Thurrott Daily: February 27

A few tidbits for a Saturday morning…

2/27/2016 12:06:17 PM

A Replacement Weather Tile for the Microsoft Band

This might be of interest to Microsoft Band users: Neel Joshi has created a replacement Weather tile.

The weather tile on the Band just does not want to cooperate with iOS. After weeks of the Band being convinced I was located in Phoenix (hint: I’m not), I decided to try my hand at making my own webtile to replace the one that comes with the Band. I decided to use data from WeatherUnderground, both because I found it easy to use and because I actually use their forecasts and alerts regularly.

2/27/2016 11:43:01 AM

Meet-up reminder

I’m traveling to Redmond on Sunday so I can take part in Microsoft’s three-day TechNet Virtual Conference. (Brad Sams and I will be providing some closing remarks on Day 2, on Wednesday.) But if you’re in the area, please come to the Windows Weekly meet-up at Postdoc Brewing on Monday, February 29, 2016 from 5 to 8 pm. You can sign-up at our Eventbright page.

It’s been too long since we’ve visited Redmond. Come meetup/tweet up/drink up with Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley — plus other Windows Weekly watchers — at PostDoc Brewing in Redmond. 5-8 pm. And join us virtually, too, this week at https://www.technetvc.com/ (March 1-3)

See you in Redmond!

Slysoft is shut down. Now what?

If you followed my series of articles about converting DVDs and Blu-Ray discs to digital video files—How to Rip DVD Videos, How to Rip Blu-Ray Videos, and How to Rip Blu-Ray Videos: Part 2 – Remux MKV to MP4—you know that I have purchased and had recommended Slysoft’s products, in particular AnyDVD HD, which is used to bypass the copy protection on commercial DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. Unfortunately, after a lengthy legal battle, Slysoft has been shut down.

What this means is that AnyDVD, and Slysoft’s other products, are basically no longer available for purchase. This is the Internet, so if you look hard enough, you can of course find them. (And related products, like CloneBD, CloneDVD, and Virtual CloneDrive are out there as well.) But some parts of AnyDVD HD require or at least work better with online services that may or may not persist as well.

Coincidentally, I had recently investigated whether those articles needed to be updated for 2016, but didn’t see the need. Now that Slysoft has disappeared, however, I will likely need to revisit this topic. So if you have any recommendations, please let me know. I have a few ideas but ideally it would be something as seamless and reliable as the Slysoft solutions.

It’s like the Sharper Image for people with good taste

While I’ve always been semi-fascinated by places like The Sharper Image (or even the SkyMall catalog in a pinch), I found out about a high-end lifestyle shopping service called Touch of Modern that puts both to shame. I’m not recommending this per se, but some of their tech gadgets actually look pretty interesting. Note, however that you have to sign-up with your email address before you can even look. You know, if you’re into this kind of thing.

“The one dent in the otherwise flawless HP Elite x3”

Right. It doesn’t run Android.

(Actually, they think it’s the camera.)

Apple implicitly admits its no longer a growth stock

There goes my 401K. Apple CEO Tim Cook just committed to an raising its dividend annually, Reuters reports.

Chief Executive Tim Cook said on Friday Apple Inc is committed to raising its dividend annually, a move designed to please investors but also a sign the world’s most famous technology company may no longer be a growth stock.

As concerns mount that growth in sales of iPhones may have peaked, major U.S. growth mutual funds have been among the largest sellers of Apple shares over the past six months or so, fueling speculation that the company’s days of supercharged growth have come to an end.

In January, Apple forecast its first revenue drop in 13 years and reported the slowest-ever increase in iPhone shipments as the critical Chinese market showed signs of weakening.

Google Inbox is also targeting users of Dropbox Mailbox

Yesterday, I explain how Microsoft was courting users of Dropbox’s killed Mailbox mobile app with Mailbox-like features in Outlook Mobile. Well, they’re not the only ones doing this: Google announced that it, too, is making its own Inbox mobile app work more like Mailbox.

Snooze is getting two highly-requested snooze times: Later this week and This weekend. These new options should hopefully save you some time, and decrease the need to use custom snooze.

[And] just like you can set your preferred morning time to receive emails, you can now choose the weekend days that work best for you.

These new features will debut in Inbox for Android and iOS sometime “in the next week,” Google says.