Configuring Windows Mail for Tiscali’s IMAP servers

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Last weekend, I set up my father-in-law’s new PC and needed to get Windows Mail (the built-in client in Windows Vista that replaces Outlook Express) working with his ISP’s mail server.  The ISP in question is Tiscali, but I still wanted the messages to be available on the server for webmail access, so I wanted to use IMAP and not POP to collect e-mail.

Tiscali’s instructions seem to be for Outlook Express and POP3 (at least the ones I found were) but I decided to see if they offered an IMAP service and it seems they do – all I needed to provide to Windows was some basic account information (name, username and password), the incoming server name (imap.tiscali.co.uk) and outgoing server (smtp.tiscali.co.uk).  At first sight, some of the mail folders were missing but they were easily made visible by selecting IMAP Folders… from the Tools menu.

Show/hide IMAP folders in Windows Mail

Finally, to tidy up the experience I remapped some of the special folders Trash/Spam/Sent instead of the Microsoft defaults of Deleted Items/Junk E-mail/Sent Items in the account properties and hid the unused ones from view.

Remapping IMAP folders in Windows Mail

Windows 7 beta is available for download

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

There’s been a lot of speculation over the last year or so about when Windows 7 will ship and those who are expecting a 2009 release could well get what they are asking for as the Windows 7 beta has now been released.

Starting today, Microsoft Connect beta testers and TechNet subscribers have access to the beta build (build 7000) and on Friday it will become available to a broader audience via the Windows 7 website although this is still a limited beta – Microsoft’s Windows Blog reports that the beta will be restricted to the first 2.5 million downloaders and will expire on 1 August 2009.  For most testers, Ultimate Edition is the only version of the client OS that’s available although it does come in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. 

For those who are tracking the server release, a beta of Windows Server 2008 R2 will also be available from Friday at the Windows Server 2008 R2 website and I’ve written previously about some of the new features to expect in Windows Server 2008 R2.

This is a beta – there will be things that are not quite right – and it might break things so it’s definitely not recommended for use on a production system.  Having said that, I’ve been running Windows 7 for a couple of months now and it seems pretty solid to me – it should be, as it’s based on Windows Vista.  If you do run into problems, there is limited support available via the Technet Forums (where I’m one of the moderators for Windows 7).

For me, this is great news – many of the NDA restrictions that were imposed on me whilst I was using the M3 build have now been lifted and I can start to write about the new features – indeed I’m just putting the finishing touches on a post about my experiences of running 7 on a netbook.

As for that 2009 release, at the time of writing this post I have no information on product packaging, pricing, or ship dates (Microsoft is sticking to the line that it will ship when it reaches the required quality, rather than on a pre-planned date) but, with an API-complete milestone build released to developers in Autumn 2008 and a feature-complete beta released in January 2009, I see no reason why the final product would not be ready for Christmas.  The August expiry of the beta also provides some hints although there is likely to be at least one release candidate post-beta and pre-RTM.  It may be that we see OEMs and volume license customers get a copy in late 2009 but full retail release will follow a few weeks later (as with Vista).  Also, don’t be fooled by the fact that Windows Server 2008 R2 is being jointly developed with the Windows client operating system – I’d expect the server product to ship in early 2010.  All of that is pure speculation though… for now, it’s time for organisations to start installing the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 betas in labs, to familiarise themselves with new features, to test applications and to provide feedback to Microsoft.

Steve Ballmer announces Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 public betas

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Just about now (18:30 PST on 7 January 2008), Steve Ballmer should be delivering his pre-CES keynote, during which he will announce the public release of the betas for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

As 18:30 PST is 02:30 GMT, I’ll be asleep when this post goes live (ah, the wonders of modern technology) but I’ll post more in the morning (once I’ve checked exactly what information has been made public).  There is so much I’ve been waiting to say about Windows 7 but have been unable to do so because of non-disclosure agreements and hopefully now that has changed. Watch this space.

