Multiple desktops in Windows 10

I know Linux and Mac users have been using multiple desktops for ages. I know people like my sister and husband, who surf between five to ten desktops with ease. I'm not one of those. I don't even like to use two monitors. I need focus. I need to have everything I need visible to me one way or the other at all times. That's why I have a dozen tabs open in browsers, multiple browsers open at the same time, current work open in app windows that I don't close after work.

You can probably guess that I was not one of the early adapters of multi desktop when Windows (finally, if you ask many) got it. It took me quite some time to brew the idea in my head that I could use more than one desktop. Then one day I did it. I divided my stuff to two desktops: personal and work.

This is a really nice divide, since I use the same laptop for work and personal stuff. When I work, my personal stuff is invisible, and when I'm off work, my work stuff is invisible. Well, mostly, since new email icon does show on Outlook icon on the taskbar even on the other desktop.

While I definitely like this new way of managing my apps and browsers etc. there are things that I wish would improve.

1. When the laptop reboots itself due to an update, it would be totally awesome, if the apps and windows would actually open to the same desktop they were on before, instead of going all haywire.
2. When I launch an app, say new OneNote window or open a Word document from Windows Explorer, it would be awesome if the app window would open to the desktop I'm on, instead of opening to the other one (when I might have the app open there for a different purpose).
3. When I click on a link in an email, it would be awesome if the webpage would open to the browser instance open in that same desktop instead of switching to the same browser (but original instance, I guess) on the other desktop.

You get the drift? It think in short one could say that the desktop awareness in Windows  is not very good. Things should be executed on the desktop the user is using, not some other one simply because the same app was originally registered there. 

Of course all of this is repairable, but moving windows from desktop to the other every time I launch something gets kinda old. I would imagine Microsoft developers could do something to insulate the desktops better and prevent this highly annoying cross-launching.

AirPlay on PC

My (slight) struggles with my unholy alliance of iPhone SE and a Win10 laptop continue. This time my issue was AirPlay for Windows. Tomorrow I demo Nintex Mobile App at a customer and, well, since it is a mobile app, it would be quite essential to be able to show my phone screen to them. Since you can hardly have a meeting room full of people all gather around you to gape at the small phone screen, I started looking for the best way to mirror my phone on the laptop screen.

Now AirPlay is simple enough (*cough* not *cough*) when you are in an Apple device wonderland, like you airplay to a MacBook or AppleTV etc. And really it is usually quite straightforward, unless you try to do things like control the AppleTV vie AirPlay etc. But PC? You need an app, of course.

Simple googling reveals that there are plenty of Win apps for this purpose available. Starting with the free and simple LonelyScreen, ending in slightly costly (in my opinion, for my random needs) apps like the Mirroring360 and the Apowersoft Phone Manager, which I tried and found a bit too complicated to my taste. It said something about updating iTunes and connecting the phone with a cable etc. and I lost interest.

Tech iOS World ranks the LonelyScreen best of the PC mirroring apps. From my short experience and trial and error of all of two apps, I'd say I agree. Simple enough, strictly to the point, easy to use, no extra hokum it most definitely seemed to suit my purposes the best. My only problem was that my phone would not show the AirPlay option no matter what I tried.

My phone and laptop were on the same network.
I rebooted my phone AND my laptop.
My phone IS up to date software-wize.
I allowed LonelyScreen access through the firewall. 
I even disconnected the Direct Access (well, actually, the disconnect doesn't work for me, so I stopped the whole service, but anyhow...).

I was getting desperate. How can stuffs just always be so darned difficult?! Finally, as my last straw, I turned on the personal hotspot on my phone and connected my Windows to the Internet using the hotspot. And - TA-DAA! - AirPlay appeared on my phone!

My conclusion? LonelyScreen works like a train's toilet (A Finnish idiom that I just chose to use here, don't ask) and is exactly as good and simple as expected. However, I believe our home network is just too complicated what with all of our own firewalls etc. in between everything. That's what you get in a geeky household. Anyway, I'm actually really glad it works with this hotspot, since that is the way I most probably will be using it tomorrow at the customer's.

Quick time frustration

They say business is dirty. They say Microsoft doesn't play nice with other kids. They say Apple is such a charming son-in-law and practically a saint. They say with Apple, things just work. Oh yeah.

Last spring I did some careful consideration about my phone options. As I then wrote, I ended up getting my very first iPhone and up until this moment, this morning, I have not regretted. Right now, however, I couldn't be much angrier at a faceless corporation than I am at Apple.

Apple is notorious for going it's own way - as is Microsoft, but when MS does it, it's called nasty behavior and when Apple does it, it's called ingenious pioneerism - and right now, today, my unholy matrimony of an iPhone and a Win10 PC is seriously frustrating me.

One word: mov.

I mean, seriously! Why can't Apple devices record videos in mp4? Or at least provide a safe software for converting them so that I can actually use the videos, e.g. edit and combine in Camtasia Studio etc?

First, Camtasia informed me that Quicktime is required in order to use .mov files. After a lengthy search, I finally found the Quicktime download for Win10 and regardless of multiple posts about how it doesn't install on Win10, it actually did. I was able to import the .mov files to Camtasia now, but did they work? Noo-o-oo! The application crashed after fruitlessly trying to play one of the three videos and won't even launch anymore.

I decided to resort to money, but apparently my money is not good enough for Apple. Futilely I searched and searched the interwebs and clicked the Buy Quicktime Pro in the Quicktime and whatnot but could not find a place to buy me a registration code. Finally I stumbled to a page where someone had asked this very question and received the frustrating answer: no can do, it is discontinued (for Windows).

Really? Really, now?! What are my options here now? Upload unedited videos only, straight to Youtube? Take my chances with a free converter (they scare me because most of them are adware at best and malware at normal)? Forget about videos?

I have always likes still photos better anyway. Sometimes, however, videos would be the way to go, but apparently I'm back to the stoneages with my combo of an iPhone and Win10. Thanks, Apple.

Windows 10

Some time ago, after having used Windows 10 for a couple weeks, I wrote an article about Edge, the controversial default browser in Win10. It's been a month or so since that article, and yes, I am still using Windows 10. I have no desire or intention to change that either. Just like with any version of Windows, I have a love-hate relationship with this one, too. There are things I really like, and then there's the one.

The biggest user end inprovement in Win10, compared to Win8(.1), is the unified user experience. Out with the schizophrenic tablet-desktop-whereamI-whoamI-whatamIdoing experience. There is not tablet UI separate from the desktop UI, at least not when running windows on a regular laptop PC. I won't say anything about Windows tables since I do not use them. The start menu is an actual menu again, a combination of menu and start screen. I really like it!

Notice the Power and Settings at the bottom of the Start menu? Another yey for those instead of that annoying right hand side hover manouver of Win8.

Search has been separated from Start to its own "menu", opened with the magnifying galss in the task bar, next to the Start icon. Windows + S shortcut key also still works.

Really, those are the biggest changes in the UI, for the common user. The only thing that truly annoys me in Win10 is its tendency to do random restarts while being in sleep mode.