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Success: I have Windows Mobile 6.1 update on my AT&T Tilt

Earlier this week I twittered that I was going to embark on a perilous effort to (gasp) install Windows Mobile 6.1 on to my AT&T Tilt, given that HTC finally released the update on their site(http://tinyurl.com/5uqey2).  I was about right that it would take an evening — about two hours in fact.

I walked through the set up process fairly quickly as the installer is pretty straight forward.  After downloading the file from HTC’s web site and installing on my PC, I ran the update package and was presented with a series of screens to verify that I in fact was aware that I was updating the ROM.  I ended up updating from ROM image 1.57.502.2 to 3.57.502.2 as noted here…

htctilt1

… and then began the update procedure…

htctilt2 htctilt3

… but then whoops!

 htctilt4

What happened? 

The cable seemed to be fine but the device lost connection during the update.  Luckily, running the installer again from the beginning corrected the problem and my device was updated in less than the estimated 10 minutes.

htctilt5htctilt6

That was the easy part.

Device clearing storage: that took the better part of an hour.

And then reestablishing the partnership with my PC, logging on to the network, installing my contacts and updating mail and my standard applications?  That took another 45 minutes or so. 

All in all, I was done in around two hours and the interface is now updated, the phone’s battery life seems to last much longer, I now have the much envied HTC Home Screen that my wife enjoys on her HTC Touch, and I’m able to send and receive phone calls (always good with a phone).  I haven’t put the phone fully through its paces, with the Video Share Calling and Remote Desktop Monitor, but I’ll get there soon enough. 

For now, I’m quite happy with my new phone, and highly recommend it.

Tags: Windows Mobile, Microsoft, HTC

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Says Geek Squad: “[our] agents have one thing over Apple and Microsoft engineers. We spend most of the day talking to people.”

I twittered tonite (I can stop any time) that Matt Richtel wrote in his article in the Times yesterday, Industry Rethinks Moneymaking Software Practice…

"Before they ship PCs to retailers like Best Buy, computer makers load them up with lots of free software. For $30, Best Buy will get rid of it for you.

"Robert Stephens, head of Geek Squad, said of removing preinstalled software, “We’ll give consumers what they want.”

Mr. Stephens of Geek Squad says he agrees with H. P. that the future is in allowing computer buyers to choose and download what they want. But he said he believed Best Buy, not H. P., was in the best position to help people choose what works for them because, he argued, the in-store technicians are in closest contact with them.

"Geek Squad agents have one thing over Apple and Microsoft engineers. We spend most of the day talking to people," he said.

Questions? Really?  In my experience at some retailers, rarely do I see any of the in-house support agents (such as Squad members) answering questions for the customers with the puzzled looks shopping in the computer department.

Road trip: I’ll be visiting a couple of local electronics retailers tomorrow as a customer to pick up a product.  Let’s see what happens.

Tags: Best Buy, Retail, New York Times, Customer Service

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Advisory: Daylight saving time changes in Brazil and Pakistan for 2008

What time is it?As I twittered today, there are a couple of new changes to daylight saving time in the world.  You may already know about the changes to daylight saving time in Morocco as well as the new move to daylight saving time coming to Mauritius in October.  Now, here are a few more changes coming in Brazil and Pakistan:

Brazil has published new dates for daylight saving time (known in the country as the início do Horário de Verão) for 2008-2009.

As confirmed on Brazil’s Ministry of Energy web site, the Electric Power Sector Monitoring Committee (aka the Comitê de Monitoramento do Setor Elétrico, or CMSE) set the new dates for DST, which will begin on October 19, 2008, and end on February 15, 2009.

See this link for more details (in Portuguese) or this link for the translation into English.

Pakistan will delay their "fall back" this year, as confirmed on the DAWN site here, Pakistan’s federal cabinet extended DST to Oct 31/November 1, which initially began on June 1 this year.  This is a delay of the change that was supposed to happen on September 1: as such, clocks will "fall back" by one hour on November 1 rather than September 1.  (This information has also been updated here: here on the faridi.net new site.)  It appears that the information has not yet been posted to any government sites in Pakistan.

