MobileViews Blog

Remember all the ugliness a few weeks ago when some people lost their Google RSS feeds because of some glitch on Google’s servers? Interestingly enough, if you use Microsoft’s Windows Live web page as your RSS feed collector, you can avoid this by using a somewhat hard to find Live feature. And, as a side benefit, this procedure lets you migrate all your Windows Live RSS feeds to Ilium’s NewsBreak RSS/Podcast feed reader for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and Smartphones.

Here’s what you can do.

• Start Windows Live and, if needed, login to your personal page
• Click on the Add stuff link near the top left of the page
• Click on the Advanced tab
• Take a look at the last line of the box that just opened up. Find the line that reads Click here to export your feed subscriptions to OPML.
• Click on the word here in that line
• A new window or tab will open up at this point and show you the OPML XML code containing all of the feeds in all of your Windows Live page tabs.
• Click File
• Click Save As
• Save the OPML XML code to a file on your PC

Assuming you have Ilium Software’s NewsBreak 2.0 installed on your Pocket PC or Smartphone, sync your device with your PC. Then, copy the OPML file you created using the steps above over to your Windows Mobile device. Now, start up NewsBreak and use its New Channel Wizard to import the OPML file. NewsBreak doesn’t have a check all option in this wizard. So, if you have a lot of feeds in Windows Live like me, it might take a little while to check off all the feeds for NewsBreak to use. But, this is not too painful. You might want to use NewsBreak’s option to store the feed data on your storage card after this. But, otherwise, that’s it. You not only have a backup of your Windows Live RSS feed collection, you also have a portable version on your Windows Mobile device.

So, we’ve got .NET Framework for PCs, .NET Compact Framework for Windows Mobile, and, now, .NET Micro Framework for MSN Direct and other embedded systems. It appears that this category also includes Windows Vista SideShow devices. Here’s a bunch of links to help you sort out the information. First up is the press release…

Microsoft .NET Micro Framework Is Now Available

Next is the frameworks website…

Microsoft .net Micro Framework

And, finally, a brief video (WMV format) providing examples of the types of devices that might run .net Micro Framework…

.NET Micro Framework demo video

A friend had a question about installing Ubuntu Linux on a Mac running Parallels Desktop for Mac since reviewed it earlier this year. I thought it might be of general interest. So, I’m posting a response here. He asked…

I picked up a MacBook Core 2 Duo with 120 GB Hard Drive and 2 GB of RAM. Its wonderful so far. I also downloaded the trial version of Parallel (Build 1970 dated 1 November 2006). I have with me the Ubuntu Edgy (6.10 ) Live CD that I used successfully to install on a standard PC … but am not at all having any luck booting fully from the live CD under Parallels so that I can install it in a virtual environment. I wonder if I should try the Beta version of Parallels instead?You mentioned in your report a few weeks ago that you were not having any problems installing Ubuntu with your version of Parallels. Do you have any general suggestions?

First, woo! Nice MacBook configuration.

I’m running the latest public Parallels Desktop for Mac beta and it seems pretty stable to me so far. Two suggestions regarding the issue you are seeing.

• Trying downloading the current ISO and install it using the ISO file instead of a physical CD disc. There might be some small drive tolerance issue that allowed to install fine on the standard PC you used but not the MacBook.
• You might want to try Ubuntu 6.06 LTS instead 6.10. I seem to recall reading that some people were having problems with 6.10. I installed 6.06 LTS last summer when I was testing an earlier version of Parallels Desktop for Mac.

Here’s the link to the MobileViews MobileWiki page with links to websites discussed on Tom D’Auria’s IMI TechTalk radio program on KFNX 1100am in Phoenix, AZ.

MobileViews MobileWiki IMI Tech Talk 2006.08.13 Show Notes

The topic Tom and I focused on was running Microsoft Windows on Intel-based Apple Macs using virtualization technology.