Final Years for the Desktop OS?

On my way to the Windows 7 launch conference I pondered over the future of the desktop OS. Yes, physical keyboards and mice will eventually be replaced by multi-touch and speech recognition interfaces. Motion- and gesture-based controls are also likely. But the thought that really intrigues me is the replacement of the desktop OS with something else, like say virtual desktops or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).

VDI is a desktop delivery model. The client desktop (OS, applications and user data) reside on a server in the cloud or in a data center—not on client devices. Desktop images are pushed to client devices, so it appears as if it’s all there on the PC, but in reality it’s at the backend.

Microsoft and Apple may have independent views on desktop virtualization, and may dismiss my wild thoughts on the future of the desktop OS. But let me corroborate these with some facts.

* Firstly, companies and employees are already benefiting from desktop virtualization. NIIT for instance, is using desktop virtualization at its education centers.
Says Pankaj Dikshit, General Manager, NIIT, “Being an IT training operation we face a major challenge, which is the dynamic nature of the environment. In the evening we may teach Java but the next morning it is Dot Net and later Oracle. I can’t have a PC or server that does all this. We need to quickly switch between environments. The other issue is that the environment is becoming invasive—students want to install applications, change the configuration and customize the desktop.”

Dikshit says virtualization lets him achieve all of this using a single solution. He says virtual images provide different environments on the fly. It also helps him manage the dynamic environment very efficiently.

Desktop virtualization is also a boon for mobile workers. It let’s them access their desktops from any location in the world, using any client device. It’s a blessing in disguise for companies who fear the risk of data loss due to stolen notebooks. Also, the data always remains on the organization’s servers and is always accessible, regardless of whether an employee leaves the organization or goes on vacation.

* Secondly, Microsoft itself is gearing up for VDI. Windows Server 2008 R2 has Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

After virtualizing servers, Citrix and VMware are set to do the same for desktops with products like XenDesktop 4 and VMware View respectively.

* Thirdly, consider the cost advantage. Since the OS runs off the server, you aren’t paying for thousands of client licenses. Ditto for applications that also reside on the server. With VDI, one is spared the chore of upgrading OSes and applications every few years, on desktops. The recurring costs of hardware upgrades or client device refreshes, every three or four years, goes away too.

There is another threat to desktop OSes. The Web browser can perform many of the functions of an OS. But there are doubts whether it will succeed in OS-intensive tasks such as managing devices and computing resources.

I am sure CIOs are aware about all this, but the question is, will VDI replace the desktop OS? And has Windows (client) reached the end of the line?

Personally, I believe that the two will co-exist. VDIs will be suitable for certain corporate environments, while desktop clients will continue to be used, especially with home devices.

Record phone conversations

BY BRIAN PEREIRA

As a journalist I frequently engage in telephonic interviews with industry executives, some in countries as far away as the US  and Australia. They either dial me or I need to dial in to a pre-arranged conference call session. Call bridge details such as toll-free numbers, pass codes and the call time (local) are sent to me in advance. These discussions are usually technical in nature so I often record such calls using my cell phone or a tape recorder. I am sure you will need to do the same and I offer some options in this article.

Firstly, let me tackle the legalities. Is it illegal to record a phone conversation without the other party’s consent? I might as well ask: Is it illegal to shoot candid photos of people on the street without their consent? While I am unaware of any Indian law that forbids one to do so (photos, video or audio recording), I think this is really a matter of ethics and privacy. It’s better to inform the other party in advance that you will be recording the conversation. Take their consent and offer them the option to make comments “off the record”.  Well, you could record on the sly, but if the other party becomes aware, they are likely to protest angrily and terminate the call. Phones like the Nokia E-series beep every 20 seconds when you use the default sound recorder, so the other party knows that the call is being recorded. Of course, there’s a way round this, but more on this later.

Now, on to the options and the “how-to” instructions. The simplest way to record a phone conversation is to use a speaker phone. Place your sound recording device (dictaphone) near the phone’s speaker. If the recording device is a digital dictaphone or a mobile phone, do not place it too near the phone’s speaker, as it might cause some electro-magnetic disturbance (remember how that screen image on your old analog monitor danced wildly when your ringing cell phone was placed too near?)

A Telephone Adaptor

The second method is to use a telephone recording adaptor. This useful accessory is included in some digital recorder kits (insist on it). It can also be bought from a shop on Mumbai’s Lamington Road or equivalent. It’s a small device with an RJ-11 telephone plug at one end, one or two telephone sockets at the other end and a cable with a 3.5 mm headphone plug. Unplug the telephone from its wall socket and plug it into the telephone adaptor. The plug on the telephone adaptor goes into the wall socket and the headphone plug from the device goes into the ‘Mic’ or ‘Line-in’ socket in your recording device. When the phone rings, lift up the receiver and press the ‘Record’ button on the recorder.

