Ugly Wrapping At Download.com

Even though we always recommend download of our products from the kalmstrom.com website, we also present them at other sites. This is done to reach more people, and since the download links still are ours, we can be sure that downloaders get what we want to give them.

However, the well known cnet site Download.com requires that they host the download file themselves, so that the products are downloaded from their site. We have accepted it because this is one of the major download sites, and we wanted our products to be seen there. It worked well for many years, except that they did not always had the latest version of our products. Now it does NOT work well anymore, and we have decided to remove all our products from Download.com.

The reason for this drastic decision is that we cannot trust Download.com anymore. They have started to wrap other downloads into installers, which is totally unacceptable to kalmstrom.com. This means that you cannot be sure that you will only get what you want if you download a software from Download.com. You might also get other programs that you don't wish to use or are even aware of. These programs may make unwanted changes to your system, and they may also be difficult to get rid of.

This sounds like a violation of developer rights, but cnet has cleverly avoided it by the wording of their terms of service. They can also claim that they have notified developers about the wrapping, even if it was just in one sentence a bit down in a newsletter and not in very clear words!

kalmstrom.com Business Solutions will never accept that our installation files give users anything else than a clean, genuine version of the kalmstrom.com software. Therefore we asked Download.com to remove all our products from their site immediately.

We also advice against downloading from Download.com. My guess is that the wrapping in the end will be fatal for Download.com. In the long run you cannot fool people – they are too smart for that and turn to other, more trustworthy sites.

HelpDesk OSP For Outlook And SharePoint - Version 3 Released Today

Today kalmstrom.com has released a new version of the incident management tool for Outlook and SharePoint, HelpDesk OSP. I have written about the new design and the Blank ticket options earlier, so here I will concentrate on another important improvement  ‒ the facilitation of the login to SharePoint from Outlook.

That the login to the SharePoint site is easy is of course essential for users of HelpDesk OSP, so version 3 has several enhancements to simplify it. For example, HelpDesk OSP now tries to load the default network credentials for authentication and only asks for credentials if there is no success. HelpDesk OSP V3 will also correct the path if a user writes the list URL instead of the site URL when selecting SharePoint site. Our support staff has seen that error quite often even though we have done our best to inform about the correct way to do it. For use with Office 365 we have added a new authentication type: Claims-based Authentication.

Please refer to the HelpDesk OSP Revisions page for a full list of enhancements and bug fixes. Community Members are welcome to upgrade, but you will need a new registration key this time. Contact me, and I will send it to you.

If you are new to HelpDesk OSP, I recommend you to try it! You may evaluate the add-on for 30 days without obligations, and remember that it works with all SharePoint sites and templates. HelpDesk OSP is a very versatile tool for any kinds of publishing from Outlook to SharePoint.

kalmstrom.com Website Enhancement Continues - Learn About Services And iOS Apps

The kalmstrom.com website is continuously improved, and now we have two new pages and a new homepage for the English section. On the homepage we tell about the most important part of the business: our standard products built on Microsoft Office, Exchange and SharePoint. The new pages instead describe the company's two other "legs".

kalmstrom.com Business Solutions was born when Peter worked as a consultant and created custom solutions for his clients. When others wanted something similar he begun selling standard products also. This was more than ten years ago, and the custom solutions have been with us all the time. Welcome to visit the Services page and learn how you can take advantage of our expertise on Outlook, Excel and SharePoint!

The third leg is new ‒ because the possibility is new! kalmstrom.com has begun developing apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, and it will be interesting to see where they will take us. We started with, iNameDays, which is a very simple app. Everything went well, and soon we are ready to release a more advanced product that lets you manage SharePoint list items in your iOS device. You can find more info about ShareTask on the iOS page.

As always we welcome comments: on the website, the documentation, the products or anything else that we can influence. Your input is important and helps us in our ambition to reach even higher levels.

New Developer In kalmstrom.com Team

The kalmstrom.com team has a new Member, and I am happy to introduce you to Vijayant Rimza, our new junior developer. After taking his Master of Computer Application exam Vijayant started as trainee with us, and what we saw made us believe that he will eventually be as good as his older brother, our Lead Developer Jayant. Vijayant already has the ambition and the dedication, and he is very intent on improving his skills. Therefore he continues to study in his free time, both English and programming. We give him a warm welcome to the team.

Right now Vijayant is working with the implementation of the new design for HelpDesk OSP, the application for publishing to a SharePoint site via Outlook. His work at kalmstrom.com will be very varied, so it will give him excellent experience and a good opportunity to grow.

