The ability to use Wacom Wintab based pen drawing tools on my Surface Pro has really made a difference in my artistic workflow. I’ve been photo painting using a combination of Adobe Photoshop CS 5.5 and Corel Painter 12 (I got one sweet deal when I called them to purchase, $159, good on three computers).

From what I have been reading online, it appears that the drivers that Wacom released will indeed by repackaged by Microsoft and released during some future update cycle. With the current Wacom supplied driver, my feeling is that this is the best experience I’ve had yet on a touch device with pen drawing.

The painting below has quite a lot of work yet to do, but I’m having a great time with my new digital art tools working on it.

Hope to move on to watercolors soon.

People have been asking me why I was so determined to have working Wacom Wintab drivers for Surface Pro.

The above is a work in progress. A combination of Photoshop CS 5.5 and Corel Painter 12 (Trial Version) on my Surface Pro (using both the Microsoft Surface Stylus and a Feel IT Wacom Stylus). I’m finding that everything works (although some processor/graphics intensive operations tend to take a while). Seems like I now have a great portable tool set. Not as powerful as a full graphics desktop workstation, but definitely usable.

Corel Painter is fantastically awesome. I’m not going forward with upgrading to Adobe Cloud so I’ll be staying at Photoshop 5.5 and adding Corel Painter 12 on my desktop soon as well. It looks like Corel licensing, unlike Adobe, requires a separate purchased license for each computer and I’m looking for discounts on Painter 12 so I can use on both my desktop and my Surface.

After a long and ridiculous wait for functionality that in February was promised to be coming soon, Wacom pressure sensitive functionality has arrived for users of Photoshop and other products that rely on the Wintab API.

On May 9, Panos Panay tweeter he was using beta drivers. I replied to that tweet asking if drivers were/would be made available to the public. No response. No indication in the on-going forum thread at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro-surfusingpro/surface-pro-pen-pressure-sensitivity-is-not/72f34b0e-e931-4fa0-8322-5f3933b061f6?page=1&tm=1368189377290 of driver availability either (but Microsoft personnel abandoned users in that thread long ago)

Strangely, not a single mention of Surface Pro in the description. The description reads “Expand the capabilities of your tablet computer with the enhanced tablet driver for systems that use Wacom Feel IT® technology! Installing this driver will provide many advanced pressure-sensitive features that Wacom pen tablet users have come to enjoy.” And no mention of Feel IT on the official Surface Pro specifications page at http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-US/surface-with-windows-8-pro/specifications 

Shortly after that tweet from Panos Panay, strangely labeled drivers appeared on the Wacom driver download site. And again, not a single tweet from Microsoft, Panos, or the official @Surface Twitter account about this.

I downloaded the drivers, and after a restart, launched Photoshop CS 5.5 and did this quick and dirty test.

Yes! Exhale. Deep sigh of relief.

I find it odd that the Microsoft folks are so quiet over this release. There are release notes showing some potential bugs, but to have ANY driver in hand at this point is great.

There have been a lot of Windows 8 users looking for a solution to keep Windows Media Center on top of other applications. Here’s a quick and dirty registry setting. Use at your own risk, back up your registry, etc. etc.

First, find this key on the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\MCE.PerUserSettings

Right click and edit – change the Value data from 0 to 1

Reboot and enjoy.

My last post detailed the process to add Microsoft non certified devices to the list of supported “Play To” devices in Windows 8 Modern UI Start Screen Apps so that they appeared in the Charms/Devices menu. Once again, if you experiment with this, you will need to verify that your device is a DMR (digital media renderer) that works from the classic desktop explorer/libraries interface by right clicking an asset and verifying Play To appears and that you can successfully send the media to the device).

I already knew my circa 2009 Samsung LN52B750 series TV was not the greatest Play To client (which is why I have been using the WDTV LIVE Hub) but I wanted to enable it to see what kind of results I would get. The LNB Samsung TV series is neither certified by the DLNA.org folks or by Microsoft (just as my Sonos speakers are not certified by either organization).

In DLNA years, 2009 is ancient, and in TV cycle years, prehistoric. Samsung stops issuing firmware updates after 9-12 months so there was really not much hope of improving the DLNA experience after that time. Aggravating, but true. So for most people, the iffy DLNA experience (due to codec and transcoding support) the Microsoft decision to not show these uncertified devices is justified. It would be a support nightmare. But, if you are a geek and accustomed to tinkering with the registry, etc., once again, enabling these devices let you experiment.

Again, this is for geek enthusiasts only and unsupported. Backup your registry and the subkey before you begin. Proceed at your own risk.

Note: I performed this exercise on my Surface Pro and Surface RT with success.

To add the TV to the whitelist, once again, from the Network window, I right clicked the media icon for the TV and accessed the properties.

Since the DeviceShims registry already listed Samsung Electronics,all I needed to do was add the subkey for Samsung DTV DMR and the 32 bit dword IsLegacyDMR and set the hex value to 1. I did have to take ownership of the Samsung Electronics key and give local users full control in order to perform this modification.

Next step was to reboot.

Concurrent with my experimentation with non MSFT certified DLNA DMR’s, I also was looking to be able to play MKV files and had downloaded the trial of Cyberlink’s Power DVD Mobile from the Windows 8 App Store. (I’ll have more to say about this app soon, but I had a WOW experience; it’s one awesome program).

I opened  my Avatar MKV and it played beautifully on the Surface Pro. Now the moment of truth, could I send to my Samsung TV through the Devices menu. You can see in the screen capture below that both my TV and WDTVLiveHub are available from the Devices charm.

The answer is a big YES. My Surface Pro displayed the following:

And the output to the TV worked perfectly.

The picture looked great and there was no lagging/glitching (and sound was in sync – I run audio from the TV out to a home theater system via Digital Optical SPDIF). I won’t say it was a good as watching the original Blue Ray, but close. This same TV has had trouble with mp4’s using Play To where it doesn’t correctly handle the aspect ratio at times. And when I set still digital images via the Device charm, they displayed beautifully.

Today I’m one step closer to giving up my iPad as my Surface RT can now perform one more task on my must have list. Full DLNA Play To sharing from the Charms bar/Devices for non Microsoft certified devices was a biggie on my list.

A little history: In Windows 7, Microsoft introduced Play To which used the DLNA spec to let me send media from my computer to a DLNA DMR. I had so so results with my 2009 Samsung TV due to poor transcoding support, but great results with my WDTV Live Hub and my SONOS speakers. The so-so experience on my TV and the not wonderful experience on other device by many many people caused Microsoft to rethink their strategy for Windows 8 and come up with their own certification process for devices to “insure” a good experience. This translated into a restrictive policy for Windows 8 Start Screen/Metro/Modern UI Apps where only MS certified devices would appear in an applications Settings: Devices menu. What this meant for me was that I could no longer send music to my SONOS speakers from these Apps, although I could do so from the classic Desktop-Explorer-Libraries view. I certainly was annoyed and disappointed. To me, this meant that Microsoft was going down the closed eco-system route and emulating Apple. DLNA is an open standard, and there are tiered requirements. MS was seeking to bulletproof the experience, but in the process left many of us hanging. I certainly wished for, and expressed my desire for, an advanced user setting to “Show non MS certified devices”, and I still think that is the necessary change that Microsoft needs to make.

Others in the geek world wanted a way to use their non certified devices and Rafael Rivera came up with a way for x86 based Windows 8 computers to do just this. He didn’t find a way to do this on Surface RT. And that’s where I most wanted this functionality. Note: The information that follows applies to Windows 8/Windows RT and I have tested on my Surface RT, my Surface Pro, and a Windows 8 desktop.

So I started looking at the registry. What I am about to describe works on both my Surface and Surface RT tablets but it is the only way so far to enable this functionality on RT.

