Category: Microsoft Windows

I am writing this post, at least the beginning of it, from my Toshiba Encore 2 Windows tablet cruising at 32,000 on my way to Orlando. The first fifteen minutes of this flight where a challenge for no other reason than the inability for Modern Internet Explorer being able to sort out the inflight WiFi service.  The browser kept timing out and failing as I watched others around me quickly and easily get online with their various devices.  That was my indicator that the inflight WiFi was working just fine.  Frustrated, I dropped into Internet Explorer on the desktop.  I was online in 3 minutes.

This experience is all to common when it comes to using Modern apps in Windows 8.1.  They often do not play nice or are so out of date from a feature perspective that they border on being useless.  Modern IE is not alone in this quandary and if Microsoft wants Windows 10 to be successful, the Modern app experience has to improve.

Why would I suggest such a thing when the desktop and Start menu dominate the Windows 10 PC experience? Because it is these modern apps that will be the universal apps across all your devices. And while I have suggested that universal apps alone will not make Windows 10 a success, they will certainly be a part of it.  That means Microsoft themselves and the developer community must – absolutely must – improve not only the performance of Modern apps but the features to bring them inline with the desktop or other platform counterparts.

The recently announced Lumia 640 and Lumia 640XL have made their way to the Microsoft Store in the UK and are available for Pre-Order.  In case you missed it, these are the two new Lumias that were announced at Mobile World Congress and are 5″ and 5.7″ mid-range Windows Phones respectively.  The pricing is in line with what was expected.  The Lumia 640 will be about $250 while the larger Lumia 640XL is equal to $325.  Both can be pre-ordered now with a release date of April 28 being posted on the site.

So a funny thing happened this afternoon.  As I took a break from my Saturday goings on I snapped a screenshot of my Ninja Cat wallpaper on my Windows Phone and Tweeted it.  Why?  I kinda like it and with all the Ninja Cat fun stuff going around, I thought I’d throw my .02 cents into it.

Confident this is a proper #WindowsPhone wallpaper #NinjaCat @GabeAul agree? pic.twitter.com/Lrg77HKTIP

— Clinton Fitch (@ClintonFitch) March 14, 2015

What I DID NOT expect was the massive amounts of retweets and emails asking me for it.  So now that I’ve finished drinking my green beer for Saint Patty’s Day, I’ve posted them up on the Wallpaper page.  There are two versions – the blue one which I showed on my Lock screen in my Tweet and a white version.

Please note, I did not create these images.  I honestly don’t know who the author is but props to them for making them as they are great fun.  Actually, I do know now! Microsoft MVP Michael Gillett created them.  Thanks Michael – great stuff here!  You can see Michael’s original images and his other wallpapers on his site

Don’t forget to order your Ninja Cat shirt from the team over at Windows Central.

[UPDATE] – The Insider Hub now confirms that the Fast Ring will be getting faster with a much more discernable difference in release drops between it and the Slow ring.  If you want a more polished, stable Windows 10 experience then you should move to the Slow ring.  If you want more updates but with likely more bugs/issues, stay in the Fast ring. 

For those in the Windows Insider program waiting for an updated build of Windows 10 Technical Preview, time to start looking towards next week.  Microsoft’s Gabe Aul has just tweeted that there will be no new build released publically today.

No new build today, but we will be posting an announcement in Insider Hub. suggesting people who want lower risk to move to Slow.

— Gabriel Aul (@GabeAul) March 12, 2015

While the news undboutedly comes as a disappointment to many in the program, given that it is Friday it shouldn’t be much of a shock.  As I eluded to earlier today, Microsoft does not tend to release updates on Friday’s (nor does anyone for that matter) because the weekend and generally lower availability of support makes it a bit of a non-starter.  It’s unfortunately on the other hand as the weekend is a good time to do testing and work on Windows 10 for many.

As you can see from the post though, it looks like an announcement to Insiders will be made in the Insider Hub which is part of Windows 10.  As of this writing that post has not been made in the Hub.  That announcement is likely going to circle around the speed of the releases and the increase of speed given Aul’s reference to those wanting lower risk to move to the Slow ring.

My suspicion is that we will see a new build on Tuesday or Thursday of next week.  More news as I get it.

As of late it seems that almost daily we are seeing leaks of new builds of Windows 10 Technical Preview.  Today those leaks are of Build 10036, a build that doesn’t appear to have any major changes over Build 10033 which was leaked earlier in the week.  That build had the new transparent Start Menu and improved Task View but neither build as the Project Spartan browser experience, something that Microsoft has hinted will be in the next Windows 10 Technical Preview build that Windows Insiders receive.

If you can’t wait to get your hands on the Lumia 640, you can at least get the next best thing while you wait:  The wallpapers that ship on the 640.  Thanks to the team at WindowsMania.pl (and a follow up link from the team at Wmpoweruser) you can now get a .rar file that contains all of the wallpapers that will ship with the Lumia 640 when it is released.  As I posted Monday and Yesterday, it is expect that the Lumia 640 will start pre-orders this week or next with a mid-April ship date.