Author: M3 Sweatt

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Your questions: What the heck are you doing at Microsoft and what is CPE?

I was asked today: "just what are you doing at Microsoft these days? And what is this CPE thing I read about"

More of the same actually, as I originally noted here. (As well as this humourous look.)

In short, I work with product and services groups across the company to improve satisfaction with our customers and partners.  These customer-focus efforts are some of key tenets of our work that we refer to inside Microsoft (in both the business groups and SMSG) as the Customer and Partner Experience (aka CPE, another $MSFT TLA). More on the work we do at Microsoft to improve the Customer & Partner Experience – or CPE at the company – can be found in this Executive Summary and in my succinct post here.

Related to CPE is the work we do on the Microsoft GRS.

Uh oh, another Microsoft three letter acronym (TLA ;).

Every year, Microsoft turns to the Microsoft Global Relationship Study (GRS) to better understand the customer satisfaction our customers and partners though their thoughts, concerns and ideas. Their feedback has helped increase our understanding of their business needs, improve our products, and make it easier for them to do business with us. We focus on the results of the survey (and other research, such as product satisfaction) and make key changes. More information available at http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/grs/default.aspx.

And as Eric noted in his post, Microsoft also has many sites available "to share your experiences and connect with Microsoft to find solutions, learn about resources and much more." Here are a few:

 

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Tags: misc, CPE, Microsoft, Windows 7, customer satisfaction.

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Now available: Microsoft Office OneNote for Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iOS

**Free for a limited time**

I love Microsoft Office OneNote on my Windows Phone 7. I f I still used my iPhone 3GS, I could now get OneNote there, too: the team has released Microsoft OneNote for the iPhone. Follow the team blog (including outside the US availability) here. 

You can get Microsoft’s OneNote for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad at the Apple iTunes App Store at http://bit.ly/fACSbl. As Michael Oldenburg noted today…

“Since I began looking at Microsoft Office 2010 Beta feedback last year, the one question so many of you asked perhaps more than any other was “When will you release a OneNote app for the iPhone?” I’m happy to say that the time has come. First, check out the official announcement by Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Office Product Management Group. Then head over to the iTunes App Store to download OneNote Mobile for iPhone. It works on any iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 4.2 or later, and it’s free for a limited time.

“With OneNote Mobile, you can create and view notes and lists right on your iPhone. Your notes can be synced with your Windows Live SkyDrive account so you can access, edit, and share them from virtually anywhere. (Don’t have a SkyDrive account yet? Sign up here — it’s free!) You can also use OneNote Mobile for iPhone to view and edit any of the notes that you’ve created on your computer and synced to your SkyDrive account.”

Microsoft OneNote Mobile is the easy-to-use, powerful note-taking application for all of your ideas, brought to you by Microsoft Office. OneNote Mobile lets you create and view notes and lists whenever you need them. Sync your notes with free Windows Live online storage and access them from virtually anywhere using your phone, PC, or almost any web browser.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.

    iPhone Screenshot 1    iPhone Screenshot 2

With OneNote Mobile, you can:

  • Create flexible notes that can include text, pictures, bullets, and checkboxes
  • Check To Do items off on the go
  • Save time with quick access to your most recent notes
  • Work with confidence—OneNote Mobile automatically syncs your notes with Windows Live in the background
  • Organize your notes into sections or create new notebooks using OneNote 2010 or OneNote Web App and access them from your iPhone

Requirements:

  • iPhone or iPod touch must have iOS 4.2 or higher
  • A free Windows Live ID is required to use OneNote Mobile —use an existing one or let OneNote Mobile help you sign up
  • Web functionality uses the free OneNote Web App available on Windows Live, which requires a supported web browser
  • OneNote Mobile opens notebooks created in Microsoft OneNote 2010 or the OneNote Web App
  • Customizing section colors requires Microsoft OneNote 2010
  • Access your notes online at http://office.live.com.

As noted on the on the San Francisco Chronicle site today…

“Microsoft took a huge step forward in its mobile strategy this morning: for the first time, the company has released an Office application for Apple’s iPhone.

“OneNote, which has been part of the desktop Office family since 2003, is a natural fit for mobile touch-screen devices: it’s supported touch interface (with a stylus, true, but touch nonetheless) since its inception. Users often want to take quick notes on the go, and OneNote backs files up to the cloud via Windows Live SkyDrive, giving users access to all their notes from any location and device with an Internet connection.

“It’s also a great move for Microsoft, which needs to maintain the relevance of Office — its number-two business, with revenue of about $13 billion a year — as smartphones and tablets grow at the expense of Windows PCs.“

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/18/businessinsider-finally-microsoft-brings-first-office-app-to-iphone-2011-1.DTL#ixzz1BQ0s6oJc)

Good stuff.

UPDATE 01/18 – 12:50 PM PST from the OneNote Blog… 

OneNote Program Manager Daniel Escapa confirms that due to the overwhelming response to the OneNote Mobile app release today, we have received reports from some customers who are experiencing an error when they attempt to login. Specifically, you may encounter the following error message: “Loading list of notebooks failed. (400).”

The underlying cause is an intermittent issue due to the overwhelming interest in the app. The current workaround is to keep attempting to sign in. Once you get past this error, OneNote Mobile will sync without any problem. The OneNote team is actively investigating the issue and believes to have identified the cause. An update for the app is in the works. Please check back for further developments as they become available. We apologize for any inconvenience and sincerely thank you for your patience and interest in OneNote Mobile.