Before you start,verify that your device supports Play To in the classic desktop/explorer/libraries interface. To do this, right click a supported media file in a classic library and verify the Play To menu appears and that you can successfully send to your target device and it plays the media you selected.

There is an interesting key in the registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Device Association Framework\InboxProviders

\DAFUPnPProvider\Plugins\DlnaMetadataProvider\DeviceShims]

When expanded, it shows devices from just a few companies.

Why only five vendors?

If you export the DeviceShims reg key, things get interesting. For example, specific vendors and specific devices have entries, such as:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Device Association Framework\InboxProviders

\DAFUPnPProvider\Plugins\DlnaMetadataProvider\DeviceShims\ONKYO]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Device Association Framework\InboxProviders

\DAFUPnPProvider\Plugins\DlnaMetadataProvider\DeviceShims\ONKYO\HT-R690]
"IsLegacyDMR"=dword:00000001

Do you find the IsLegacyDMR an interesting dword? If you look at the entire exported key, it is one of those AHA moments.

What follow is for geeks only. Use at your own risk. Back up your registry and back up the specific key. And use what follows entirely at your own risk. Obviously you will want to at least use the touch/type keyboard for this process.

First, the DeviceShims key is “protected” and you will need to take ownership and give yourself full control.

1. Right click the DeviceShims key, then click Permissions.

2. Click the Advanced tab, then click the Change hyperlink next to the Owner. You can use your Microsoft account for this.

3. Apply

4. Give users (pcname\username) full control

5. Reboot

Second, you will need to determine the exact information on the device(s) you want to empower to use the Start Screen Play To functionality.

1. Go to the classic desktop and classic explorer

2. Find your device in the network list

3. Right click the device and select properties

4. You will need the Manufacturer and the Model, case sensitive. In the example below, the Manufacturer is Sonos, Inc. and the Model is Sonos Play:5

Third, You need to create the registry values for your device(s).

1. Create a new key under DeviceShims with the manufacturer (Sonos, Inc. in my example)

2. Under the just created key, create a new subkey for the model (Sonos Play:5 in my example).

3. Create a 32 bit dword IsLegacyDMR and set the HEX value to 1

If you export the key, the newly created value would look like

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Device Association Framework\InboxProviders\DAFUPnPProvider\Plugins\DlnaMetadataProvider\DeviceShims\Sonos, Inc.]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Device Association Framework\InboxProviders\DAFUPnPProvider\Plugins\DlnaMetadataProvider\DeviceShims\Sonos, Inc.\Sonos PLAY:5]
"IsLegacyDMR"=dword:00000001

4. Reboot

End result:

Here’s my Surface RT happily sending the output of the PRadio App (Pandora) to my Sonos.

Rafael Rivera has done a lot of work on getting uncertified Play To devices to work on non RT Windows 8 devices. He’s had a great solution now for a few months. But people like me want to use their RT tablets to control their non certified devices via Play To. I’ve done it!

I am happy to say that after much registry examination, regedit testing and edits, I have succeeded in using Play To from Start Screen, Music to send media to my SONOS Play 5 on my Surface RT!

This is a biggie for me.

Screen shot above is from my Surface RT and you can see my SONOS devices (and this works).

This one is for geeks only. I’ll document it this weekend and share.

There have been several folks in the Microsoft Answers Forums complaining about not being able to add keywords, or other information using the Photos App in Windows 8/Windows RT. In fact, you can’t even display this info in the Photos App. The Photos App is a light consumption app and other than being a place to consolidate images from various sources, has no other functionality. If you want to VIEW existing metadata like tags, and have a little more control, there’s a great app called Gallery HD in the Windows Store that works on Windows 8/RT.

If you want to edit/add metadata like tags, author, subject, etc., this can be done from the classic desktop libraries explorer interface. For Windows RT, there are not a lot of other options to manipulate meta data, but for x86 versions of Windows 8/Pro, there are third party programs you can download and install.

For anyone looking for a simple built-in way to add this kid of information, this is pretty simple.

1. From the classic desktop, navigate to the Library.

2. Select the View tab

3. Insure that the details pane is selected (if you don’t see the ribbon and menus, hit the ALT key on your keyboard and enable the items you need).

4. Navigate to your Pictures library

5. Extra Large Icons and Details Pane should be selected in the View tab (select if needed)

6. Click or Tap an individual image.

7. The details pane will display all the metadata and allow editing/adding of tags, author, subject, etc..

I love my 128GB Surface Pro. I can’t wait for a driver for Wacom pressure sensitive support and a fix for legacy desktop scaling, but other than that, Surface Pro is a wonderful electronic companion that does just about everything.

As with all software, there are bugs. And I think I’ve found a corker. On my Windows 7 machines, I’ve always installed all my apps and configured them and then performed a system image backup (using Windows 7 built in create system image backup tool) both to an external hard drive and over the network. As I added major apps, applied Service Packs and major app updates, I’ve renamed those backups and performed new image based backups. WHS performs the same kind of image based backups, too.

Windows 8 emphasizes some dumbed down recovery methods, including system refresh. The refresh will keep some, but not all of your files. You will lose your installed desktop programs and will have to re-install and configure them. Most Windows Store Apps will be retained, but if you bought a Surface Pro, you bought a machine to run real desktop apps.

So, after having my Surface for 6 days and installing desktop apps, I bought myself a new USB 3.0 external WD Passport portable drive and got ready to use the system image tool that I knew was included (but hard to find) in Windows 8. I was chagrinned to find that it didn’t work as advertised. Here’s what I did:

On the Start Screen, I typed in windows 7 file recovery and then selected Settings

The control panel applet appears (you can also find the applet in the classic control panel when the show small icons view is active). I next selected Create a system image. My external hard drive connected by USB was detected.

A confirmation box appears with everything preselected (you cannot deselect any because this is a full image of all partitions on the drive/SSD) and the backup location I had selected.

I tapped Start backup and the following screen displayed (so far so good).

Then, another positive reinforcement that things were working as they should:

What happened (or did not happen) next is the source of my aggravation and complaint.

I reformatted the WD drive, tried 3 other drives, sacrificed a rubber chicken, with NO success. I checked the Microsoft forums. Uh Oh, others had experienced the issue and MS Support was clueless, offering solutions like chkdsk and/or sfc /scannow. The real issue is that the hidden partitions that contain the recovery partitions and the secure boot partitions don’t contain enough free space for VSC (Volume Shadow Copies) themselves.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro-surfgetstart/windows-7-file-recovery/a73b83ff-2511-44d9-b8a7-85bfd1135e87 is what Surface Pro owners are experiencing.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-system/there-is-not-enough-disk-space-to-create-the/48532922-25bb-46fb-af8b-475ff05f55ce shows similar problems on other systems dating back before the release of Surface Pro.

Here is the (really not too informative) breakdown of space allocation on my Surface Pro. The three small factory partitions must be the issue.

The @Surface folks on Twitter did not understand my tweets on this and kept trying to tell me about freeing up space by creating a USB flash drive bootable recovery device and deleting the 7.8 GB recovery drive. This is not the issue at all. I finally pointed them at a YouTube video demonstrating the process above. They finally tweeted “ http://www.twitter.com/surface/status/302581927423115264 “ but I am not holding my breath.

In the meantime, I am investigating third party image creation tools. But I maintain that if Microsoft offers the tool on Surface Pro, it SHOULD work, or they should document it in a KB prominently.

If you have comments, feel free to contact me on Twitter @barbbowman

I was more than discouraged when my WDTV Live Hub, which was the poster child for Windows 7 Play To, did not show as a certified device for Windows Store Apps in Windows 8/Surface. Sure, the classic desktop interface worked, but I felt as though a promise had been broken.

I had the latest available firmware from October and others posting on the WD user forums were also miffed.

