A Real Windows 8 Office: Coming Eventually

Windows 8.1 codename “blue”.

Tech

Officially, the big news from Microsoft’s BUILD conference in San Francisco is the release of a preview version of Windows 8. But I’m at least as interested in another nugget from the show: Microsoft is (briefly) showing off a version of PowerPoint which uses the new Windows 8 interface and saying it plans to have new-style Word, Excel and PowerPoint versions ready some time in 2014.

As ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley reports:

Delivering the Gemini Office applications months after Windows 8.1 is released seems to me more like something the old Microsoft rather than the new, more nimble Microsoft, would do. If Microsoft officials are not simply underpromising and actually planning to “overdeliver” by getting these apps into the Windows Store in 2013, the Office team won’t have these new apps ready in time for holiday 2013 — which may or may not matter in the grand, selling scheme.

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How to Be Nice to Tourists: A New Manual for Snooty Parisians

Travel,International

NewsFeed

Updated June 24, 12:24 p.m. EST

Are the French finally feeling the pinch of their struggling economy and embracing the concept that “it pays to be nice”? Tourism offices in Paris–a city notorious for being unwelcoming to foreigners–are hoping to avoid losing visitors to friendlier destinations by distributing a handbook on being more courteous, reports Reuters. 

(MORE: 10 Things to Do in Paris)

Titled, “Do you speak Touriste?”, the small pamphlet provides specialized advice for retailers, hotels, restaurants, and taxi drivers on how to be more welcoming to Paris’ visitors–half of whom are coming from outside of France. Friendly responses to common scenarios are demonstrated in eight languages, including Spanish, Italian and Chinese.

The guide also offers suggestions to help locals better understand how visitors from various countries prefer to be addressed. “The British like to be called by their first names,” the guide explains, while Italians should be shaken by…

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Reset tiles in the “Start menu” screen on Windows 8

If you ever want to wipe the slate clean of tiles, so to speak, try this:

1. Start key
2. Gesture from right to activate the charms menu. For non-touch devices (PCs), do an Alt+C and click Settings:
3. Tiles
4. Under “Clear info from personal tiles” click the Clear button

Done!

Figure 1

 

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Network analysis feature in Process Monitor

Process Monitor from Windows Sysinternals, part of Microsoft’s Server and Tools division, combines the best of familiar but now extinct tools. By extinct I mean deprecated or no longer supported. The warranty* expired.

Windows 8 PC running Process Monitor

Events with a highlight filter applied

Time of Day and Process Name columns

Right-click menu

The context-sensitive [right-click] menu allows you to highlight a specific number of rows (events displayed horizontally) with only a particular column match highlighted. The example above is right-clicking on the Operation column of a particular row.

PID, Operation, and Result are columns in photo

But how Process Monitor combines all is just the start. They also allow you to filter. My favorite part of the toolbar in Process Monitor is the

All five turned on except “profiling”, the default settings

To filter out just the network traffic, click on each highlighted box to deselect except this highlighted icon in the photo below:

Show Network Activity icon

Then turn on the Autoscroll feature, off by default:

Autoscroll (Ctrl+A)

Allowing you to get a real-time,scrolling, network [event] trace like this:

Just remember to turn on the other three show buttons (file, registry, process). Don’t turn Profiling on, unless you want more data. Refer to the onboard [F1] Process Monitor help.

For more information on support lifecycle, and how to download Process Monitor, refer to the references section below:

References

URLs

*Microsoft Support lifecycle website

Windows Sysinternals

Twitter Said To Be Preparing Location-Based Ads For Clicks And Bricks

TechCrunch

Twitter is reportedly working on geolocated promoted tweets to help retailers target specifically consumers within spitting distance of their stores, according to AdAge. The location-based ads might be ready to launch as soon as later this year, the report claims, and would be the perfect means of delivery for spot deals designed to drive foot traffic to brick-and-mortar retailers and other businesses to nearby shoppers.

This is an area where Twitter lags behind Facebook in terms of giving its advertisers access to targeting tools. Facebook has been doing zip code targeting for a couple of years now, while Twitter has yet to introduce anything along those lines. Lately, the 140 character-based social network has been rolling out a lot of new ad programs, however, and geo-targeted tweets are a natural fit for Twitter, which has an incredibly strong mobile user base and which already displays trending topics based on…

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3D Printing Arbitrage Is The New Hotness

TechCrunch

As the 3D printing space heats up and home printers gain ground, there’s a new breed of startup that aims to grab the transactional costs associated with connecting printers and people. The first one I saw (and used), MakeXYZ.com, launched last February. Now the space is about to be inundated with competitors.

3D printers are still expensive. Like early laser printers, they are a major investment and their operation is sometimes fiddly. However, the value of a printer goes up immensely when owners are connected with people who need things printed, just as early users of Brøderbund’s Print Shop would soon become the desktop publishers of the 1990s.

My own experience in the market has been enlightening. First, I’m on the first page for “3D printing Brooklyn” in Google, making me a go-to source for one-off prints. I’ve already printed a number of eyeglass frames for an artist in…

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HTC Courts Bully #2 From Weird Science For A Much-Needed Marketing Boost

TechCrunch

Look, there’s no question that HTC’s in a bit of trouble, and it’s at least partially because of its marketing woes. While HTC just recently posted some weak quarterly financials, rivals like Samsung are flush with cash to pump into their marketing and ad budgets. That said, HTC is looking to make a big a splash as it can, and Bloomberg reports that the Taiwanese OEM has reportedly tapped none other than Robert Downey Jr. for a two year, $12 million smartphone ad campaign.

Yes, really. And to be clear, they’ve reportedly inked a deal to feature RDJ’s likeness, not that of movie alter-egos like Tony Stark/Iron Man (though really, wouldn’t a tie-in like that make more sense?). Bloomberg’s Tim Culpan goes on to note that Downey will get final say over the ad campaign’s creative elements, which seems like it could go either way. He may be a gifted…

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