Author: Clinton

Today’s announcement from the OneDrive team of the new OneDrive API is great news.  For those of you who aren’t developers, the new OneDrive API will allow developers to allow full functionality of OneDrive in their apps.  It also provides better speed and includes the ability to retrieve new changes to files and folders to keep a large set of files efficiently in sync.  It allows rsumable uploads of files up to 10GB via file-fragment uploading for things like videos and it allows for a customizable file thumbnail images to be delivered between the developers app and OneDrive.  For consumers, the new OneDrive API may not sound super sexy but it will bring a new level of OneDrive integration into apps regardless of the platform of that app – iOS, Android, Windows or Windows Phone.  What it means is you can expect more apps on your favorite devices to be integrated with OneDrive.

The more exciting news and one that I suspect many people – including developers – missed is one line that is in the blog post about the new OneDrive API.

Internally, we are beginning to use the new API in all of our apps. This ensures that everyone is building on the platform with the same set of tools. Whenever we have access to new functionality, so will you.

For the developer community this is huge for one reason if for no other.  It means that Microsoft will not change the OneDrive API just for themselves.  It will be for everyone including them internally.  That in effect future proofs their apps and makes OneDrive as a platform far more viable.  This is big news peeps.

Microsoft has announced that students around the world can access Office 365 free-of-charge through their school.  The news is an exciting development that will open up the online version of Office as well as an installed version of Office to students globally.  Until today this was only available to students and educators in the United States.

To find out if you are eligible, you need a valid school address and have access to that email to get the verification information.  For students, go to this link to see if you qualify.  For Teachers, you go to this link.  Once you have been verified, you can get the latest version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access and Publisher and can install it on up to five PCs or Macs and up to 5 mobile devices.  In addition, you get 1TB of OneDrive storage so you can share all your files across your devices and of course access to the online versions of Office.

It is an amazing deal and great to see how Microsoft is supporting educators and students by providing this powerful suite of applications free.  It also should squelch some undertones in the market that Microsoft is not really interested in the Education market, having all-but given up on it thanks to the heavy push from Apple.  Clearly that is not the case.  By giving educators and students access to a full Office 365 account should remove any doubt.

For more information on this program, check out the Office Blogs.

Notifications on your tablet or PC are both expected and appreciated by most.  Whether it is an email arrival notification or the latest weather information being popped up, I for one have become dependent on these little tidbits of information that come to me throughout the day.  There are times however when I’m in the middle of another task and I get a notification and need just a few more seconds to tap it and interact with it.  By default Windows 8.1 gives you 5 seconds to either click on the notification (or close it) or it will fade away.  There is a way however to make this displaying of notifications longer and in this How To I will show you where this setting is buried within the PC settings on your device.

Security of portable devices such as tablets and laptops is ever more important in this day where our digital lives are literally on them.  Microsoft recognized this with Windows 8.1 and enabled a new Device Encryption when they released the update last year.  The idea behind Device Encryption is that your device is secure and the recovery key for that encryption is stored on Microsoft’s servers, associated with your Microsoft account (yes, they have access to the key but only access it for law enforcement needs).  Should your Windows 8.1 tablet or PC be stolen or lost, the content of that drive is encrypted and unless someone has your PIN or password then the contents of the device will not be something they can access.

In this How To I’m going to show you how you can disable the Device Encryption on your Windows 8.1 tablet or PC.  It is easy to disable (and enable) but it is a bit buried in the PC Settings.  Now, just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean that you should do a thing.  Really, there is no reason to follow this How To and turn off encryption.  It is for your own safety and personal data security which is why Microsoft has enabled it by default.  If you aren’t comfortable with Microsoft having the recovery key, that’s fine.  Follow this How To so you can disable it then re-encrypt with another encryption software.

The news over the weekend that Apple’s flagship OS’ where more vulnerable to security threats should not come as a surprise to anyone. As one who formerly used OS X and iOS, I knew it was just a matter of time before the two platforms were targeted and it appears in 2014 that happened.  Why it shouldn’t come as a surprise is simple and comes down to simple target size for hackers.  The key however my fellow Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 users is not to gloat to much.  We have been here and know the pain.

While it has been floating about in the rumor mill for the last week or so, Microsoft themselves have now confirmed that 1GB variant of the Lumia 635 is on its way to select markets and carriers.  The change is welcome as the Lumia 635 remains the most popular Lumia Windows Phone on the market with every carrier globally seemingly having the device available for as low as $69.  The 1GB will bring it up to spec with the Lumia 535 which has 1GB of RAM but is outperformed by the 635 overall.

You can read my review of the Lumia 635 at this link.