I happened to check the forums today and noted a couple of new comments. So, I followed the bouncing ball and performed the following steps:

1.      Charms, PC Settings, Devices, Delete the Uncertified WDTV Live Hub device

2.      Reboot

3.      Charms, PC Settings, Devices, manually ADD the device after it was discovered and listed

4.      Reboot

After the above, it now appears in the Device list and works. Photos, Music, Videos, even HTML5 browser streaming (nice!)

I checked with Microsoft to see how this update was done, since there was nothing listed in the Windows Update history specifically referencing Play To, and received this response:

Device certification is not handled in any way via Windows Update.

We have a service, called NCD-AS (auto setup for short) that will automatically find media renderers and pair them (even if they aren’t certified). As part of pairing, PNP updates drivers and metadata packages for a device if available. Every 8 days, this service will check for updated drivers and metadata packages for all media renderers that have been paired.

First, make sure you delete the offending image(s) from the classic desktop/library or from SkyDrive, Facebook, or Flickr (or move them to a non public location or different folder on your computer NOT part of your Photo Library.

Second, in the classic desktop, open Windows explorer(the folder icon is on your taskbar) and navigate to

C:\Users\youruserame\AppData\Local\Packages\microsoft.windowsphotos_some_random_stuff\LocalState

Third, change the view to show Medium, Large, Or Extra Large icons

Fourth, now that you can view the cached images, select the ones you want to remove and permanently delete them. Be sure to delete both the LargeTile*.jpg and SmallTile*.jpg (where * is a number) for the picture(s) in question.

Fifth and final step, from the Windows 8 Start screen, swipe up on the Photo App tile or right click it and select Turn Live Tile Off. Then swipe up/right click again and turn it back on. It will repopulate without the offending image.

If the above is too much work, or if you have embarrassing emails scrolling in the mail app or tweets/Facebook comments, etc. scrolling through the People App, you can use the sledgehammer approach to clear all Live Tile data.

From the Windows 8 Start screen, select Settings, Tiles, and Clear personal information. This will clear all info from all tiles. Each tile will rebuild with new info from the point at which you cleared the info and the previous “bad” info will not be included.

I have been more than just a little disappointed and frustrated with the Microsoft supplied Windows Store Photo App for Windows 8 because I have tons of digital images stored on networked drives that are nearly impossible to view in the Microsoft default app. The MS Photos app is great if your digital photos are stored on the local computer in the default location and/or somewhere on one of the supported cloud providers, SkyDrive, Facebook, Flickr, etc.

The problem for people like me who are hobbyist photographers is the non feasibility of putting everything in the cloud (even if I desired to do this, multi terabytes of storage would cost me dearly). Coupled with the weak functionality of the MS Photos App for someone who wants to view EXIF information, etc. on individual images, caching issues on the Photos App live tile (delete something in Pictures and unless you delete personal info from ALL LIVE TILES from the Start Screen using Charms, Settings, Tiles, clear personal information, the deleted content refuses to disappear) have frustrated me to a fare thee well.

So I’ve been looking around for a Windows Store App that fit my needs. I found an app called Gallery HD from Frozen Volcano that solves a lot of my problems. In a lot of ways, it’s what the MS App should have been.

I’ve added 10 folders so far. You drill down in a Windows Media Center like manner and more functionality is revealed.

Swipe up or right click to reveal a menu of options as shown above.

Select Properties, and if EXIF info is available, it is displayed.

You can share with other apps easily as well.

Initial setup is pretty easy, your default Pictures library will be auto-populated, but the file picker easily lets you add other local locations, including removable media.

Adding networked resources is a little more difficult if you do not use a Homegroup, as you need to know the UNC path (the format is \\computername\foldername), which is the same issue as found on the default Microsoft Photos App, but at least an interface is provided for you to enter this information.

Gallery HD has a Live Tile which cycles through mini collages of your digital images (this is one area where I prefer the method used by the Microsoft app).

You will only get one day to try this app, but after two hours, I spent the $2.99 to get the ad free version. I figure the $2.99 versus the extreme frustration with the MS App speaks for itself. I wish Microsoft would have provided a better free solution for such a high profile application, but I certainly appreciate what the folks at Frozen Volcano have done to put me out of my misery.

I note that the Gallery HD app is also supposed to handle Video, but I have not experimented with that aspect of the app yet.

A growing number of Windows 8 users have reported an error with Windows 8 Pro x64 with the Windows Media Center Feature Pack installed where DRM content does not work because of an issued with the HDCP protected video path, possibly caused by having the Hyper-V “virtual display driver” installed on the computer.

As shown above, the error is “Display driver error – The video playback device does not support playback of protected content”.

There is a possible workaround for anyone who is not using WMC8 IN a Virtual Machine or who is running other VM’s on the box in addition to the main OS with WMC, e.g., for anyone not actively using Hyper-V in any way.

Fire up BCDEdit (open an administrative cmd prompt as this requires elevation) and enter the following:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

Comcast now has IMAP in public beta via a signup form.

1. Go to https://xcbetasignup.comcast.net/imap_trial/web/ and sign up. Wait for Confirmation.

2. The settings you need to configure Comcast IMAP, ports and protocols are shown below.

It’s actually pretty easy to do. Just don’t follow the obvious path. Start from the Charms bar in Mail and select Accounts.

Then select Add an account.

Do NOT select the obvious Google choice; select Other Account.

Next, select Exchange Activesync (EAS) and then click or tap Connect.

Select the More details link and fill in your Gmail email address and specify m.google.com as the server address. Enter your password. Ignore the Add your Outlook account reference. It’s just another one of the examples of bad design in the Windows 8 Mail app.

Click or tap Connect. The connection should be made and your mail, calendar and contacts should sync. You can verify this by returning to the Accounts menu and selecting the account your just set up. You can adjust when new mail is downloaded. Push IS available, but only if you have not already configured three push clients. For reasons I can’t understand, Windows Mail will only allow three accounts to by enabled for PUSH (as it arrives) sync.

You’re done! You’ve configured Google Mail, Calendar, and Contacts. If you sync and then check the Calendar App and the People App, you will see that your Google calendars and contacts are now syncing with Windows 8.

Of course, you need to configure a Microsoft account to even get started and that gets the first slot (hotmail, outlook.com account, etc.) In my case, I configured my Microsoft accounts first, and then a Gmail account. When I got to configuring my vanity domains, I only could get PULL settings, of which every 15 minutes was the shortest interval.

Realizing that only three accounts could be configured, I had an aHa moment and changed the settings on my hotmail and outlook.com accounts which are far less important to me, and then was able to configure my other accounts for PUSH (as it arrives).

I have made contact with the Mail team at Microsoft and am working towards getting this limit removed (and some other things).

I selected Start Speech Recognition and was prompted to select a microphone type. I didn’t know for sure so selected the bottom choice for external and Windows did the right thing.

After reading the phrase, I was guided to a rather long tutorial. The graphics shown were a little odd as they were obviously for the x86 version of Windows 8 since they were showing WordPad. However, it was worth believing that Speech Recognition would work on Surface.

After going through the tutorial, I said “Start Listening” and then “Open Word”. Word 2013 RT opened. I started dictating. While slower than Siri and far less accurate, the words I spoke appeared in the document. Eureka. Maybe training will improve this. I hope so.

Next, I tried a voice command from the Start Screen, “Open Mail”. Here’s what happened:

While in one of my mail account, I decided to say “Compose”. A new window opened where I could DICTATE an email. I’ve blocked out my email address, but here is the screen shot:

I’m off to explore more, but clearly I’m on to something here.

Right after I plugged in the USB connection, my surface displayed:

So I tapped. Next, a window with choices appeared:

I selected Import photos and videos without having high expectations, but, it works just like it does with a supported connected camera:

I selected Import:

And then I selected Open folder.

