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The Ultimate Windows Phone 7.5 Mango Preview
Windows Phone 7 launched last year with a lot of hype and some great reviews. This year there's going to be a significant update to the new mobile operating system which is said to bring 500 new features. Really, in Microsoft's database, there are around 1000 new features, but some of them are kind of minor. I have no intention of actually counting them, but if you look at that scrollbar on this page, we have found a pretty significant number of new features to talk about. Today we've got a preview of the new Windows Phone "Mango" update and it continues Windows Phone 7's concept of making your personal content shine. This is only a preview, so there may be some bugs or features that aren't quite there yet and it's certainly not the final version, but it's a pretty good look at how things are coming along. Look for Mango to hit current Windows Phone 7 smartphones by the end of 2011, and read on for our extensive preview!
At first glance, you might not notice anything new on the Start screen. It's got most of the same live tiles, and the interface for arranging them hasn't changed. When you swipe into the programs listing, however, that's when you'll see some improvements. First off, a search button fades into view just below the little arrow button. Pressing that will let you search through your applications listing. You can also use it to search for apps in the marketplace. You're probably thinking, why doesn't the hardware search button do that? It was supposed to be context sensitive in Windows Phone 7, right? Well, that's changed. In Windows Phone 7.5, the hardware search button only ever goes to Bing search. Applications with search functions now have their own little search buttons.
We've also got alphabetical letters in the programs listing just like in other list types, and tapping one of the letters will let you jump to any other letter in the list. The letters don't actually appear until you've got a really long list of programs. That way, if you don't really have a lot of apps there's no extra clutter in your short programs listing. That's a very smart feature.
To get to the fast task switching interface, just hold the back button down for a couple seconds. The current window will zoom out, and you'll see a number of screens from other applications you've accessed recently. This device usually only shows about 4 or 5 screens and there's no webOS-like easy way to get rid of certain ones. You have to navigate to the one you want to remove and then press the back button after it resumes. Essentially every time you press the start key, that will take an image of where you've been and save it in the task switcher. Now it's important to note that the older 3rd party apps won't resume right away. All of your apps will have to be updated in order to support the fast-resume feature when multi-tasking. Current 3rd party apps will basically restart themselves when switched to using this interface, just as they currently do when using the back button in Windows Phone 7.
Settings are accessed from the same "Settings" icon, which you can pin to your start menu if you want. There's a lot of new stuff here. First off, I'm sure you want to know the build number of what we've got. In the About section we've got OS version 7661.WP7_5_Trial and it clearly says "Windows Phone 7.5" for the software version, so that's what we'll call it for now.
What's new with Ringtones + Sounds? There's still no option in the settings to select a custom ringtone, but they are now organized by provider. We expect to see 3rd party apps that will install collections of ringtones here. There's now an option to play a sound for the Camera shutter. It's great to be able to turn that off!
In the theme settings there's nothing new — except the Orange color has been renamed to "Mango".
The Wi-Fi settings now have an "Advanced" button that will show you known networks that you've connected to. You can delete them there by turning on the selection mode and pressing the delete button. Oddly, tapping each one in the list behaves like a button (it gets pressed), but then doesn't do anything.
Bluetooth settings are pretty much the same and there's no way to specify which profiles you want certain devices to connect to. UPDATE: At least on this device/build, A2DP still does not work for audio in videos. It works for HTML5 audio, music, and games audio though.
The Email + Accounts settings is mostly the same except now you'll see LinkedIn and Twitter listed there. Unfortunately adding a Twitter account currently just says "Coming soon!"
The Lock + Wallpaper settings have one very cool new option. You can set it to show artist artwork as wallpaper while playing music. We'll show you this in one of the videos below, and it really looks great. The "Change Wallpaper" button now allows you to choose from images on SkyDrive and your Facebook account, whereas previously you could only use pictures that were in your phone's memory. Speaking of the lock screen, when you hold the power button down, a "slide to shut down" confirmation appears that mimicks the way the Zune HD shuts down. UPDATE: There's a new feature when you turn on password protection that lets you specify how long the device should wait before requiring a password to unlock. This is perfect for avoiding having to enter your password everytime your phone's screen times out.
There's nothing new in the Location and Cellular settings areas, but now we have a "Battery Saver" setting! This great addition gives you the option to automatically stop background applications and stop downloading emails when your battery is getting low. You can also manually turn on the battery saver until your next charge. That sounds like an excellent feature if you're trying to get through an extended period of time without access to a charger. Plus, you don't have to remember to shut off battery saver mode because everything will just come back on when you plug in to recharge. Very smart! All the way at the bottom you can also see how many hours you've been on battery and an estimate as to how many hours you've got left.
The Date + Time, and Brightness options haven't changed either, but the Keyboard settings certainly have. Many of the options in Windows Phone 7 are gone now. You used to be able to shut off auto-correction, insert space after double tapping spacebar, insert space after selecting a suggestion, and auto-capitalize the first word of a sentence.
In the "Ease of Access" settings there's now an option to turn on speech for accessibility. The Speech settings have been improved too. Now there are options for reading aloud incoming text messages. You can choose between off, always on, Bluetooth & headsets, Bluetooth only, or wired headset only. Unfortunately, it doesn't read aloud any other kind of notifications such as calendar appointments like the old Windows Mobile 2003 was capable of.
The "Find My Phone" settings have been renamed to "windowsphone.com" in the settings listing, but tapping that name still shows "Find My Phone" at the top.
Now in the Applications section there's a new "Background tasks" setting. I assume that when developers release applications that support background processing, they will appear here with an on/off switch so that you'll be able to decide whether or not each one should be allowed to run in the background.
In the Games settings you now have options for syncing game requests and showing game alerts in addition to connecting with Xbox Live.
Internet Explorer's settings now include a location awareness switch as well as an option for disallowing a browser history collection. So if you don't want anyone to ever know what sites you visited, that's a little checkbox here. You can also now set whether links from other apps open in a new tab or the current tab.
Maps' settings dialog has some new options too. There's a setting to "read directions aloud when tapping". This is how you get the voice prompts while driving, and we'll go over exactly how that works later on. You've also got the option to rotate the map orientation with your current direction as a new setting.
In the Messaging settings we now have an on/off switch for Facebook chat as well as Group text using MMS. The option for SMS delivery confirmation has been removed.
For Music + Videos settings you can still turn on/off the Zune connection, but now also have options to "include music from Marketplace in Smart DJ mixes" and "Only download new podcast episodes over Wi-Fi". Both are great options to have if you've got a limited data plan.
Office settings have been very simplified. There's only a spot to enter your user name (which will show up along side comments), a checkbox for UAG server settings, and a reset button. There's no longer any way to see how much space your Office/SharePoint files are taking up on the device. There are no more conflict resolution or OneNote autosyncing options either, but maybe that's a good thing.
There is an excellent new feature in the People settings for the People hub. There's now a button called "Filter my contact list". This will let you hide or show contact lists from any of your accounts. So, say you only care about your Exchange contacts, you can uncheck the LinkedIn, Facebook, Windows Live, Gmail, etc. accounts. There's also an option to only show "What's New" posts from people visible in your contact list. So if you did that contact filter thing and unchecked Facebook, it won't show Facebook posts from all of your Facebook friends only the ones that match up with other visible contacts (in your Exchange or Windows Live or Gmail accounts whatever you have visible.) There's also an option in the People settings for using your location when checking into locations. Unfortunately I do not see any way to add a Foursquare account for Foursquare checkins, and Windows Phone still doesn't support multiple contact folders in Exchange (while iPhone does).
There are a couple new settings in the Pictures + Camera settings panel. You still have all the other options included the switch for not including location info on uploaded photos. That's a good one if you want to avoid stalkers.
There's also a switch for preventing accidental camera launch when the phone was locked. Windows Phone 7 had that enabled all the time and when the phone was in your pocket with the proximity sensor covered, holding down the camera button to launch the camera didn't work. Unfortunately, sometimes people held their phones in a manner that also covered the proximity sensor, meaning the camera wouldn't turn on from the lock screen — and they didn't know why.
Another new feature is the "tap screen to take pictures" option. It's kind of a progression of the tap-to-focus feature on some other phones, except it still only focuses in the center; in addition to focusing it will also take a picture, since that's probably what you wanted to do after focusing on what you were pointing at anyway. UPDATE: OEMs will be able to add multiple focus regions to the camera for use with this feature
In the Search settings there isn't much new, except a few more privacy related checkboxes. Now you can send location info for Microsoft Tags, Allow search button from lock screen, and allow Microsoft to store and use images from vision searches in order to improve search results.
The Music + Videos hub has seen some pretty significant changes. The hub design has been slightly altered, and now there's a little " " menu at the bottom like most other applications. The "play all" button has also been moved to the bottom. The History section is now a vertical scrolling list of square tiles rather than a horizontal panning list. The same is true with the "New" listing, and the "Marquee" of music/video apps that integrate with the Music + Videos hub is now called "Apps".
You can tap and hold anything in the New or History section of the top-level hub in order to pin them to the start menu or (if supported) play a smart DJ mix. Unfortunately there are no "Add to Now Playing" menu commands here. It would be great if I could quickly make a playlist of the new music in my music hub, but instead you still have to navigate to the artist/album/song deep within the music library before you'll find that "Add to Now Playing" command in a tap & hold menu.