The third option is the sound recorder in your mobile phone. But there is a problem. Some phones beep every 20 seconds while recording and that can be annoying. The way round this is third-part software like Total Recall recorder from Killer Software. Download and install on your phone. No more beeps.

Finally, a word about sound file formats and transcribing. While the Nokia phones record in the common Wav/wave format (playable in Windows Media Player) Sony Ericsson phones record in the proprietary AMR (Adaptive Multi-rate) format. So after you transfer the sound files to the PC you will need to encode these to MP3 or Wav formats that are recognized by your audio player software. This file conversion can be done using the encoder in your CD burning software (Nero) or with some third-party shareware such as QuickMediaConverter. You could also download an AMR player and play the files (natively) without the need to encode to MP3.

Lastly, a word about transcribing. This is the most difficult part!

It can take as much as 2 – 3 hours to transcribe a one-hour interview, word-to-word. Tip: Listen to the full recording once (make notes) and keep an eye on the stop watch or counter in the media player. Note down the time for certain segments in the conversation that you’d like to transcribe. It’s like watching the time counter on a DVD player and noting down the reading for certain scenes so that you’d like to recall later.

It would certainly help to jot notes during the phone conversation. Note down key terms and phrases, just in case these aren’t discernable from the audio track while transcribing.

And, do start transcribing immediately after the phone interview (while it’s all fresh in your human memory).

Luckily my Mom did not have to go through all this at work. She took the easier way out and learned Pitman shorthand!

Obsolete-proof hardware

A week ago I was attending a technical seminar in Hyderabad. Here a certain company was trying to pitch ‘Green IT’ products to its customers. A customer asked why the switches he had already purchased could simply be green-enabled instead of replacing these with new ‘green’ ones. Technical obsolescence makes it necessary for companies to replace products every few years. Isn’t there a way to make hardware obsolete-proof? And why can’t vendors take back old products and sell new ones at a reduced rate?

Buying new hardware every few years is getting to be a costly proposition and IT managers are feeling this more so now, during the downturn. But there is a way to make hardware obsolete-proof, to a certain extent or limit.

Have you heard about the concept of upgrading the firmware by flashing the BIOS? And then there are updates for device drivers. The feature set of a certain device, such as a MP3 player, motherboard, EPABX system or network switch can be determined by the corresponding device driver or firmware. The former is a piece of software that you install on the hard disk while firmware is special software that’s hard-wired on a chip in the device. The manufacturer could periodically release updates which the user could download from its website and then, following a special procedure, upload these into the chip, thereby overwriting the previous version of the firmware.

This concept is now applicable to the iPod and the iPhone. Apple releases updates periodically to extend or improve the functionality of these devices. Motherboard and graphics card manufacturers also offer driver and firmware updates.

There’s a Linux and Asterisks software solution that converts a PC into a full-fledged EPABX system. New features are easily added just by installing additional software modules rather than purchasing additional hardware.

Touch screen phones have virtual keypads and buttons that replace physical ones. The manufacturer can add new buttons or change the functionality of the buttons by updating the phone’s firmware.

The point is software updates can bring new or enhanced functionality to hardware and thereby increase the product lifecycle. But that doesn’t make the hardware obsolete-proof.

And there are physical limitations. Memory has a finite capacity. New ports and circuits can’t be installed on old devices. Wireless technology evolves and new radio chips are developed. Data transmission speeds increase and new bus interfaces emerge. Controller chips get more intelligent.

But this is all food for thought, nevertheless.

Alice in Tele-land

My first glimpse of Telepresence was in the old Star Trek TV series with Captain James T Kirk confronting the Romulans, Klingons and other aliens via a huge screen on the bridge of the USS Enterprise. And then I discovered holographic communications in the film Star Wars (1977) and the concept of Teleportation in The Fly and Star Trek.

These days I do a fair amount of inter-city travel and I can see that the ‘laptop generation’ is abstaining from travel. Apart from the downturn, the fear of Swine Flu infection is another reason for the reduction in corporate travel. Obviously, there are a lot more audio and video conference sessions happening in boardrooms and meeting rooms in Indian enterprises. During a recent visit to a PR agency in Bangalore for instance, my presentation was beamed live to their offices in other cities via video links.

Telepresence and video conferencing are certainly helping organizations cut down on travel costs. Wipro for instance, has been able to save close to 100 trips per year leading to approximate savings of USD 2.5 million. Proter & Gamble is another big user of telepresence solutions.