The Pictures Library displayed the imported folder with a date. The date of November 1 turned out to be the last date of the last screen capture I did on my iPad.

I wanted something more descriptive than a date,so I opened Windows Explorer on the classic desktop and renamed the folder to Imported from iPad:

And back in the Photo App, the folder was renamed.

All in all, a great experience!

I have a large collection of ripped music, some ripped mp4 movies from DVDs that I own, and lots of image files. My new Surface has a MicroSD slot. You would think it would be easy to copy media to folders on removable media, open Windows Explorer, Manage a Library, and add the content from the removable media. Nope. Removable media not allowed. Same is true when attempting to include content stored on a USB flash drive plugged into my Windows 8 Desktop. Be sure your removable media is formatted as FAT before you start.

Not an acceptable answer, but fortunately there is a work around.

First, create a new folder on your C:\ Drive. On my Desktop, I created a folder named C:\USBflashdrive (and on my Surface with its MicroSD card, a folder named C:\SD).

Second, I pressed Winkey + x to open the menu that allows me to access Disk Management and selected it.

Next, right click the removable drive (Drive H in the screen shot below) and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

In the Window that appears, click the Add button and then click Browse.

Then, navigate to the folder you created on your C:\ drive. In the sample below, this is the USBflashdrive folder

Click OK.

Finish by clicking OK.

Now you can go back to Windows Explorer, Libraries, Manage. In the example below, I am attempting to add some images stored on a USB flash drive to my Pictures library. To do this, I selected the USBflashdrive folder on drive C (not the USB flash drive itself).

Manage libraries should now report success.

The interesting (and frustrating) result is that while in classic desktop mode, I could now view these images in classic Photo Gallery, the Pictures Windows Store App showed the Pix folder but states “We couldn’t find any photos in here”

The experience on my Surface was better, I could view the images stored on my SD card in both the classic Photo Gallery as well as the Pictures Windows Store App.

Others have reported they have NOT had success with MicroSD cards and Pictures and that only Music and Videos were displayed in the Windows store apps.

Bottom line, this should assist with Music and Videos but the success using this trick with Pictures is not guaranteed.

The touch interface on my Surface tablet sometimes reminds me of a kind of Minority Report interface. I like it a lot.  It really didn’t take long at all to learn the various swiping and gestures that enable quick navigation on the tablet and it seems natural now, as if I always used it.  I love my iPad but the modern interface on my new Surface seems fresh and the live tiles definitely add to my enjoyment and certainly to usability.

I love the type keyboard that I bought with my surface. I’m not that crazy about the touch keyboard that came with it. The onscreen virtual keyboard is easy to use and about as good in my opinion as what I became accustomed to on my iPad.

As many others have reported and blogged there just are not enough apps in the Windows app store yet. I hope they come soon because apps are the key to success of Surface and I really want it to succeed. I know Microsoft is doing everything possible to encourage developers but the missing big apps like Facebook, Twitter etc. are worrisome. I’ve been using Metro Twit for Twitter but have found some problems with the refresh interval and the developer is looking into this.  I have found ways to replace some missing applications by using pinned Internet explorer sites. For example, Pulse is an iOS aggregation app that I use frequently on my iPad. Fortunately the website pulse.me is very touch friendly and works beautifully on my new Surface. I like the People app for many things but it isn’t quite up to par with say a dedicated Facebook app so I pinned Facebook as an Internet Explorer site to the start menu. Pinning sites is a good work around for many of the apps I use on my iPad, but I’d rather have more functional actual apps.

There are no banking apps other than Bank of America. Sure, I can visit my bank’s website, but it isn’t quite the same. There aren’t any dictation apps that would equal Siri on the iPad and quite frankly,  Intuit, the folks that make Quicken just released companion mobile apps for Quicken 2013. These apps are available for iOS and for Android. This mirrors their mint.com app availability. Unfortunately while you can access mint.com through a web browser there is no way to do the same with your Quicken data. I’ve used the dictation feature a LOT, even to draft blog posts. Logmein has great remote access iOS apps but so far has only offered an app called join.me for Windows 8 which does not offer the same functionality. The same goes for the folks at Splashtop. Yes the remote desktop app is present on Windows 8 including Surface RT but if you have multiple computers that you want to access, you’ll need to do a lot of port forwarding and port changing in the registry if you want to access remotely. The trade-off is that for both Logmein and Splashtop is that you need to have their desktop client installed on each computer that you want to access remotely. Still, being a regular user of these apps, I miss them on Windows RT.

The app that disappoints me the most is the Microsoft provided Mail app.  It’s terrible, While Microsoft sees the Surface as a consumer device for content consumption, the lack of a decent mail app is quite disturbing. I have read all the explanations why Outlook 2013 could not be included as an RT app but the difference in functionality between the mail app and Outlook is just too big a spread for me. IMAP support in the mail app is horrific and POP3 support is nonexistent. While I am sure Microsoft wants to drive everyone to Outlook.com a.k.a. Hotmail, there are people who use their vanity domains on office 365 or still use their ISPs mail servers. For me, the poor mail app is a showstopper that would prevent replacing my iPad with Surface.  Even as a consumer I still need reminders of appointments for doctors and dentists and car service and such.  I get reminders and notifications on my iPad but there doesn’t seem to be an analogous function on Surface through the calendar app or anything else.

A Windows app that I have depended on for the past several years, Windows Live Writer, which I use for posting to my blogs, is not available as an RT app aka windows store app. I can use the blog template in Word 2013 RT to post to my blog. Unfortunately it is very limited in features and functionality. There isn’t even support for tags. And some functions, such as creating new categories, or even editing an existing post simply do not work for me. I was hoping for better.

In spite of the shortcomings, I like Surface. I hope Microsoft addresses the shortcomings quickly. They will need to if they want broad acceptance and not just early adopters. I want Surface to succeed. I see the promise. I just want to see the promise delivered, and quickly.

Here is the correct one from W8.

Here is the one from the iPad where the wind speed forecasts are 10 mph lower and WRONG.

My Connected Home now includes an iCreation i700/i700e Cordless with Link to Cell System and I couldn’t be happier!

When I realized my old Uniden 5.8GHz cordless phone system was slowly dying (and the proprietary, even generic replacement batteries for it were $16 each) I started investigating what was going on within the world of cordless phone systems. It became clear to me that what I really needed (or wanted) was a way to use my cell phone from all the extensions in my three-story townhouse style condo as well as my landline. Cordless telephone systems have evolved and changed greatly since I bought my Uniden system around 8 years ago. It was time to move to DECT.    

I did a lot of online research. The major players like Panasonic, Vtech, AT&T, etc. all seemed to have DECT systems that supported cell phones using some kind of link to cell. The nomenclature for this feature varies from vendor to vendor.

Reading through the various reviews on multiple websites and checking some of the forums I realize that some people were having issues linking their cell phones using the systems that were there. Since I have an iPhone, I specifically looked for reviews and forums that mentioned iPhone. What I really wanted to do was be able to link my iPhone to a new cordless system and be able to use the contacts already stored on my iPhone for an address book on the cordless system. Again I spent a lot of time looking and reading and finally decided on the iCreation i700 cordless DECT system. While there weren’t many reviews at all about this phone, the few I found were extremely positive. One of the things that I found particularly reassuring was that this particular system carried the made for iPhone logo designation.

I also noticed was that the Sharper Image was selling this particular system (although at an obscenely higher price than anyone else). Usually, if Sharper Image carries a gadget, that gadget works as advertised (in my experience anyway). This is not an inexpensive system and it’s probably 80% higher in cost than the newest top of the line cordless DECT systems with comparable features from folks like Panasonic etc. that support this link to cell phone technology. The i700 is also not in abundant supply throughout the United States. The official US distributor/vendor appears to be clearsounds.com but I found several companies selling the system at a much lower price and placed my order through Amazon. This is the first time that I purchased an electronic gadget without actually trying it out in the store or seeing it in a friend home.

