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Wondering where to turn to contact Microsoft Customer Support?

Wondering where to turn to contact Microsoft Customer Support?

I’ve been asked this a couple of times today, so I thought I’d include a couple of helpful links:

Microsoft KB 295539: How and when to contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support

imageTo make sure you receive the appropriate support information for your location, select your region setting from this list and click the arrow button.

Microsoft Support Home Page as shown here:

image

– Click here to submit your questions or to offer us comments.

Microsoft Answers, the consumer-based forums where you can search, browse, and post questions and answers. Thousands of community members—including Microsoft folks—are here to help. – Link to Microsoft Answers, the community-based forums where you can search, browse, and post questions and answers.

Tags: Microsoft, how to, customer support, Microsoft Product List 2010, feedback, customer service.

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Just a thought on WikiLeaks, author Dan Brown and 256-bit encryption keys

Interesting how the WikiLeaks news . This from The Washington Post article, from Anthony Faiola

“Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks Web site whose release of sensitive U.S. documents on the Internet has generated outrage and embarrassment in official circles, was denied bail Tuesday after he was arrested by British police on a Swedish warrant for alleged sex crimes.

“In a warning to Swedish and U.S. authorities, however, Stephens said this weekend that his client was prepared to retaliate if charged. He said Assange might release the secret code – with a 256-bit encryption key – of a massive file quietly distributed this summer that contains thousands of unredacted documents.”

These references to a 256-bit encryption key reminded me of Dan Brown’s novel, Digital Fortress.  You can read a synopsis on Wikipedia. This on the long 256-bit key from the article:

“The brute force search used by TRANSLTR takes twice as long for each extra bit added to the key (if this is done sensibly), so the reaction of the industry has understandably been to lengthen the key. The Advanced Encryption Standard established in 2001 uses 128, 192 or 256 bits, which take at least 1021 times as long (i.e. 270) to solve by this technique.”

 

Tags: Wikileaks, Security, what I read, Microsoft Security Essentials.

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Stand Up for your health at the office

Today as the weather starts to turn rainy and cold again, I was reminded to focus on good health and being more physical in an environment that may not always allow it.

Someone asked in a meeting in my office yesterday why I have a standing desk.

Good question, I answered. Not a Microsoft interview caliber question, but worthy, especially as I don’t recall the last time someone asked.

As much as I like to across campus (when weather permits 😉 to meetings and sometimes with peers and others in the company. This makes the time productive as well as provide a physical benefit. But this isn’t always practical. Personally, when cooped up in the office on rainy days, I’ve taken time to walk the building, going up and down each set of stairs and walking the length of each floor. In 15-20 minutes, one can get a substantial cardio workout.

One of the things I like about my office is a standing workstation. In order to combat the cumulative effect of sitting (as noted here: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/172/4/419.abstract) with solutions that are conducive with work at the office. In my case, a standing, ergonomic desk really fits the bill. As noted in her blog post for the New York Times earlier this year, Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist, calls to our attention…

It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.

Some people have advanced radical solutions to the sitting syndrome: replace your sit-down desk with a stand-up desk, and equip this with a slow treadmill so that you walk while you work. (Talk about pacing the office.) Make sure that your television can only operate if you are pedaling furiously on an exercise bike. Or, watch television in a rocking chair: rocking also takes energy and involves a continuous gentle flexing of the calf muscles. Get rid of your office chair and replace it with a therapy ball: this too uses more muscles, and hence more energy, than a normal chair, because you have to support your back and work to keep balanced. You also have the option of bouncing, if you like.

Which reminds me: I need such a desk at home. My kids are using a therapy ball in place of a chair, but the standing desk makes a lot of sense there, too.

Tags: Microsoft, health

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How to access your bookmarks on Windows Phone 7

As I noted in my post with tips on moving from an iPhone to a new Windows Phone 7, I also touched on how to sync several files, including the backing up of my iPhone’s browser bookmarks. I failed to note how I access my favourites on Windows Phone 7, which I do via the power of Windows Live. (There are different ways to sync files on your phone, depending on the type of file and where it’s stored. To learn more, take a look at the article on syncing files with your phone.)

One easy way I’ve found to use the list of my favourites (sorry, in the US it’s favorites 😉 I use OneNote Mobile. As I noted previously, OneNote lets you take notes and sync notebooks with your new Windows Phone 7 and integrates easily with Windows Live SkyDrive.