I saw (and liked) the Cisco ‘Human Network’ ads on TV. Cisco obliged when I asked for a telepresence demo. They organized a telepresence session at their Mumbai office with a Cisco spokesperson in Bengaluru. I sat in front of three large screens and after a few minutes of conversation it felt like the person at the other end was in the same room—sitting across the table. Spatial sound and high definition video can surely fool the brain.

I think the next big technology shift in communications will be holographic projection. A three dimensional image of you will be projected to another location, so that you can be there—virtually.

Beyond that it would be teleportation. If that become possible due to a big research breakthrough, the transportation industry would have to change its business model, completely. I am hoping my child experiences teleportation in her lifetime. Thankfully, she would be spared the agony of traveling in packed trains and buses.

And no, her name is not Alice.

Backup your Outlook mail and contacts

Business email and contacts are precious assets in the corporate world. Yet most executives do not even think about backing up this important data. Yes, there are other alternatives to mail on the desktop. For instance, high-end mobile phones such as the iconic Blackberry, can be synched with email systems and receive Push mail. You could also store your email in the cloud with services like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and others. But this story is really for those who use POP3 email clients on a PC.

As a matter of policy one should always make backup copies of important data stored on the PC, and it includes email and address books. Viruses can play spoilsport; nobody escapes system crashes with data corruption. Of course, there are other reasons for backing up, for instance, you may want to transfer your downloaded messages and the address book to another device such as a laptop or smart phone.

There’s a compelling reason for backing up Outlook email too. Outlook data files have a file size limitation of 2GB. This limit can be increased through a registry tweak, although we don’t recommend it. So after a year or so of usage the message data files approach this file size limitation and Outlook starts complaining with warning messages. There’s a temporary workaround — the AutoArchive feature of Outlook. To configure and use it go to ‘Tools | Options’ and look within the ‘Other’ tab. But what happens when the archive file itself swells to a huge size? Then it’s time to consider making multiple archive files, perhaps one for each year.

This workshop is based on Microsoft Outlook 2003, but the concepts explained here are generally applicable to any other email client. Of course, exact storage locations of data files and file formats will differ, even among different versions of Microsoft Outlook. But the backup procedure is similar for other clients.

In this workshop we show different ways to backup Outlook email. Use the method that suits you. But before you jump in, it’s important to have a clear understanding about how Outlook email works, the data file formats, and management of data files.

Data file management

Outlook 2003 stores all email messages, contacts, calendars, notes, and tasks in .PST (Personal storage Table) data files. Older versions use the .OST format. Outlook Express uses .DBX files (one for each mail folder) and a .WAB file for address book data. In the case of Outlook 2003 you need to look for, and backup three crucial files: Outlook.pst, address.pst and archive.pst. But where are these files stored? By default these are stored in a folder named ‘Outlook’ that’s deep down in the ‘Documents and Settings’ folder.

One way to find the location of the data files is to use Windows Search. Click the Windows ‘Start’ button and select ‘Search’. In the search criteria box type ‘*.pst’. Within the search results window, widen the ‘In Folder’ column and you will see the full path in front of the data file. In our case it is: ‘C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook’. Whew!

Tip: Simplify the long route to this location by creating a shortcut link to this folder on the Windows Desktop.

There are two other ways to find the location of the data files. To view the three Outlook data files from within Outlook, Click ‘File | Data File Management’. Widen the column titled ‘Filename’ by dragging its border to the right. Keep scrolling to the right by dragging the horizontal scroll button in the box and you’ll soon see the three Outlook data files named address.pst, archive.pst and Outlook.pst. Click ‘Open folder’ to see the location of these data files. To view the three Outlook data files from outside Outlook, use the ‘Mail’ utility in the Windows Control Panel.

Method-1: Copy the PST files

The simplest way to backup Outlook data files is to search for *.pst files. When these are listed in the search results window simply right-click on these and copy these to a USB pen drive using the ‘Send to’ option in the context menu. The limitation here is the capacity of the pen drive. If that’s the case then burn a DVD or CD with a copy of the PST files. Unless you use rewriteable optical media, you’d want to burn a CD/DVD only when porting mail from one PC to another.

If you later want to restore the contacts or messages you’ll need to copy these from the backup medium to the very same location (same folder) from where they were earlier copied. We’ve already told you how to find the folder where the Outlook data files are stored.