Crack in iPhone case: Replaced under warranty by Apple

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Alex says that I write too much about Microsoft and not enough good news about Apple… and there’s a reason for that (two reasons actually).

Anyway, here’s a good news story about Apple. My iPhone 3G has developed a crack in the case. In fact, there’s not just one crack on the side but a number of hairline cracks too – almost like the rings if you cut through a branch or a trunk on a tree. Is that the good news? Well, no, but I took it into my local Apple Store, where a “genius” took a look, agreed that it was not desirable and that the rest of the handset was in mint condition and ordered me a replacement. That’s the sort of customer service that I expect from a vendor of a premium product and I’m pleased so see Apple respond in this manner (especially as this unit was actually purchased from Carphone Warehouse – it’s a pity that it took a week to get a replacement unit but at least my phone wasn’t dead so I could us it in the meantime).

Unlike the issues I’ve been experiencing with my MacBook (where there is clearly a design fault), this probably stems from carrying the phone around in various pockets (but, after all, that’s what you do with a mobile phone!) and the curved side of the case being a point where particular pressure is exerted. The replacement unit may not be new (possibly “remanufactured” – i.e. new case, new screen, new battery, someone else’s old circuit board) but it’s impossible to tell and it seems reasonable, given that the original phone was not new either (just in “as new” condition). Swapping the phone over was simple. After switching my SIM to the new handset, the Apple Store activated the phone and I simply restored a recent backup in iTunes. I need to register the MAC address on my Wireless Access Point and if I had insurance I’d need to let my insurer know that I’d changed handsets but other than that everything seems good.

Whilst on the subject of the iPhone – I previously wrote about how I had applied an InvisibleSHIELD to my iPod and iPhone 3G. Whilst the iPod is still happily wearing its shield, the iPhone is no longer as it started to peel away at the edges and also experienced some discolouration (turning blue as the dye from my jeans transferred to the plastic). These days my iPhone lives in a leather case that I picked up at an O2 store and that seems to be doing a pretty good job of keeping the device in good condition.

Buying Microsoft Office for a home PC doesn’t need to be expensive

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Over the last few months I’ve found myself in conversation with various people who want to install Microsoft Office on their PC but are put off by the high price of a a full retail copy.  What many people don’t seem to realise is that there is a Home and Student Edition for Microsoft Office 2007 that is very reasonably priced and it’s valid for up to 3 PCs in one household.  Suggested retail price in the US is $149.99 but, here in the UK, Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition can be purchased for as little as £53.93 (Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 Home and Student Edition is slightly more expensive at £78.45).

Because Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition is intended for consumers in general (i.e. it’s not just an educational discount) there is no need for purchasers to prove academic status.  It just needs to be for home/educational use (i.e. not for a small business!).  You don’t get the full Office suite, but you get the important bits – Word, Excel and PowerPoint (no Outlook, but Windows Mail, Windows Contacts and Windows Calendar are all perfectly capable clients and are built into Windows Vista).  Office:Mac users also get Entourage (minus Exchange Server support) and Messenger (although Messenger:Mac  is a free download).

If someone in your household is in education, students (school, college and University) and their family members can get even better deals including something called the Ultimate Steal which allows the purchase of Office Ultimate 2007 for £38.95 (which includes Access, Excel, Groove, Infopath, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher and Word), Office Visio Professional 2007 for £36.95, Office Language Packs for £9.95 or a Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade for £40.95 but for these prices you do need to be enrolled on a college course with an academic e-mail address and meet certain requirements regarding hours of study (sadly my 3 hours a week in evening classes won’t count!).

It seems that buying a copy of Office doesn’t need to break the bank after all.

The BBC’s iPlayer finally catches up

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

The BBC’s iPlayer TV and radio catch up service is great in many ways but it only runs on XP and has a ridiculously short period before the DRM kicks in and snatches a programme away from your computer. Now things are taking a step forward and, over the Christmas period, I’ve been using a beta of the BBC’s new cross-platform iPlayer Desktop.

