microsoft IE 8.0?

 

Microsoft just released a new version of it’s web browser today. Packed with features and add-on’s, its trying hard to retain its user base. A lot of people prefer Firefox as their browser, but the fact remains that with the advent of technology such as Ajax etc, a lot of developers out there are trying to provide a richer user experience and sometimes, providing this level of interactivity results in issues when rendering the pages in any browser other than IE.

It will be interesting to see if this new version is smaller, faster and more secure than the previous versions. I thought I’d upgrade my work machine just to see how easy it is to upgrade and see if there are any major differences in browsing experiences.

I’m assuming at this point that most people out there are now on IE7, so this will be an upgrade.

Step 1

Started by navigating to the IE8 Homepage and clicking on the huge download link and saved the application to my PC. It was a 16meg download for me (it automatically detected my language set, so other language sets may differ slightly in size).

File downloaded and hit Run to start the install. It starts off with the obligatory "customer satisfaction survey" opt-in dialog:

Followed by the obligatory "License Agreement":

Step 2

Finally, we are ready to install.. ticked the Install Updates box and hit Next and waited for the magic :)

Relevant links:

I stumbled across Small Basic on DevLabs. And its catch phrase caught my attention: “Small Basic is a project that’s aimed at bringing ‘fun’ back to programming.” I wasn’t a believer at first, and I simply had to try it.

It turns out that its simplicity is captivating. Sure the functionality is limited, but it was simple enough that almost anybody can use it. Start coding, then click Run, and you get instant results. I think this is the perfect tool to get somebody to be interested in programming. One of our colleagues was looking for something to get his kid started in programming, and there is no need for him to look further :)

The “Intellisense” is also pleasing to the eyes, it allows you to scroll over what you can use in your code. The site mentions that there are only 15 keywords for you to use, thus reconfirming Small Basic’s goal to keep the programming experience as simple as possible.

Anybody looking for other diagrams to try out can look here: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Tessellation.html . It will be a good exercise to think of ways on how to make your turtle draw diagrams like these out:

What I’ve shared here is just the tip of the iceberg. Small Basic is ideal for anybody wanting to get their feet wet in the world of programming. Or if you want to recall your experience in writing your first program, give Small Basic a look

We will over the next month or so come up with more detailed articles on this simple yet excellent piece of software.

Here are some links that may be useful:

• Home Page of Microsoft Small Basic
• Getting Started Guide
• Small Basic Forums
• Small Basic Blog
• Small Basic WIKI

-article prepared by Bryan Hong 19th March, 2009