The music, videos, and podcasts libraries are mostly the same as Windows Phone 7, however you'll notice a couple new additions when you find an artist page. First of all the "Smart DJ" button is there at the top, and if you have a Zune pass that will create a mix of music that includes the artist you're looking at along with streaming cloud music that goes along nicely with that artist. You'll also notice a new pivot tab for "Related" artists. This is another excellent feature that was imported from the Zune HD. The related tab will show titles from musicians that you might also like if you like the one you're looking at. This is a great way to discover new music.
Once you start playing some music, you'll see the player has gone through some significant changes. It's slightly more cluttered since the favorite, shuffle, and repeat buttons are now always visible next to the album art. The play, next, and previous buttons have been enlarged and moved to the top so that they line up with the same buttons that show up on the lock screen or when you press a volume button while playing music. While having them at the bottom was easier to reach, having them in the same place in all instances is a bigger advantage for building motor memory.
The music player also now has a menu at the bottom. From the menu, you can play a smart DJ mix, share, save as playlist, or search for more about the current artist in the marketplace. The "Share" command is a welcome addition to the music player since previously it was only available in the Marketplace. It will send a link to the music on Zune.net so that your friends can hear what you're listening to and you can tell them what you like about it. Unfortunately it only lets you share the music you're listening to via Messaging or Email accounts. There are no "Social accounts" options for sharing these Zune.net links. Yes, the old Zune HD was able to share music links to Facebook and Twitter, but Windows Phone 7 Mango does not (at least in this preview build).
There are still a lot of great Zune HD features missing from the Music + Videos hub. The artist sections don't load a list of artist photos that you can flip through, and still missing is the "picks" listing. On the Zune HD, you've got a list of recommendations based on the music you already listen to. It's kind of like a "related artists" listing tailored specifically to your taste in music. The Zune Social and the ability to browse your friends' tastes in music is not present,either.
One last new feature in Mango, which I love, is the option to display artist artwork on your lock screen while you're listening to music. This is pretty awesome especially if you've got a playlist or smart DJ mix going that combines different songs from different artists. As you go to the next song, the lock screen image will fade through a Zune rainbow gradient to the next artist image. It's not as neat as the Zune HD's screensaver animations, but it's still very cool and looks great.
The first thing that I love about the new Pictures hub is its live tile. It's still a full two-column rectangular tile (which I like), but it's no longer a static image of whatever background you've got in your hub panorama. Now it does an awesome Ken Burns effect as it scrolls through different images. It seems to display mostly photos that have been marked as Favorites, and the slow movement means you don't have a weird cropping stuck there. It's really a fantastic little live tile now.
In the Pictures hub panorama, there's now a little menu at the bottom so that you don't have to know the secret for changing the background image anymore. It's right there in that menu. Also, the hub panorama no longer just shows a random grid of photo thumbnails. It now shows a random grid of thumbnails that have been marked as your favorites. Favorite ratings still sync from the Zune desktop software via standard ratings metadata, by the way, so you don't have to mark them as favorites from the phone. Pictures now look great with 32-bit color support!
A "People" item is now on the Pictures hub as well. This section will show tiles that represent people whose photos you may have recently browsed through, as well as tiles representing groups of people. From there you can browse all the pictures of your "Family" group for example. It will download and display all the images that any of your family members have posted on cloud services such as Windows Live and Facebook.
While displaying pictures, you'll see some new menu items. You've still got sharing, add to favorites, delete, and use as wallpaper, but now there's also an "auto-fix" button. This will make some adjustments to the exposure to make the photo look better. It's similar to the auto-fix command in Windows Live Photo Gallery and works pretty well. Of course, you can save the change and it will make a new version of the photo while keeping the original intact. What's surprising is that the "Extras" menu is gone now! This used to give quick access to apps that were related to image editing. I hope that's just something specific to this build. UPDATE: We're told that the "Extras" app integration is being re-worked and will be back
When you share a photo on Facebook or Windows Live that has a person in it, it will tag the face and ask you who it is. It no longer auto-uploads right away, but gives you an unlimited amount of time to choose a tag and caption before you press the final "upload" button at the bottom. That's good because previously if you took too long to think of a caption, it would just go and upload without it.
Videos that you've recorded with the camera also show up in the Pictures hub library. Videos that you've uploaded to SkyDrive will also show, but only if they were uploaded by Windows Phone 7. Video messages from Windows Live Messenger 2011 or videos uploaded by Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 will show thumbnail previews and a play button, but at least in this build, they will not play (which is silly since they're just WMV files). UPDATE: We hear this is fixed in newer builds Yeah, so, did I mention you can share videos now? That's right, the share command works on videos and you can choose from any email account as well as Facebook or SkyDrive. I did not see an option to share videos via MMS messaging or Twitter. Hopefully we'll at least get MMS video messaging before the final version is released.
Now what about that camera UI? It's still extensible for the OEMs so that they can add whatever menu commands and functions they want to, but now there's a "Save Settings" command. That means you can finally change the default video recording mode from VGA to 720p HD and it will stay that way when you launch the video recorder. Of course, you still have the zoom features and the filmstrip reviewing modes that we love from Windows Phone 7, but the touch-to-take-picture feature is new. You saw this mentioned in the settings already, and in use it really makes a lot of sense. At least on this Samsung Focus, it will still only focus in the center area (OEMs will be able to create multiple focus regions for this in the future), but tapping the viewfinder screen will automatically focus on the center area and then take a picture. It feels so much easier than that old two step process of tapping to focus and then tapping something else to take the picture. Don't forget that the option to turn off the camera shutter sound is in the "Ringtones + Sounds" settings section.
The Games hub has seen a total redesign and it looks fantastic. The collection listing has smaller game tiles now and the Xbox Live section now shows your fully animated avatar right away. Sometimes he'll actually sneak off to other parts of the Games hub panorama when he gets bored. Your friends listing, messages, profile, and achievements are now all accessible right inside the Games hub. The Friends tile actually shows some of your friends' avatars in the thumbnail and will change periodically. You can see which friends are online and compare their scores and achievements for each game. There's no need to install the Xbox Live Extras app anymore for those features. The Avatar customization features and Avatar Marketplace are not directly built in and will require the installation of the new Xbox Live Extras app (which is not available yet.)
In terms of the actual games, one of the features we've seen demoed was the instant resume while multitasking. Unfortunately we'll need updated games that support the fast resume feature. Right now, with current games, they'll essentially restart themselves and then resume while using the fast task switcher.
Before we jump into the People Hub, let's talk about the Me tile a little. With Windows Phone 7, the Me tile was where you went to update your Facebook and Windows Live statuses, as well as see all of your updates and who has commented on them. Now there are a few new features in addition to those things. You have a pivot tab for the What's New feed, as well as a new tab for notifications.
That's right! You now see Facebook notifications right there. The Profile tab shows a little bit of what's new next to your profile picture (which you can still change, except now you can choose from cloud-based photos too). You've also got a few buttons for posting a message (to Facebook or Windows Live currently), Check in, and set chat status. The Check in feature hooks up to the Facebook Places feature and also Windows Live. Hopefully the final version will work with Foursquare as well just like the Check-in feature in the Bing App for iPhone, but we didn't see anywhere to add a Foursquare account in this build.
Once you get into the People hub, you'll see it looks very much the same as before. The recent contacts still show in a horizontal manner, while the all contacts and What's new feeds are vertical lists. As mentioned before, the hardware search button is no longer context sensitive, so now there's a search button at the bottom of the screen on the all contacts listing along with a "new" button (both of those were moved from the top area.) The bottom menu also gives you easy access to the People settings. Something new in the "What's New" feed is a little button for filtering updates. You can show updates from all accounts (Windows Live, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) or just one of them at a time. This will be useful when/if the Twitter feed shows up here. (The "What's New" feed in the Pictures hub can also be filtered this way.)
Opening up a contact will reveal some new features as well. First, on their profile section, if the person happens to have a Windows Live Messenger and/or Facebook instant messaging account, instead of just being able to text them, it will say "text + chat". Tapping that will go into the messaging interface which combines texting with instant messaging so that you'll be able to send them messages using a variety of methods.
The contact page still has a "What's New" feed for each contact, but now you can swipe horizontally to get another option for Pictures. This will show all of the cloud-based photo albums that the specific contact has shared with you. Next up is the "History" tab which very nicely lists all of the recent communications types that you've had with this contact. It will show instant messaging threads, text messages, emails, and phone calls here.
The big new thing with the People hub is the groups feature. After you've set up some accounts to sync, you'll see a "Family" group item at the top of the All contacts list. Tap that and it will give you a little intro about groups and also give you a whole list of suggested people to add to the Family group. The suggestions are based on your last name, so it probably won't show all the people on your mother's side of the family, but it's still a pretty nice feature.
Adding other people to groups is largely a manual process: you have to add them one by one. There are no filtering options like in Outlook on full Windows where you can group contacts by Category names. These contact groups also have no relation to Outlook-based contact groups and don't sync with anything so don't expect to be able to manage them (or use them) from a desktop PC. That's very unfortunate. Another limitation that I ran into as soon as I started adding people to my "Family" group is the fact that it only supports 20 people max. That's not even enough for my uncles, not to mention aunts and hundreds of cousins. I'll have to narrow it down to the 20 coolest family members.
