Observed Tech PODCAST Episode 94
Welcome to Episode 94 and there is nothing special about this one except it is our second show this week and it also means we are only 6 episodes away from reaching our 100th show! OK so that is a little bit special isn’t it?
This episode lets us put a lid on some other news items we have been tracking this week and still includes a little E3 stuff along with some Xbox One and Xbox 360 news. There are a couple of tidbits about the upcoming Windows 8.1 update for Microsoft’s Windows 8 as well as Twitter’s move into another third party realm with their service, AT&T moving upgrades out to the 24 month window and the big Best Buy/Microsoft Store partnership that was announced today. We wrap up with a reminder to not only maintain the operating system on your computer but also the inside of your case. Truly short but sweet. Until next time enjoy the show and thanks for listening!
Observed Tech PODCAST Episode 93 (Special Edition)
Welcome to Episode 93 – a special edition show with our guest Mauro Huculak from PureInfoTech.com. I decided that with all of the news yesterday relating to E3 with the Xbox One and PS4 briefings to the gaming world as well as some interesting stuff out of Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote that we could fill an episode with just those topics. Guess what? We filled it quite easily and it was great having Mauro on the show for the first time to talk all the different aspects of those events. We kicked off the show with the Microsoft E3 Global Media Briefing for Xbox One and all of the new games, new Xbox Live features and the confirmed availability and price of the new console. Following that we talked a little about Apple’s iOS7 announcement yesterday and how the reaction has been quite mixed on social media and also covered some similarities between iOS7 and a certain Windows Phone OS. Finally, we discussed Sony’s PS4 E3 announcements that happened late in the day on Monday and how they differed from Microsoft’s approach earlier in the day. We wrapped with how the pre-order battle is going on Amazon.com and some speculation on how things will transpire over the next few months as these consoles come to market. I just want to add another word of thanks to Mauro for joining me on this special episode of Observed Tech and that I look forward to having him back on soon. You can reach Mauro at @PureInfoTech, www.pureinfotech.com and www.facebook.com/pureinfotech.
Until next time enjoy the show and thanks for listening!
Observed Tech PODCAST Episode 92
Welcome to Episode 92 – now counting down 8 shows until Episode 100. What a week full of Microsoft Windows 8.1 related news with tidbits coming out of TechEd North America in New Orleans and from Computex in Taiwan. It was a virtual smorgasbord of Microsoft goodness and we got to spend some time talking about it and other tech news in this weeks show. We heard more details on the upcoming Windows 8.1 update, upgrade options and requirements as well as the business side of the Windows Blue upgrade to encourage business users to start their move to the latest version of Windows. Then there were updates next week for the Surface Touch and Type covers to return some function key functionality as well as advance notice on the security updates for this month’s Patch Tuesday. News of Outlook 2013 RT coming in the Windows 8.1 update for all Windows RT users was confirmed, Acer officially announced their 8 inch Windows 8 tablet and Twitter updated Tweetdeck for the web and Chrome as well as the official app on Windows Phone. Steve Ballmer went to Hollywood to talk up the entertainment options for the upcoming Xbox One which gets more of the cloak pulled back next week at the annual E3 in Los Angeles and apparently he has some Microsoft reorganization homework with him for the trip. Microsoft compares the iPad to a selection of Windows 8 devices, EA says they are done with Online Passes for current and future games and a couple of folks take shots at how they would fix Windows 8 for Microsoft. We give you some tips to outfit your college bound students with the right hardware and software for their higher education, recommend some apps to take on a motorcycle ride and reveal that we just learned about the Windows 8 Desktop actually working like any other Windows 8 app. Not a bad week at all! Until next time enjoy the show and thanks for listening!
Observed Tech PODCAST Episode 91
Welcome to Episode 91 and another step closer to Episode 100! There was no show last week because I was on an eight day motorcycle trip so I lead off the show talking a little bit about the experience of riding in Rolling Thunder 26 in Washington, DC for Memorial Day. I was there with a friend from Jacksonville and my brother from Kentucky. Life is not always 100% about tech nor should it be – right? I also throw a shout out to a young Sailor from my last command in the Navy who decided to serve for three more years and reenlisted today. We get into the tech part of Observed Tech finally by announcing the winners of our DrivePop free unlimited lifetime cloud backup accounts so congrats to each of them. We will get a hold of each winner via Facebook to notify you and get the info which is needed for the free account. Our thanks once again for DrivePop’s sponsoring this awesome giveaway. The lifetime unlimited accounts are an awesome deal. We then talk about several different tech subjects including a recent survey completed by Microsoft about mobile manners, RTM of the Windows Phone App for desktops (yes that is a confusing name), new updates on four of Microsoft’s Dynamic RSS themes, the background into the design of the Xbox One and a great Q&A with Brent Spiner from Start Trek about tech and other things from GeekWire. The last three stories we discuss before diving headfirst into Windows 8.1 relate to Steven Sinofsky’s appearance at D11 and updates relating to sales numbers of the Office 2013 suite and Office 365 subscriptions. At this point we break open the posts about the official announcements concerning the upcoming Windows Blue aka Windows 8.1 update that is expected to be released for preview on 26 June 2013. As a new experiment on this show I am going to jump into the comments section of the official Microsoft blog post about these announced changes and respond to several of them on the show. Should be interesting to say the least and a wealth of information as well. I will of course not use any names from the comments to protect the innocent! So until next time enjoy the show and thanks for listening!
Observed Tech PODCAST Episode 90
Welcome to Episode 90 – slowly closing in on our 100th show! As I was finalizing the show notes for this episode a bunch of news broke about the whole Google vs Microsoft situation with a Cease and Desist Letter from Google to Microsoft about the new Windows Phone YouTube App Microsoft released a couple of weeks ago. Of course, that meant a shuffle of topics and we dive straight into that discussion at the top of the show. We did take the time to mention an awesome giveaway for the new DrivePop Cloud Backup Solution being offered by friend of the show Rob Boirun of BurnWorld.com which we mentioned last week. Thanks to Rob we have three unlimited accounts for the DrivePop service to giveaway. Just head over to the WindowsObserver Facebook page as well as the DrivePop one and like them. We will draw the three winners from those pages and announce them in two weeks on 30 May 2013. Good Luck! We continue with our news review by discussing the firmware updates released this week for Surface RT and Surface Pro which were among the Patch Tuesday security updates and the big update coming to Windows Phone 8 this summer. Other items on our list include the end of Xbox points as a currency, using File History on Windows 8, the new BBC iPlayer for Windows Phone and the Lumia 925 announcement this week. We talk about the confirmed Windows 8.1 update, the SkyDrive photo interface update, a great deal on the Dell XPS 10 Windows RT device, free touch or type covers for those in the UK who are buying Surface RT or Pro and the new Amazon Cloud Player for Windows desktop. Then we bring things to a close as we talk about the big carriers joining forces against texting and driving, the US Navy’s X-47B making its first carrier launch, and the Instagram for Windows Phone Twitter account that really wasn’t official after all. Finally, I attempt my show closing in Klingon but can thankfully point you towards the new Bing Translator update that helps you understand what I tried to say in Klingon. Until next time enjoy the show and thanks for listening!