Method-2: Import and Export
Most email clients have an Import/Export option, typically found in the ‘File’ menu. So messages and contacts can be transferred between email clients and also Web-based email using this option. The conduit here is a file in a standard or universally acceptable format. In this case it’s a .CSV (comma separated values) file. A CSV file stores data in a structured, tabular format. A line in the CSV file corresponds to one record or row in the table. And each field in the table is separated by a comma. A unique record corresponds to one person’s contact details or one email message. Each record comprises of fields, for instance, Name, Phone, Address, email—in the case of an address book.

1. From the Outlook ‘File’ menu select ‘Import and Export’. The Import/Export wizard appears. Select the option ‘Export to a file’ and click ‘Next’.

2. Select the option ‘Comma separated values (DOS)’ and click ‘Next’.

3. The Outlook message folder structure is now shown. If you want to export the address book, then select ‘Contacts’ otherwise select ‘Inbox’ to export all messages in Inbox and sub-folders.

4. The name of the CSV export file and its default storage location are shown. At this point you may want to store the exported contacts or messages in another location/folder. Click the ‘Browse’ button and specify a new location (like the Desktop). Also notice that the default name of the export file is ‘Inbox.csv’. You can change this name to ‘Contacts.csv’ now, or rename it later. Click ‘Next’.

5. The list of actions about to be performed is shown. Click ‘Finish’ to complete the task. Minimize Outlook and look for the CSV file in the specified location. You’ll notice that this file is associated with Excel. Double-click on it and view its contents. Do not save changes when exiting Excel. To make a backup, copy this CSV file to a pen drive or to another computer.

ON THE OTHER COMPUTER

6. If you want to see your contacts or messages on another computer, first copy the respective CSV files to the desktop of the other computer. Then start Outlook and click ‘File | Import and Export’. Select the option ‘Import from another program or file’ and click ‘Next’.

7. Select the option ‘Comma Separated Values (DOS)’ and click ‘Next’.

8. You’ll be asked what action is to be taken in case of duplicate items. Select ‘do not import duplicate items’. Then specify the location (Desktop) where you copied the CSV file and click ‘Next’.

9. The Outlook folder structure is shown. Depending on what you are importing select ‘Contacts’ or ‘Inbox’ as the destination folders and click ‘Next’.

10. The list of actions about to be performed is shown. Click ‘Finish’ to complete the task.

Method-3: Using third-party tools

We found a third-party tool called ABF Outlook Backup. The full version cost $40 (approx Rs 2,000). You can download a trial version from www.outlookbackup.com. This handy utility saves and restores all Outlook email messages and folders, contacts, calendar and journal entries, tasks, notes, RSS feeds, Outlook settings (with passwords), mail accounts, message rules, junk email lists, signatures—even Internet Explorer favorites. That’s a full and complete backup. A program wizard makes using this tool very straightforward. If depend heavily on Outlook for business communications, to schedule and plan meetings and appointments, or just to organize yourself, then this tool is highly recommended and well worth the price.

All messages, contacts and settings are saved in one backup file. This tool lets you backup directly to a pen drive, external hard drive or CD/DVD (with its built-in CD/DVD burner).

Shut down Outlook before installing or using this tool. While installing ABF Outlook Backup you’ll be asked if you want to make a backup. Click ‘Next’.

Specify what needs to be backed up. We suggest that you backup everything. Click ‘Next’.

The registered version offers the option of creating a self-extracting backup file. Otherwise you will need AFB Outlook Backup program when restoring from the backup file. As a security measure you can also add a password. Note the backup file name and its storage location (change it if necessary). Type a description for the backup that indicates when you took the backup or what was backed up. Click ‘Next’.

A summary of the backup details is shown. Note the location of the backup file. Click ‘Next’ to start the backup. Depending on how many messages you have, the backup operation will take anywhere between 10 – 30 minutes. Once the backup is completed look for a .OB3 file in the My Documents folder, which is the default location. Copy this file to a CD/DVD for safe storage. If you want to restore all your email, contacts and settings then double-click on this file and specify what needs to be restored. The ABF Outlook Backup wizard will guide you through the restoration process. Be sure to close Outlook before attempting a restoration.

–By Brian Pereira

The writer is a certified Microsoft Outlook Specialist (Office 2003).

Low-cost iPod docks?

I am on the look out for a low-cost iPod dock to hook up my Nano to the home entertainment system in the living room. There are some fancy docks that double up as alarm clock radios or portable stereos, but I prefer something simple. Onkyo for instance, offers a simple dock to connect iPod to its receivers. Just a simple base unit with RCA/Phono connectors (and possibly a built-in charger).
Low-cost iPod chargers (for A/C mains) are available in retail outlets, so I don’t see why they can’t make a low-cost dock.
I continue to search and will keep you posted.
—Brian Pereira