Windows 8 Consumer Preview. 5. Weather and Maps.

This post, we’ll take a look at any other apps that need personalising, including the Weather and the Maps apps.

Weather.

1. Click on the WEATHER app. Firstly you will be asked if you will allow the app to use your location.

2. Click on Allow. There will be a short pause whilst the WEATHER app loads up the info for your location. You will then be presented with a large picture depicting the current weather where you live on the left hand side of the screen and on the right hand side a hourly forecast complete with descriptive icons for the current day. At the bottom of the picture, you are shown todays temperature followed by the next few days. You can click on the right arrow icon next to the days forecasts to show up to ten days ahead. Clicking on the More icon will show alternative forecasts from other Weather forecast sites such as Foreca and AccuWeather.

3. Scroll right with your scroll wheel to see more information such as the regional and national temperature for your country under Maps. To the right of the Maps info, you can also see a bar graph showing the recent history of the weather in your locality.

4. Click on either of the icons below the bar graph will display the temperature, the rainfall and any snow days throughout the previous months for your locality. . At the far right is a breakdown of those stats for the current month.  Clicking on any month will show the average for that month .

5. Right click Anywhere in the WEATHER app to bring up more choices. The choices are Places and World Weather.

 

6. Clicking on Places allows you to choose another location to get weather details from. This could be somewhere where you intend to visit and can be in the same country or abroad. You can then see the same details for that locality.

You can add as many places as favourites as you wish by clicking on the plus sign in the black tile. Clicking on any one of them will show you the same details as you previously accessed with your own locality.

7. Next, click on the World Weather in order to see an interactive world map showing the current weather in several locations. If you stay on that world map you will see the locations change. Click on any of the currently added locations in order to see detailed weather information for that particular location.

Maps.

1. Open the Maps app by clicking on it. As with the Weather app, you will be asked if the Map app can use your location. Click on Allow.

The Map app will then load a local map showing your current location marked by a small orange triangle. In this app, your choices are all available by default. At the top of the map you have a Bing search box, Directions and a larger search box where you can conduct a search for another location or business.

At the bottom of the app, you have My Location, Show Traffic and Map Style.

2. Click on the Map style icon and a pop up allows you to choose between Road View and Aerial View.

3. Using your mouse scroll wheel will allow you to scroll into or out of the Map view.  In the next screen grab, I’ve used the mouse scroll wheel to scroll right out to show most of the United Kingdom. A quick click on the My Location icon takes me right back down to a the close view of my location on the map again.

4. Now let’s click on Directions at the top of the map. Type into the B box the destination that you wish to travel to. The A box is of course your current location. If you wish to know the route from another destination you can input that in the A box.

A from A to B route will then be shown on the map with detailed numbered instructions at the top. Clicking on each instruction will highlight it on the route. As your mouse scroll wheel works to scroll in and out of the Map, you will have to click on the scroll bar directly beneath the instructions in order to scroll through them from left to right.

5. Click on the black arrow on the right hand side of the instructions to close them. 

6. Right click on the map and then click on Clear at the bottom left in order to clear that route from the map.

Conducting a Search of Maps using the CHARMS bar search feature can also be useful to find a particular location on a Map.

TG  Next post, well take a look at the MUSIC app and the VIDEO app.

Technorati Tags: windows 8,weather,maps,directions,location

Windows 8 Consumer Preview.4. The Photos app.

You can view all of your photos directly in the PHOTOS app from not only your computer but also from your SkyDrive, your Facebook account and also Flickr. I would imagine that other photo hosting sites will also be added in due course. The PHOTOS app is NOT an editing app like Photo Gallery in its preview incarnation, instead its an app that allows you to view your photos from all the different online photo hosting sites that you currently use. So let’s set it all up shall we?

1. Click on the PHOTOS app to open it. If you already have any photos on your computer, these will be shown on the left hand side in your Picture Library. Next will be any photos that you have previously uploaded to your SkyDrive, followed by any photos from Facebook if you have already connected to it in your PEOPLE app.

2. If you also use Flickr to store your photos online, then that may need to be connected to. The method used is exactly the same as before when you connected a service to the PEOPLE app. You will be informed all the way through the connection process about the exact features that will be shared with the app and in the case of Flickr, you will also receive a warning before you authorise the app.