The i700 proved to be nearly everything I wanted and expected. It does not have a built in answering system for landline phones, but that was not on my list of requirements, since my phone service through Comcast provides cloud based voice messages, etc. And if I decide to give up my landline (a definite possibility at some point) this is also not an issue. It supports up to 5 extension handsets. I had 6 with my old Uniden system, but it was probably overkill to have a phone in the bathroom.

The system supports pairing two different iPhones (well, I only have one and pairing it with the i700 was easy) and in addition to a local contacts/phone list that you can manually create, supports downloading contact from your iPhone via Bluetooth.

This worked exactly as advertised (and was incentive to clean up and delete/edit a ton of contacts that were gathering dust). These appear on all registered handsets. Registering additional handsets is a breeze. When you create a list of local contacts, it needs to be done on each handset, fortunately a task that only needs to be done once to get started (and adding anything new to each handset as time goes on). My old Uniden system had a feature to copy the phonebook to other registered handsets, which would have been easier, but this is one of the few negatives for me.

The handsets allow me to take or place calls from either my landline or my cellular line. There are logs for missed/answer calls, etc. and visual indicators when you miss a call or have a message waiting (landline) if your service supports this. I found the menus very intuitive and easy to navigate. The buttons are nice and large, and oh my, the call quality clarity is superb. I use the speakerphone quite a bit and the sound was crisp and clear. When you pick up the phone at night in a dark room, the lit buttons and display are incredibly readable.

Am I concerned about the new iPhone 5 connector and the old connector style charging dock in the base unit? Nope. I wrote the manufacturer who replied within a few hours that they are producing a cradle adapter (but that I would need to purchase the 30 pin to Lightning adapter from Apple) and that they would arrange for the US distributor to send me one next month. They even sent an image showing what it would look like. If you have ever written a Consumer Electronics manufacturer blindly without having a pre-existing contact person, you know that this is not normal behavior. I’ve had several emails back and forth. I like these guys and I like their product.

Am I concerned about having something OTHER than an iPhone down the road? Nope. I suspect that I would be able to pair any phone which support Bluetooth technology (but would not be able to download the phones contact list).

Anyway, I’m happy with my system, and that’s what counts for me.

Here’s the message:

I’ve been hooked on “touch friendly” web sites since I first started using Onswipe to display my blog on the iPad. When Windows 8 came along with the new Start screen and tile interface, I started thinking about the possibilities for Windows users with touch/tablet devices. Along the way, I enabled an Onswipe connection for some of the blogs hosted on msmvps.com which is home to a variety of blogs authored and maintained by Microsoft MVPs. It seems like a logical move to find a way to offer a similar experience for Windows 8 users, especially those who will, in the near future, be using new Surface and other tablet devices.

I had to dust off old and forgotten JavaScript skills, but managed to find my way through the project and get the app finished. Last week, I submitted it to the Windows Store for certification, and am happy to say it is now at Release 2.

You can view this app at http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/app/msmvps-blog-reader/ea14d48f-1b04-437d-95e4-6ffe91678914

While I was getting the MSMVPs Blog Reader app ready, I decided to put together a similar app just for one of my own blogs. This app is also now available in the Windows Store

You can view this app at http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/app/barbs-connected-world-blog/02f35769-52bf-461c-b1d5-06e54a58d298

Now that I have Windows 8 RTM and Visual Studio 2012 RTM, I’m getting my MsMVPs Blog Reader ready for posting in the Windows Store. I have reserved my app name and have created my account! Look for it soon!

Some of the best blogs authored by Microsoft MVPs are hosted on http://blogs.msmvps.com and I had this wild and crazy idea to attempt build a Windows 8 Metro App to grab the RSS feeds to showcase these blogs. I know a little Javascript and CSS and figured the worst that could happen was that I would fail miserably and the best that could happen was that I’d actually succeed in making an app.

Microsoft makes the RP version of Visual Studio Express and Blend available for free and I found some sample code on MSDN. I learned a LOT. I built the app. What I need now is one of those elusive Registration Codes for the Microsoft App Store so I can register as a legit developer, give them $50, and submit the app (free, of course) so others can use it. If anyone knows where I can get the invite only registration code, PLEASE, send the info my way.

Until such time as the app is available for download, below is a preview of the various screens and components.

The launch tile (large):

The launch tile (small):

The Splash Screen:

The main content screen listing (14 so far) blogs:

The split screen listing an individual blog’s entries and the content for the selected entry:

If I can build an app, ANYONE can build an app.

Those of you that know me probably know that I work with media files (images) a lot of the time (see http://photos.digitalmediaphile.com) but probably don’t know about my forays into personal digital publishing (iBooks) and customized print books.

Recently, I wanted to do something extra special for my cousin’s 85h birthday. I decided I wanted to make him a coffee table book of his family relationships and ancestry loaded with historical images and genealogical info. I also wanted to make an iBook out of the same content for the rest of the family. There were a couple of choices but they involved doing the work twice. Apple’s iBook Author on my Mac could make a wonderful iBook and also export a PDF, but the PDF export is NOT for print quality work. Blurb, which makes quality print books, even onesie’s and twosies, was definitely the company I wanted to use to produce a coffee table book. They have super stringent PDF requirements for their PDF to Book service (or you can use one of their tools, which are more limited in terms of creativity). I really did not want to have to double the work just to get both a physical book and an iBook so I tabled the project for a few days. Then it struck me that I had seen a setting in Able2Extract to convert a PDF to image files.

I had a plan!

I downloaded a trial version of Adobe’s InDesign and the free Blurb template. Using InDesign and the Blurb plugin, I create the contents of the book. Using InDesign is like using almost any modern publishing software, so there was no learning curve. It supports drag and drop so positioning images was easy.

Once I had my layout finalized and proofread, I exported a Blurb compliant PDF from InDesign.

I opened Able2Extract Professional and open the document and selected ALL.

I then selected the IMAGE format for conversion and specified PNG, 100% (and the directory in which to place the converted files).

After conversion, I had a single PNG file for each page.

I then prepared the cover using InDesign and went through the same process.

I copied the output folder to my Mac, and using iBooks Author, dragged each sequentially numbered PNG file to a blank page and position it (or chapter heading page, etc.). This took at most 10 minutes for a 40 page book. I was then able to export a finished iBook!

Net result, I had perfect PDF’s to upload to Blurb. Perfect PDF’s to convert using Abble2Extract Pro. And a perfect iBook that was already proofread, inspected for proper layout, and ready to share with family.

Basically, you can set up auto logon the same way as you did on prior Windows versions. Here are the steps:

1. Open a command prompt. You can do this from the start screen by typing in cmd. CMD.EXE will display. Right click it and then click Run as administrator

2. Acknowledge the UAC prompt.

3. Command prompt will open on Classic Desktop

4. Type control userpassowrds2 and press [Enter]

5. UNcheck Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer and select Apply.

6. A window displays with a name prepopulated (which may not be correct).

7. Enter/correct the user name (this can be the Live ID/Microsoft Account you used to set up Windows 8) and enter and confirm the password.

8. Click OK when you return to the User Accounts window.

9. Reboot to test.

Enjoy!

I had been using MobileMe with Outlook 2010 for over a year. While Contacts synced between MobileMe and my PST file, MobileMe created its own Calendar, necessitating a kludgy manual process of copying items between thee Calendar in my PST file and the cloud based MobileMe calendar. While you can use MobileMe on its own as your Outlook Calendar, full functionality in Outlook (Outlook Today) other integration is missing. So I religiously copied calendar items back and forth. It was a real mess accepting appointments/meetings since after copying to MobileMe from Outlook, the originator received another confusing acceptance (which was non suppressible).

