Windows

For the past two weeks or so, I've been stuck rather unfortunately with a Windows laptop. The DC In board in my iBook suffered some trouble, and as such, is being repaired. Despite using this computer for almost two weeks now, there are still some things that I just cannot get used to about Windows.

The main thing is the interactive focus of the system. On Mac OS X, the icons along the bottom refer to applications as a whole, just as Command-Tab and other icon references do. This means I can click a Dock icon, and it focuses the application, allowing me to easily manipulate it.

But this doesn't happen on Windows. The taskbar icons refer to application windows, which means that I can't focus on the application and easily flick between application windows without having to worry about other programs getting in the way.

The other major problem is window closing behaviour. On nearly all Mac OS X programs, closing the last window doesn't kill the program. Instead, it just sits there waiting until you close it, or until you next use it. Sensible, especially if you want to bring up a browser window at lightning speed. The problem with most programs on Windows, though, is that when you close the last window (let's say, for arguments sake, Internet Explorer), the program becomes unloaded from memory and thus, loses focus. I can't then just press Ctrl-N to spawn a new window. Instead, I have to wait for the system to load the program back into memory before I can use it again.

Seems insane. I would rather have control over what my system is doing exactly, but Windows takes a lot of that control away. Opening two Word documents opens two instances of Microsoft Word, which results in twice the memory usage. Closing those documents means that Word has to be loaded back into memory again!

The behaviour of Windows is odd, and quite frankly, all wrong.

GPRS/EDGE

The mobile internet is the future. People will be able to receive IMs and emails, photos and RSS feeds, software and updates on their phone, while they are out and about. Chances are that the prices will come down, too. Flat-rate data plans overall work out pretty well. I've been using one on O2 for some time, and it's quite acceptable. Windows Live Messenger and push email are two definite positive points (being a Windows Mobile smartphone user). But where do the technical limitations draw the line?

On a good day, with a good signal with an EDGE connection, you are still looking at least 500ms ping. That can go up to an average of 700ms without EDGE (so instead, plain GPRS), and up to 1000 to 4000ms on lower signal strength. Obviously a second or two doesn't matter for your IMs or emails, but streaming of any kind is pretty difficult. 3G obviously was created for this purpose, but don't expect all of those non-3G handsets to ever do something like online radio too well. (Youtube via EDGE is bad enough.)

Mobile connections still aren't good enough to support a lot of more bandwidth-intensive or time-critical applications, but mobile connectivity is certainly progressing. If not, there's always WiFi, right?

Windows Blue Screen of Death

I was ultimately amused to find that Mac OS X Leopard's Network folder in Finder displays Windows machines with a Blue Screen of Death icon. Classy.

BT Home Hub, Part II

Having decided that the state of affairs with the latest BT Home Hub software version was completely unacceptable, I decided it would make most sense to downgrade the software version back to 6.2.2.6.

I headed off to the BT website to find the recovery software, and downgraded using the software recovery utility. I also made entirely certain that I changed the configuration so that the automatic update would no longer happen, and that BT cannot update my software remotely.

If you are interested in downgrading your software, you should take a look here. In case BT update the firmware updater to use the latest version and it becomes inescapable, here are the direct links:

• Utility for Mac OS X (Readme and instructions)
• Utility for Windows (Readme and instructions)

Much better.

BT Home Hub

It's this sort of thing that inspired me to start this blog in the first place. Today, the BT Home Hub absolutely must be discussed. You'll probably have heard recently about the hype surrounding the BT FON Community Wireless agreement, which allows owners of the BT Home Hub to share a small portion of their internet bandwidth wirelessly, and receiving free access to the BT FON network elsewhere. Sounds like a pretty good idea, right?

Purely out of interest, I opted into the service. I waited a couple of days, and wake up one morning to find that the software on my BT Home Hub has been updated and that suddenly, my router is broadcasting a BTOpenzone access point too. Absolutely intrigued, I connect to the BTOpenzone network and try it out. Looking pretty good so far. Users connecting to the Openzone network can't access your network, so it's pretty secure in that respect, and the login and logout process was relatively harmless.

So far, I'm quite impressed, not to mention that I am now also equipped with an account that lets me log onto wireless networks in other places for no additional cost. However! This new software update isn't set to please in other respects...

