Nokia. Connecting (Microsoft) people

I wrote about Nokia’s fading fortunes a few months ago and got into trouble for suggesting Nokia should embrace another OS – Android, say, or Windows Phone 7. Today, Nokia announced that Windows Phone 7 would be the central plank of its smartphone strategy. Naturally I think that’s a great idea, and I explain why over on Techradar.

Nothing in tech is certain, of course, and the whole partnership could end in disaster. But I’m really excited about this. Nokia makes stunning hardware, and Windows Phone 7 is a really nice mobile OS.

Bye bye Microsoft Word

I’ve been using Word on the Mac for a long time, but since Office 2008 I’ve encountered an extremely annoying problem: documents get corrupted. It doesn’t happen very often, and it appears to be connected to the Send File button: when I send a file by email, Word does something to the document that means it can’t be opened: it’s not a valid file any more. It won’t work in Word for the Mac, Word on PC, any Office clones or anything else. It’s a dead file.

It’s annoying, but it’s not the end of the world: I can retrieve the emailed copy from my Sent email folder and resurrect it.

Still, it’s annoying enough that I was ready to buy the New! Improved! Microsoft Office for Mac to stop it happening again.

Unfortunately the problem hasn’t gone away in the new version; it’s got worse. Yesterday I was working across eight Word documents. Nothing fancy, just plain text. Several thousand words in all. And Word corrupted six of them beyond repair (I don’t have Time Machine running at the moment so I couldn’t roll back time, unfortunately). The files couldn’t be moved, or copied, or emailed, or anything. They were completely and utterly screwed.

It’s a known problem, it seems, and it *may* have something to do with unusual characters in filenames or folder paths. However, my documents didn’t have unusual characters in filenames or folder paths, and no other program on my Mac does this. Just Word.

I like Word, but I can’t have the electronic equivalent of a family dog that mauls the kids. So it’s off to Pages I go.

Who’s on the phone? THE FUTURE

You know how I’m often to be found banging on about augmented reality and its potential for awesomeness? Check this out.

It’s real and it works. Astonishing. More here.

Readability: a little bookmark that makes a big difference

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but if you read a lot of online content then Readability should be on your bookmarks bar. It’s a one-button site reformatter that turns even the most eyeball-zapping site into a simple, readable page. I love it.

Google, Apple and Microsoft. It’s war!

A fun wee piece I wrote for PC Plus has ventured online:

Back in the good old days, Microsoft did desktops, Google stuck to search and Apple made toys for people in polo necks. No more.

The superpowers of the technology world are at war, and like real wars, the battle is happening on several fronts. They’re fighting on the desktop, they’re fighting on mobile phones, they’re fighting in the browser and they’re fighting in your front room.

Who will prevail, and who will end up in a bunker?

Windows 7: can you trust the reviews?

It’s the best Windows yet, we’re told, but the reviewers said the same thing about Vista. Can we trust them? What’s different about Windows 7?

…unfair or not, people did criticise Microsoft – again and again and again and again, until the man on the street believed that Vista was as desirable as a six-month submarine trip with Fred “Farty” Finnegan and a kitchen stocked only with Guinness and sprouts.

So are the experts right this time? Will Windows 7 fare better? We think it will.

The “it’s just Vista done right” slur isn’t a slur to these eyes, because it’s largely true

iPhone 3.0 hands-on

Is the upgrade enough to make the 3GS upgrade unnecessary? I think so…

Until third party developers really start to take advantage of the new APIs it’s evolution rather than revolution, but it does keep your phone current without forcing you to shell out any more cash.

Opera Unite: very cool

Opera Unite puts a web server inside your browser. It’s really very clever.

When Opera promised to “reinvent the web” this morning, we were cynical – and when it started talking about inventing “Web 5.0″ we set our word-guns to maximum mockery.

Then it showed us Unite. We’re not sure about Web 5.0, but we’re convinced that Unite really is worth getting excited about.

Windows 7: How do you get a browser without a browser?

It’s a good question…

How do you install a browser when you don’t have a browser? The news that Windows 7 won’t include Internet Explorer in Europe has caused an outbreak of head-scratching – especially among those of us whose routers need a browser window to configure our connections in the first place.

Google quick search vs Quicksilver (Mac)

Me again:

The new Google Quick Search Box (QSB) for Mac is designed to make things easier.

Summon it with a quick key combination and you can use it to find and launch applications, track down elusive files, dig up contacts or search the web.

It sounds very familiar, with good reason: apps such as Quicksilver have been doing much the same for years. So is QSB a Quicksilver killer? The short answer is probably – but not quite yet.