Ask Paul: November 11 (Premium)

I’m traveling tomorrow, so welcome to a special 11/11 edition of Ask Paul that will kick off the weekend even earlier than usual.

Outlook.com contacts and Android

richfrantz asks:

As you are now testing the 6 pro, do you have any instructions on how to make my Hotmail AND Gmail contacts feed into the Contacts app? And sync edits? I’m still setting mine up and can’t seem to get it right.

Almost a year ago, I wrote about my latest and still-current way of management multiple email accounts (with their associated contacts). That is, I consolidate all of my secondary accounts into my main account, a Gmail/Google Workspace account, at the cloud level. That is, I forward all of my email to that Gmail account, and I’ve configured that Gmail account so that I can respond to emails as if I were doing so from the original account. I do this for a few reasons, but one of the big ones is that I test multiple smartphones and computers every year, and configuring multiple accounts on each every single time is beyond tedious. It’s a waste of my time.

That’s a roundabout way of saying two things, I guess. Yes, I did recently switch to a Pixel 6 Pro, but I’ve used several different handsets in 2021 alone, so this latest move wasn’t particularly unique. And I don’t sync Hotmail/Outlook.com contacts with the Contacts app in Android as all of my contacts are in Gmail. Sorry.

That said, there are probably a couple of ways to make this work. I’m not sure what app(s) you’re using for email and calendar, but if you install Outlook mobile and configure it for your Hotmail/Outlook.com account, it will fully synchronize your apps with the Contacts app in Android. As Microsoft explains, “therefore, users can choose to add new contacts or make changes in either the Outlook app or by using the built-in Contacts app on Android. Changes made in either location will sync back to your email service.” So that sounds like the best approach.

If you don’t use Outlook mobile, it may be worth installing just for this functionality. (You can turn off notifications, etc. and remove the app from your home screen.) Or, you could do what it is I think you’re trying to do and manually add your Hotmail/Outlook.com account to Android Settings via Passwords & accounts. This should work, but again, the Outlook mobile app approach is probably the simplest way.

Haunted Pixel 6 Pro

crunchyfrog asks:

I know that you’re using or at least testing a Pixel 6 Pro and I am wondering if you or any other readers are having this issue I am getting. I have the standard Pixel 6 and it’s up to date on everything but several times a week now when it is just sitting on my desk, screen off, not doing anything it suddenly starts playing music or podcasts or what ever I was last listening to. Other than that, it’s been trouble free.

Wow. No, I’ve not seen that. And I’m curious if anyone else has.

This sounds a bit like the way Bluetooth works in, say, a car, where you get in the vehicle, the phone connects in the background, and then for some reason just plays whatever content you were enjoying most recently. (In my case, it sometimes feels random what plays. I hate this functionality.)

Anyway. No, sorry. Anyone else?

New Amiga games

bschnatt asks:

I read (somewhere) that NEW Amiga games are being developed (and, of course, AmigaOS is still being updated). Interested in throwing more money into *that* hole in the ground, LOL? I get wistful any time I read about the Amiga, Palm, Windows Phone or BlackBerry, but the thing that just kills me is seeing a picture of a really old TV console. Some of my best years were spent watching Star Trek (and eagerly waiting for more Star Trek, of course). But I won’t spend money on old tech (or vinyl records) – it was great then, but now? Not so much. It’s better as a memory…

I check in on recent Amiga developments from time to time, but I don’t view anything that’s happened post-Commodore to be all that interesting, and the Amiga software today is a far cry from the original series of releases. It’s basically just a weird Linux-like thing. So, no, I’ve not really done much around that.

But one thing I do recommend is Amiga Forever, which is a terrific way to relive the Amiga past. It has official emulators of every Amiga OS version, tons of other software, and, in some editions, some 3 DVDs worth of videos as well. I don’t upgrade every single year, but I’ve pretty much kept up-to-date on it.

The end of ransomware

bschnatt also asks:

Have you ever applied for a code-signing certificate? I just did, and it’s rather an arcane process. Do you think we’ll ever get to the point where we: 1) won’t need passwords, 2) don’t have to worry about losing a dongle or a phone, and 3) don’t have to worry about identity theft? I’m really just sick from hearing all about these ransomware and ID theft incidents. How can we fix this?

That’s a good question.

I do think we will move past passwords (and as I’m sure you know, we can do so now via Microsoft commercial and consumer accounts). And I do think we’ll move past dongles/phones as second factors for authentication, most likely via advanced/multiple biometrics. But I think that ransomware protection is like any other form of security (physical or virtual), meaning that the best we can do is follow the established guidelines, pay attention, and hope for the best. Unfortunately.

The future of Thurrott.com

j5 asks:

Thurrott.com has gone through a lot of changes since it launched and definitely since it’s origins of SuperSite for Windows. 2022 is less than 2 months away. I’m just curious what is in store for the website. I love old school forums. But lots of tech communities have incorporated Discord, like TWiT. Are there any things you’d like to add to the site or change?

This is something I think about all the time, and we’re in the middle of a conversation/debate/argument at work right now, go figure, over what changes we’d like to implement. Without getting too far into the weeds about the history of this stuff, we’ve had a rough couple of years technically, and Petri.com took precedence over Thurrott.com for modernization, and that effort took a lot longer than we expected or hoped. But things are finally starting to shift, slowly, to this site.

I can’t fully disclose what we’re planning because most of it is up in the air still. But you asked, and you are pushing in the same direction I/we are as well, I think. For example, forums. We’re talking about making forums more of a first-class site experience where forum posts can sit alongside the articles I write, and where we might have trusted readers as moderators. I want to get the Thurrott Premium newsletter posts on the site as well, and I’ve argued that the easiest way to do that is to add them to the forum post I make each week where readers can post comments and questions.

