Author: Clinton

The Lumia Storyteller App for Windows Phone has received a nice update, bringing some new controls and features to the timeline based app for your photos.  If you are not familiar with it, Lumia Storyteller creates a timeline of your photos and videos on your Windows Phone where photos lumped together in a storyboard like fashion.  It is a great alternative to Photos on Windows Phone.

In your timeline you can browse your stories and modify them, then view them as slideshows or share them with friends. You can also sort your photos and videos by location, add captions and create a list of favorites, and when you’re looking at a photo you can zoom out to see where you took it on a map.

Lumia Storyteller for Windows Phone – Free – Download Now

Microsoft has released a small update to the Extras+Info app for Windows Phone that has caused a bit of a stir today in the community.  It was released a few hours ago but almost immediately rumors began floating that this was Lumia Denim, the next firmware update expected this year for Windows Phone.  Folks, this is not Lumia Denim.  It is simply an app update.

Now, what exactly was updated in Extras+Info is pretty vague in that the description highlights stability improvements.  So nothing terribly exciting.

Lumia Denim, which will bring a whole set of new features to Windows Phone, will be released later this year.

Halo fans, time to get excited!  WPCentral is reporting that Halo: Spartan Strike is coming to Windows and Windows Phone in December.  The top-down shooter, by all indications, appears to be similar to Halo: Spartan Assault.

According to WPCentral, here is what is known about the game so far:

• Universal Windows App. Buy it once, and play on both Windows and Windows Phone.
• Supports Windows Phone devices with 512MB RAM.
• All-new Halo adventure and new Promethean foes
• Similar controls and gameplay to Halo: Spartan Assault
• Progress earned in one device transfers to other devices.
• You can drive the iconic warthog and the new Kestrel VTOL.

If the details prove to be true, it could be a fantastic game for both your PC and your Windows Phone.  It would also represent the second Halo franchise game this year as Spartan Assault was released in June which is outstanding.

Update:  WPCentral now has a more in depth first look on their site.

It has been just over two months since I reopened the site and I can’t thank all of you enough for your visiting and welcoming back this defector back into the community.  It has been great catching up with many of you who have left comments or dropped emails to me as well as many, many old friends in the Windows Phone community.  Thank you many, many times over.  It is appreciated and humbling.

I am realistic though.  As much as I would love for the world to come to my little blog and read about the Little OS That Could, I

Nokia Lumia 1320

appreciate that you may have another way in which you’d prefer to get your Windows Phone news.  That’s why I’ve created multiple different channels in which you can get updates from the site the moment they happen or in a daily digest on a wide range of channel options to meet your needs.  The content, no matter your channel of choice, is the same.  So use the one that is best suited for you.

The two most common outside of visiting the site is Facebook and Twitter.  I have a dedicated Facebook Page which you can like and get site updates in your Facebook Timeline.  Likewise, you can follow me on Twitter which will give you every update to the site as it happens, along with random commentary and musings from me.  Yes I like Formula One and yes I tweet about it.

For those of you who like RSS, I’ve setup a dedicated RSS feed for you to subscribe to.  It gives you a quick summary of each post but is aimed to give you the highlights so you can click through if there is a story you want to read.  Finally is the email subscription option.  This is found at the bottom and right side bar of every page on the site.  Simply put in your email address, get the confirmation back and confirm and you will get an email update either in a per-post way (more emails) or a daily digest (less emails).

Regardless of how you read the site, a million thank you’s!

Today it was determined that some seven million accounts were compromised at Dropbox.  These are staggering numbers and everyone is being encouraged to change their passwords to prevent any loss of data or account access.

I have posted the content below multiple times but every time there is a security breach of this size, it is always important to remind everyone the importance of security on all of your accounts.

Identification security is something we should all be vigilant about whether it is on our smartphones, our PCs or Macs.  Security breaches happen at the weakest point so the goal is to make it difficult to discourage but also not so difficult that you yourself are unable to access your data.  Here then are a few tips that you should consider when it comes to your personal data security.

Use Complex Passwords

The most basic thing you can do in personal data security is use complex passwords.  That is, use passwords with a mixture of:

• Upper-Case Letters
• Lower-Case Letters
• Numbers
• Special Character such as @£$%!
• At least 8 characters long

Passwords should also not be associate with any personally identifying information such as:

• Birthdays (yours, your spouses, your children, etc)
• Your address
• Your National Identification/Social Security Number

Complex passwords serve as a strong deterrent for those who would potentially try to gain access to your data.  While any password can be compromised with enough time, complex ones point hackers to easier targets.

Yesterday, with coverage spanning the Windows centric Interwebs, Joe Belfiore posted on the Blogging Windows site that the Windows 10 Technical Preview had reached 1 million participants.  That is a significant number, especially given we are only two weeks since the announcement of the preview being available.  But it is also important symbolically as Microsoft, seemingly for the first time, is properly asking for feedback on their flagship product.  And even more importantly, they are actually listening to that feedback.

Ultimately that means we all win.

If it is indeed the case that Microsoft is listening to user feedback and shaping Windows 10 around that demand, there is no reason to think that this release will put the company squarely back on the map with consumers and, perhaps more importantly, their enterprise customers.  It is a new and different Microsoft these days and this is another clear indicator of it.