No longer limiting itself to a single platform and an old version of Windows, the BBC has dropped Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM in favour of an Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) application and H.264. For those who are not familiar with this technology:

  • H.264 is a video encoding algorithm intended to providing good video quality at substantially lower bit rates than previous standards and is used by Apple iTunes, YouTube and other prominent content distribution platforms.
  • AIR is Adobe’s platform for writing rich Internet applications that can run on the desktop. Basically, AIR is the opposite to Microsoft Silverlight (which takes the .NET Framework into a browser) and it can bring Flash, Flex, HTML or AJAX to the desktop, further blurring the lines between web and desktop applications.

Because AIR is supported on so many platforms, the new iPlayer system requirements list Linux (Fedora Core 8, Ubuntu 7.10, Open Suse 10.3); Mac (Intel only); Windows XP and Windows Vista as supported operating systems. Although they are not listed in the system requirements, it should also run on other platforms that are not listed – for example other Linux distributions and Windows 7.

The application itself seems straightforward enough – if you’ve seen the previous iPlayer Download Manager then the new iPlayer Desktop will be instantly familiar. As should be expected with a beta application though, there are still some issues to iron out: all three machines that I installed the application on set the allocated hard disk space to something ridiculously small; but, critically, if your computer is connected to a low-resolution screen (say, on a netbook, or a standard definition television), then parts of the interface (like the tabs to switch between downloads, now playing and settings) are not accessible – as shown in the screen shot below (a VNC connection to the Mac Mini that I have hooked up to my old Sony TV):

iPlayer Desktop too big for the display

Sadly I’m not aware of any changes to the content restrictions that mean programmes are only available for a (very) limited number of days after broadcast (I imagine that, just as the Windows Media DRM was easily circumvented, the DRM on this new platform will be cracked too). But there is some light at the end of the tunnel – the AIR-based system may just be a stepping stone in the development of the BBC’s content delivery platform – at Microsoft’s 2008 Professional Developers’ Conference, the Head of Online Media for BBC iPlayer, Anthony Rhodes, spoke of moving from an Internet catchup (broadcast 1.0) service to a model where the Internet replaces television (broadcast 2.0) using Live Mesh and a local Silverlight application to share content between users and across devices.

So, how can you get the new iPlayer Desktop? Simply agree to be a BBC iPlayer Labs tester and then download a programme from the iPlayer website. At this point you should be prompted to install the iPlayer Desktop (and Adobe AIR) – just follow the prompts and within a few minutes you should be in business.

After testing the new platform on my systems over Christmas, the iPlayer Desktop seems like a major step forward to me. If you run Linux, Mac OS X, or a modern version of Windows (and if you have a UK-based IP address), then it’s definitely worth a look.

Sometimes it really is just time to get a new PC

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

My parents in-law have been saying for some time that their PC is slow.  I couldn’t really understand why – after all, it’s only a couple of years since I put some memory in it, added a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive and rebuilt in to run Windows XP – I thought that would be fine for a couple of silver surfers to look at and store their digital photos, catch up on e-mail and surf the web.

Oh how wrong I was.  It was fine when I set it up, but after a couple of years of Windows updates, plus the installation of various programs bundled by their ISP, bloated security suites and the like, the PC was practically crawling.  It wasn’t unresponsive, it just took forever to load a web page, open a document, etc. and I even began to wonder if the Internet connection was failing to deliver the advertised ADSL broadband speeds.

My brother-in-law also complained about it every time he came home from his work overseas so when my wife suggested that he shared the cost of a new computer with us as a 70th birthday present he was more than happy to do so.

This afternoon, I’m copying over the files, setting up the printer, and doing all the bits and pieces that I couldn’t do at home when I imaged the new PC and decrapified it a couple of weeks back but, just out of curiosity, I ran a speed test on the Internet connection.

