Being Android User-I

Recently I bought my first Android phone online. As usual, I evaluated many phones and finally decided one which gives me value for money. Going to Android was not my first choice. But there are some apps which have some features only on Android apps. Otherwise I am still a Windows phone fan though many people do not like it. I am planning to write a series of posts which I think good and/or bad in Android/Windows phones.

The first thing that makes you feel different is advertisements on you phone. Even when you add accessing an app, there are advertisements of promoted apps. This is very much annoying. But yes, in India, Android is the most used smart phone operating system. So you do not have much choices. Moreover, there are no new windows phone coming up as I know from internet. So I am trying to adjust with Android.

-Ashish

dictation setting in lumia

One fine day I discovered the dictation is not working on my Lumia phone. Then I started finding some information about how to activate. I found out that it had something to do with keyboard settings and speech language. When I tried to more things. My Cortana, setting was to use English language for India and location was India. Earlier, I tried many more settings, but nothing worked. My default keyboard language was USA English. The microphone was appearing but it was not accepting my dictation. Then I change my keyboard language to English, India, and tried dictation. To my surprise it started working. It had nothing to do with Phone settings. The key to solve this problem was to use same language for keyboard and for dictation which should be same as Cortana settings.

Lumia 640XL Upgraded to Windows 10

Hey…

Finally I upgraded my Lumia 640 XL OS to Windows 10 and I am loving it. Somehow I hate Android for many reason. That apart, I was eagerly waiting for this update/upgrade.

I read that it needed Update Adviser app on Lumia, hence I installed it. it checked for space and other prerequisites and started downloading update. I removed some apps, deleted maps and I was quickly ready for update.

Update went very smooth than expected. new experience is really very nice. Overall user interface, MS Apps and many more are new and exciting. I got many things which I wished for. Flashlight was one of them. Now I plan explore and write it here.

Waiting for Lumia 640 XL OS Upgrade

I am not eagerly waiting for updating my Lumia 640 XL to Windows 10. As per various reference on internet. Windows 10 Mobile is expected in December 2015. I have not tried Windows Insider options as it may hamper my day to day use. But I am very much excited to see my Phone getting updated to Windows 10.

I am already loving Cortana and some other features which Updated Windows 10 offers on desktop. My laptop upgrade was smooth and hence expecting same with my Lumia.

 

-Ashish

My Lumia 640 XL

Recently I bought Lumia 640 XL. I am just loving it. It has got all the features those I wished for. Bigger screen, front camera, Windows OS, flash, MS Office and Cortana.
It will be upgraded to Windows 10 by next weekend. I use it mainly for accessing my emails, reading and editing Office documents. I enjoy setting up reminders using Cortana. I use time as well as location based reminders.
Another feature I enjoy is offline maps and navigation. I use Hindi voice navigation and it is really nice.
Now I am little excited to explore Windows 10 features. Once I upgrade my phone and laptop to Windows 10. I will be just synching settings between these devices. Also want to try screen projection features on TV or monitor screens.

Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone

PLM User Accounts

PLM is enterprise tool and eventually a major part of employees will have a task to do in PLM Tool. Normally PLM Tools provide User account management modules where organizations broadly call it as People and Organization.

User Roles and Responsibilities are well defined in most of the organization and PLM implementation starts with configuring Access for users. But my experience with PLM Implementation project is something confusing.

PLM Tools are deployed as a independent tool. Then administrators start creating user accounts and then roles and then assigning them to on demand basis in some cases organization go for single sign-on or LDAP integration which is another project in itself.

Though this feature has complexities involved, should PLM Vendors not provide a handy way to integrate organization users with ease of operation? Following are thoughts on the way it should be.

1. After installing PLM Tool in production environment, PLM Tools should have a wizard to integrate available network users directly into PLM Tool.
2. It should just have a list of users available in Organization which can be seen from PLM Tool.
3. PLM Tools should provide creation account button/command against each user, which should take administrator to user creation and configuration wizard.
4. This wizard should be configuration so that it can fetch data related regarding his reporting and department structure so that account approval processes can be integrated within PLM itself.
5. Like we get task for approvals in PLM, it should be another task to approve user account and assign role by his manager.

If PLM Tools have this type of feature they will provide following benefits.