The PHOTOS app will choose one of your photos from each account or on your computer to display. The total photos from both your computer (Pictures Library) and any online photo sites that you have connected to will be shown beneath each one. Next we’ll take a look at an Album in our Pictures Library.

3. Click on your Pictures Library. All of your current Albums in your Pictures Library will now be shown, again displaying one of the photos from each Album. Right clicking with your mouse will give you the choice of Browsing your Pictures Library folders by Date. Once in the Date view of your Photo folders, another right click will give you the choice of Browse by Album.

4. Click on one of those Albums and then once it is displayed singly, click once more in order to open it.

For this how-to, I’m showing the Album from my Pictures Library that contains photos taken with my Windows phone. Using the mouse scroll wheel, you can scroll from left to right though all of the photos contained in that particular Album.

5. Right click allows you to view all of the photos in that Album as a Slideshow or alternatively to Select All. 

6. Once chosen, Select All allows you to Delete all of the photos selected or Clear your selection.

7. Click on top of a single photo. The photo will then be shown full screen with navigation arrows at either side to enable you to move from the previous photo to the next one.

8. Right clicking on a single photo view allows you more choices. You can set the photo as the App Tile (the photo to be displayed on top of the PHOTOS tile), you can set that photo as your Lock screen, you can Delete that single photo or you can view that photo and all others in a full screen Slideshow display.

9. Next let’s take a look at one of our Albums from one of our online services. The choices you are offered tend to differ from those offered in your Pictures Library. For example you cannot Delete any photos from Facebook, SkyDrive or Flickr from the PHOTO app at this time. For this how-to I’ll show the choices available for SkyDrive.

10. From the initial PHOTOS app screen, click on the SkyDrive Photos. As you can see from this screen grab, only Feedback is offered when right clicking on your SkyDrive Albums.  Unlike with your Pictures Library, you cannot at this time Browse by Date. If you have many Albums stored on your SkyDrive, then use the mouse scroll wheel to move through them from left to right.

11. Click on one of your Photo Albums to open it. Right clicking on the page once the Album is open will allow you to view them in a Slideshow or Select them all. However, if you Select them you’ll note that there is no Delete choice offered.

12. Clicking on an individual photo and then right clicking will give you similar choices to the one’s offered in your Pictures Library. You can choose to set that photo to display on you PHOTOS tile, set as your LOCK screen View on SkyDrive or see the rest of your photos from that Album as a full screen Slideshow.

Both your Facebook photo albums and your Flickr Albums offer the same choices as SkyDrive.

13. Opening the CHARMS menu whilst in an album and typing in the SEARCH box will allow you to search any tagged photos in that album.

14. Want to SHARE a photo via Email? Bring up the CHARMS Menu by taking your mouse over to the top right hand side of your screen to invoke the CHARMS Menu and choose SHARE.

15. Click on the MAIL and type in the persons email address that you wish to send the photo/photos to. (you can select either one or more or ALL.

16. When you have composed your email, click on the SEND icon at the top to send the recipient your photos. Alternatively you can also send them via the SkyDrive app.

17. Selecting DEVICES from the CHARMS Menu when a photo is full screen will allow you to select a printer in order to print out the photo.

TG Next post, we’ll personalise the other apps such as the WEATHER app and also the MAPS app.

Technorati Tags: facebook,flickr,photos,share,SkyDrive,windows 8

Windows 8 Consumer Preview. 3. Personalising the People app.

Next, let’s personalise our PEOPLE app.  For this how to, I’m beginning as if you do not already have any of your other accounts synced with your Microsoft Account. When you open the PEOPLE app for the first time, it might look fairly sparse.

1. To add more accounts to your PEOPLE app, click on ADD MORE ACCOUNTS. For this how-to, I’m going to add my Facebook account and also my Twitter account to the PEOPLE app.

2. Click on the account that you wish to add to the PEOPLE app. A CONNECT screen will be shown which explains at the top exactly what you will be able to do once you have connected that account to your PEOPLE app. In the case of Facebook for example, you will be able to chat with your Facebook friends and see their updates. You can also see more information by clicking on What else happens when I connect?

3. Click on CONNECT from that screen.

4. Next you will be required to fill in your email address or username in the name field and your password.  As you input your name/email address and password, you will also be informed what the app will be able to do and what it won’t be able to do.