Apple had been sending gloom and doom reminders about the eminent demise of MobileMe and I was dreading the move from MobileMe to iCloud for a lot of reasons, but was particularly unhappy about the addition of another set of Contacts in a Cloud based folder and losing the ability to sync Contacts with my local PST file. I couldn’t accept another set of manual work arounds to keep things in sync so I procrastinated and ignored the invitations to move to iCloud.

I was even more apprehensive after checking fellow MVP Diane Poremsky’s assessment at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/icloud-and-outlook-problems/ Diane further documents the issues at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/icloud-outlook-problems-syncing-calendar/ and http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/icloud-outlook-problems-syncing-contacts/ – and on the bottom of the contacts sync problem page, there was a section of tools and a link to http://www.codetwo.com/sync-for-icloud/

Diane has a stellar reputation for only highlighting tools and procedures that work, so I didn’t feel the need to research the add-in or the company behind it, CodeTwo, aggressively. Upon visiting CodeTwo’s web site, it was obvious that they were a class act with a well designed site that included great documentation, videos, descriptions, and support links.

I really wondered if I was dreaming and if a simple elegant tool could solve the potential horror of Apple’s flawed implementation. Realizing that sooner or later I would have to move from MobileMe (the devil I knew) to iCloud (the devil I didn’t yet know), I decided sooner rather than later was the best approach (hopeful that I would beat the rush at the end of June when everyone left on MobileMe would apparently be forced to migrate).

I first made several backups of my PST files and stored them in various places. Then I exported my Calendar, Contacts, Notes, etc. to individual PST files and made copies of those in various places. That might have been overkill, but it made me feel better.

Surprisingly, the actual migration from MobileMe to iCloud was relatively painless. I did hold my breath while I watched Contacts disappear from my iPad (but they reappeared rapidly when the migration was completed). Migration was uneventful on my iPhone as well. I slowly exhaled as I started up Outlook. I saw the MobileMe calendar disappear and I saw the new iCloud calendar appear. And I verified I had my original Contacts and the new iCloud based contacts.

I then installed CodeTwo’s iCloud Sync. Configuration was as simple as documented and I set up two way sync. I ran a couple of tests from my iPad, iPhone and from Outlook and was (and still am) amazed at how seamless this sync up is. CodeTwo has a large number of screen shots and videos on their site, and I encourage readers to take a look. The between an entry in a local PST file and iCloud is in real time.

I literally finished typing Meet Ellen for Breakfast in the local PST based Calendar when iCloud Sync copied it to the Outlook Calendar stored in iCloud. I immediately checked my iPad and iPhone and the new appointment appeared there as well. CodeTwo documents that sync between Outlook and iCloud on devices depends on connection speed, etc., but in my experience, these devices are syncing nearly in real time.

I’m impressed. And I’m happy. I’ve got two more Windows 7 OS based computers to add to the mix and I’ll wait a while longer before attacking that. For now, I’ve got my main Windows PC and iCloud sync under my control, thanks to CodeTwo’s iCloud Sync.

I love the idea of Live Tiles and the constantly updating information, although I don’t think it is suitable for privacy reasons when your device is in a public place. Yes, I know you can turn off a Live tile, but then what is the point.. I don’t want my email and other personal stuff shared only with friends on Facebook seen by passers by.

With respect to the Metro App “previews”, I am disappointed with the incompleteness and buginess of the various media apps – Music – Photos – Video. And as far as Metro’s Mail App goes, the omission of IMAP and POP connectivity is troubling. It is unclear if this is just unfinished or a design decision.

The app I like the best (though it needs work) is the People app. It does seem to bring everything together seamlessly. I wish you could add social networks without connecting them to a Microsoft/Live ID. This could be a Flipboard for Windows type app if the user could add all types of networks and RSS feeds.

I love the way People displays images in What’s New. 

And I also like the way individual Facebook posts are displayed with comments and likes, along with the ability to post a comment.

I haven’t figured out how to post a NEW entry/status update/photo to Facebook/Twitter from this app. This feature needs to be added.

I was a little frustrated as all my existing RDP clients on my iPad (Logmein, VNC RDP, etc. would only show me a black desktop). I ask the Splashtop folks via Twitter if their product ($4.99 in the app store, at least for now) would work with Windows 8 and received a “yes”.

So, now I am up and running with Windows 8 on an iPad. Still experimenting, but at least I can see the Metro desktop and navigate.

http://org.downloadcenter.samsung.com/downloadfile/ContentsFile.aspx?CDSite=DE&CttFileID=2505090&CDCttType=DR&ModelType=N&ModelName=NP-N130&VPath=DR/200912/20091218095907765/Internal_VGA_Intel_32bit_8.15.10.1912.zip

I also used a registry hack on the Developer Preview:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ialm\Device0]
"Display1_DownScalingEnabled"=hex:01,00,00,00

The above gave me full functionality but a slightly skewed screen resolution. Nevertheless, the EeePC happily, albeit slowly, ran the W8 Developer Preview.

I decided to try the web installer from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download

The installer told me my devices were ok and I was able to get completely through setup using the Express route. Note that I did have a failure and a roll back when I tried the Customized route. Not sure why, but the end result was that I was able to install the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 on my old and dusty ASUS EeePC for testing purposes. After Windows 8 came up for the first time, I immediately installed the video drivers, then ran the reg file (not sure if this is actually needed, but…). Then I rebooted, and then changed the desktop screen resolution to 1152 x 864 which gave me full Metro functionality including apps. Images below illustrate this success story:

So I started looking around and doing some research on the other technologies like Z-Wave, UPB, Insteon, etc. One of the biggest issues I had with X10 (and Homeplug) was that I reside in a multi electric phase home where it was nearly impossible to send signals through home wiring (even when filtering power strips and UPS units were removed). Insteon had some interesting capabilities with dual band (RF and home wiring), phase coupler/access points and had some reasonably priced hardware. Another plus was that there are a few iPxxx free apps available to control Insteon enabled devices, both while at home and while away from home. I spent a fair amount of time at the Smarthome website deciding which components to order.

I ended up with an Insteon system that included a network control module, two access point/phase couplers, and several lamp/appliance control modules. I have web browser access for complete control from anywhere in the world, and I can set a schedule to turn lights on and off for security or convenience. I can dim lights for home theater use, and I can turn devices on and off from my iPxx devices from anywhere.

 

That comes in handy when I arrive home after dark, have armfuls of groceries and no spare hands or light switches. I simply turn on some lights from the car. 

I’ll be adding a couple of posts his week with the details of the equipment and configuration.

The components I used for displaying the output of my cameras in the Windows Media Center interface are:

1. an MCL file
2. a PNG file for the Extras Tile
3. an HTML file
4. a background image file for the HTML file (I used a PNG file)

I’ve updated the MCL file and the PNG for the camera and authored an HTML file that I’ve copied to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\Media Center\Media Center Programs. For the background color, I added a PNG file that I created. Now I can see the output of my four cameras on a single screen inside the Windows Media Center interface. You’ll find sample source code at the end of this post.