Okay. It boasts a few nice updates. Time servers are working well now (albeit without Summer Time options so most users are stuck in the past at the moment), and there's now additional support for BT Textphones when connecting through the BT Broadband Talk service. The admin interface has been slightly revised, and provides a few functions to make basic tasks like setting your wireless key easier. Not bad for a minor update.

What's the problem, then?

BT, in adding a few minor features, broke a few major ones. That's right. This new hub software takes more steps back than it does forward.

You have to give BT credit for making use of the MSSID (Multiple Service Set Identifiers) functionality in the hub, which has been there for a long time and has remained unused, although I would suggest that there is a fairly good reason that it's remained unused. The MSSID support in the BT Home Hub is awful. It's instability doesn't just affect the wireless, either, but can cause the entire device to reboot whenever it pleases. That's fantastic while you are trying to complete university applications using the UCAS e-wazabang online application process, of course. I know that the MSSID functionality is awful because I've experimented with it before, using the (somewhat) secret telnet admin panel, and my attempts to make it do anything useful resulted in the router rebooting and forgetting the MSSID settings that I'd put in. BT's attempt to use the MSSID functionality for the BT FON sharing has prompted the unprecented reboot of my hub several times now. Spiffing.

Now, this brings me onto my next point. The more tech-savvy BT Home Hub owners will probably be aware of the telnet interface that lets you play with all of the internal BT Home Hub settings (y'know, telnet api.home and all that). BT kindly took the liberty of blocking this functionality, so don't expect to be using that, either. Naturally, this is just fantastic when you are experiencing issues with your MSSID setup, that was nicely pushed to you with the latest software update, which can only be changed or fixed using the telnet admin panel.

Don't expect opting out of the BT FON service to immediately fix your problems, either. I opted out around 17 hours ago, and my BT Home Hub still believes that I am a member of the service and is still broadcasting the BTOpenzone wireless spot. My guess is that it could take anything from a few hours to a few weeks for this to flush out properly, so that I can return to my usual biddings without being interrupted by horrible horrible reboots.

Not to mention that the new unsecured BTOpenzone wireless network has confused every computer connected to my wireless network, since it is unsecured (and obviously the computer wants to try and connect to whatever it can), and using the same wireless channel as my own wireless network.

Now, I always considered the BT Home Hub a pretty nice piece of engineering because it allowed a great deal of control using the flexible admin control panel, just like any decent router should. However, I can't really vouch for that anymore knowing that this control panel is now, well, not there. This leaves me with a setup that is relatively unstable that I can't fix.

Thanks BT. You just destroyed my faith.

Why Windows Mobile developers suck

There is a simple reason that I just hate people who write software for Windows Mobile and Pocket PC devices. Is it that thy write bad code? No. Is it that they deploy bad user interfaces? No. Is it that the programs just suck? No.

It's that these developers keep distributing their programs in Windows-only .EXE installers, which means that any Mac or Linux user in the world can't install their programs onto their devices. It's important to remember that not everyone is using Windows, and not everyone has access to ActiveSync software which these .EXE installers are depending upon.

Sure, you're probably thinking "You should have bought a Palm; it is supported much better on a Mac". Quite frankly, I don't like Palm devices. I think that Palm OS is clumsy and is not intuitive, and I would prefer to use Windows Mobile over Palm anyday.

So, why should you distribute your Windows Mobile applications in .CAB files?

Simple. Because it solves many problems quite easily.

• Any computer in the World can then send the file to your device (be it using Infrared, Bluetooth, Serial or USB cable, or even a memory card) without having to worry about whether the installer will work or not.
• The device already knows what to do with the .CAB installer file. The user only has to tap it on their device and it'll install itself.
• It makes it so much less frustrating when Mac and Linux users can actually install your program. Remember, we can't run Windows .EXE files, and if your application is packed inside of one, that means we can't install it.
• It makes it possible to provide "OTA" downloads. This means that it's damn easy and fast for people who are downloading the file straight onto their device using a wireless connection, instead of people downloading the file onto their computer first.

The solution?

Don't distribute your Windows Mobile applications in .EXE files; .CAB files are clearly the way forward. It's frustrating when people using other operating systems can't use your software due to laziness in packing and distributing the software, and a bit of well-thought out distribution of .CAB files can make it easier for everyone to use your software.