5. If you are happy with the information, click on AUTHORISE APP or alternatively NO THANKS.

6. If you agree to the authorisation by the PEOPLE app, you will then see another screen stating that you are ready to go but it could take a few moments before you see any changes in the PEOPLE app. Click on DONE.

A few moments later, all of your contacts from those accounts that you just added will begin to be shown in  the PEOPLE app. Some larger avatars will be added to the ALL screen and on the right hand side, an alphabetical list of your contacts names along with their avatars. Scrolling right using the mouse scroll wheel will take you through from A to Z of your added contacts.

7. Click on any contact from that list to see both more details about them and also their latest updates. For this how-to, I’ll click on my friend Andre. A new page will open up which allows me to send Andre a message, see where he lives on a map and see more info about him. I can also see his latest updates he has made and also his photos he has uploaded to Facebook. If I click on a photo album I can then scroll through Andre’s photos and either like or add a comment.

Similarly I can click on any update that Andre has made on Facebook, like that update or add a comment to it. If Andre is also on Twitter, I can add favourite one of his tweets, retweet it or reply to him from the PEOPLE app. You can access do any of this for each one of your Facebook or Twitter contacts. Next let’s take a look at What’s New in the PEOPLE app.

8. Click on WHAT’S NEW. You will now see a sideways scrolling screen with all your updates from everyone whom you either follow on Twitter or who is your friend on Facebook.

9. To see all of these updates from any of your accounts that you have allowed in your PEOPLE app, scroll sideways from left to right using the mouse scroll wheel.

10. If you wish to interact with the update, either to favourite it, retweet it or reply if its from Twitter, or like it or add a comment to it if its an update from Facebook, you can either click on the red header or click on one of the small icons underneath the update. Either one will take you to the screen where you can interact with the update.

At this point in time, it is only possible to scroll through a limited amount of updates in WHAT’S NEW. Next, lets take a look at ME.

11. Click on the ME choice from above the updates. As you can see from the screen grab, I can see my own ALL INFO, my latest updates from any of my added accounts, NOTIFICATIONS from Facebook and any PHOTOS that I have added to Facebook in the past.

12. To see more notifications, click on the ALL NOTIFICATIONS at the bottom of the list. Similarly you can scroll right with the mouse scroll wheel to see all the shown Photo Albums and click on ALL ALBUMS to see all your photo albums together.

13. Left click on top of any album and then using the scroll wheel on your mouse you can scroll through your Facebook albums from left to right. You can also like or comment on any of your photos contained in an album.

14. To return to the ME screen simply click on the large left arrow.

Besides Facebook and Twitter, you can also add a Google account, a Hotmail account or an Exchange account to the PEOPLE app.

15. To conduct a SEARCH of your PEOPLE tile from anywhere inside the app, move your mouse to the top right hand side of your screen to invoke the CHARMS then click on the SEARCH icon. Type in someone’s name into the search box in order to find that person. Clicking onto that persons Avatar or name will then take you to their latest updates and more information about them.

TG  Next post we’ll personalise our PHOTOS app.

Technorati Tags: people,windows 8,accounts,facebook,twitter,search

Windows 8 Consumer Preview. 2. Setting up Mail.

Next we’ll begin to add our email accounts to the MAIL app. At this point in time, the app will only work with a Hotmail/Live or Gmail account. However, if you have a POP account there is a temporary work around which I’ll cover in this how to. So let’s get started setting up our email accounts and using the new MAIL app.

1. Click on the MAIL app from the METRO start screen. Once the app is open it will show your mail from the account that you have already used to log into Windows 8 with. For this how to, I’m going to add an Gmail account.

You can also add other Live ID’s or Hotmail accounts as well as Exchange accounts. As this app is still in a Preview stage, you cannot at this time use a POP account. But you can add your POP account to your Hotmail or Live ID online in order to temporarily get around this.

2. Access your Hotmail account online.

3. From the INBOX screen, click on OPTIONS on the top right hand side of your messages then from the drop down list click on MORE OPTIONS.