My Cameras on the main level Extras Menu is shown in the following screen shot:

And the view inside Windows Media Center is shown below:

Here is sample code for the HTML file that is placed inside the folder:

 

<head>
<meta content="en-us" http-equiv="Content-Language">
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30">

<style type="text/css">
a {
    color: #DDEEFF;
}
a:visited {
    color: #DDEEFF;
}
a:active {
    color: #DDEEFF;
}
a:hover {
    color: #FFFFFF;
}
.style3 {
    font-family:"Segoe UI Semibold";
    font-size: x-large;
    font-weight: bold;
}
.style4 {
    font-family: "Segoe UI Semibold";
    font-size: x-large;
    border-width: 0;
    text-align: center;
}
.style5 {
    border: 10px solid #FFFFFF;
}
.style6 {
    font-family: "Segoe UI Semibold";
    font-size: x-large;
    text-align: center;
}
.auto-style1 {
    font-family: "Segoe UI Semibold";
}
</style>
</head>

<body style="color: #99CCFF; height: 826px; background-image: url(‘wmcbackgrnd.png’);">

<p class="style3">&nbsp;</p>

<table style="width: 800px">
    <tr>
        <td>
        <h2 class="auto-style1">Loft Cam</h2>
        </td>
        <td>
        <h2 class="auto-style1">Living Room Cam</h2>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>
        <img alt=""  src="http://yourhostname.dyndns.xxx:1234/image.jpg" width="360"></td>
        <td>
        <img alt=""  src="http://yourhostname.dyndns.xxx:5678/image/jpeg.cgi?size=3" width="360"></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>
        <h2 class="auto-style1">Hall Cam</h2>
        </td>
        <td>
        <h2 class="auto-style1">Dining Room Cam</h2>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>
        <img alt=""  src="http://yourhostname.dyndns.xxx:4321/image.jpg" width="360"></td>
        <td>
        <img alt=""  src="http://yourhostname.dyndns.xxx:8765/image/jpeg.cgi?size=3" width="360"></td>    </tr>
</table>

And here is sample code used for thee *.mcl file

<application url="mycameras.html"
name="My Cameras"
bgcolor="RGB(255,255,255)"
startimage=".\surveillance.png"
thumbnailImage=".\surveillance.png"
sharedviewport="false">
</application>

The Blue Iris web controller Windows software that I selected is viewable from any web browser. It detects mobile use and presents an iPxxx interface when I access it from my iPhone or iPad. I’ve added the URL to my bookmarks and to my Home screen on my iPxxx devices. Here is what I see from my iPad after I enter the proper credentials (since authentication was set up):

 I can select an individual camera from the drop down menu or just tap a camera to see a larger view.

I added a bookmark for the Blue Iris web server and also added it to my iPad and iPhone Home Screens for easy and fast access.

 

 If you have an iPxxx device and want additional apps to view your cameras, there are plenty of choices in the App Store. I wanted an additional, non browser based way to look in at home. There is a great app called Smartvue/Smartvue S9 with separate iPhone and iPad versions. And Smartvue is FREE to boot. You can set up multiple cameras and even pass authentication credentials in the configs. As I mentioned in Part 3, you will need the full image path, and all the port forwarding and dynamic DNS has to be in place for this to work. Here is a hypothetical config:

 

 

You can see that the syntax is http://username:password@yourhostname.xxx:Port/image_path. 

 Once all cameras are configured, when I open the app, a menu listing all my cameras is displayed:

 

 

I select the camera I want to view, and after a brief “Connecting to Camera”, the real time output of the camera displays:

 

 

 

 So, all the configuration of dynamic DNS, port forwarding, and authentication is really worth the effort for me. I realize that this isn’t a set of tasks easily performed by networking novices, but once you learn how to do these tasks, a whole new world of automation and control is available to you.

1. Only have 1 camera

2. Don’t need to access the camera either directly or through any software from outside your own home network

3. Don’t already have a web server running on the default port 80 (if your provider does not block this port)

If you are serious about DIY Home Security/Surveillance, you will need to configure multiple cameras on multiple ports, set up dynamic DNS (if you don’t have his setup already) and forward ports on your router. On your router, you should set up DNS reservations for your cameras, and if using a desktop software controller, a reservation for that computer and port forwarding for the port you are using for the desktop controller software web server. You can get free dynamic DNS from the folks at dyndns.com and if you have a decent router, there should be a place to enter your dyndns host name and password and the router will do the work of ensuring that if your Internet DHCP IP changes, updates are made seamlessly. D-Link actually offers a private branded dynamic DNS set up service from inside their admin interface. It should be ok to use this (last time I checked they were using the services of dyndns.com).

D-Link provides a login to a cloud based app to monitor your cameras (in addition to the dysfunctional Windows software) at mydlink.com and offers an iPhone app (free) called MyDlinkLite and a paid version for the iPad. Don’t even bother with these, they only work with port 80. I will post some info on monitoring from an iPxx device later in this series. There are other options.

So to get started, you will need to configure each camera on a unique port in the D-Link admin page.

  

 

In this case, I’ve put the Living Room camera on port 8006. Each of my 4 cameras is on a unique port.

Once you have dynamic DNS set up, use this host name instead of internal IPs. If you can’t reach the web server for your camera with the dynamic host name, you have a brain dead router hat doesn’t support loopback (like some older Netgear routers), and it’s time to replace that router. You shoud be able to reach the camera inside or outside your home in a web browser by using http://your-dyndns-hostname.xxx:port# (e.g.: http://yourhost.dyndns.info:8006 )

 

Similarly, in the Blue Iris desktop controller, cameras need to be set up with the correct port AND the path to the jpg image.

 

 

 

 

Hopefully, you will be able to find the Path info within the camera’s GUI. If not, Google or Bing..

D-Link’s DCS-932L uses /image.jpg and the DCS-942L uses image/jpeg.cgi

 

Be sure to able authentication (password protection) on all camera’s and for the desktop controller.

 

You can see why no one offers retail Home Surveillance kits – the networking set up requirements are beyond the skill set of most consumers. You can pay an installer, buy a plan from ADT or your ISP, etc. but if you are willing to do the work, you CAN roll your own.

My first decision was on what kind of technology to use. My first step was video surveillance that included motion sensing and alerts. Looking around, there wasn’t much of a choice for configurable, functioning equipment. The only affordable player that qualified was d-Link. So, I picked up a few D-Link IP cameras. Two DCS-932L’s and two DCS-942L’s. In retrospect, I could have gone with all 932L’s. These are easy to setup if you just want to view them from within your own home and if you have no advanced needs. I will detail what I learned in another posting. Setting up to fulfill home surveillance needs was not trivial. That process alone will be a separate blog post. I can also tell you that while D-Link offers a free web based viewer for web browsers and a free app for the iPhone, you won’t want to use these. D-Link includes D-Cam Viewer software for Windows on their CD’s which is a real joke as it requires you to turn of UAC.

I settled on desktop controller from Blue Iris software that, while costing $50, does everything I could ask, including scheduling triggered alerts via email or SMS, etc., and it is viewable over the Internet with authentication protection. And there is a free iPad as well as an iPhone app that works beautifully with these cameras.

After setting up my cameras, etc., here is what I can see via a web browser accessing the Blue Iris controller remotely:

Each camera can be put on a schedule for triggered alerts. If one of the motion sensors is triggered, an email and/or SMS can be sent. I am quite happy with the video surveillance system.

*Note: I left the local ADT alarms intact, and shut off the monitoring service that cost $40/month, so if someone tries to come in through doors and windows when I have armed the ADT system, an ear-splitting alarm is set off.

My solution? (Edited 8/9/2011) Stay logged into Facebook with Firefox, but NOT with IE. And strictly use Firefox for Facebook. (And note that this warning does not happen when I use Firefox to browse other sites while still logged into Facebook because Firefox is displaying mixed content by default.). Microsoft has other solutions posted, but they involve allowing mixed content to kill the prompt, or not allowing it ever (which kills the prompt) and even adding Facebook’s https site to the trusted zone. I prefer to use IE for financial sites and keep prompts and elect to only display secure content. And I am not by any means advocating dumping IE9.

I’m almost always running at least two browsers, but I just had not figured out what was causing OE to behave this way. There may be similar situations with other Facebook type sites or plugins, but with Facebook being by far the most widespread, my solution solves 99% of the problem for me. Now I know, and if you didn’t know this before, I hope this is helpful.