1. Adding a user friendly feature to PLM for user accounts.
2. Complete tracking of user accounts.
3. Automation of workflows with available information within other tools in organization.
4. Quality time to invest on other PLM admin activities.
5. Managers being informed and aware of subordinate’s access and roles.
6. Reduction in gap of understanding of a functional user of tool and administrator of a tool.

I hope that I see such future in coming days.

thanks and regards
Ashish Kulkarni

SharePoint 2013

Hey,
Started exploring SharePoint 2013 today. They say that social is the main feature they have added to SharePoint. I am looking for following points.

1. Blog and community integration.
2. Project Management features without MSP integration.
3. Team communication without email.
4. Profile management integrated with legacy applications.
5. Easy to create filtered lists.
6. Search and Task integrated with PLM tasks and search.

I will keep on posting updates on SharePoint 2013.

– Ashish

Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone

Microsoft and Others

Some time back I was one of the computer users who used to hate Microsoft Applications and including operating systems. Windows Vista was the main reason. But these days I am liking Microsoft applications.

I liked two products of Microsoft. One is licensed and other is like open source. I am one of the lovers of Content Management Systems (CMS). In open source products, I like Drupal the most. I still love it for its features. But I like Microsoft SharePoint as well. Though I am a end user or just a portal administrator but still I liked it a lot. It is always debated that can it fight with PLM? Answer is NO. But still it can replace many features of PLM like Document Management, Workflows or any typical information management feature. I liked Custom Lists feature a lot. One does not need programming experience at all. Just some added commonsense is enough to create very useful custom list which can reduce your lot of data management efforts. As I always say, we need to integrate PLM and SharePoint with some social networking features. In this area, I do not see Google anywhere. I know they have many things for corporates but you need internet connectivity. I think in organizations where internet is still under control, SharePoint is the best option to have company intranet.

Another Product I like is Microsoft WebMatrix. I am still a novice in WebMatrix but it is a good tool who want to experiment with web applications. Basically Microsoft has given us a tool to experiment without much programming knowledge or a monopoly feel. Earlier I used XAMPP for this purpose but it needs some amount of basic knowledge of how web applications work. WebMatrix is just wonderful. It does all background work and one does not need to worry about Database Server, WebServer and so on. It just simple helps you to download some of the templates based tools and configures it for you on your localhost. Then you can publish your site with world using WebMatrix or just keep on experimenting locally. Here too, I see Google not much ahead. Google gives some good site development features but everything is static. Yes, Google Apps is there but again you need programming knowledge.

I liked these two products. May be sometime in future I will write more about features in these Products. I wish Microsoft keeps doing this good work.

thanks and regards
Ashish Kulkarni

How to get IE8 back

Hey,I got a new Dell XPS when I joined our China office. Once I logged in it started installing updates on Windows 7 Base installation and I got IE9. I never liked IE9. Its asks for more security warnings and Favorites button is on browser toolbar. For more than a month I tried to adjust with IE9. But one fine day I lost my patience. I wanted IE8 back. So how to get it? Here are the steps.

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Uninstall a program
3. Once you go to installed Program’s list watch on the left hand side for View Installed Updates.
4. Locate Internet Explorer 9 and select.
5. Simply click on Uninstall
6. Reboot the system

Once you are logged in you get IE8 back without losing any data. Hope this helps. Happy Surfing.

thanks and regards
Ashish Kulkarni

Network Mapping on command line on Windows

Mapping a network drive on windows is very easy using UI tools. It goes this way…

1. Open Windows explorer
2. Go to Tools – Map Network Drive
3. On new window select a letter as Mapped Network Drive (e.g. P: )
4.  Select a network folder by browsing or just paste network path (e.g. \\hostname\FolderName) and click on Finish

Now you can see a new Drive in your explorer. But what if you want map a drive through a batch script? Yeah, you need to know a command to map network drive from command line. It goes this way.

To map a network drive from command line you need 2 inputs same as above.

1. Drive Name (e.g. P: )
2. Network Path (e.g. \\hostname\FolderName)

Now follow the steps below

1. Go to run and type cmd
2. On command line enter the following command

• subst \\hostname\FolderName P:

This will map your network drive. Now to make sure that you have mapped it correctly, type drive name and hit enter. E.g. P: hit enter. Now user dir command to list all directories and files. You can also go to explorer and check that new drive is available.

– Ashish Kulkarni