Important information to note at the moment on these changes: there is currently no hotfix available at this time to update Windows Operating Systems with the new 2008-2009 DST dates for Brazil, and the current version of KB 914387 or does not contain information about the new DST settings for Pakistan. More on remediation and mitigation in coming soon. 

You should be aware of these changes and verify any meetings that occur in these countries.  One challenge (as I have said a few times on this blog) is that when you install either DST hotfixes or cumulative updates, and governments make late-breaking changes to DST and TZ rules,  appointments on your Office Outlook calendar could end up being be off by an hour for a few weeks. For example, say that you do business in Pakistan, and you have meetings scheduled between September 1 and November 1 (the delta period).  Chances are that after applying the August 2008 DST & TZ update, KB951072, meetings that occur during this delta could be off by one hour. 

<soapbox>

I have to recommend that in order to achieve more seamless transitions to new DST rules and time zones, governments should provide…

  1. official confirmations of planned changes to DST and time zones that are well publicized, and
  2. provide ample advance notice and concentrated efforts on promoting the change to the affected citizens is a requirement. 

If you look at how Turkey considered a move to DST, and Australia approached their changes this year (this past April, 2008, as noted here), governments allow a reasonable amount of time between the announcement and the actual change.  A step further, as noted on the Australia Eastern & Central 2008 Daylight Saving Changes page, the Aussies set up the official Australian Government Time web site to educate end users. 

</soapbox>

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Mauritius, Morocco, Brazil, Pakistan; 3,690,000 (up from 3.4M a week ago); 2,490,000 (up from 900K a year ago); 1,472,886

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http://tinyurl.com/5u4ck7

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Announcement: Changes to daylight saving time in Morocco, earlier than later on September 1, 2008

As I twittered today (geek gasp), I learned today that according to news reports (here, en Francais), the ministry for the Modernization of the public sectors in Morocco just issued a notice that the country will change the clocks back on the midnight between August 31 and September 1, rather than on the original change at midnight between September 27 and September 28 in 2008. (For more on the change, see also the article posted here per the keepers of the international time and date web site.)

“In an official statement, the ministry announced the return to standard time as from September 1st, 2008 as it corresponds to GMT…”

This may present challenges for Moroccan consumers, industries and enterprises, and IT Pros will be inconvenienced independent of the architecture they support. As I noted previously, with little warning or time for customers to react, we could see severe impacts in Morocco and some impacts worldwide. Such a timetable does businesses and infrastructure in Morocco and nearby regions to make the changeclip_image002, nor does it allow the worldwide community to make the needed changes to their systems and infrastructure.

So, what should you do?

Glad you asked.

Of course, less than a week is a tough time to get everyone alerted to this change, similar to something we reported late last year on Argentina (as outlined and posted here).  In order to achieve more seamless transitions to new DST rules and time zones, ample advance notice and concentrated efforts on promoting any change should be provided to the people and businesses impacted.

For now, I recommend that for customers who have applied the August 2008 DST & TZ update, KB951072 to deselect “Automatically adjust clock for DST” in the Date and Time control panel on Sept 1, as noted at right. We’ll have additional guidance published this week.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, DST, Morocco 

http://tinyurl.com/5mnnen

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Talk to Mark Russinovich via the Springboard Series on September 24th

Mark RussinovichI just ran into Mark Russinovich (of Sysinternals fame) in the hallway and was reminded that on September 24th, he will host a virtual roundtable for IT pros worldwide to explore as I’m told “top of mind performance issues, common misconfigurations, and tips on how to fix them. From boot times and applets to disk performance and battery life, this is chance for IT pros to find out how to optimize Windows Vista and what they can do to improve overall system performance.”

Tell your friends to save the date and join Mark on September 24th at https://ms.istreamplanet.com/springboard.  As posted previously, Mark has hosted these live Springboard Series virtual roundtables discussing issues such as Windows Vista security .

As part of the “virtual” experience, you may submit questions about performance and optimization to Mark and the rest of the panel live during the event, or submit questions in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.

Also of note: Mark’s Blog covering topics such as Windows troubleshooting, technologies and security.

springboard


Save the date! Wednesday, September 24, 2008 9:00am Pacific Standard Time.  To learn more, visit the Springboard Series site.


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