Microsoft get in touch over the Office Live Workspace add-in for Word issue and the T-Mobile myTouch is reviewed.
Margaret Li, Microsoft’s Office Live Workspace Program Manager, got in touch following last week’s Gearhead wherein I complained about losing my Autotext entries under Word after installing and then uninstalling Office Live Workspace Beta. After that, every time I tried to use Autotext I got an invitation to login to Office Live Workspace but that actually didn’t do diddly because the Office Live Workspace add-in for Word was no longer available.
Li suggested I rename the Normal.dot template, start Word and let it create a new version of that template. Then told me to open the renamed version and, using the Organizer function under Tools | Templates and Add-ins in Word, copy the Autotext entries into the new template.
Success! It appears that the Office Live Workspace add-in didn’t uninstall correctly and this somewhat labyrinthine solution did the trick. Thanks Margaret for a quick response. As always, I find myself wondering what the average consumer does when something like this happens. For example, is there an increased incidence of baldness among computer users?
Be that as it may, we now turn to cell phones. I recently got my large hands on a new and rather small Android-powered device from T-Mobile, the myTouch 3G. (I have become a big fan of the Android system; its excellent integration with Google Gmail and Google Maps alone make it stellar.)
The myTouch, another HTC designed and manufactured cell phone, is elegant and impressively small (just 2.2 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches and only 4.1 ounces). It has a gorgeous 3.2-inch, 320-by-480-resolution capacitive touch sensitive screen and a micro-trackball. The built-in camera (3.2 megapixels with autofocus and video capture) is just so-so in performance.
Unlike other HTC Android phones, there is no physical keyboard, only an onscreen keyboard which garnered a lot of criticism when the first version of the phone was released. With the myTouch 3G this has been fixed by a technology called Swype that makes a huge difference.
With Swype, instead of tapping on the virtual keys, you press and hold on the first letter of each word and then drag from letter to letter only taking your finger off when the word is finished. The Swype software analyzes the pattern and location of each turn in the path and maps that to the start and path for words in its dictionary. If there’s a high correlation between your ‘swipe’ pattern and one in the dictionary, the word is inserted. If the match is poor, Swype displays a selection of possible matches for you to choose from.
Swype takes a little learning, but compared to the T9 predictive text system that blights many phones (a technology which was, curiously, also created by the inventors of Swype), it’s a walk in the park.
I first tested the myTouch 3G for call quality and it’s very good (despite the fact that cell phone coverage out here in the boonies is crappy).
Then I gave the phone to my Chief Telephone Usability Analyst, AKA my son, who, after a week of use, pronounced the myTouch 3G to be “cool and pretty slick,” but “the touch screen isn’t as responsive as the iPhone.” He also commented that the battery life was OK but not great.
He is, as most teens are, a texting fiend and much to my surprise he really liked Swype. My hands are more chunky and less agile than his, but even I found Swype worked well. I should say “mostly well”. Much to my surprise, the word “T-Mobile” doesn’t appear to be in the Swype dictionary, so I kept getting words such as “trouble” and “tumble” being inserted. Even so, Swype is excellent and makes what would otherwise be a not bad phone into a very good one.
The phone is available from T-Mobile for $149.99 with a two year plan or for $399.99 with a month-to-month plan. I give the myTouch 3G a rating of 4 out of 5.
Gibbs calls it in Ventura, Calif. Your text to gearhead@gibbs.com.
