Classic Menu for Visio 2010 lets you retain your old menus in the new version of Microsoft Visio. Instead of having to learn where everything is, you can now install it on your computer, and voila you’re back to the interface you know and love. This might also be interesting to you if you’re a new user. You now can learn how to use visio 2010 the old way!

It’s a great testament to the Internet that a company can find enough used to justify creating a product like this. It feels like a shortcoming to let people operating in the old way, but if that’s what you’re used to, that’s really what works best for you. So go ahead, give it a real try!

So, if you’re looking for a unique way to look at your documents, remember that Office Tab brings Tabbed user interface with Microsoft Office 2010

The package itself seems pretty comprehensive, with a huge database to help site categorisation, bandwidth reports and even includes the ability to monitor and block connections in real-time. It could serve as a good debug tool, even though I’m not doing that much .net development any more; it’s an idea way to proxy any web requests you may make to figure out if your application is in fact calling the right endpoint and forming its requests correctly.

The other use of GFI Web Monitor is to control access to particular sites. If you have an open Wifi connection, you could be held responsible for people using your connection to access illegal sites, whether these are download sites, pornographic or other dodgy websites. GFIMon allows you to restrict access to categories of websites and has an extensive database of over 200 million domains that helps it decide whether to allow access to a particular site or not.

There’s no doubt about it, everyone needs protection and when it comes to computers there are two things you need, an anti-virus and an anti-spyware. I’m using Microsoft Forefront on this computer, as it’s a work one and it comes complete with all the software we need. The question is, what do you consider if you’re looking for protection?

Well, the first thing you should get is recommendations from other people. It’s always best to speak to someone who’s used a product you’re considering. That way you can get all the good and bad points about it. Or else you can check out a review site. Whether you’re after antispyware software or antivirus software, it’s always a good idea to read up before you spend your money.

Word of the new release has already started spreading, but most people will find out about it when they log into WordPress and it tells them there’s a new version. I’ve uploaded two blogs using the in-built upgrade mechanism and everything was smooth, thought I had to restart the process a couple of times till it completed. Presumably users on faster servers won’t have the same issue.

Most of the changes are a step in the right direction I think, faster admin UI and better handling of widgets are among those. I’m a bit unsure about the theme uploader/upgrader as I think some people may lose theme customisations this way and I don’t think I like the new plugin interface, but all in all I’ve been looking forward to this drop.

One interesting thing to report. The WordPress admin interface was broken with Firefox 3.5b99, but this new drop of WordPress has resolved that issue because of an upgrade in the Javascript components used by the admin interface. So go ahead and upgrade to the latest versions of stuff, things seem to be working nicely!

(P.S. I’ve noticed that the upgrade has disabled one of my plugins that provided paged comments, but seeing that this is now a built-in feature of WordPress, I was quite happy for it to deactivate it)

Here’s a good reminder to everyone to try and keep their software updated. Last week I tried installing Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 on a virtual machine, just so that our team can have a play with it and kept running into this error:

The ordinal 242 could not be located in the dynamic link library msi.dll

It came up on the trial version, so I went ahead and downloaded the full version to try and install that. Same problem; so the issue wasn’t down to my installation file. I scoured the Web, but no one seemed to have that issue; an issue not with CRM, but with the installer that was trying to deploy it for me.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I noticed that the Windows 2003 installation I had on the VM didn’t have any service packs installed on it. I have no idea where I got this ancient version from, but the fact that it didn’t have any connection to the Internet meant I wasn’t too fussed about security patches, but in one of the service packs they must have rolled out some changes to msi.dll, because installing Windows 2003 Service Pack 2 cured the issue. Now, if only the error message had been more helpful I would have found the answer soon, but at least I managed to solve it before taking one of my colleague’s Adams golf drivers to my computer screen.

On the bright side, once I got the installer running, it identified what components I had missing on my installation (.Net Framework, XML Core Services, Application Error Reporting, yadda, yadda) and is happily installing all the prerequisites for me.

One thing that struck me as quite interesting about the package is the ability to add workflow and business rules around people’s timesheets. This makes it easier to handle more employees because automation can normally deal with 80% of the cases that pass through HR. Staff can then focus on exception cases, and add value where it’s needed, rather than wasting time on mundane cases. It’s a real example of a tool that can drive efficiencies in a business as compared to traditional paper-based systems.

Do you fill in a timesheet? How does it work?