4. From the MANAGING YOUR ACCOUNT list  select Sending and Receiving Email from other Accounts.

5. Select ADD AN EMAIL ACCOUNT and the fill in the email address and your password.

6. Next you will be asked to choose between having your emails arrive in a separate folder or your INBOX folder. Choose INBOX then click on SAVE. Your Hotmail account will send a verification email to the account that you are trying to add, so you will have to go online to access your POP account in order to receive the verification email and therefore verify the account.

Once you have done that, all your POP account email will be downloaded to your Hotmail/Live account in the MAIL app. When POP accounts are enabled in the MAIL app in the future you can always go back to your Hotmail account online and delete any added POP accounts.

7. At the top right hand side of the reading screen, you can see three icons, + to compose a new email, REPLY to the highlighted email and DELETE to delete the highlighted email. Click on any to choose either of those choices.

8. If the ADD EMAIL ACCOUNTS choice at the bottom left hand column disappears or is no longer visible, then you can still add accounts from the CHARM bar by hovering your mouse to the right top corner in order to bring up the CHARM bar and click on SETTINGS, then ACCOUNTS.

9. You can conduct a SEARCH of your emails and their content in any account by taking your mouse to the top right hand corner to invoke the CHARMS bar and then select SEARCH.

10.Type in a word or phrase into the SEARCH MAIL box. Click on SEARCH. All of your emails which contain that search word or term will then be presented to you in the INBOX column.

11. When you need to compose a new email in the MAIL app by clicking on the + icon, as soon as you click in the writing area you are presented with several choices at the bottom of the write screen.  The choices are as follows:

Attachments, Emoticons, Font, Font colour, Highlight, Bold, Italic, Underline, Bulleted list and More which when clicked on displays a list containing High Priority, Normal Priority, Show Bcc, Undo and Redo.

12. To use any of the choices in your email click on the icon to enable it. To disable click on the icon again. When you have finished composing your email, click on the SEND icon at the top right hand side of the compose screen.

TG  Next post we’ll work through personalising the PEOPLE app.

 

Technorati Tags: windows 8,mail,accounts,POP,search,compose

Windows 8 Consumer Preview. 1. Let’s get started!

For those users who have downloaded the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and are finding it difficult to get to grips with the new METRO start screen or experiencing difficulty in finding their way around the new interface, the following step by step blog posts are tailor made just for you. Please take your time to work your way through how to set up the new START screen to suit just how you use your PC.  It does take some initial effort, but once you have done this initial setting up and personalization, then every program or app that you use will be just one click away and your work rate will be speeded up considerably. Just follow my step by step guidelines.

NOTE. Throughout these how to’s, I will be using a mouse and keyboard at all times.

Here is the new METRO start screen as you will view it from your first log in. Where’s the START button? Where are my programs? I don’t need most of this! Well, you don’t have to have ANY of those apps showing on your METRO start screen if you do not want or feel that you’ll never make use of them. You can simply unpin them if you prefer. So let’s unpin some of the tiles that I feel I may not make any use of. You can do likewise for any of the tiles that you might never use. For this how-to,  I’m going to remove the REMOTE DESKTOP tile, the FINANCE tile  and the CAMERA tile.

1. To unpin a tile from your METRO start screen, right click on the tile and choose ‘Unpin from Start’ the tile will then be removed. Repeat for any other tile that you feel you will not make any use of.

Your now left with empty areas where each tile has been removed. It may look more scattered if you have removed lots of tiles. You can move your tiles around so let’s do that next.

2. Using  the left mouse button click on top of a tile and keeping the button held down drag the tile to where you wish it placed, then let go the left mouse button.

I’ve also noticed that most of the default tiles are not grouped in any order or usage.  Maybe the Games apps should really be together in a group and my Messages tile could be in a group with my Emails and People tile because they fit under a ‘Sharing or Communication’ group. Similarly the Maps, Weather and Music  tiles could also be grouped together as Utilities.  Internet Explorer, SkyDrive and the Store app  could be grouped as Internet or Cloud. So let’s group our tiles so that they make more sense to us personally.

3. Firstly were going to rearrange our tiles so that they more closely reflect the groupings that we wish to make. Click on each tile and drag it to a new area on the right of the screen. Place all the other tiles that you wish to be included in each group. Here’s my first change to my METRO start screen.