Vijayant has a gift that we were not aware of until I asked about his interests for this blog ‒ he paints and does pencil drawings, and very good also! Above you see him looking at one of his comic figures. This means that we suddenly have two artists in the company, even if only graphic designer Jitendra Joshi makes his living from the talent. I wonder how this will affect kalmstrom.com in the future? We surely have a very interesting time ahead of us!

Las Vegas Great But CES A Disappointment

Once again Peter is giving you some impressions from a journey. This time he went to Las Vegas, and as you can see above he had some fun there also! Welcome to read his report:

"I have finally settled down after a rather hectic 8 days trip to the US. It was interesting and very enjoyable. The main reason for going was to visit the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is something I have been wanting to do for many years now. I have been to CEBIT in Germany several times, but CES was a first for me. My son Joakim also joined in on the trip, and as it was his first such show at all our hopes were high!

We had a great time, but the conclusion for me is that the internet is a much better place for really seeing something new. There was nothing new at CES that I had not read about online before. However, I did meet some interesting people and found some ideas that might become new kalmstrom.com business ventures in the future.

Some other conclusions I came to:

• iOS rules the handheld marketplace and will continue to do for quite some time. Android is highly questionable from a usability standpoint, and Windows Mobile 7 was hardly even mentioned at CES. On both smart-phones and tablets Apple is far ahead. It will be extremely interesting to see what Microsoft and Google can come up with, once they catch up in a few years. I am delighted with the direction that iOS is taking software usage in general: usability, focus on the 80% functionality that really matters and mobility.
• 3D TVs, no matter how large, do not really impress me at all. 3D PC screens with NVidia gaming gear, that is impressive and worth looking at. Since I don´t play games it is nothing for me, but Joakim was quite enthusiastic about it!
• There is a huge number of hardware manufacturers doing the same thing. I am sure they are all very competent, but the lack of diversity in hardware is a bit sad to see.

Las Vegas is great, except for the gaming areas ;-) We ate at some nice restaurants and especially enjoyed the desert around the city. Even if I don't think I will go back for the CES I would love to see more of that part of the US.

Peter Kalmstrom
CEO, kalmstrom.com Business Solutions"

Goodbye Calendar Browser V6

It is no longer possible to download Calendar Browser V6.1 from the kalmstrom.com website. As version 7 of our resource booking application requiered an extensive rebuilt, the documentation has to be renewed and the website info changed. We will do that during the quiet days after the Christmas celebrations, and then we hope to release Calendar Browser V7 during the first weeks of January.

I am sorry if this causes you any inconvenience. Please contact me at sales@kalmstrom.com if are a Community Member and need a setup of Calendar Browser V6.1. If you want to evaluate Calendar Browser, please be patient and come back in January to try the latest version instead!

Watch The First Calendar Browser V7 Demo!

Now it is only a matter of days before version 7 of our resource booking application for Outlook is released. The Calendar Browser documentation is being updated while the testing continues, and as you see from the video demonstration above we now have a functioning product. Just some smaller adjustments have to be made before we can give Calendar Browser V7 to all Members who need a booking system that works with Office 2010.

Welcome to have a look at the demo! I think you can see just from this short video that it will be a joy to book resources with the new Calendar Browser.

kalmstrom.com Gives Support To Evaluators

"We would like to use your product, but I have a problem with the configuration. Can you help me?"

In spite of our efforts to make the kalmstrom.com applications easy to set up, this question from an evaluator is not unusual. The answer is YES. The kalmstrom.com team gives support not only to sbuscribers but also to evaluators.

For the kalmstrom.com team it has always been a natural thing to give support also to evaluators. If people take the time and effort to try our products, we should to our best to assist them. From the surprised and grateful reactions we get, we have understood that it is not always so.

Extensive documentation
The kalmstrom.com products are abundantly documented. This is essential for giving evaluators and users a good understanding on how our product works and for helping them to get the most out of it.

However, when you are new to an application and its documentation it might be difficult to find exactly the kind of info you need in FAQ, manual or video demonstrations. In those cases you are very welcome to contact the support! We can help you find the info or solve your issue.

Support e-mail
Our support e-mail is support@kalmstrom.com, and we can often answer within hours. We use HelpDesk OSP to convert the e-mails to tickets in SharePoint, so using e-mail has the advantage that your case can easily be discussed and commented by the whole team.

Online chat
The online chat is popular and gives you immediate contact with a technician. (Or with me if you select the Sales department.) It is also used when a remote session is needed to solve the problem. We get transcripts of all chats, and they can be shared among team members if needed.

Praise for the kalmstrom.com support
The kalmstrom.com Support has been highly praised. As one evaluator expressed it: "You have the answers I need when I need them and deliver them professionally and with a smile that comes across in your chat! :)" We will always do our best to live up to these words.

Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions