It’s an exciting time at MWGEEK. Very soon we will start posting device reviews. There will be a variety of mobile focused devices. Stay tuned!
I have learned the hard way how important a good password management plan is. My windows live account is easily my most used account. I have had it hacked once and ever since then I’ve taken care to carefully follow my password management plan. That plan includes using password management tools (such as KeePass) and using complex, unique and expiring passwords across services. Since implementing that process with Windows Live I’ve realized the password expiration and reset process for Live accounts is broken.
No warnings
This all started with me making the conscious decision to implement expiring passwords in Windows Live. That all started with checking the “Make my password expire…” checkbox.
You would think doing this would result in friendly reminders a few days before the expiration date that your password is expiring, right? WRONG. Unlike expiring Windows passwords, expiring Live passwords are really not handled at all as far as I can tell. Sites that have implemented Windows Live logon start providing you with non helpful errors when trying to access live services.
Inconsistent messages
When trying to sign into Hotmail via the web you’ll get a “This site may be experiencing a problem”
When trying to sign into Windows Live Messenger you get a “…there is a problem with your Windows Live ID.”
As you can see the messages are inconsistent and are even worse on devices like the XBOX 360 and Windows Phone.
Broken process
So let’s say you’ve been through this headache a few times before, if you knew what the problem was you’d be able to change your password easily right? WRONG.
If you try to logon to a site like https://account.live.com to change the password in this instance you get the same error as you got when trying to logon to Hotmail via the web.
You have to find your way back to the Windows Live logon page and click the “Can’t access your account?” link.
Yet that is no easy feat either, especially if you’ve ever told Live to remember your logon information. It normally takes a series of cache clearing and IE restarts and sometimes even Windows restarts to get to that point.
So after you do get to that point there would be a choice that says “My password has expired” right? WRONG.
You have to select “I forgot my password.” Which in my case isn’t true at all. The other two options don’t get you anywhere close to where you need to be and normally result in the same incorrect errors as above.
This takes you through a CAPTIA…
and then a reset using one of four options.
At that point you’re finally back to where we all started. Selecting your password and deciding whether to check the “Make my password expire…” checkbox.
For me the answer is to always check it; but do you think a normal person would ever go through this again?
Microsoft… fix this.
A normal person is the one who most needs to be persuaded to engage in good password management practices yet the lack of process and common sense you must go through with Live passwords is a HUGE barrier to entry.
Let’s face it a lot of things need to be fixed here. Yet, the first on this list would probably have the most impact. Just do password expiration reminders like Windows does.
- You should be reminded your password is about to expire across any device or website that uses the Live logon
- If your password has expired the messages should be clear and consistent across any device or website that uses the Live logon
- Resetting an expired password should be an option. I didn’t “forget”
Microsoft, to provide a consumer focused service you must have consumer focused processes. This is obviously not the case here. You can do better, and I, as an avid user, expect you to.
Posted in Live, Microsoft | Tagged Hotmail, Security, Zune | Leave a Comment »
On October 24th, Brian Seitz announced on the Windows Phone Blog that an event called the Windows Phone Inner Circle would be coming to multiple cities in the United States. I was happy to see many smaller markets including places like St. Louis and Nashville.
MWGEEK is based in St. Louis, so there was no question we would attend. The event was held at the Malt House Cellar in St. Louis on 11/10/2011. It was a nice relaxing venue. I had expected these events to be like a typical tech conference with rows of chairs and PowerPoint presentations. Instead it was much more relaxed and personable. The only presentations were some videos of the new features of Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) running on the TV’s around the venue. The only presentation is when one of the Microsoft folks would take the microphone and announce winners and thank us for coming. It wasn’t a sales pitch, the phones sold themselves, and that was evident by the reaction of those there who didn’t have Windows Phones already.
There were also members of the Windows Phone team available who would talk to you about the phones, your current experiences, and perhaps most important of all feature suggestions. I had some really interesting conversations with a few of those guys.
Many 7.5 phones such as the HTC Titan, HTC Radar and Samsung Focus S were on display also. There were international only devices such as the very cool Fujitsu Toshiba waterproof phone with a 13 MP camera, I really believe this phone would do great in the states. Unofficially there were a few Nokia Lumia 800 devices that were well hidden in pockets, but they came out from time to time. That really is a sharp device.
Giveaways consisted of phones (the HTC Titan and Samsung Focus S), XBOX live games and skateboard decks.
Overall it was a great event style at a great place with great people. I really hope to see more Microsoft events in the St. Louis area. The turnout surprised me honestly, and I hope it did the Microsoft folks as well. Check out the pictures below and go get in line for one of the new Windows Phones!
Source: Windows Phone Blog
Posted in Hardware, Microsoft, Mobile, Nokia | Tagged Inner Circle, St. Louis, WP, WP7 | Leave a Comment »
Well Nokia lived up to their promise by having Windows Phones out by the end of the year. They did so via the announcement today of the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710. These will only be released overseas by year end. Reviews around the web so far are positive.
I’m excited that the Windows Phone ecosystem continues to grow with a range of hardware. But, all I can think is that by the time they start releasing Nokia Windows Phones to the U.S. we’ll probably be looking at a “Lumia 850″ with a front facing camera, NFC, LTE, etc. That non-existent device could definitely be a contender to replace my Focus when the time comes. I just think for Nokia to really wow the U.S. market again that they’d blow our socks off with every bell and whistle imaginable. (Notice i didn’t mention dual cores, I love my battery life and current speedy 1st gen Windows Phone).
Good job Nokia and Microsoft. I’m sure this is just a small taste of what is to come.
Find out more about both devices here.
Source: Windows Phone Blog
Posted in Hardware, Microsoft, Mobile, Nokia | Tagged Mango, Nokia, WP7 | Leave a Comment »
Having used Mango (beta) for a few months there were many features that immediately made a positive impact on my day to day usage. I’ve picked some of my favorites from the official list from Microsoft (this post will be updated over time).
- Speech Commands: text messages – Depending on your settings if you have a Bluetooth headset/ car adapter or headphones plugged in and you receive a text message the phone will read you the message, ask you how you want to respond, and depending on your answer, convert your reply to text or quit bugging you. This is completely hands free when receiving texts, and only requires you to hold down the Windows Home button to initiate it yourself. This works REALLY well and it’s easily become one of the features I’ve really grown to love.
- Threads: Windows Live/ Facebook messaging – Until the speech command above spoiled me I was a very firm believer that there was absolutely no reason to use texting. It is expensive and you can get more our of email or IM. Well, with Windows Live Messenger and Facebook messaging built right into the Messaging hub there really is no reason to text. But if you do, you can easily text or see if your friends are online in any of these other services and switch between them at will in a single conversation. It works really well.
- History view – see all your interactions with your contacts, regardless of type (phone, text, email, Twitter, etc) in a single pivot on their Contact card
- Calendar: Facebook integration – Facebook events automatically appear in your Windows Phone calendar. They are colored differently, but integrate well.
MORE TO COME…
Source:
Posted in Microsoft, Mobile | Tagged Mango, WP7 | Leave a Comment »
I had been using Windows Phone Mango for a few months prior to the official update today. I had expected to find a few surprises once I had updated, and I have. Below are the little things that I’ve come across. These may or may not be new for the official Mango release, but I had never noticed them previously. (This post will be added to over time).
- App/ People List Alphabet “sticks” until next letter while scrolling. So this one is a bit harder to describe. If you have a long enough list of apps or any amount of friends the list is sorted alphabetically with the letter in a small square in between the sections. Previously that letter scrolled out of view just like any entry. Now, that letter “sticks” to the top of the screen letting the entries for that section scroll past it until the next letter appears. This caused one of those Windows Phone “wow moments” for me.
- LinkedIn connections much more visible in people hub. I never noticed additional entries in the people hub for my LinkedIn contacts until the official update.
- Linking Twitter accounts to people’s profile. When you click the Link button at the bottom of a persons profile you also get all your Twitter connections to choose from. These Twitter connections don’t show up in the people hub natively, only when linking.
- PG voice to text. I was going to show my friend who just updated to Mango how the new voice to text feature worked by calling him a d-bag. I was surprised to find that TellMe interpreted the word but sent it as &$#*^!&*@*. We tried this with a few other choices words and had similar results. This is funny.
Posted in Microsoft, Mobile | Tagged Mango, WP7 | Leave a Comment »
This is being shared all over the internet, but for my loyal readers I thought I would let you know that it appears you can trick Zune into giving you the Mango update even if it says it is not available yet. The folks over at wpcentral have put together these steps and I can verify they worked on Samsung Focus (v1.3). I doubt this would work for any hardware that is called out explicitly on the “Where is my phone update?” page that is still in work. I make no warranties as to any unforeseen issues this may cause. Proceed at your own risk (although it seems the risk is small if any).
Source:
Posted in Microsoft, Mobile | Tagged Mango, WP7, Zune | Leave a Comment »
UPDATE: 9/27
If you have a Windows Phone, you no doubt have been asking yourself this question. Well today, we have an answer…sort of. It has been rumored over the last few days that Mango would be released today. According to Microsoft’s Where’s My Phone Update? website (updated 9/27) Mango is in the scheduling ”delivering update” phase for most all United State’s carriers. In 10 days or less it should be out for delivery. It seems it’s not it is officially Mango day. , but you can smell it coming can’t you? a My Samsung Focus that was running the beta Mango is now updating to the final version. My other Samsung Focus (v1.3) is still waiting for the update.
