Now, onto a more serious note. Try to think about how fortunate you are (for one, having internet) and maybe give something back to the world.

Enjoy today, and remember what Thanksgiving is all about.

What? You don’t live in the US/UK?

Therefore, I am posting a workaround that does not involve making a new account and using that for Live Mesh.

It is relatively simple:

1. Go to http://account.live.com
2. Login with your main WIndows Live ID account (the one you intend to use Mesh with)
3. In the middle column, there should be a link to “Registered Information”. Click that.
4. Make sure your birth date is set so you are over 18! This is important. If you aren’t over 18, set it over 18, or else you won’t be able to use your account anymore. If you can’t set this, I can’t help you. Abort this process now.
5. Click “Save”
6. Return to the Registered Information page
7. Under Home Country/Region, select “United States”
8. Click “Save”
9. Click here (thanks LiveSide)
10. Click on “Add device”
11. You should now have a link available for Windows Mobile
12. Download it to your device
13. Return to Registered Information, set Country/Region back to your country, save, then set your age back to current age if you changed it

This works because after the Mesh promotion is activated, it doesn’t check anymore to see if you are still a “US resident”. It worked for me. Have fun, and grab it whilst its hot!

As far as I know, aligning a div tag onto the middle of the screen still needs a div tag spanning the whole screen, which is vertically aligned to the middle, in which case you have your other div tag wrapped inside.

In other words, it’s easier to use a table.

Most people are telling you not to use tables to wrap your whole webpage in, as they’re slow to load and don’t display until they’re fully loaded. Well, some people just got to ask “is it for my convenience I just use tables, or is it better to use CSS and extra tags, which sometimes doesn’t even work in some browsers?”.

Go figure -.-

Windows. Mobile.

7.

Delayed. Til the second half of 2009. I really don’t get it. How are they supposed to try and increase their market share with the Android platform, Blackberries and iPhones ever increasing their own percentage of users? The last Windows Mobile update was 6.1, and what did that bring? Finger-friendly interface? No. Numbers you can actually put your whole finger on in the dialpad or calculator? No. A today screen that has bars big enough for your finger to tap on? No. Uncluttered menus? No. Being able to close a program instead of minimizing without going to start, settings, system, task manager? No.

Woah, that’s a lot of stuff done there. I can’t believe I didn’t get it the first day it was out! Oh… right… HTC didn’t release an update for my phone until a week before today. Even though it didn’t cost them a thing to get 6.1 into their hot little hands.

The reliance on third-party software to do something the OS should be able to do is massive. WinMo doesn’t even come with a registry editor.

And yet the third-party software has their own massive range and no quality control. There’s the good (SPB software) and the bad (too many to list). Without a standard system of distributing applications from one place, where ratings can be compared from program to program, the platform is set up for failure.

And now the next update won’t come until 1 year after Android gets a foothold or handhold into the market. How good can it get?

If Microsoft doesn’t do something drastic, soon, my next phone’s definitely not going to be a Windows Mobile, no matter how many Microsoft Word documents it can read.

For a more regular blog about more regular stuff, go to my new http://mixt.wordpress.com blog. Right there, there’s no archives. Everything’s kept new, and what’s over is officially in the past.

Cya there.

http://www.google.com/chrome

I find it funny how Chrome has it’s own task manager… but meh, you can find out the “amazing abilities of Chrome” by yourself. I’ll leave you to it

P.S. It’s actually quite a nice, quick, neat browser. I would’ve liked to use the word “minimalistic”, but the fact is it isn’t. It has tabbing, flash, download manager, whatever! And it’s all packaged in an app that actually starts when you tell it to. So I’ll just say it has a minimalistic interface.

Last month they charged me $2.07, 2 months after I cancelled my contract. No, it wasn’t just $2.07. It was 7c. 7c “credit card surcharge” for paying with their “preferred method of payment”, direct debit, and $2 for the paper bill (which I naturally did not change to an electronic bill as the charge only came in July and I wouldn’t have received a bill if it wasn’t for that 7c).

Now they’re at it again. Just today, I received a bill for $2. For what? PAPER INVOICE CHARGE!

Yes, they charge me $0 and then charge me $2 for sending the paper bill over to charge me $0. How nice.

Here is exactly what happened: the $2.07 was debited off via credit card, and therefore a 1c credit card surcharge was applied. That 1c surcharge was credited back by the last person on the phone. So “Balance brought forward” was $0.01cr, then + $0.01 credit card surcharge, and somehow they throw me a $2 “paper invoice charge” for telling me I wasn’t owing them anything. Or I wasn’t until they charged me that extra $2.

And the worse part is that the person I paid to last time said I wouldn’t get billed again! Also, I couldn’t change to electronic billing as my phone’s sim card has been long deactivated and therefore my 3 account has also been deactivated.

So I called 3 care at 13 33 20. Unfortunately, my account number was not enough to keep them happy. They also needed my passcode and previous phone number. Then they said that I had $2.00 to be paid by 26th August. I asked them politely to cancel that, as I explained the previous customer care support’s response. Then they couldn’t access the invoice. So I asked to be escalated (transferred to a supervisor, if somebody somehow doesn’t know what it means). Aha, after 1 minute of being on hold it was the same person telling me they’ve figured it out and that the bill has been credited and I was switched automatically onto electronic billing so I don’t have that $2 charge.

Amazing what a “Please transfer me to your supervisor” can do.

I like how it was delivered by FedEx… for free… So cool.

I like free stuff.

Just like the pictures on Microsoft’s website

So yay, I got it. What now? I’unno.