JimP

Paul, if you're looking for a scoop, I haven't seen anyone report on this yet. Facebook has changed the way it shares posts. I run a FB page and we frequently post links to news articles with our commentary about the news article as part of the post.

Previously, if one of our followers shared our post, they would share our entire post. This means not only our commentary but the name and link to our FB page (in addition to the link to the news article).

Starting apparently yesterday, if one of our followers shares one of these posts, only the link to the news article is shared. Our commentary is stripped from the shared post. Also, the name and link to our Facebook page is stripped from the post.

This is huge to FB content authors because having our readers share our posts is a great way to build name recognition and possibly gain new followers. Now this is gone.

Yes, there is a way to override the default behavior, but realistically, nobody is going to do this. As an example, we recently posted something that has received 14 shares. Normally, that means the name of our FB page would be included in all 14 shares. But not a single user clicked the checkbox to override the default behavior. So, we lost 14 opportunities to expose the name of our FB page to new people.

Hopefully, FB is only beta-testing this. But if you run the type of FB page I do, this is a huge blow to us building a bigger audience.

Now that Microsoft appears to be abandoning its Edge HTML rendering engine, does anyone know if that means that they're also dropping Chakra in favor of V8?

I just had a great name for Microsoft's Andromeda device: Surface Fold. It's a simple, catchy name that emphasizes the foldable nature of the device.

But perhaps even better, how about the Surface Phold? This emphasizes that the telephony features make the Fold into a phone.

I asked Cortana if aliens landed at Roswell. On my Invoke speaker, Cortana says, "Yes, aliens landed at Roswell".

But when I asked the same question of Cortana on my Windows laptop (running RS4 I believe), she says it was a weather balloon.

True story: I bought a new car with Android Auto. On the way home from work, I told it, "Play Put it There by Paul McCartney". Spotify did not play the song. Instead it, played some (sort of) random Paul McCartney songs with some Kanye West intermingled. (I'm not joking about Kanye). I tried the same thing at home with my Cortana Invoke speaker. It played the correct song.

Both Android Auto and Contana used Spotify but for whatever reason, the Cortana played the right song.

I'm moving from a Lumia 950XL to a Galaxy S9+. I'm trying to figure out the best way to move from the Windows Phone world to the Android world.

How do I sync my Outlook contacts and calendar to Android's contacts and calendar? Is this a one time setup or do I have to repeatedly sync them? IOW, if I add a new contact to Outlook.com, will it appear on my Android phone? Or do I have to resync everything every time I make a change? If I have to constantly resync everything, does it make sense to abandon Outlook mail and calendar and just use Google services?

I did a search in my outlook.com email account and deleted a bunch of emails. Each email disappeared from the search results each time I deleted one.

However, when I ran the search again, I the emails I deleted still showed up.

This makes me wonder: when I delete an e-mail from search results, am I deleting the email or am I just removing the email from the search results?

For the past couple weeks, the Maps app has been locking up on my phone at random. It launches fine, but after I enter a start and destination location, it locks up on the "Here we go..." screen.

Restarting the app and rebooting the phone doesn't fix the issue.

Has anyone else been having this problem?

I can't tell if this is a software bug (in which case I can just wait it out until MS has a fix) or a hardware issue (in which case, I will need a new phone). Has anyone else been having this problem?

https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2017/nov/23/retiring-the-guardian-app-for-windows-10-phone-and-desktop

The past few weeks or so, I've noticed that Cortana seems to be getting worse. I used to be able to say, "Hey Cortana, remind me to get milk the next time I'm at the grocery store" and most of the time it would create the reminder. Now, it frequently interrupts me and I have to keep trying or use the keyboard to finish the reminder.

Anyone else having this problem with creating reminders?

I can login to OneDrive and see the files listed. However, when I try to view a file, it does not download. It just shows the wait animation. I tried it in Chrome and Edge.

I also tried it on my Windows Phone using the OneDrive app, and I get an error saying it can’t open the file.

Is anyone else having a problem with OneDrive this morning?

UPDATE: Apparently, the problem only seems to affect text files (*.txt). I'm able to view Word and Excel documents.

SECOND UPDATE: Actually, I cannot view image files either.

A new version of Windows 10 Mobile was released today and it adds support for FitBit notifications. I'm installing it right now. And the timing couldn't be more perfect. I literally just bought a FitBit the other day.

So much for Windows Phone being dead...

https://mspoweruser.com/latest-windows-10-mobile-cumulative-update-finally-bring-support-fitbit-notifications/

I'm about 7-8 episodes into Season 5 of House of Cards and they're still using Windows Phone! It looks like they've replaced the UI, but the phone clearly says Microsoft on it.

Paul missed the really big news today. Creators Update for Windows Mobile is now out for the 950XL on AT&T. Wahoo! I'm installing it now.

I'm on the Slow Ring. I'm currently running:

Version 1607 (OS Build 15048.0)

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.15048]

How do I get the RTM version of the Creators Update? For whatever reason, it hasn't been rolled out to me. I tried using the Windows Update Assistant, but it's blocked by my system administrator.

To be honest, I don't want to be on the Windows Insider program anymore for this machine. I want to get off of it, but the only way to do that is to move to the RTM version, but I can't get the RTM version to install.

Any ideas?

There's a disturbing lack of rumors about the Surface Phone. I wonder if MS has killed the project.

How do you view e-mail headers in Outlook.com? It looks like it used to be possible by clicking the elipses (...), but it looks like MS has removed it.

Does anyone know if the current VS2017 Release Candidate the one that’s actually released? IOW, if I install it today, will I have to install a new version when it comes out on March 7th?

I want to use it now, but if will I have to install it twice (once today and again on Mar 7)? If I have to install it twice, I might as well just wait 5 days.

The last week or two, something very weird has been going on with my Windows 10 PC at work.  

At seemingly random intervals, several apps start for no apparent reason without any user intervention.  At first, I believe it was just Maps.  But now it's expanded to Store, Calendar, News and Settings.  It tends to happen after I walk away from my PC.  

No, my co-workers aren't playing a trick on me - I always lock my computer when I walk away from it.

Does anyone have any ideas on why apps keep mysteriously launching?

I am running 14965.rs_prelease.161104-1700.

I on the Slow Ring and I started getting a message saying that I have to install a new build of Windows, and if I don't, my PC will automatically reboot every few hours and will eventually fail to start.

The problem is that I'm on the Slow Ring.  There is NO new build on the Slow Ring.  There is literally nothing to install unless I switch rings which I would rather not do.

If MS wants to encourage users to upgrade to newer builds, that's fine.  But they have to provide newers builds.  They shouldn't be forcing people to update to builds that don't exist.