A new version of Twhirl hit the streets yesterday, as it came out of a beta where hundreds of people (including yours truly) have been testing and helping improve the new features. Here’s a feature rundown:

In a nutshell, here’s what’s new in Twhirl 0.9
-spellchecker (currently English only, can be deactivated in settings if you use Twhirl in other languages)
-your Twitter @replies will display even if you are mentioned in the middle of a tweet – don’t miss anyone quoting your name
-share all your updates to all your favorite social software via Ping.FM support: Twhirl now posts to Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more
-follow any topic in near-realtime: searching for a term or a brand and then activating it as a saved search it will bring all future mentions of it into your timeline
-record a video and post it straight to Twitter, then get your Seesmic video replies and follow the video conversation
-get new Seesmic replies and videos in realtime thanks to XMPP support
-support for bitly url shortnener with stats and history
-support for direct messages and favorites on laconica/identica

We’ve also fixed many bugs, including:
-”in reply to” references on Twitter and identica are now supported correctly
-drag/resize issues should be fixed
-pingfm support from Twitter and laconica/identica accounts
-pressing Shift-Space no longer creates two spaces on non-OS X systems
-@usernames, ‘Twhirl’ and ‘Seesmic’ are not marked as spelled wrong
-copying URLs from timelines using the contextual menus is working now

And don’t forget the existing core Twhirl features that made it a success:
-multiple Twitter, laconica, Friendfeed and Seesmic account support
-runs on Windows and Mac OSX (and Linux)
-notifications of new messages across all of your accounts
-shorten long urls easily (using snurl, twurl or isgd)
-post images to TwitPic
-search tweets using Twitter Search and Tweetscan
-timeline filtering
-groovy color schemes to personalize your experience
-automatically checks for new versions

Some amazing stuff there and currently my favourite Twitter client. I haven’t spotted any tie-in to any live video streaming services yet, but the fact that you can record a video thanks to Seesmic’s service is a pretty great start.

So, if you think this might be for you, download Twhirl and give it a try!

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 is a full cumulative update that contains many new features building incrementally upon .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 and includes cumulative services updates to the .NET Framework 2.0 and .NET Framework 3.0 subcomponents. The .NET Framework 3.5 Family Update provides important application compatibility updates.

Sounds fairly innocuous, right? Wrong! Besides deploying the fixes to the .NET framework mentioned above, the update also installed a stealth Add-in for FireFox, without any warning, permission or request for consent:

To add insult to injury, not only is the plugin useless (Not compatible with Firefox 3.1b2) as you can see above, but the Uninstall button is actually disabled!

Looks like it’s not a new problem, with reports of Microsoft violating Firefox since last August, but this is now bundled as part of a package that is described as an “Important Update”, rather than a component of development software (Visual Studio) that a person may or may not choose to install.

You can hack your way through uninstalling the plugin, but it’s not the sort of thing someone inexperienced should try. Here are the instructions from the site above:

Against what many people think, though, it can be uninstalled – but by nothing less than hacking the actual registry of Windows! Open your Start Menu and choose Run. Type in regedit and press enter/click OK. Within there, you have to look for something called HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\Firefox\extensions and delete the key there (for Windows Vista 64-bit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions).

When you have done that, type in about:config in the address bar in Firefox, accept the warning and then remove general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet and microsoft.CLR.clickonce.autolaunch.

And, to finish it off, open Windows Explorer and go to \WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Windows Presentation Foundation\DotNetAssistantExtension\ to remove the last remnants of the evil extension.

Instructions thankfully found through Remove the .NET Framework Assistant 1.0 from Firefox

My question to you is this. Granted that Microsoft may “own” the operating system you’re running your software on, but does that give them the right to install additions to non-Microsoft software on your machine? The plugin didn’t work in my case, but let’s say it broke Firefox for me, would Microsoft have acknowledged this was a problem they caused and fixed it? Is it right for them to circumvent any features Mozilla put into Firefox to protect their users and violate their software in this way? Isn’t this the sort of installation route you’d expect malicious software to take?

Screenshot from Twhirl v0.8.8f

Over the weekend I’ve installed the new beta of Twhirl and am happy to report that I really like the new features. I haven’t got round to testing them all, but the one I *have* tested and love is that ability to specify search criteria which gets merged into your main feed. It’s pretty easy to use, all you need to do is specify your search criteria, say for example “PS3″ because you’re interested in when anyone tweets about the subject. Twhirl will show the results of your search, but you can also “Activate” it with the option of being notified when a relevant result comes up and also add it to your Home stream. Now, when anyone tweets anything with the word PS3 in it, you’ll know about it straight away.

There are other enhancements that have made it into this version:

• Ping.fm integration so your status updates can make to all you social networks
• Your “replies” tab now include any mention of your username. (I love this)
• Video-tweeting (haven’t tried this yet)

Interested? You can watch the interview and join the Twhirl beta if you are on Twitter, and don’t forget to follow me.