Once you get a group set up there are a lot of really neat things you can do with them. Opening a group will show a grid of live tiles for each contact in the group. Each tile will do its animation thing and flip over to show the person's status message or a new photo post. All the way at the bottom you can text or email everyone in one fell swoop. You can also pin the entire group to your Start screen as a single live tile. What's awesome about that is that the group's live tile will animate with pictures of the people in the group as well as the latest status updates or photo posts from just those people. Also in the group is a consolidated "What's New" feed that shows wall posts and updates for just the people in that group. The same is true with the Pictures section. You can see all the pictures of this specific group of people in one place.
Twitter integration is not currently working in the preview version that we've got today; however, we hear that it will be part of the People hub with the ability to tweet, re-tweet, comment, reply with @mention, share web pages, and share photos. You'll also be able to Click on @mentions and #hashtags to view profiles or other Twitter posts on a related
The new messaging hub is really well done. It combines SMS/MMS messaging with Facebook Chat and Windows Live Messenger. Not only that, but all messaging types are supported by the Messages live tile, lock screen indicator, and the speech interface. I was very pleasantly surprised when a Facebook chat message triggered a notification at the top of my phone, and then a voice asked me if I wanted to read it aloud. After reading the message, the voice asked if I wanted to respond or ignore. So I said respond and then told it what I wanted to say. The phone's voice recognition converted my speech into a Facebook instant message and sent it back to him. I didn't even have to touch the device! Of course, that works with incoming Windows Live Messenger IM's as well as text messages. Awesome!
In the actual Messenger app, it shows conversation threads just as before, except all types of messages are aggregated within the thread. You'll notice a little label in the threads that indicates on which network each conversation block took place (Facebook, Windows Live, or Text). There's also a pivot tab that lists all of your contacts who are currently online via Facebook Chat and Windows Live Messenger. They're all organized alphabetically and there isn't any way for you to organize them differently. All of your Live Messenger and Facebook chat groups are ignored. Fortunately, recent contacts will automatically be grouped at the top, so that's very useful. It's also weird that this listing does not show Windows Live Messenger contact photos. It only shows photos for contacts who are in your contacts list, but all Messenger contacts do show if they're online.
When it comes to email, Mango brings some nice innovations too. First off, you can now link email accounts so that they're all available in one live tile and program listing. A lot of people were complaining that Windows Phone didn't originally have a unified inbox, and this is Microsoft's answer to that. Linking inboxes actually gives you a lot more control. When you open one email account inbox, the pop-up menu at the bottom has a command called "link inboxes." Tap that and you can choose which other inboxes or inbox groups you'd like to link to. After you link multiple accounts they'll only show up as one item (which you can name whatever you want) in the programs listing and as a live tile if you've pinned it to the Start screen. Now say you want to look at the different accounts that you've already linked without unlinking them that's no problem either. Each inbox account appears in the linked inboxes' "Folders" menu.
Speaking of folders, some people use server side rules and filters to organize their emails into sub-folders. Most other mobile email applications only give you notifications for emails in your top level inbox, and Windows Phone 7's live tiles behave the same way. Microsoft's solution to this in Mango is the ability to pin folders to the Start screen. This is a really excellent feature that's sure to help you make your most important emails more accessible. When you're looking at a folder in any email inbox, under the pop-up menu is an item called "pin to start". That's all you have to do to get a nice live tile on your start screen that shows the number of new emails in a specific email subfolder.
Another new feature that we hear is coming, but which doesn't show up in this build, is the ability to set automatic replies and "out of office" status for Exchange accounts.
Those are some incredible new features, but there are still a few things missing in the email implementation. The first one that's really embarrassing is the fact that Draft email folders still don't sync with IMAP or Exchange or Windows Live servers. They don't even sync with Exchange 2010 or Office 365. Being able to edit draft emails on a mobile device seems like a no-brainer, but in order to do that you'll need a webOS device or an iPhone. Microsoft still hasn't added the simple reply/forward status syncing to Exchange/IMAP/Windows Live email accounts either. Well, actually, it works with Exchange 2010 only. So if you want to be able to keep track of which emails you've already replied to, you'll have to use Exchange 2010. I wish Microsoft could fix this simple and obvious bug for all email accounts though.
Tasks are back!! Not only do Exchange tasks now sync with the "To-Do's" tab with-in the Calendar, but Windows Live Hotmail To-Do's sync there as well. Windows Live's To-Do's list never used to sync with anything. It seems odd to call them "To-Dos" since Outlook calls them tasks, but at least you can see, edit, and manage the things you have to do at work and in your personal life. Most other smartphones still don't sync Exchange tasks, and it's great to see this feature back in Windows Phone and in full force with Windows Live Hotmail.
What about multiple Calendars you ask? Yep, those are there too. Each calendar you add to any of your Windows Live, Exchange, and Google accounts will show up. Not only that, but Windows Live Group calendars that you've subscribed to will also show. Unfortunately shared Exchange 2003 Public Folder calendars and SharePoint/Office 365 Team Site calendars don't seem to work here. UPDATE: In the day view you can now tap a time slot to instantly add an appointment there. UPDATE: Multiple Gmail calendars do not currently work in this build.
But wait, there's more! The Mango calendar app supports Facebook events and not just for the date, time, and description. You can set it to only show Facebook events that you've responded to if you want. When you open a Facebook event, in addition to all of the details that the organizer has included, there's also a "Wall" tab where you can see and post comments, as well as a "Guests" tab where you can see who's attending, maybe attending, or not attending. Of course, there's also a respond button for Facebook events right there at the bottom.
One last Calendar feature that I'm glad has returned is the ability to choose a snooze time when snoozing an appointment reminder. You can now tap the appointment reminder name in order to open it in case you want to see more details in the notes.
Windows Phone Mango features a completely redesigned Office hub and some excellent new SkyDrive integration features. The panes of the Office hub are much more well-organized too. The first pane lists recent OneNote pages in a vertically-scrolling live-tile list. OneNote notes are now purple instead of the orange they were in Windows Phone 7, and there's a search button in the bottom menu. The search only supports page titles, not the contents of each note. Also in the menu is a command that will allow you to pin "new" to the start page. This is great for a quick shortcut to create a new note. The notebooks button at the bottom will automatically show all OneNote notebooks in your SkyDrive as well as any that you may have opened through SharePoint. You no longer have to manually set up a OneNote notebook sync relationship via the SkyDrive web page.
The documents pane also now lists documents as Live tile squares and has its own search button at the bottom. The search interface for documents is a little different though. You've got pivot tab options at the top to search all documents or just specific locations such as SkyDrive, SharePoint, or your phone's memory. Again, the search only works on file names, not contents, but that's okay.
Lastly the Locations pane lists all of the locations you can access documents from. "Phone" is going to be whatever you've saved to your phone's memory. "SkyDrive" will show up for your primary Windows Live account, and other SharePoint or Office 365 locations will show here as well after you set them up. The + button at the bottom is for adding new SharePoint document library locations. Browsing a SharePoint team site hasn't improved much since Windows Phone 7. SharePoint tasks and links still appear as non-editable text, and picture libraries don't show up at all. It's mostly just for document library access.
Setting up Office 365 in the Office Hub is very easy now. All you have to do is go to Settings > Email+Accounts > Add an account and enter your Office 365 email address and password. After that it says, "Your email is set up now. We have also set up your Team Site, which you can access from the Office Hub. Your Office 365 plan includes Microsoft Lync for instant messaging, phone calls, or audio conferencing. Lync Mobile will be coming to Marketplace soon." The only issue is that when you go back to the Office Hub, you do have to sign in again with your Office 365 credentials before you can access the SharePoint Team Site content.
One new and unwanted feature/bug is that Windows Phone 7.5 can no longer edit Office 97-2003 documents! You could edit them in Windows Phone 7, but apparently this build of Windows Phone 7.5 does not allow it. That seems kind of crazy since competitor smartphones can edit older Office documents.
OneNote has a couple of nice new features. Instead of downloading all of the files attached to notes, you'll have to tap the ones you want and it will warn you about having to download large files. It still has most of the limitations of the Windows Phone 7 version of OneNote. It doesn't support ink, drawings or math. However, they did thankfully add "To do" checkbox support, making it better than the iPhone version of OneNote.
Excel has some important new features, too. Now you can select multiple cells and create your own formulas. There are also autosum and filtering features, and even an "insert chart" command.
Windows Phone 7.5's version of Bing has finally seen some updates. It's been kind of embarrassing seeing the Bing iPhone and iPad apps with so many excellent features not available on Windows Phone (or even Windows 7). Now with Mango, Windows Phone 7.5 has the same Bing Vision feature from the iPhone version. This is a great addition with some excellent capabilities. The Bing Vision option turns the camera on, and you can point it at things like books, movies, CDs, bar codes, MS Tags, QR codes or anything with text on it. Search results will appear over the image and you can then tap the one you want more information on.
If it recognizes any text in the image you're pointing it at, the "scan text" button will be available at the bottom. After you press that it will take a picture and show boxes around each letter it recognizes. Then there'll be a "Translate" button at the bottom, as well as a "Copy All" command in the pop-up menu. Pressing the "Translate" button will let you choose a language you want it translated to and then actually superimpose the translated text over the image that you originally took. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. I kind of wish there was a special business card scanning feature built in that would add the person straight to a new contact, though.
The voice search is still there, but the button has been moved to the bottom. Things are a little bit improved with normal searches now since it finally has an images section. So I can say, "images of Angelina Jolie" and it will go straight to a bunch of thumbnail photos of Angelina Jolie. This is the same as the Bing Images search function on the Bing app available on every other mobile platform so it's good to see that Windows Phone will finally get it later this year. Oddly, after selecting an image in the image search, you can't swipe the screen to go to the previous or next images in the search. Hopefully that's just a bug in this build.
