These are somewhat random notes about miscellaneous Microsoft products or issues.
Microsoft's most proprietary (and formerly danger-prone) graphics file format is the Windows Metafile. Some of these files, with the file extension .wmf, could be found in Windows itself but today you will find them mostly in supplied Microsoft Office clip art. I found over 1,600 WMFs in the Program Files folder on my laptop.
It has always been something of a challenge to edit or create these files. I own a program called Metafile Companion, the only commercial editor of which I am aware. The program has been at version 1.11 for a very long time although it does run in every version of Windows since 95.
This morning it occurred to me that Microsoft might have included support for WMF in Expression Design. Sixty seconds later I knew it was not supported - Design would not open a WMF.
To be fair, WMF is a dated format. The XML-based scalable vector graphic (SVG) is an emerging open standard likely to be supported by all Web browsers in the future. Microsoft itself has moved to XML-based graphics descriptions, evident in the Expression family.
Still, I thought it was strange that Microsoft did not provide support for its own format in its first significant foray in to graphics editing.
July 30, 2007
Microsoft released a free utility for Windows XP and Vista that allows one to view and edit the information stored with digital photos. Called Photo Info, the software adds "Photo Info" to the context menu for images. It also enhances the tip that is displayed when one hovers over an image.
My interest waned after I installed the software and learned that it does not handle GPS coordinates. Consider that Microsoft has the mapping programs Streets & Trips and MapPoint, as well as the Virtual Earth maps at local.live.com.
I suppose this is what happens when a very large company is doing many, many things - one hand doesn't always know what the other is doing. Still, consumer GPS is a pretty big deal. This seems a silly omission.
June 16, 2007