Category: Windows

Favicons and Tiles with WordPress

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:wordpress-category ]Running JumbleCat exposes me to some things I general don’t want to deal with, one of those is making sure the site looks right when bookmarked or pinned to the Windows Start page.

Recently I found RealFaviconGenerator.net (via WPTavern) which highlighted some pretty bad results for how the JumbleCat.com favicon looks on some of the modern mobile platforms.  There’s really four areas of concern when it comes to favicons:

  1. The classic desktop favicon.
  2. Apple’s home screen icons.
  3. Android’s home screen icons.
  4. Windows Live Tiles and Task Bar icons.

Searching the WordPress plugin directory for an easy solution turned up a couple of different options for 1 or 2 of the above items but nothing that took in to account all of the above.

This really seems to be something that should be in WordPress core, basic functionality that every WordPress site should have.

Windows 8.1 Updates and the Future

Greg

[sc:windows-category ]Microsoft made a lot of announcements at build a few weeks ago and Windows was front and center.

Windows 8.1 Update

The first update to 8.1 is a pretty tame affair all things considered.  They’re all great little touches that will make life easier for traditional desktop users.

It is already available so you should be able to get it easily enough and there’s no real reason not to.

Windows is Free?

There were rumors floating around that Microsoft was working on a free version of Windows, but I don’t think anyone expected them to announce it so soon.

Windows, both standard and phone will be “free” on devices with displays less than 9 inches.  This is a big move and it should see small form factor devices running Windows drop in price.

It will also let Microsoft compete more directly with Google and Chrome/Android.

The Future

Microsoft has been fighting a PR battle over Windows 8 since it made such a radical change from 7.  Now they’re giving some hints as to where they’re going, including:

  • A new start menu, including live tiles.
  • The ability to run Modern apps on the desktop.
  • A single application that can run across all versions of Windows, from Phone to Xbox.

These are major steps and it’s interesting to see Microsoft go on the offensive.

Perhaps the new CEO is having a major impact already, we’ll have to see what comes next to know for sure.

The Windows 8.1 Update

Greg

[sc:windows-category ]I’ve been using the Windows 8.1 Update now for a few days and have had a few thoughts…

First off it’s clearly targeted as an update for mouse and keyboard users.  When I updated my Dell Venue Pro 8, I didn’t even notice a difference.

After playing some more with it on the Dell, only two small items really came to the fore.

  1. The Windows Store is pinned to the taskbar.  It was quickly unpinned 😉
  2. The power options on the start screen.

I don’t really power down my tablet so that’s not an important update for me.

The only other general comment I’ll make is that the update was deselected by default on all my systems.  I had to go in and select it manually.

Now then on to the my laptop/desktop experience.

  • Boot to desktop:  Windows now boots to the desktop by default if a mouse is connected but I had already set this option so no difference for me.
  • Modern apps in the taskbar.  This is a huge leap forward for Modern apps, before on my notebook or desktop, a modern app was “out of sight, out of mind” when I was using desktop apps.  Now they’re front and center, just a click away.
  • Application bar at the top of Modern apps.  This I s a little less successful.  It’s kind of ugly and pops up more often than is necessary.
  • The TaskBar in Modern apps.  This completes the circle and makes your desktop apps visible in the Modern interface.  A welcome change.
  • Popup menu for left click in the start menu.  Possibly the single best change in the update.

There are a few things they could have done or changed that would have made it even better:

  • Apply the live tile number to the pinned icon in the taskbar.  Traditional Windows apps often show the number of updates or change the application icon in someway when something has changed in the app.
  • Application bar should have been like the taskbar, go to top and push.  You won’t need to use the application bar very often so keeping it hidden until required would have made sense.
  • Hitting the lower left start charm should have brought up the taskbar in the Modern interface.

Overall a good step forward for mouse and keyboard users, the next updates should be even more interesting.

 

Dell Venue Pro 8

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:hardware-category ]A while ago I picked up an Acer W3, which apparently didn’t like the 3 foot plus drop from my nightstand 😉

The big crack from side to side of the screen pretty much made it necessary for me to find a new tablet.  fortunately Dell released their Venue Pro 8.

The W3 was pretty chunky, but work reasonably well.  The Dell is light and runs circles around the W3.

Highlights include:

  • Lighter.
  • Faster.
  • Brilliant display.
  • Standard USB charging.
  • A nice textured back for an easy grip.

Two little things of note:

  • The auto brightness is far too dim, you have to disable it.
  • The Windows button is in a little bit of a weird place, so if you join a domain and need to do a W+Power combo, it’s a contorted one-handed affair.

 

IE11 in Windows 8.1

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:windows-category ]IE 11 came with Windows 8.1 and being a major update (it’s not IE 10.1 after all) has a lot of changes.  But they’re not for the better.

I’m not talking about the user interface here, it’s mostly unchanged from IE10, but at the low level Microsoft has made a major move towards standards compliance which hasn’t quite worked out as well as it might have.

In particular, as IE no longer sends a browser string that gets identified as IE, MANY web applications are now broken.  Including some of Microsoft’s own like Outlook Web Access.

Many other like WordPress and many of Google’s apps are severely hampered as well.

Of course as the sites update this should go away and I suspect Microsoft didn’t have much choice at this point but to take this painful step, but perhaps they should have been yelling at the top of their lungs that the change was coming and to update your code appropriately.

At the moment, most of the major web apps I use are so broken that I have to use another browser to get to them.

I had to use FireFox to login to my work e-mail’s OWA the other day and I guess I will continue to have to until either Microsoft issues a patch for IE or Exchange to resolve the issue.