Another crazy new feature in the Bing app is the Music Search button. This one jumps into "Shazam" territory. Say you're at a lounge or in the supermarket and hear a song that you like. Tap the Bing button no matter what other app you're in and then tap the music search button and it will start listening to the song. After a few seconds, if it recognizes the song, it will give you a little notification pop-up with the album cover image, name of the song, artist, as well as a close button and a Marketplace button. Press the Marketplace button and it goes straight to the Zune Marketplace entry for that album where you can instantly stream or download the song (if you have a Zune Pass) or purchase it. Doesn't get much easier than that! In actual use, it has worked very well for most popular songs. For a more obscure song, it recognized the title and author correctly, but didn't load album art and didn't link to the Marketplace correctly. For an unfinished feature, though, I was very impressed.
The last new feature in the Bing app (not including Bing Maps) is the Local Scout. Pressing the Local Scout button puts you into a totally different hub-like interface with a thin map rectangle at the top and a number of panes that you can flip through for various local location recommendations. It's a similar idea to the "What's nearby" feature on the Blackberry version of the Bing app, but it's much better looking. The first pane lists places to eat and drink within the area. Many of them include the type of food, price range, and reviews. The next pane lists things to see and do. That area is great for finding interesting events and attractions in the area. There's also a pane for shopping which lists nearby stores and what type of stuff they sell. Finally, the highlights pane shows some special attractions as well as your personal favorite locations. Some things that are missing from the local scout, that I think should be included, would be movies. Yes, movie theaters show up in the "See + Do" section, but you can't see what movies are playing at the theater when you tap its location. At least that doesn't happen in this build. Local weather might be nice to have too. You can pin the local scout to your start screen if you want quick access to it, but in this build when accessing it that way it cannot find my location. I have to start it from Bing or Maps in order for it to know where I am.
To find things that other Bing apps on other mobile platforms have menus for, you have to run a specific search. For example, typing or saying "Movies" will get you a list of movies showing nearby along with their star ratings. Tapping that area will give you a longer list where you can then select a specific movie. Then you'll get a lot more details about the movie including nearby showtimes and buttons to buy tickets. There's supposed to be an "apps" pivot in this area that will deep link the movie name to movie related apps like IMDB. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be included in this build. However, the "buy tickets" button does link to the MSN Movies app in the marketplace. So that doesn't work at the time either, but I imagine maybe the MSN Movies app will eventually support deep linking for ticket purchasing. Another example is, "Weather." Typing or speaking that into Bing will show a nice graphical weather forecast. You might also notice that some of your searches will also include app suggestions. For example, a search for "photo" will give you the "Photo Crop" app at the top of the web results. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense though. Really there should be an "apps" pivot tab in the Bing app that lets you find apps related to your search term.
The select and search feature is still supported by Bing. That's the feature where you can tap a word in IE or Word or any other text-field areas and then press the hardware search key to run a Bing search on the selected phrase. Luckily that hasn't changed with the hardware key function changes.
There are a few things still missing from Bing which I really wish were here. The most important one is the Bing Travel features. Bing's Travel section on the desktop is fantastic. You can search for flights, get price prediction graphs, find last minute flight deals, and browse cool location pages that aggregate all sorts of related travel information. Wouldn't that be awesome to have on a mobile device when you're actually traveling? It turns out Microsoft did make those features for Bing Mobile, but only on the iPhone. Hey that sounds like a good commercial!
I know there's one new feature in the Maps app that you want to hear about turn-by-turn directions. Well it's there, it's kind of awesome, but there's one bit of bad news. The voice prompts do not play automatically as you navigate! I know it's ridiculous and unintuitive, but here's how it works. Start the directions like you normally would from any location. It will show a small map and the list of directions. Tap the screen once anywhere and it will speak your instructions for the first turn, or sometimes the first few turns if they are within close range. As you drive, a small confirmation sound will play every time you make a correct turn. If you make a wrong turn it will make a different sound and tell you that if you want to calculate a new route to tap the screen. Also while you're driving, whenever you want to hear voice instructions for the next turn, just tap the screen anywhere.
At first I thought that would really suck, but you don't have to tap a specific area of the screen to hear the voice instructions. Just tap anywhere, you don't have to look at it. So in real life, it's actually not bad at all. I can be driving along and if I know where I'm going I just have to listen for the confirmation sound that tells me I made the correct turn. But if I'm thinking to myself, "Where do I go next?" all I have to do is touch the screen (without taking my eyes off the road), and it will tell me. That's actually kind of nice because I'm not constantly being interrupted with voice instructions. I'm not sure how much caching it's capable of, but I noticed one time where the map image wasn't loading and there was no signal strength that the voice prompts and navigation cues were still working. Oh, and it works with a Bluetooth headset as well. I tried it on a motorcycle helmet and could clearly hear the voice instructions and turn confirmation sounds — it was just a little more difficult to tap the screen in order to hear the next instruction.
Another new maps feature is Favorites. This is similar to what you'll find in Google Maps. You can set locations as Favorites and they'll always show up on the map with a little flag and star. Unfortunately and unlike Google Maps, Favorites don't sync with Bing Maps on the desktop via your Live ID, or at least I can't find where they're stored currently.
In terms of map views there are still only the two regular street and aerial views. Bing's super-cool Bing horizontal street side view for panning through photos of buildings along the street did not make it to Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. There's no "Bird's Eye" view either. Those features are still only available on Bing for the iPhone, although to be fair, there are a lot of features here that you'll never see on the iPhone. Indoor maps for certain large venues is a good example of that. We've seen indoor maps of the Manhattan Mall demoed, however it doesn't currently work on the build of Mango that we were given for this preview.
The big thing about Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7.5 is that it is now on par with the full desktop version of Internet Explorer 9. That means full GPU hardware acceleration and HTML 5 support. In terms of actual tests, running HTML 5 websites on this normal old Samsung Focus blows away the browsers on the iPhone and Android. You may have seen the comparison demos before and thought they were using a prototype Windows Phone with better GPU hardware acceleration or something that would speed it up, but no, this is a two year old processor, running HTML 5 much faster than brand new stuff. HTML5 videos play without issue here on IE9 where they won't play at all on other platforms, and zooming/panning is as smooth and fast as ever. IE9 also supports DOM, XHTML, ECMAScript, HTML5: Video, audio, geolocation, canvas, local storage, etc. I am very impressed! However, the current Bing API embedded map implementation actually caused the whole phone to crash, so there's still some work to be done. If you'd like to try some HTML 5 tests for yourself, go to http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/mobile
A few other new things that have changed in IE are the address bar and pop-up menu. The address bar is at the bottom now and all other functions are in the pop-up menu. It's better like this since the address bar is easier to reach and there's more screen area for looking at web pages. However, it now takes two taps to get to things like tabs and favorites. The Share command has been updated in IE as well. Now there's a "Social Networks" option in the Share menu along with the normal messaging and email options. Choosing it will allow you to post a link to Windows Live, Facebook, LinkedIn and presumably others like Twitter when that support is finalized.
The Marketplace hub looks very similar to how it did in Windows Phone 7. There's now a search button at the bottom since the hardware search button only goes to Bing now. There's also a new graphic panorama design for the games section where as previously we only had panoramas for the top level, music, and apps sections. There's also a new section called podcasts where you can browse through and subscribe to various podcasts right from the device. You no longer have to subscribe to podcasts from the Zune desktop software. If you don't want to subscribe and download a number of episodes for a certain podcast, you have the option to just stream it right there over the internet. Yes, there are video and audio podcasts available. Unfortunately, there's currently no "Share" menu for podcasts.
The Marketplace search has been hugely improved and now offers pivot tabs for different types of Marketplace content such as music, podcasts, and apps + games. Zune Playlists still only show up in searches and unfortunately can only be streamed. I really wish some of those excellent custom Zune playlists could be downloaded straight to the device in full (without using the desktop software.)
A few things are still missing from the Windows Phone Marketplace. I wish it had the Zune "Picks" listings that you'll also find on the Zune HD and desktop Zune software which recommends things you might like. The Zune Videos Marketplace is still non-existent on Windows Phone as well.
The Speech interface has seen a lot of improvements with Windows Phone 7.5. Now you've got commands for calling people, finding things using Bing search, opening applications, and texting people with dictation recognition. While you're on a call you can also call some one else or say the word "press" to enter digits in automated phone messaging systems.
Caller ID names or phone numbers are announced when a phone call comes in. It's really good to see this feature come back to Windows Phone. The text to speech doesn't start until after the normal ringtone plays for a couple seconds.
The best feature of the speech interface is being able to take part in full SMS, Live Messenger, or Facebook chats using only your voice. Most of these things should work with a Bluetooth headset, however I've found that to be a little buggy on this build. The speech UI has crashed on me and I had to reboot the phone in order to get it running again. Obviously this is unfinished, but I have to say, very promising.
Holy cow there are a ton of new features in Windows Phone Mango! We didn't even get to try the Twitter integration since that's not working yet. We've been told that it's working on internal servers, but the public Windows Live servers will have to be upgraded before a wider rollout. We also haven't been able to try the app deep linking, background tasks for 3rd party apps, and in-app live tile pinning just yet, but from what we've seen in this preview build running on existing Samsung Focus hardware, there is a lot to look forward to. Many of these new features are mainly bringing Windows Phone up to speed with the competition, yet there are a number that are quite innovative and sure to make Windows Phone stand out above the crowd.
If you made it this far, we'd love to hear about your favorite new Mango features or any questions you might have in the comments below.


