Closing apps completely. What's the difference ?

Are you used to close your apps swiping them from top to botton ? Well, you probably do it all the time, but when you do it quickly, the apps is not totally closed.

In fact, it remains in the memory almost like "sleeping", so it loads much quicker when you click to run it again later.

It's a cool feature to improve performance and works great, BUT....

Sometimes, applications like Windows Store, Skydrive, Bing News and other have a misbehavior for some reason we don't know. 

Example: Windows Store shows there are apps to be updated on its tile on Windows Start, but when you click on it, it shows NO apps to be updated.

Hot to fix it ? Just close Windows Store apps "completely: and runs it again.

How to close an apps completely ?

Swipe it from top to down as you usually do but HOLD it in the bottom for two seconds before you release your finger from the touch screen.

You will see that the apps small windows image twist/turn while you hold your finger on the screen. Now your apps is closed !

You can solve many apps misbehavior closing them totally and re-running it.
You will perceive that running it again after a completely close will take a little bit longer that when you do a quick apps close.

Troubleshooting Skydrive on Windows RT 8.1 - Sync Problems

So many Windows RT and Windows users still complaining about sync problems on Skydrive after more than an year of Windows RT devices were launched.

The problems are not new and Microsoft seems to be "blind" to users complaints.

I'm not different to thousands of users having this problem.

If you look for a solution on Microsoft community and Support Forums, you will take hours to find a link to a troubleshooter application for Windows RT 8.1 (easier to find for Windows 8.1). So, after I found it, I decide to make it available here:

TROUBLESHOOTING SKYDRIVE 

On the page of the link below, click in the linked word "troubleshooter" under the paragraph "Note" and you will download a (.cab) file. RUN IT !

>>>>   http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/skydrive/folder-file-sync-error-faq 

Here is what you will see on the web page clicking on the link above.

Note

• For help with SkyDrive in Windows 8.1 or Windows RT 8.1, see SkyDrive: FAQ, or run the troubleshooter.

ps: there's no guarantee that running this (.cab) file, your problems will be solved, but it worth to try.

Windows RT and Windows 8 effective synchonization and integration

SYNCHRONIZATION ON WINDOWS 8 IS AWESOME !

One of the main concerns when I buy a mobile phone or tablet is about synchronization with my other computers. 

What kind of information we can share and synchronize, and how ?  I confess I was not aware of what I would get on this matters when I bought my Surface RT. Everything was a 'incognito" and there's still a problem for me, I had not moved to Windows 8 on my notebook. It was a new notebook, but because I had hundreds of applications on my Windows 7 old notebook, I was worried about this move.

Well, to make it short, I moved to Windows 8 because of my Windows RT. I was excited about to explore their integration.

Right after I've installed Windows 8 on my new notebook, It was a so great surprise to see how things got so synchronized. Below I will comment some of my experiences about the integration on my Surface RT versus my Windows 8 notebook.

OS Level Sync Configuration: Besides the sync of several apps, Windows 8 allows you to configure them to sync with other Windows 8/RT devices in many dimensions, including all the dimensions listed on the image below:

So, when you change desktop themes, images, colors, passwords on websites, networks and dozens of other configurations in the main device, everything is synchronized with other devices.

But this is just the beggining, many other metro apps have their configuration synchronized too. All your personal news configuration on Bing News, Bento News and other news apps, are all synchronized. For example: on Bing News or Bento News, you can create news sections from specific news sources, on Bing News you can also create "Topics Sections" where Bing get together all news from many sources with specified keywords you define. All these configuration data are automatically synchonized.

Mail, Calendar, People and many other apps are also synchonized. 

Besides that, Skydrive, the Microsoft cloud system with more than 200 millions of users, is used to store data from many apps, so, all the data is also kept updated with it.

Example: I use eWallet from IliumSoft, the best password manager for Windows RT. On eWallet Apps I  manage more than 200 sites passwords, credit cards, computer password and all kind of passwords I use on my day-by-day. All the data is always kept updated on all my devices.

You can choose to keep many other files (documents, music, photos, etc) synchonized using Skydrive. 

All these features make you feel as you are using the same computer when working with many of your apps on your Windows 8 or Windows RT device.

OneNote is another application that keeps all your data synchronized on all of your devices. And it's note and content sensitive, in other words, if you have OneNote opened simultaneously on your Windows RT Tablet and Windows 8 notebook, if you change a single word on a note on one device and another word on the other device, both contents are synchronized on both sides.

My typical Surface RT serious use, most for work purposes

I  use my Windows RT tablet for business, 8 to 9 hours a day on average and my main use and applications are:

1.     OneNote serious use for my hundreds of work and personal  notes

2.     Project Management & To Do lists

3.     Multimedia Content Management (multimedia Journal/notes),

4.     PowerPoint

5.     Skype

6.     Lots of PDF reading with annotations (ebooks, white papers, articles, manuals, etc)

7.     MindMapping

8.     Travel planning and management

9.     Shopping list (my wife loves that)

10. English to Portuguese and English to English great dictionaries used side by side with other applications (pdf reader, news reader, Internet Explorer, etc)

11. Recipe, Gastronomy and Wine Review applications

12. Watch movies, videos and photos on my TV using HDMI connection, Multimedia Remote Control 

13. Cloud storage and sync (Skydrive)

14. eMail and internet browsing

15. Bible reading with annotations and text highlighting

16. eBay Shopping

17. Mapping and tracking software

18. Application and sometimes a wireless keyboard (one for using with Google TV)

19. Text editing with Office/Word and just a very eventual Excel use

20. Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin Social applications

21. News reading with customized subject sections

22. A few games (Pinball FX and Car Racing)

Ps: Please, feel free to ask me about any of them specifically.

Detailed and deep Surface RT Review

After 5 months using Surface RT for serious tasks on a average of 8 hours a day, here are all my impressions, pros & cons, weakness and strenghens and all sort of important information for those who want a deep and real analysis on Microsofr Surface RT.

Below are some important information, assumptions and my personal profile to consider when reading all my posts.

1. I'm a heavy user computer with deep experience on Windows PCs
2. I have an Android Phone, a Windows Phone, a Windows 8 notebook and had a Android Tablet long time ago.
3. I'm a business person who uses Surface RT for both work and personal stuff, but my priority is use tablet for busines.
4. I'm NOT Microsoft devotee nor rate Apple. I just want to think and evaluate rationally when choosing a computer or any other tech gadget
5. My Surface RT configuration is a 32GB, with a touch cover and a 32GB MicroSD Card
6. My native language is NOT English, but Portuguese, so, sorry about eventual miswritings and mispellings.

Check my daily use in the post: Does anybody wants a REAL Surface Rt Review ?