Internet Explorer Favorites are Internet bookmarks, simply web URLs (such as http://blogs.msdn.com/mthree) along with the friendly names for them (“M3’s blog”).  Surprisingly, I found that I had relatively few iPhone bookmarks saved on my device, likely a testament to how I used the phone: often, I linked to sites from an email or app. As noted in my previous post, since Apple’s iOS v3 release, bookmarks can be backed up in iTunes.

When you connect your iPhone to iTunes, you’ll see an option to “Sync bookmarks with Internet Explorer”. This will enable iTunes to save your bookmarks and have them appear in your IE Favorites list.

Now, with my bookmarks all loaded into IE’s Favorites, I exported my favorites from IE as noted in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211089 – you can select which folder to export (if you have many, as I do) or just export them all.

Once I exported the Favorites file (as “bookmarks.htm”), I opened this file in IE. Using cursor I selected the bookmarks displayed in the browser window that I wanted to reference on my phone. I then copied and pasted the selection into a new OneNote document right in Windows Live (I use Office 2007 at home — shame on me — and Office 2010 at the office, which with OneNote 2010 can be linked directly with Windows Live — very slick).

You can also use the quick and dirty method by copy and pasting the Favourites directly into an email and send it to yourself (a tip I use from time to time to remind myself of other important items ;).

Click here to learn more about using Favorites and history in Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Phone 7.

Additional resources

 

Tags: articles, what I read, blogs, Microsoft, travel tips, Windows Phone 7.

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How to access iphone bookmarks on Windows Phone 7, How to access IE favorites on Windows Phone 7, How to access IE favourites on Windows Phone 7

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How to sync files like notes and tasks on your Windows Phone 7

As I noted in my post with tips on moving from an iPhone to a new Windows Phone 7, I also touched on how to sync several files – namely notes. A number of folks asked how to sync notes and files with your new Windows Phone 7.  There are different ways to sync files on your phone, depending on the type of file and where i’s stored. To learn more, take a look at the article on syncing files with your phone.

I’m a huge OneNote fan and OneNote Mobile lets you take notes and sync existing OneNote notebooks with your new Windows Phone 7. It integrates easily with Windows Live SkyDrive (I love having 25GB of free online storage in the cloud).

To sync a notebook on Windows Live SkyDrive for the first time

  1. On Start, flick left to the App list, and then tap Office.
  2. Flick to OneNote, and then tap All .

  3. Tap Refresh.

  4. Tap Yes in the Sync with SkyDrive? message box. Wait while you’re signed in with your Windows Live ID.

  5. Afterward, a personal notebook named Personal (Web) will be created in your My Documents folder on Windows Live SkyDrive and synced on your phone.

  6. Type your notes.

For more info about saving Office documents to Windows Live SkyDrive, see Save a document to Windows Live from Office 2010 on the Microsoft Office website. For more info about getting started and using OneNote Web App, see Introduction to OneNote Web App on the Microsoft Office website.

You can also read Notes on Office.Live.Com – there’s more than one way to skin a cat (so to speak). An easy way to view Outlook Notes on my Windows Phone is by using my folders on office.live.com. In Outlook, I can click on a Notes file and save as a .txt file, which in turn I can post to my SkyDrive (aka, office.live.com) and view on my phone.

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For information about syncing notes between your phone and SkyDrive, see Use Microsoft OneNote Mobile.

Also see this post from Julie, one of our MVPs, on pocketprimer.com on sync’ing tasks with Remember the Milk.

Windows Phone 7 does not include a tasks application and there’s no way to sync Outlook tasks to the device.  Even if there were a way to sync tasks, there’s no place to store them once they get there.  This to me is one of the greatest deficiencies of windows phone.

A few years ago I signed up for a free “Remember the Milk” (RTM) account.  At the time I didn’t have a prevailing reason to move my tasks to the cloud and there was no windows mobile support for RTM, so I didn’t seriously consider using it. 

But now with windows phone 7, I had a strong incentive to find a different way to work with tasks on my phone, so I rummaged around and found my RTM login credentials and took another look at this well known, well regarded, cloud-based tasks application.  I figured I could at least have access to my tasks through RTM’s mobile website.

Then last week, I discovered WinMilk in the Marketplace (in the Productivity category). I downloaded it to my phone, set up my Remember the Milk login credentials and all my tasks information synced beautifully to my phone.

 

Tags: articles, what I read, blogs, Microsoft, travel tips, Windows Phone 7.

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