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Some of my brothers and sisters from other misters:
How cool is this?! I HAVE A GANG OF LINKS, Y'ALL. Though let's agree on one point: I'm definitely the sexiest. :-D The dude in front of me had a seriously kickass bow, though. And I appreciate a man in leggings.
YAY female Link!
Check out that Hylian Shield. MHM, that's pretty nice. Since I didn't have a mastersword I totally stole his. No I just asked him if I could take a picture with it. A smartypants in the background murmurred "OOOH she wants to play with your MASTERSWORD." so that explains the sexy face I have on here. :-D
ZELDA FANS, UNITE. He wanted a picture with me because of the cosplay, I wanted a picture with him because of the awesomeness of that shirt. I want it.
One of my favorite anime characters of all time, Kenshin Himura! It was truly an honor, I watched Rurouni Kenshin when I was younger, every sunday morning. I was crazy about it, together with my sister. I was kind of hoping to come across a sexy Sanosuke too but this did just fine!
Cute picture of me and my friend.
Oooh SNAP another Ash! No steampunk this time but still awesome. I really want a hat like that. You know, so that when things get hardcore I can flip my hat.
Some Half-life peeps who looked pretty hardcore in their cosplays. I asked if I could take a picture with them and the dude in the helmet replied "With Link? ALWAYS." and then showed me his upper arm containing this piece of art:
I probably don't have to tell you that I had a hard time with trying not to jump him screaming that I wanted to bear his children. It took a lot out of me but I managed to keep it together. Barely.
This has to be one of my favorite pictures in the bunch. NINTENDO PARTY OVAH HIYAH. I would've died if I had come back from the convention without a picture of Link with the Mario Brothers. While Link might be my one true love, the Mario Brothers are a steady second. My dad was crazy about Mario and loved to do really bad impressions of him.
Mononoke Hime in the hizzazz! I only saw a couple of Ghibli cosplays. There was one Arrietty, one Noface from Spirited Away and one San, pictured here. I was hoping to see a Howl or something (you know, A HOT HOWL) but alas, no cigar.
The moment I saw the back of his costume I thought "HOLY SHIT THAT'S FRANK". I love love love Donnie Darko and the movement in the picture and my creeped out expression really adds to the atmosphere of the picture.
MIGHTY MORPHIN' POWER RANGERS. Oh yeah. I have their themesong on my Ipod.
Link getting his sexy on with the white power ranger.
Adventure Time! Me and my sis are crazy about adventure time so once I spotted this Finn the human cosplayer I was like "NEED PICTUREZ NAO". He even played his ukelele for us! Too bad Jake wasn't there with him. I swear, one day, I will cosplay as the lumpy space princess.
A cute joker kid with a free hugs sign. As I mentioned in the last post, I can't resist a free hugs sign. My facial expression says "Daaaaw this joker is such a cutie pie!" which might not have been the reaction he was going for. But he was pretty adorable.
I wasn't really familiar with his character but my friends were. He was Gray from Fairy Tail, a pretty popular manga/anime. I just thought "MMM gotta get me some of that nerd man", as you can see in my not so subtle facial expression. My hormones were going crazy. Even if you're not a geek, just go to these conventions to check out some hot dudes. It's WELL WORTH it. :-D
This was a really cute kid who wanted to take a picture with me. Great cosplay and I totally dig the color of the wig.(sniffles)
I didn't buy much, just this Totoro plushie, two Shin Chan keychain thingies and a shirt with Wonder Woman saying "Girls will save the world!". Because, after all, I'm still a feminist, bitchez. The shirt will definitely be featured in a future outfit post!
I hope you liked my pictures and stories! I had a GREAT time and will definitely go again next year. I met really cool people and had a blast with my friends! And I encourage you, my lovelies, to get your nerd on.