Moving the ADSL modem connection from the aging PC (which Windows XP reports as a Pentium II with 412MB of RAM) to the new on (a Dell Inspiron 1525 with a 2.0GHz Core2Duo CPU and 3GB of RAM) boosted the reported connection speed from 1360kbps downstream and 152kbps upstream with a 502ms ping response (averaged over three readings) to 1883kbps downstream and 242kbps upstream with a 34ms ping (again, averaged over three tests).  And this was the same ISP, the same phone line, and the same modem, just plugged into a different PC.  Who would have thought that the CPU was just to slow to keep up with the network (and, before someone tells me that Linux could handle it… ask yourself whether the average grandparent can handle Linux?)

So, next time you wonder if your ISP is delivering the advertised connection speed, it might just be worth taking a look at the PC you’re using to access the connection.

(Now, if one more pensioner tells me how good it would be to set my in-laws up with a wireless network, I’ll scream…).

Another “How Do I?” video on the Microsoft TechNet website

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I was just catching up with my RSS backlog and noticed that another one of my videos has made it onto the TechNet website. In this one, I take a look at preparing for and deploying Windows Server 2008 Read Only Domain Controllers (RODCs).

There’s more to come too as, a couple of hours ago, I submitted a follow-up video on RODC password replication policies (I’ll write another post when that goes live but for more videos on a variety of topics, subscribe to the TechNet How-to Videos RSS feed).

A new year resolution

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

As we entered 2009, I realised that I’ve been writing on this blog for five years (well, a little under five years really as the first few posts were back dated) but what started out as “Mark’s (we)blog” has become a full-time job.  Incidentally, Mark’s (we)blog was a play on words that was lost on most people – “wee” is a synonym for “small” in Scotland and is well-known south of the border too, so I thought that Mark’s weblog also worked as Mark’s little blog – which is precisely why I don’t have a career in marketing…

The thing is, whilst it’s become a full time job, it doesn’t pay very well.  And I already have a full-time job.  Meanwhile the number of blog posts has been getting silly.  For 2005/6/7 I managed to average about a post a day on week days but, looking back, some of those posts were just reporting tech news and there are better places to get news than this blog (a bit of comment should be expected but this is certainly not a news site).  In 2008 it looked at one point as though I would finish the year averaging a post a day (until I timed out – and burned out – in December).  I can’t keep it up: I have a demanding day job; a family who are losing out; friends I’d like to see more of; and I desperately need to get away from my computers and take some physical exercise every day (or at least on alternate days). 

It’s not just the blog either – in 2008 I started to produce some videos for Microsoft (which turned out to be very time-consuming); James Bannan and I finally kicked off the Coalface Tech podcast (which we hope to keep on a monthly schedule); and my MVP award was a fantastic achievement but it also presents new challenges for my time management abilities (access to information is great – but I need to continue working with the user groups and forums if I want to be re-awarded in October).  Now I’ve taken on a role as one of the forum moderators for the Windows 7 beta – so that’s going to be another demand on my time over the coming months.

So, what am I saying?  Well, markwilson.it will continue, and perhaps you won’t see much change at all – but I will be making an effort to only write something when I feel it adds value.  I’ll also be looking to reduce the amount of time that it takes to write each post: the useful links posts that I’ve been running on a monthly basis may become more frequent; I may publish more posts in bullet list/note form; and I will try to work though my backlog of part-written posts – but please don’t expect a post a day (I don’t think I can keep it up any more). I need to make some infrastructure changes too – a WordPress upgrade is on the cards, along with a much-needed overhaul of the site design (and a rethink of the best way to run ads on the site – making sure that they are unobtrusive but balancing that with a need to earn some cash).

This website has become more than just my little blog, storing the notes I write up from events I attend and key points from articles that I read.  It’s also the focal point for all my non-work IT-related output and I’m frankly amazed at how many people visit it every month.  So, thank you, to everyone who reads the blog; adds my feed to their RSS; leaves a comment; listens to the podcast; watches the videos; or comes up to me at an event and says “hey – you’re Mark Wilson aren’t you?” (which is very weird, but strangely satisfying).  THANK YOU – I wish you a very happy new year and I’ll try to keep producing content.  It’s just that there might be a little less of it in 2009.