Tags: Apple, what I read, iPad, Microsoft, travel tips, Windows Phone 7, what I read, OneNote.

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OneNote on Windows Phone 7, OneNote on Apple iPhone

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Curious how to back up your PC? There are a few free options via Windows Live

Listening to you’re a local radio show today en route between building on our shuttle this morning about backing up your PC, I thought I’d note that a number of firms offer free and commercial options to back up your PCs. Microsoft does offer free ways for consumers to do this:

It’s also easy to back up (save copies of) your personal files, such as pictures, music, and documents, for safekeeping. More info at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/backup-and-restore.aspx – it’s easy to do this with an inexpensive attached or network accessible USB hard drive, or even a flash drive connected right to your PC (I rotate a few keychain-sized flash drives on my main personal computer at home).

If you’ve read this blog previously, you may also know that I rely on my Windows Home Server, including my HP MediaSmart EX470 as well as my recently added Acer Aspire easyStore AH340 Home Server.

Just a couple of thoughts.

 

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Tags: how to, Home Server.

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A favourite application: Microsoft XML Notepad 2007

Added 040813: A quick note to respond to Judy’s query: I successfully use XML Notepad 2007 on Windows 7 today – here’s the DL link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7973. Although it’s not expressly called out as compatible, there are a number of older utilities that may not have been formally tested with Windows 7, but work just fine (or via compatibility mode). BTW, I use Windows 7, Windows Server 2012, Windows Phone (7.x and 8), and Windows 8 (RT and x86) at the office.

A shout out on a new, refound favourite application: Microsoft XML Notepad 2007, a simple intuitive user interface for browsing and editing XML documents.

Here’s a little history on XML Notepad from Chris Lovett: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905339.aspx

“I finally got around to fulfilling a promise I made to a friend at MSDN. Back in 1998, we shipped an XML Notepad, written by Murray Low in C++. Later on it fell behind in support for XML standards and, because we didn’t have time to fix it, we pulled it off MSDN. But Murray apparently did such a nice job that MSDN was inundated with requests to put the notepad back up, so MSDN asked me for a replacement.

“I’ve been working on System.Xml in C# since 1999, so I figured I could crank out a replacement using the .NET Framework pretty quickly. Well, the problem was it was one of those side projects on my “one-day” list — you know how that goes! Fortunately, a good friend of mine, Michael Corning, took interest in it, helped hold my feet to the fire, and also added some cool features himself. Dan Doris also took pity on me and helped identify some great bugs. So here we are, finally, with something that should be useful to those who want a quick way to view and edit XML documents.

“For those who know the original version, the interface should look familiar: a tree view on the left synchronized with a node text view on the right and handy nudge toolbar buttons for quick movement of nodes up and down the tree (see Figure 1). Because it’s been so long since the first version, I’ve had to leverage the cool stuff in System.Xml and add some bells and whistles that the original version didn’t have:”

  • Incremental search (CTRL+I) in both tree and text views, so that as you type it navigates to the most matched node.
  • Cut/copy/paste with full namespace support in a simple interoperable XML format.
  • Drag/drop support for easy manipulation of the tree, even across different instances of XML Notepad and from the file system.
  • Infinite undo/redo for all edit operations.
  • In-place, pop-up, multi-line editing of large text node values and IntelliSense based on expected elements and attributes.
  • Configurable fonts and colors via the options dialog.
  • Full find/replace dialog with support for regex and XPath expressions.
  • Good performance on large XML documents (loading a 3 MB document in about one second).
  • Instant XML schema validation while you edit with errors and warnings shown in the task list window.
  • Support for custom editors for date, dateTime, time, and color datatypes.
  • HTML viewer for displaying XSLT transformation results.
  • Built-in XML Diff tool.

 

Tags: Microsoft, how to, customer support, XML.

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Announcement: Microsoft Security Advisory 2490606: Vulnerability in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution

This just published on TechNet’s Microsoft Security Advisories and notred on the MSRC Blog: details on Microsoft Security Advisory 2490606, Vulnerability in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution…

Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability in the Windows Graphics Rendering Engine. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the security context of the logged-on user. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

We are not aware of attacks that try to use the reported vulnerability or of customer impact at this time.

We are actively working with partners in our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) to provide information that they can use to provide broader protections to customers.

Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers. This may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.

Affected Software:

  • Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2 
  • Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, x64 SP2 and SP2 for Itanium-based systems
  • Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and SP2, as well as Windows Vista x64 Edition SP1 and SP2
  • Windows Server 2008 RTM

Non-Affected Software: Windows 7 for 32-bit and x64-based Systems, Windows Server 2008 R2 for x64-based and Itanium-based systems.

As noted, teams are are working to develop a security update to address this vulnerability. The circumstances around the issue do not currently meet the criteria for an out-of-band release; however, we are monitoring the threat landscape very closely and if the situation changes, we will post updates here on the MSRC blog.

As always, we encourage Internet users to follow the “Protect Your Computer” guidance of enabling a firewall, applying all software updates and installing anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Additional information can be found at Security at Home.

For more details on the Security Advisory you can subscribe to our comprehensive alerts here to receive email when there’s new information.

 

Tags: Security, what I read, Microsoft, Windows 7.

MSRC references: Security Advisory, Workarounds, Defense-in-depth, Exploitability

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