subset: commoncrawl


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A Tobyhanna pastor and founder of a controversial charter school has been indicted on charges of federal tax fraud, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
A Tobyhanna pastor and founder of a controversial charter school has been indicted on charges of federal tax fraud, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Dennis Bloom, pastor of the Shawnee Tabernacle Church in Tobyhanna and former CEO of the Pocono Mountain Charter School, faces up to eight years in prison on two counts of tax fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Bloom, 58, is charged with one count of tax evasion and another count of filing a false tax return.
The charges stem from a failure to include a "substantial" amount of income in his 2006 tax return, according to the prosecutor's office.
U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Heidi Havens had no comment on what — if anything — the charges have to do with the school or the church. The indictment only identifies Bloom as having been the CEO of the charter school in 2006.
Charter school spokesman Ken Kilpatrick said current school officials have not been contacted concerning the investigation. He said the school would offer no comment on Bloom, who resigned as the school's CEO in late 2010. "He is no longer part of this school," Kilpatrick said.
Bloom hasn't totally disappeared since then, however.
In October 2011, he was an enthusiastic speaker at a pep rally in the school's gym to celebrate a legal victory.
He also at times has mentioned the fight between the school and the public school district during his weekend church services. The sermons often are uploaded to YouTube.
Pocono Mountain School District officials said they have been raising concerns over Bloom's finances for years.
"We are not surprised by the charges," according to a district statement. "(The district) has had very serious concerns about Mr. Bloom and the financial operations and improper use of tax dollars by the Pocono Mountain Charter School for many years. The State Auditor General's report already substantiated many of the concerns we raised over the years. It is our hope that other federal and state agencies will now decide to investigate the very serious concerns we made public through the revocation hearings and process."
Scranton attorney Daniel T. Brier, listed in court papers as Bloom's lawyer in the case, did not return messages for comment Tuesday.
The charges in the indictment cover the tax reporting period of 2006 — when he was employed both as the CEO of the school and as the pastor of the church, according to the indictment.
He claimed a salary of $93,227 for the year, and the amount of tax due as $16,421.
"In fact, the defendant knew his taxable income for said calendar year was substantially in excess of the amount stated on the return, and upon the additional taxable income, a substantial additional tax was due," according to the indictment.
The indictment does not say what the government believed his income should be.
The indictment said Bloom filed an amended Form 1040X around April 18, 2008, that added $25 in interest income and "reiterated the falsehoods in his original return."
Bloom founded the K-12 school in 2003.
It remains in a legal battle with the Pocono Mountain School District. The district's taxpayers fund the school, but the district has little say over how the money gets spent beyond state law.
The two sides are waiting for a ruling from the Pennsylvania Charter Appeal Board on the extent of admissibility of a report from the Pennsylvania Auditor General's Office that accused the school of financial mismanagement.


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Earlier this week, the SF Weekly published a lengthy story by Joe Eskenazi about the rise and inner workings of Bleacher Report, purveyors of flavorless, pre-fabricated, market-based sports news. We thought the piece was great. Others thought the piece was not so great.
We figured it'd be nice to have Eskenazi stop by and chat with you all. He'll be taking your questions in the discussion section below. Representatives from Bleacher Report were also invited to join us, but we aren't sure if they're coming.
Update, 4:30 p.m.: OK, that's a wrap. Be sure to read Joe's story, if you haven't already.


text: View in the clothes category. Fashion clothing for men, women and children, a selection of the most stylish clothes. You can view and download a large number of the best selected photos and images from around the web in comfort. Especially for you we have divided all the pictures by the most popular categories, so you can easily find the photos you need and pictures.


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An argument between a topless Times Square performer and two tourists quickly escalated into a physical fight, leaving the tourists bleeding Wednesday, according to police and witnesses.
The tourists from Chile told NBC 4 New York they had posed with the topless performer in the newly designated activity zone at Times Square, the only place where performers and costumed characters are allowed to ask for money.
The woman and her managers were apparently unhappy with the dollar tip from Francisco Vistoso and his brother-in-law.
"They came to us saying it was too little," Vistoso told NBC 4 in Spanish. "They started insulting [my brother-in-law] and then the woman came and attacked me."
Vistoso was left bleeding after the attack.
A witness who asked not to be identified told NBC 4 the topless performer's two managers approached the men and asked for even more money, which police say is illegal.
The tourists and the managers traded insults — the tourist called the woman a "prostitute," the witness said — and one of the managers shoved Vistoso's face, cutting him with his own glasses.
That manager, a woman, "came and pushed Vistoso, and he punched her in the face," said the witness. "She pushed him back, his glasses smashed onto his head."
The manager told police Vistoso started it.
"He hit me, and I pushed him back," the woman told police in an exchange captured by NBC 4 cameras. "With his glasses, I don't know where that came from."
The witness said the other manager punched Vistoso's brother-in-law. But the witness blamed the tourists in the fight.
"The tourist is guilty," the witness said. "He was rude, and all she asked for was a tip."
Performers are only allowed to ask for money in the eight blue-area designated activity zones installed in June, but it is illegal for them to demand even more money, which is what happened in Vistoso's case.
Police are now looking to speak with the managers of the topless performers, who left the scene after the scuffle.


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Happy Friday, folks! Today's the last ShopAndroid.com Daily Giveaway for this week, and we're featuring some cool new accessories including the Cruzerlite Androidified A2 TPU Case for Galaxy Nexus, Qmadix Snap-On Cover for Motorola Droid Bionic, Seidio SURFACE Case for EVO 3D, and the Seidio ACTIVE Case for HTC ThunderBolt.
As always, be sure to leave a comment below letting us know which featured accessory you'd like to win. Winners from this week's daily giveaway's will be announced in a post on Monday.
Cruzerlite Androidified A2 TPU Case for Galaxy Nexus
The Cruzerlite Androidified A2 TPU cases are made from shock absorbent and scratch resistant thermoplastic polyurethane. They're slim-fitting, and provide great protection for the Galaxy Nexus from day to day use and accidental bumps and spills. The sleek, lightweight design of the A2 TPU cases fully wrap around the Galaxy Nexus while also raising the front of the device to protect the screen while face down. Featured on the cases are custom designed Andy the Android prints.
>> More Verizon Galaxy Nexus accessories
Qmadix Snap-On Cover w/ Holster for Motorola Droid Bionic
The Qmadix Snap-On Cover is form-fitted to your Motorola Droid Bionic and features a textured rubberized exterior to allow a firm grip on your device. The case is lightweight, and fairly thin-- keeping your Droid Bionic's slim profile as close as possible. The Snap-on cover features cutouts for all of the Bionic features, and leaves the screen exposed for full functionality. The included holster has a felt lining so that your device's screen is always protected while in the holster. The swivel clip on the Qmadix holster allows you to wear your Droid Bionic vertically or horizontally.
>> More Motorola Droid Bionic accessories
Seidio SURFACE Case w/ Kickstand for HTC EVO 3D
Looking for a low-profile, protective case for your HTC EVO 3D? The Seidio SURFACE Case w/ Kickstand is a great option, featuring an amazingly thin layer of protection without adding the excessive bulk of other cases. At about 1mm thin, the SURFACE Case is designed from a hard, yet flexible material with a soft-touch coating to allow a better grip on your EVO 3D. The screen is left exposed for full functionality, and there are cutouts for all ports and controls. An additional bonus to this great case is the built-in kickstand which allows you to watch media at a comfortable viewing angle. When you're done, just flip the kickstand right back into the case!
>> More HTC EVO 3D accessories
Seidio ACTIVE Case for HTC ThunderBolt
The Seidio ACTIVE Case provides great shock and impact absorption while adding minimal bulk to your HTC ThunderBolt. This two-layer case features a compact and lightweight rubber polymer with a precisely positioned hard skeleton for added protection. The arachnid design of the skeleton extends out to protect vulnerable parts of your device, such as the corners and sides. There's also a precision cutout for the ThunderBolt's kickstand on the back of the case.
>> More HTC ThunderBolt accessories
Wrap up
That's it for this week's ShopAndroid.com Daily Giveaway's. After checking out our hands-on videos with today's featured accessories, be sure and leave a comment stating which item you'd like to have for your Android device, and you'll be eligible to win! Good luck!