I’ve placed my tiles as I want to view them. You’ll notice that I’ve placed the Desktop tile over with the Windows Explorer tile. This is because I want to keep those grouped under a COMPUTER group or DESKTOP grouping. Next I’m going to name my separate groups of tiles.

4. To name your groups of tiles, move your mouse to the bottom right of the METRO start screen and click on the small tile in the corner that contains a magnifying glass. This invokes Semantic Zoom.

5. Place your cursor over the first Group of tiles you wish to name and right click. At the bottom of the screen you will be see the choice of NAME GROUP. Click on that to name your group of tiles.

I’m naming my groups as Social, Utilities, Internet, Games and Computer. Of course that might not be how  you want to to name or group them, this is just my personal choice. Once you have completed naming your own groups of tiles, then simply left click anywhere on the screen and it will return to its usual size complete with your new Groups and their names.

6. Now, I’m going to add a few additional programs that I use the most often to the Computer group. Of course, you’ll probably have your own programs that you tend to access the most and need to have on the METRO start screen so they are easy to access. For writing and composing my blogs I use Live Writer which at this point in time is not yet a METRO app. I also use the Control Panel quite a lot as well, so I think I’ll add that to my Computer Group. But where are they? Well they are available in ALL APPS and all you need to do its right click on the METRO start screen and then click on ALL APPS.

7. In order to add them to my Groups on my METRO screen I will need to pin them there. So right click on any of the programs that you feel you need to be able to access frequently and choose PIN TO START from the choices offered to you at the bottom of the screen. Click in the left hand bottom corner to return to the normal METRO screen and you will see that your choice of programs or apps have now been added to the METRO start screen and can now be accessed at any time with just one click.

You can pin anything that you tend to want to access frequently to your METRO start screen. Even the internet sites that you prefer to visit the most. To pin a website just visit the website using the METRO Internet Explorer, right click when in the website and from the choices offered to you at the bottom of Internet Explorer simply click on the pin icon and choose PIN TO START.

Too many programs and apps to pin to the START screen so that  they disappear off to the right hand side? Then move the whole Group to the far left of your METRO start screen so that the one’s that you need to access the most are always visible. 

Next post, we’ll begin to personalise our Social and other tiles.

TG

Technorati Tags: windows 8,metro,tiles,personalise,start,internet explorer

Windows 8: One OS to rule them all?

It doesn’t seem all that long ago in time that the only people who used a PC were business users. If you worked in an office environment then you may have had to use one daily, but other people didn’t own a personal computer at home. At that time there really seemed no need to do so, unless of course you were a business owner and perhaps needed to take work home with you. Ordinary users (and in this context, I mean none corporate users) either couldn’t afford one or didn’t feel the need to own one. During the eighties I first encountered using a PC when I decided to update my skills at a training centre to include word processing, spreadsheets, databases etc. and most of my learning took place on an IBM computer. During that training we did not access the internet of course, as the internet was not available at that time as it is today. There was little incentive therefore for the ordinary man or woman in the street to own a PC.

Slowly over the years, the user base of just the corporate user has changed, and with it the needs of users. Whereas corporate usage tends to err on the productive side, the consumer usage tends to be of an entirely different nature. None corporate users aren’t all that interested in using Office programs or in productivity, for them its all about sharing. Sharing thoughts, sharing what they are doing, sharing their day to day lives, their favourite music or photos of their latest exploits or family, or simply keeping in touch and making new friends. Though most corporate users probably tend to think of this usage as ‘flippant’ in contrast to the way that they use computers, it simply can’t be ignored by those who provide the software on PC’s as the none corporate user base has continued  to grow and grow over the years. Combined with this growth in the consumer user base, has also come the need for mobile devices instead of the static none movable PC usually used by businesses. The consumer user prefers their usage of technology and  the internet to be always available as they travel, either on a mobile phone or alternatively a laptop or tablet.  This change of user base and their needs must have created something of a dilemma for Microsoft who have now to try and provide an operating system that can work both on a static desktop PC for their corporate user and at the same time work on a tablet and/or mobile phone.