And we’re debating what to do about Thurrott Now, which has a couple of obvious issues: there’s not a lot of engagement, and non-Premium users never even see this feature, so they don’t know they’re missing something. It’s not clear yet how that turns out, but I would like to remove it and start adding that content to (wait for it) the forums. I made a few forum posts like that as a test when I was in Paris, for example.

This one is vague still but we’re also talking about me doing a live, monthly video chat with Premium members, sort of an AMA/Ask Paul thing. What form this takes is unclear, but again, we’re still in the early phases. Something Discord-like makes sense to me, and ideally, we’d one day literally be able to chat via video in real-time. Maybe not right away.

There’s more, but I don’t want to step too far into anything that’s not been decided yet. But since you did bring it up, I’m curious if you or others have any other thoughts about what you’d like to see here. This is a great time for this feedback since we’re literally working through what we’d like to get done with the site now. Thanks for this.

Short Takes

anoldamigauser asks:

This has come up in the past, but will “Short Takes” ever be a thing again?

Yeah. I had been doing quarterly versions of Short Takes for Microsoft’s earnings announcements, but the most recent one happened while I was in Paris, and I just didn’t have the time. But I’d like to get back to the old weekly cadence on that. Sorry, it’s just hard to fit it in with my current schedule.

More Mobile gaming

justme asks:

With your planned switch to a more mobile lifestyle in the next few years, would you ever seriously consider a device like the now-delayed Steam Deck to meet your mobile gaming needs?

Something has to give, for sure. There are a lot of variables here. I suspect that I’ll be moving beyond a standalone console sometime in the next year, but the question is where I land. I don’t see that being a dedicated standalone portable console like Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch. But gaming directly via the PC or via the cloud (Xbox Cloud Gaming, Stadia, etc.) is the most likely outcome. My dissatisfaction with the three most recent Call of Duty games has really helped edge me towards this future, too. I wish I had a more diverse taste in games and could just move from title to title. That’s something I’ll be working on.

Linux series

justme also asks:

On a different topic, any more progress on your Linux-related series of articles? I am still a Pop guy, but have to admit the latest Zorin release looks quite good from a WIndows-migrant perspective.

No, not beyond basic research, though those two distributions you mention—Pop!_OS and Zorin—are right at the top of my list, currently. The issue is the sudden arrival of Windows 11 this past year: I’m really behind on that because I have to write a new book and not just update an existing book as I’d been doing with Windows 10. But I am still very interested in Linux, and something will happen there from an article series perspective. I’m just not sure when yet, sorry.

Microsoft split

bschnatt asks:

I think Microsoft’s reputation among “yutes” as an old, stodgy IBM-like monolith (which is hurting their consumer market chances) is being fueled by 1) their constant focus on Microsoft 365, Azure back-end services and education markets (“Azhore what?”).

I agree with that, but I think it’s also a two-way street: Beyond Xbox, which, to be fair, took Microsoft almost 20 years to get right, the software giant doesn’t really seem to “get” consumers. Or young people. And its focus on productivity doesn’t exactly put it on the same footing as true consumer tech companies like Apple and Google. (Even Amazon is kind of stodgy from a young person’s perspective, I’d imagine, and my kids see Facebook as a service for old people.)

Do you think Microsoft should pull a “Meta” and spin off into 2 different companies – Microsoft for business and, say, Spiffy, for consumer products like Surface and XBox? As a consumer-only organization, Spiffy would focus only on entertaining / enriching consumers, and their marketing could leave out the “dreaded” M word (“Microsoft”).

Hm. I’m not sure what the financial ramifications are there, or whether businesses like Xbox and Surface would even benefit from the separation. For example, one might argue that neither business would have survived this long were the rest of Microsoft not subsidizing them. But … I don’t know. If Microsoft were truly a weird combination of consumer and commercial products, maybe that would make sense. But really, only a tiny percentage of Microsoft’s revenues—and none of their profits—comes from these businesses.

On the flip side, these businesses do give Microsoft some credibility with consumers, especially gamers. It’s kind of a hard call.

Cats or dogs?

Anlong08 asks:

Ignoring your future nomad lifestyle, are you Dog or Cat people?

These days, we’re technically both, as we have one dog and two cats. I grew up with dogs and cats, but we’ve always had cats since we’ve been married. We got our dog four years ago next month. I love animals, and I see the appeal of both. I sort of respect the cats more because they’re more independent, but it’s hard to argue with the blind love of a dog.

I guess I have to choose cats since we’ve just had them for so much longer. And let’s face it, dogs, especially big dogs like ours, are not portable.

Windows 11 SE and Surface Laptop SE availability

yb asks:

re: Windows 11 SE and Surface for education: is this a US release only, or would it be available worldwide?

Windows 11 SE is a worldwide release, except in China, which Microsoft says has “government requirements around cloud storage and management that do not allow Windows 11 SE to be sold.” But Microsoft hopes to make “the next version of Windows 11 SE” available in China.

As for Surface Laptop SE … that is unclear. The Microsoft website suggests that you will need to buy it from an authorized education reseller, and all of the featured resellers appear to be US-based. And I don’t see Surface Laptop SE listed on its UK or France sites. Knowing Microsoft, it will be sold worldwide … eventually. But I’m not sure on that one.

I must admit I do not understand the business case for the Surface SE, especially if you want to target a global educational market- requirements may vary, and Microsoft is only a niche player when it comes to selling laptops!

I agree completely. Microsoft needs to play a major role in countering Chrome OS with its OS (Windows 11 SE) and deployment/management service (Intune). But it’s unclear what Microsoft gains by offering a $250 Surface that cheapens the brand.