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Best-Dressed Celebrities | Nov. 2, 2012
5 Fresh Celebrity Styles That Wowed Us This Week and Why!
5 Fresh Celebrity Styles That Wowed Us This Week and Why!
We spotted several trendsetting celebs working chic ensembles this week, but there were a handful of starlets who were extra inspiring. Emily Blunt dazzled on the red carpet in an orange crystal-collar Alexander McQueen gown in London, Kim Kardashian worked a white-hot Miami look complete with snakeskin Christian Louboutin pumps, and Rihanna showcased a superior streamlined silhouette in Dolce & Gabbana and Alaia in West Hollywood. But that's not all; Mandy Moore taught us that colored denim isn't restricted to Summer, while Gwen Stefani debuted the coolest travel style we've ever seen. Get a closer look at this week's star-studded celebrity styles and find out why we were wowed by their spotlight-worthy ensembles.


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Posted February 24th, 2011 by Warren Firschein
FCC license holders and others doing business with the Commission are likely to be already familiar with the Commission's Registration System, also known as "CORES," which primarily is used by registrants to obtain an identifying number called an FCC Registration Number, or "FRN." These unique ten-digit number sequences allow registrants to submit or file applications to the Commission, as well as remit payments, and are used by all Commission systems to easily identify individuals and companies when they interact with the agency. They also serve an important role by aiding the Commission's compliance with the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, which was enacted by Congress to address concerns that debts owed to the Federal government were not being properly collected.
On December 6, 2010, the Commission released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("NPRM") proposing modifications intended to make CORES more feature-friendly and improve the Commission's ability to comply with various statutes that govern debt collection and the collection of personal information by the federal government. One of the primary goals of this proceeding is to improve the interface with CORES so that you can use the system in a more efficient and effective manner. Some of the proposed modifications to CORES are summarized below, but the full text of the NPRM can be found on the Commission's web site. Note that comments to the proposals raised in the NPRM must be submitted on or before March 3, 2011, while reply comments must be submitted no later than March 18, 2011.
I'd like to also mention that on March 10, 2011, we'll be holding a forum with staff and the public to explore legal and technical challenges associated with the proposed modifications that were raised in the NPRM. The workshop will be held in the FCC's Commission Meeting Room at our headquarters in Washington, D.C., beginning at 10:00 a.m. Mary Beth Richards, Special Counsel to the Chairman for FCC Reform, will present opening remarks, and I'll be moderating the forum. If interested, you're encouraged to attend the forum or to follow along over the Internet from the FCC's web page at www.fcc.gov/live. For more information, please refer to the Commission's Public Notice announcing the public forum, which was released on February 15 and can be found on the front page of the Commission's website.
Here are highlights of some of the proposals raised in the NPRM:
A Single FRN: Since the creation of CORES, companies have been able to obtain multiple FRNs so they could better internally manage their dealings with the agency. As a result, however, it has been difficult for the Commission to identify all the FRNs that are held by the same entity and tie them together in order to examine the entity's entire course of dealing with the agency. Thus, the NPRM proposes to limit each registered entity to a single FRN, possibly through multiple sub-accounts that are linked together electronically. If enacted, this would have numerous benefits, both to our regulatees and the agency itself. For example, limiting each registrant to a single FRN will enhance our ability to inform them of past due regulatory fees and impending license renewal deadlines, through e-mail or on-line notification messages. Furthermore, it would enable the Commission to roll out a series of new features for CORES, including a company-centric "dashboard" that filers would see upon login, through which they'd have the ability to review the progress on their filings, fees that are due, the history of files they've submitted, as well as other important information. Such features could only be made possible by limiting entities to a single company-wide identifier. The NPRM also proposes to limit individual filers to a single FRN as well.
The NPRM describes some methods that we're considering to limit registrants to a single FRN while retaining flexibility to organize their filings and other dealings with the Commission among logical business lines of their choosing, such as creating sub-accounts under a common FRN, and seeks comment on some of the technical and managerial challenges for each idea—take a look and let us know what you think.
Multiple Registrants with Multiple Points of Contact: Currently, CORES does not permit FRN holders to identify anyone other than themselves as the point of contact for their FRN, which may limit the FRN's usefulness, because the listed person is not always the appropriate individual to resolve a particular issue or to provide necessary information to the agency. For this reason, the NPRM proposes that FRN holders should have the ability to voluntarily provide additional points of contact for their FRNs for specific pre-designated issues, such as "Accounting," "Billing," "Licensing," "Legal Issues," etc.
Elimination of Certain TIN Exception Reasons: Some individuals and entities aren't required to provide their taxpayer ID when registering in CORES for various reasons. Over time, we've begun to believe that some of these exceptions are unnecessary, and the NPRM proposes to eliminate some of them. If you're one of the few individuals or companies that have taken advantage of one of these exceptions, we recommend that you review the NPRM to see if you'd be affected by any of these proposals.
Registrant E-mail Addresses: When CORES was first designed approximately ten years ago, the use of e-mail wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is now. As a result, entities and individuals were given the opportunity to voluntarily provide an e-mail address when completing the CORES registration process to obtain an FRN. Given the significant increase in the use of and dependence on e-mail in the years since CORES first became operational, however, the NPRM proposes that all FRN holders now be required to provide an e-mail address upon registration, which would simplify the process for us to maintain contact with registrants when a regulatory matter requires attention. Don't worry—your e-mail address would remain private and hidden from public view.
Using CORES to Alert FRN Holders About Financial or Other Administrative Issues: CORES currently lacks the capability to alert FRN holders about known financial or other administrative-related issues regarding their standing at the Commission, such as their status in the Commission's Red Light Display System, their debarment status, or the fact that we have discovered that their contact information is incorrect or nonoperational. The NPRM proposes to remedy this by enhancing CORES to permit the Commission to post individualized warning messages that would appear the next time a user accesses his or her FRN through the system. Another potential use for this feature might be to display payment histories and unpaid bills for Commission-related activities, such as unpaid fines and forfeitures, as well as the section 9 regulatory fee payment status.
Tax Exempt Indicator: Because tax-exempt entities often qualify for a reduction or elimination of their section 8 or section 9 annual regulatory fee requirements, the Commission is considering adding a data field to CORES that would enable entities and individuals to indicate any tax exempt status that they possess. The availability of such data and documentation through CORES would simplify the process for confirming eligibility for a reduction of (or exemption from) annual fee requirements, thus improving our financial operations, and reducing errors.
Bankruptcy Indicator: In certain contexts, our various Bureaus and Offices have an interest in knowing when industry participants are filing for (or emerging from) bankruptcy. For example, the Commission is required to process assignments or transfers of control of licenses for parties that enter bankruptcy. Also, the Commission's Office of Financial Operations routinely receives requests for waiver of Section 9 regulatory fees from debtors claiming to be in bankruptcy. Currently, the Commission does not have a central depository of notifications that an entity is in bankruptcy. Therefore, to reduce administrative burdens at the Commission, the NPRM proposes to add a data field that would enable entities and individual license holders (or their representatives) to notify the Commission through CORES that they have entered into bankruptcy, or that there has been a change in their bankruptcy status (such as, for example, when they emerge from bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code).
Company Dashboard: In light of the Commission's intent to develop and deploy an agency-wide Consolidated Licensing System, the NPRM seeks comments on the usefulness of utilizing a company dashboard or summary profile that filers would see upon login, which would serve as a central repository of information for the filer. Through the dashboard, the filer would have the ability to quickly and easily review various pertinent information, such as the progress on their filings, fees that are due, the history of files the filer has submitted, as well as any other important information the filer may need. Other uses for such a dashboard may include: identifying any information that is missing from a pending application, updating their profile, and detecting actions requiring immediate attention.Posted in Office Of Managing Director , Fcc Reform
Join the discussion to help improve the FCC. Your suggestions, ideas and comments will be part of a public discussion that furthers FCC reform.


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Grain to Glass is offering a series of topics, of interest to homebrewers (and smaller breweries) each month, on the 2nd Wednesday--at 7 PM.
Here are the first three programs:
Jan. 11th: Bottle Conditioning and the use of Dry (lyophilized) Yeast
Feb. 8th: Malts & Check Your Mill (bring sample)
March 8th: Brewing Water Chemistry
We'll be looking for other topics that people want to learn more about--and will be looking for technical experts to speak with us (perhaps via Skype).
Grain to Glass is in North Kansas City, at 1611 Swift. There is no charge to attend; beers on tap and in bottles for your enjoyment.