How can anyone create an operating system that meets both the needs of your corporate user and the entirely different needs of the growing band of consumers? During the growth of this much more personal usage of new technology and the internet by consumers has also come the growth of touch screens and voice control, a much more tactile user interface. This by itself then requires a huge rethink about how your operating system works, it no longer has to sync with the usual keyboard and mouse, but also work with touch screens as well. Others have managed to create their own operating systems to work with these new  tactile interfaces, Google with its Android OS and Apple with its iPhone and iPad iOS. But neither Google nor Apple have attempted to ‘straddle’ both the static desktop PC user interface of keyboard and mouse AND the touch screen interface of portable tablets and phones. Can it work? Is it possible to do?  Can Microsoft achieve what seems to many as a near impossible task, and cater for every user and every user interface currently available at this time? Not only that, how can the apps you offer on your different platforms meet the needs of both your corporate users and at the same time your consumer user base?

A tall order and one that I certainly wouldn’t want to face. One answer would be to simply create another separate operating system for the extremely different usage of the none corporate user on those types of devices that they prefer such as phones and tablets, and keep your desktop operating with perhaps enhanced updates, but leaving its core functionality more or less as it is at this time. After all, Windows 7 is a brilliant OS, easy to use and maintain although despite this, I was amazed to find out this last year just how many corporate users in this country are still using Windows XP!  Whilst this ‘ordinary’ consumer Granny has moved on from Windows XP, to Vista and then finally to Windows 7, it seems that many of our big organisations such as the NHS have not for whatever reason.  It must be a very big undertaking and cost of course to retrain all of your employees to use a new operating system, but still, this fact to me signals that if they haven’t yet moved on to Windows 7, then they are hardly likely to introduce touch screen technology into the workplace no matter how brilliant a new OS that makes full use of it might be to use.  The point I am trying to get across here is that we have now arrived at a state where (in this country at least) the corporate users seem to be lagging way way behind the consumer in their usage of technology and PC’s. They may be using Windows XP on a static desktop PC at work, and then on their way home be making use of  a touch screen device to contact their family and friends! Who would have thought that it would be this way twenty or so years ago? It is now the none corporate consumer user and their usage and needs that is dictating the progress of technology as we know it today.

But Microsoft’s problem is not just about creating an interface which works with both a keyboard and mouse and a touch device, its also about covering all bases for corporate usage and consumer usage. Here we come to the big dilemma of whether or not to include Office. Incorporate it in mobile devices or not? How do we make it completely usable with a touch device? Will consumer users who buy tablets and smart phones require office apps? Do we provide Office only on static desktop PC’s? Do users really want to be able to share their documents, work productivity etc. via a mobile phone or tablet whilst they are on the move? Or do they tend to do that on a laptop PC? Not easy decisions are they?  Microsoft have now stated that a version of Office, Office 15 will be available on their mobile hardware such as tablets, but it isn’t clear at this time if this new version will be free to use. However, including Office on the mobile and touch ARM hardware has also meant the inclusion of the desktop, albeit in a tighter format as only Microsoft will be able to supply desktop programs for this area thereby limiting its use. In fact, I would argue that if including some form of Office on these devices was not necessary in order to keep corporate users happy, then surely it would not have been necessary to include the desktop at all and only the Metro tile interface and associated apps would have been needed. So anyone buying a mobile or touch device will not be able to download and make use of any third party program on the desktop on ARM devices. It will in essence be ‘closed’

Many journalists who follow Microsoft closely have noted how there has been little news available about the new operating system, but I feel that this can partly be explained by how difficult the whole exercise must have been for Microsoft. Apple have not attempted it. Google have not attempted it. It seems to be an exercise fraught with ifs and buts not only because you are trying to cover all bases as far as hardware and user interfaces go, but because you are also trying to keep a very wide user base happy, one who’s needs range from a corporate production environment to sending a quick message to Facebook from the consumer user.

I’ve been trying out the Windows 8 developer preview myself on my Dell desktop using a keyboard and mouse, and it has not been much of a pleasure using the Metro start screen with a mouse. However, using the Metro tile interface on my Windows phone via touch is an absolute joy, but it has prompted me to question just how the corporate user is going to be persuaded to update to Windows 8 or how any Office programs are going to be fully functional with a touch device, but I’m willing to be convinced and so on February 29th I’ll be eagerly downloading Windows 8 Consumer Preview just to find out if Microsoft have managed to do the impossible and created the one OS to rule them all.

TG

Technorati Tags: windows 8,ARM,office 15,OS,mobile,tablets,desktop