As it turns out, for whatever reason, the Microsoft RAW Codec does not support the D7000. I’m not sure why, since Adobe and others now support it, and the D7000 has been available since mid October 2010.

Anyway, if you have a supported camera, the new codec most definitely is supported inside Windows Media Center if you want to view your RAW images there. You won’t get detailed EXIF info in View Details, but you certainly can display your images on a large screen. The screen capture below shows one of the folders (highlighted) from an Orchid Show I attended in 2009 where I shot with my D700 and the Nikon 105mm Macro lens. Thumbnails appear as expected.

Selecting the folder displays, as expected, thumbnails of all the RAW NEF images within it:

And of course, selecting an individual image invokes a larger, full screen view:

I’m VERY happy to see this support, and I am hoping that the folks at Microsoft issue a new version quickly with better support for the D7000.

Below is a screen shot in Windows Explorer Tile view of some Nikon NEF RAW images which is where I looked first. Note the generic Windows Live Photo Gallery icons, but please read further

Or, if you view with large icons, you will see something like the screenshot below:

As you can see, you can’t INITIALLY actually view images in Windows Explorer with this new codec pack, but you can open/preview in Windows Live Photo Gallery. It seems that after you open a group of photos in WLPG and click through each one, eventually some magic happens and if you are patient, you will eventually get thumbnails in Windows Explorer view. Here is a screenshot using Windows Explorer after clicking through some, but not all images in a folder. It looks like WLPG needs to complete looking for people tags and until this completes, only the generic WLPG icon will appear:

I will continue to use Adobe Bridge or Fastone Image Viewer (FREE) to quickly select images for editing. Here’s what Fastone produces for thumbnails:

Once you elect to Preview/Open a RAW file in WLPG with the new codec installed, you can view properties and find EXIF info and lots more. I note that while Microsoft didn’t list the Nikon D7000 (but does list the D700) that both of my Nikon DSLRs are indeed supported.

Once inside WLPG, you’ll see thumbnail and as stated, be able to perform a few image manipulations, but you won’t be able to adjust color/curves/saturation, etc. as you can with a full blown image editor. The types of editing provided for RAW files, at least for the Nikon NEFs I tested, inside WLPG are not the same set available for say JPEG images. However, you can open the image in your favorite editor (and select from those editors you’ve configured if you have multiple image editors).

I was hoping that the new codec would let me view RAW NEF files inside Windows Media Center, and was encouraged when I saw thumbnails.

But alas, it is not meant to be, as apparently WMC still cannot display RAW images and instead I see the dreaded “unable to display picture screen”. Turns out this is true of images shot with my D7000 but works correctly with my D700. I guess the meaning of the omission of the D7000 from the supported list is clearer.

I have contacted Microsoft about this and do not know if there will be a fix.

If you are not using an iOS device, the image above shows how the site is displayed on an iPad.

iOS Touch users can swipe to display more pages, or select an individual entry tile to display a magazine formatted page.

Touch an image to bring up a full view, or select an icon on the bottom of the page for more options. At any time the icon in the lower left hand corner allows the user to select an option to view the full desktop version. There is lots more functionality, such as once in article view, swiping will move between articles.

Why am I so excited about this? Barb Bowman’s online presence is more than just a blog. In fact I have a few blogs and websites that each represent a different segment of my online/offline life. Barbbowman.net is my photography site and barbbowmanphoto.wordpress.com is my photoblog (currently this uses the WordPress plugin). When the full Onswipe platform launches, I hope to add the photo feed to the same Onswiped site that currently only displays my blog and other content that I have online. I will become my own content aggregator/publisher. Mobile visitors will see a menu and be able to selectively view content (or view it all). Onswipe has enabled a few major publishers like Marie Claire and Slate, and if you visit those sites on an iOS device, you’ll get an idea of what I hope to do with my online presence. While I’ll never be a major publisher like these folks, I will be able to aggregate everything about Barb Bowman in one place for mobile visitors. And I think it will look awesome.

My thanks to the folks at Onswipe for enabling me to preview this publishing platform.

I wish the iPad had built in weather and stocks apps like the smaller iPhone/iPod, as that would be really handy.

Hopefully there will be abundant updates from third party vendors that will enable visibility in the new unified app.

I’m currently using Comcast’s 6to4 gateway.

http://www.worldipv6day.org/

http://test-ipv6.com/ipv6day.html

The “Start” Screen is “swipable” and apparently every app on your system will appear as a tile. I like this concept a lot (and hope that there is an easy way to search for apps if there are hundred’s installed to avoid scrolling through an ungainly number of pages (thinking of my iPad…). The “snap” feature appears to allow two apps to switch focus (but only two) which is cool for a tablet interface, but I am not sure if that works for me on a desktop/laptop used for mainstream work with multiple apps open all the time. I guess we will find out in time. But for a tablet format, I vote YES.

In some ways, the interface reminds me of Windows Media Center. But speaking of WMC, while this first demo touched on Pictures and Videos, I didn’t see any TV functionality in the screens that quickly scrolled by in the presentation. There are a lot of missing pieces, and I hope Microsoft reveals info soon.

You’ll need to install Dot NET 3.5 if it isn’t already present, Bonjour from http://support.apple.com/kb/DL999 and finally the app from his home page.

After running the install (it is a little quirky, see the comments posted on his page), I was indeed able to stream from my iPad to Windows Media Center. I fired up Videos on my iPad and selected Avatar (which I ripped from my owned BD Ray movie).

I touched the AirPlay icon to display AirPlay enabled devices

and sure enough, I could select Windows Media Center!

Both the iPad and the WMC machine were on 802.11n 5GHz wireless and it didn’t take long at all for the movie to start to stream on WMC.

Interestingly enough, I could drag the timeline with a mouse and playback started instantly from that point. I didn’t have any video or audio issues at all.

Even though the app is not currently supposed to work with Photos on the iPad, I tried a slide show, as I see that as a more important application for me than videos. I was able to manually move between 5 or 6 photos before WMC froze, but the potential is there.

I’m all for a universal ecosystem of smart, connected devices, and I love seeing apps like this one. I’m not seeing the app show up in the Extra Libraries (it IS registered) so I don’t know if the app can send content FROM MCE to an iPad (but I would really like to see that since that would have more real world use for me).

Kudos to Thomas Pleasance for these first steps!

Young Ellie: Dad, do you think there’s people on other planets?
Ted Arroway: I don’t know, Sparks. But I guess I’d say if it is just us… seems like an awful waste of space

Contact, while science fiction, and was inspired by the research using the SETI Allen Telescope Array, was about real “possibilities”. I watch the movie every so often and wonder why we stopped moon missions and stayed home, content to orbit our own plant. And I had a small measure of satisfaction that at least we were using technology to identify other worlds that could support life. And now all of that is on hold.

When I think about the fact that all SETI needs to fund the Allen array until new funding (hopefully) kicks in around 2013 is five million dollars, I have to wonder why no one has stepped up to the plate to offer a helping hand. You know, people like Richard Branson, who has funded Virgin Galactic, and who has demonstrated an interest in the world beyond our small little rock.

So, for the next couple of years, at least, if ET decides to call us, he’ll either get no answer or a busy signal, with no opportunity to leave us voice mail.

Tap the screen to display the centering frame guide and follow the prompts for each successive shot and tap finish when done.

While the photos appear in your Camera Roll, uploading to photosynth.net provides automated fit and finish since further edit online!

Here is the raw output stored in my iPhone Camera Roll. (a three frame pano)

Photosynth initial view. Note that there is some distortion (just like you’d get with an ultra wide angle lens) but this app has potential.

I’ve dragged my Social Network photo my my dock. I’m busy re-arranging to speed up access to the apps I use the most. This was an ah-ha moment for me. Just sayin’…