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Speeed Reader | Google Reader for your Windows Phone

Speeed Reader | Google Reader for your Windows Phone

Although Windows Phones have been around for many years, the apps built around the platform often feel dated.  Additionally, they are often much more expensive than their counterparts on other platforms such as the iPhone.  There are notable exceptions to this, however, and the new Windows Marketplace for Mobile offers some exciting new apps.

This past week I came across a new exciting app on the Windows Marketplace thanks to their Twitter feed – a native Google Reader app!  Google Reader is great for keeping up with news from your favorite sites and blogs, and many popular feed readers, such as the excellent FeedDemon, automatically sync your read feeds with it.  This makes it very easy to keep up with what you’ve read whether you’re at your own computer or an internet-connected computer anywhere in the world.

Speeed Reader (yes, with 3 e’s … that’s not a typo!) now brings this power to Windows Phones in style.  Although you can access Google Reader through your mobile browser, Speed Reader gives you a much nicer interface in which to read your feeds.  Once you install this app, simply sign in with your Google Reader account and your feeds will automatically synchronize.  All of your feeds will be easily viewable, and can additionally be cached for offline viewing.  This is my favorite feature, as I can sync my feeds when I’m in a WiFi hotspot and then read them anytime later.  When you sync again, Speeed Reader will refresh your read feeds on Google Reader so your feeds will be in sync everywhere.

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Office 2010 and PHStat2

Office 2010 and PHStat2

 This semester I am taking a Statistics class from Florida Tech, and our textbook from Pearson includes a statistics addon for Excel called PHStat2.  It is apparently included in many Pearson textbooks, so even students not in a statistics class may need to use it.  I have been running Office 2010 since the Tech Preview release, and am now running Office 2010 Beta x64 on my computer.  It works great and has even run some other addons (especially ones for Outlook) without any problems.  However, when I installed PHStat2 and tried to start it, I was greeted with this friendly error:

1-14-2010 2-29-45 PM

Ouch.  I knew it had installed properly, but just to be sure, I reinstalled it and sure enough, I received the same error message.  I didn’t want to reinstall Office 2007 just for this class, so I tested it on Office 2010 x86 (the standard 32 bit version) in Virtual PC.  Guess what?  It worked!  Turns out, the only problem before was that the addin wouldn’t work correctly in the 64-bit version of Excel.

Will PHStat2 run on your version of Office 2010?

If you’re also running Office 2010 beta on your computer this semester, you likely can still use PHStat2.  Here’s what I’ve found from testing in various configurations:

  1. PHStat2 runs perfectly in Office 2010 Beta Professional and Home and Business. This includes the standalone x86 (32-bit) standard installer and the Click2Run (C2R) installer that “streams” the apps from the internet. I encountered no problems whatsoever with it.
  2. PHStat2 does not run in Office 2010 Professional 64-bit (x64). It comes up with an error message stating that it cannot find the required PHStat2 file. This is not entirely surprising, as it is known that many plugins/addons do not work in the 64 bit edition.
  3. PHStat2 does not run in Office 2010 Starter edition. This edition does not support/run macros, and when you try to open the PHStat2 file it says it does not recognize the filetype.

Otherwise, every version of Office (and Excel) from 97 – 2007 should work fine. And, like I said, the standard install of Office 2010 beta works fine as well.
If for some reason you do not have a copy of Microsoft Office or Excel on your computer, you can actually download a free beta copy of Office 2010 from. This will run until October 2010, so while not a full fix, it will at least more than get you through this semester.
Also, if you have a Mac and are running Office 2003 or 2008, I do not believe PHStat2 will run on your computer. However, if you have a copy of Windows running in Bootcamp or Parallels/Fusion, then you could run Office 2010 beta in it (free download from http://us1.office2010beta.microsoft.com/default.aspx?culture=en-US – will run until October 2010) or an older version of Microsoft Office and just do the exercises in the Windows version of Excel.

PHStat2 in Excel 2010

Also, there may be an update for the version of PHStat2 that came with your textbook, so check their website at http://www.prenhall.com/phstat/ to see if one’s available.  There was an update for mine, and my book was recently published, so be sure to check.

Macro Security

Please note that you may have to accept an “Enable Macros” dialog whenever you run PHStat2.  You can change your security settings to always accept the PHStat2 addin by going to File, Options, Trust Center (click on the “Trust Center Settings” button in this dialog), and then select the Trusted Locations tab.  Click on the “Add New Location…” button, and browse to PHStat2’s folder (usually C:\Program Files\PHStat2).  Once you’ve pressed Ok in the dialogs, PHStat2 should be fully approved and you should not have to click through the “Enable Macros” dialog for it again.

If you encounter any issues with this, let me know and I’ll see if there’s a solution.  Have fun with statistics!

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Free Windows 7 eBooks and guides from Microsoft

Microsoft Press often offers eBooks for free, and the Windows 7 launch has prompted several new releases … for free!  I recently saw an article on Rob Margel’s Windows Help blog about a new free guide to Windows 7 from Microsoft (actually, it’s from TechNet, though, not Microsoft Press.  Keep reading for the Microsoft Press stuff!).  It is a very nice PDF that gives a quick overview of some of Windows 7’s newest and greatest features, including the taskbar preview with Aero Peek, Libraries, Windows Snap (my favorite new feature), and more.  It’s only 8 pages long, so it is not an in-depth Windows handbook, but if you haven’t been following the development of Windows 7 it can be a great introduction to Windows 7 features.  Download it now in PDF form at this link:

Your Guide to Windows 7

 

But wait, there’s more…

And, if you’d like more in-depth coverage of Windows 7, Microsoft Press is offering 10 chapters from recently published books on Windows 7 for free.  These cover a wide range of topics including installation, backup, maintenance, the new taskbar, remote access, security, and more.  All chapters are available as PDF or XPS files at this link:

Windows 7 sample chapters

If you really enjoy the books and want more, you can always purchase the full eBooks from Microsoft Press’ new O’Reilly store.

Server 2008 R2 eBook for free too!

Windows Server 2008 R2, the server version of Windows 7, has a free eBook offer too.  It includes a number of new features too, such as the newest version of Hyper-V with Live Migration, BranchCache, DirectAccess, and support for up to 256 processors!  And students, don’t forget, you can download Windows Server 2008 R2 for free from Dreamspark!  So here’s a complete, 182 page guide to every feature in Server 2008 R2 from Microsoft Press, for free.  What more could you ask for?

Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2

 

That’s a ton of reading for now.  Do you know of any other great tech eBooks for free?  Sound off in the comments!

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Kodu | Make your own PC games for free!

Have you ever wanted to create your own games for your PC? Most people assume game development would be costly and dificult, but today Microsoft has lowered the bar and made it easy for even children to create their own PC games with Kodu. I recently reviewed it at Digital Inspiration, so head to http://www.labnol.org/software/create-video-games-for-windows/12435/ to find out more about this exciting and simple way to create your own games and learn programming skills. Perhaps you can create the next Tinker!

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More articles at Digital Inspiration

Here’s a second installment with links to my writing that’s been published at Digital Inspiration. Hope you find something interesting and useful here; if you, check out my first list of articles at Digital Inspiration.  I will continue to list my new articles going forward, so check back here for updates.

Wow, that was a long list!  Once again, remember to check back here at www.techinch.com frequently, as I’ll keep adding my writing from Digital Inspiration and unique articles just for Techinch.  And if you’d like to see something covered here, let me know, and I’ll try to cover it either here or at Digital Inspiration.  Enjoy!

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