In addition to the Mango news, Microsoft has also released its Windows Phone Web Marketplace. You can now browse and buy apps without a phone or Zune client. This is great as it’s been nearly impossible to do this before without using some other website that is filled with ads.
Finally, Brandon Watson, from the Windows Phone team, announced this little nugget via Twitter.
Got a case of the Mondays? Here’s a fix:
#wpdev folks will roll forward to Mango RTM, & will *not* roll back to NoDo. Thank you engineering.
Indeed, THANK YOU EGINEERING! Until this post it was believed that folks who were on the Mango beta, like myself, would have to revert back to a NoDo backup before updating to production Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango). I get to keep my spot in Angry Birds!
This is an exciting time, and so far it appears that Microsoft and it’s partners have corrected most of the mistakes we saw during the NoDo update. Get excited world, for those of you who haven’t yet used or seen Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango), it will knock your socks off. In the coming days I’ll start posting some of my favorite features.
Source:
Posted in Apps, Microsoft, Mobile | Tagged Mango, Marketplace, WP7 | Leave a Comment »
If you are a Windows Phone user and have a Yahoo fantasy sports team, I’m sure you’ve been looking, and probably unsuccessfully, for a WP7 app that will let you manage your teams. Well the wait is over. The folks at Bushwood Studios have released an oddly named app called Fantasy Ferret that lets you do just that. I only partake in Fantasy Football but according to the current app description (version 1.4) this app supports football, baseball, hockey and basketball. I’m assuming you interact with all the sports similarly but I’ll be writing about how it renders my football team/ league.
PROS
- Free – it is ad supported, but that doesn’t impact the usability.
- Easy Set Up – although the app doesn’t walk you through initial set up, simply tap the setting icon in the application bar and enter your Yahoo login info in the browser window that appears. I also noticed that Yahoo then sends you a notification stating this has been done.
- Speed – I was testing this on Wi-Fi but was still impressed by how quickly my league info, including avatar images, appeared. This is also true for players on my team.
- Functionality – it has a very good feature set including full team roster, league standings, team matchups, multiple week viewing and the ability to add/ drop players. I don’t think it would let you do your drafting, but I’m not sure
CONS
- Feature Placement – you have to view all the matchups for the leagues to find the option to view the matchup feature for your team for the week. I wish there was a link to the matchup feature in the app bar on the standings page.
- Design – there are a few minor issues, again in the matchup page, where 3 digit scores are slightly cut off. A few of the descriptions of the app bar buttons are also cut off.
- Live Tile – I’m spoiled with Mango live tiles, so am slightly disappointed this doesn’t have one.
- Lack of player detail– I think adding player news, stats and play status would make this app even more powerful for the fantasy sports faithful.
Overall, I’m impressed with the app knowing that it is the first Yahoo fantasy sports app in the marketplace that I’m aware of. There are a few minor design issues that could be improved upon, but I’m happy to say I never experienced any app errors or crashes. I’m sure a few more releases will clan up these small oversights and possibly add some pro features that the hardcore crowd may find necessary. Regardless, it is worth your time if you have a Yahoo fantasy team.
My Rating (4/5)
Download from the Zune marketplace here.
Posted in Apps, Mobile | Tagged sports, WP7, yahoo | Leave a Comment »
As a registered developer I’ve been lucky enough to have Mango installed on my Samsung Focus for nearly a month. This week Microsoft officially released the “Beta 2 Refresh” of Mango to registered developers. This “Beta 2 Refresh” release is obviously much more refined, with the noticeable improvements being Twitter and LinkedIn integration over its predecessor.
I had pondered for some time how much info to share since installing the first beta of Mango. There was so much to share and it deserved so much detail I couldn’t give it the credit it was due. Luckily, Microsoft itself has filled the gap by its posts on the “Windows Phone Developer Blog” and the “Windows Phone Blog”.
Rather than rewriting everything they have posted I’ll simply add to this post with links to appropriate posts on the aforementioned Microsoft blogs.
The links will come, but let me leave you with a teaser. If you’re a current Windows Phone user, you will be blown away by the enhancements. If you’re not currently a Windows Phone user but are in the market for a new device, try a Windows Phone with Mango (they’ll be in stores this fall), it really is incredible.
With Windows Phone, and Mango specifically…Words doesn’t do it justice, it’s something you have to experience.
Posted in Microsoft, Mobile | Tagged Mango, WP7 | 2 Comments »