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Date & Time
Thu, August 15
8:30 am - 5:00 pm
Raffle Prize: $50 Prepaid Gift Card
535 Secaucus Rd
Secaucus, NY
Come on down to the Secaucus branch for a furniture BlowOut! Browse our vast selection of overstock, returns, seconds and factory errors on office furniture and supplies! Complementary catered food and free samples! Giveaways and raffle tickets also available. SLASHED PRICING ON CHAIRS, BREWERS!


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Im not a paid developer, I spend two or three hours a day working on a development project as a hobby. As time goes by, I come up with "good-ideas" for the project, that are generally features or bug reports. I would like to manage them using a ticket database. My question is about the "scope" of a ticket. I see from looking at other projects ticketing db that tickets are generally high level features to be implemented, and that these get loosely associated with a feature branch in a VCS.
How do you manage the "To do list" associated with a ticket ? Is it better to "re-write" the original ticket into smaller tasks ? How small of a task rates a ticket ?


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Commuters face delays after a crash on the M62 motorway in West Yorkshire this morning (Monday).
Highways England said one lane is now closed on the M62 westbound, between junctions 24 at Elland and 22 at Sowerby Bridge, Halifax.
The crash happened at around 7am today and is expected to cause rush hour delays for motorists travelling on the stretch of road.
And there are also delays around junction 26, at Low Moor, Bradford, on the M62 this morning after a vehicle broke down in one lane.


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Editor and publisher Gabrielle Lichterman of Four Weeks, a monthly online lifestyle magazine for women, asked if I would create a recipe using Champagne for the January issue. I don't really drink anything alcoholic so I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it. But after some deliberation, and in the spirit of the holiday season, I thought it would be fun to come up with a Champagne dessert recipe. I'm so glad that I agreed to do it because this raspberry Champagne trifle was absolutely delicious. And I got to practice making genoise, the classic European sponge cake, as well as making sabayon, a light and foamy sauce typically made with egg yolks, sugar and wine.
Both techniques are based on beating air into eggs. Genoise is leavened only by the air beaten into the batter. Folding the flour and butter into the lofty egg mixture must be done very gently to keep all the air you whipped into the eggs. Sabayon (known as zabaglione in Italian) is made by whipping egg yolks and sugar with a liquid (like Champagne or wine) over simmering water until thickened and increased in volume. Sabayon will deflate over time, so cooling it in an ice bath and folding some lightly whipped cream into the sabayon will help it keep a bit longer.
This recipe looks long but the genoise and raspberry puree can be made in advance. The Champagne sabayon cream is best made right before assembling the trifle. I layered my ingredients in a baking dish and served it in slices with raspberries. But it's just as good scooped from a trifle bowl and served family style.
And don't forget to check out the other Champagne recipes at Four Weeks Magazine.
Raspberry Champagne Trifle
8 large egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated sugar
pinch of salt
3/4 cup Champagne
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 recipe orange genoise (see recipe below)
1 1/4 cups raspberry puree (see recipe below)
To make the Champagne sabayon cream:
In a large stainless steel bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, salt and Champagne. Place bowl over a pot of barely simmering water (double-boiler style). Whisk vigorously until thick, about 5 minutes. Remove bowl from heat and set bowl into an ice bath (a larger bowl one-third full of ice water). Whisk occasionally until sabayon is cool.
In a bowl of a standing mixer, whip heavy whipping cream on high speed until soft peaks form. Fold whipped cream into cooled sabayon.
To assemble the trifle:
Using a serrated knife, cut the orange genoise into 4 rectangles. Slice each piece in half horizontally making a total of 8 pieces.
In the bottom of a 3 1/2-quart glass bowl or dish, spread about 1/4 cup of the raspberry puree. Top the puree with about 3/4 cup of the Champagne sabayon. Cover the sabayon with a layer of genoise. It's okay to piece together the genoise pieces. Repeat layering sequence (raspberry puree, sabayon, and genoise, ending with the sabayon). You may have some puree and sabayon leftover.
Refrigerate trifle for 6 hours (and up to 2 days) before serving.
*Orange Genoise
(makes one 12x17 cake)
1 1/2 cup sifted cake flour, sifted then measured by spoon & sweep method
(or 5.25 oz cake flour, weighed then sifted)
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp granulated sugar
1/8 tsp salt
6 tbsp (3 oz) unsalted butter
6 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp finely grated orange zest
Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 12x17x1 sheet pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper and butter the parchment.
Sift the flour, 2 tbsp sugar, and salt onto a sheet of parchment paper. Set aside flour mixture.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Set aside melted butter.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the egg and the remaining 3/4 cup sugar together by hand. Place bowl over a pot of barely simmering water (double-boiler style). Stir with a whisk until the mixture is warm to the touch and sugar is dissolved.
Remove from heat and attach the bowl the mixer. Using the whisk beater attachment, beat on high speed until the mixture has tripled in volume and is thick and pale in color, about 4 -5 minutes.
Sift one-third of the flour mixture over the whipped egg mixture. Using a large rubber spatula, gently fold in the flour until just incorporated being careful not to deflate your batter. Repeat with another third of the flour. Add vanilla and orange zest with final third.
Scoop about 1 cup of the batter into the melted butter and stir to combine. Pour butter mixture into back into the batter and fold to combine. Pour batter into prepared pan. Gently smooth the top.
Bake for 10 minutes then rotate the pan. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes more, or until golden brown and the top of the cake springs back when gently pressed.
Allow the cake to cool for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan. Invert onto a countertop. Remove the pan and parchment. Flip the cake upright and allow cake to cool on a rack.
Genoise can be made 1 or 2 days in advance. Wrap well with plastic wrap and store at room temperature.
*Raspberry Puree
(makes about 1 1/4 cup)
12 oz package frozen unsweetened raspberries, thawed
2 tbsp Champagne
2 tbsp sugar (if needed)
Puree thawed raspberries in a food processor. Remove the seeds by straining the puree through fine strainer into a bowl. Stir in Champagne. Taste puree and add up to 2 tbsp sugar if required.
Puree can be made one day in advance. Store in refrigerator.


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Add Images to Message Tutorial-Updated! (12/4/14)The ICW Photo Gallery is Back on-line! (12/10/14)Ibanez Review World - Under Construction! (12/10/14)Read all about the newest Ibanez fan site and discussion board.
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NEW CASTLE, PA. (March 14, 2:10 p.m. ET) — Velocity Equipment Solutions LLC recently opened a new hub facility in Santa Fe Springs, Calif. to serve the West Coast blow molding market.
The West Coast Sales and Distribution Center, located near Los Angeles, will allow the company to expand its shipping capabilities and meet client demands faster.
With the new hub, Velocity can now ship parts from 4 a.m. PST to 8 p.m. EST to any of its customers, said Adam Brunke, client services manager, by phone.
Previously, Velocity could ship from its headquarters in New Castle, Pa., and from a warehouse in the United Kingdom. The company operates a 24-hour parts and service line, but when clients needed last-minute or emergency parts, the limited shipping schedule caused problems, Brunke said.
The new hub will also attract new clients. Other companies that used to have distribution centers on the West Coast have since exited the region, leaving a hole, he said.
"I think we'll have a real convenience, a time saver for our customers," he added.
Miguel Garcia will be the Western Regional sales representative.
Velocity was created in 2010 when an investment group, formed by the former management team of Portola Packaging Inc.'s equipment division and the Mistequay Group Ltd., bought out Portola's equipment division, including Portola Blow Mold Technologies.


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| February 21, 2008
President Bush Requests $25 Billion for DOE
Greening NYC's skyline
Supermarket Achieves Silver-Level LEED Certification
Sustainability--Moving to the Mainstream
Renowned green-building-industry leader and author Jerry Yudelson will present the keynote address for HPAC Engineering's fifth annual Engineering Green Buildings (EGB) Conference and Expo, which will be held Oct. 21 and 22 at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. The EGB Conference and Expo is a green-design event focused on green engineering applications as they apply to mechanical systems for commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings. The 2007 event attracted more than 300 participants, including mechanical-system designers and specifiers and manufacturers demonstrating the green characteristics and applications of their mechanical systems, components, equipment, products, technology, and services....[MORE]
HPAC Engineering Co-Sponsor of Global Engineering Conference
EGB February 2008
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