Happy 2012! Did you get a Windows Phone for Christmas?

Happy 2012 everyone!  Did you get the WP7 devices you always wanted?  If you are in Canada. of course not! But in case you are one for getting unlocked devices off eBay or Craigslist or something like that, make sure you visit my "How-To" page for help with your new WP7.

What isn't included in the how-to page is make sure your new WP7 device is up to date.

Go to Settings->About and find that all important firmware version number.  It should be 7720 or 7740.  If it doesn't, make sure you install Zune Desktop (www.zune.net) on your PC or download the free Windows Phone Connector off the Mac App store to get your phone updated to the latest and greatest firmware available for your phone.

If you are sick and tired of waiting for new devices to show up, Telus and Microsoft have teamed up for a special holiday offer on the LG Optimus 7

Want unlimited music for a low low fee of $9.99/month, subscribe to the excellent zune music pass and you'd be downloading/streaming music in no time (there's also a 14 trial).

Happy WP7ing and look forward to (hopefully) more WP7 devices coming to the Great White North!

How to enable Local Scout in Canada

Ok, so you have updated to WP7.5 'Mango' (According to i'm a wp7 app, 51% of you who are using their app in Canada are using Mango).  There are bunch of cool features that you like and you keep reading about this 'Local Scout' WP7 feature on American websites but for some odd reason, you still cannot find how you can access this magic.

As with a problem with the Bing Map Search I have outline on this blog before, once again Canadian found themselves (probably some non-US countries as well) short changed on this feature.  But there is a way to enable it.

1. Click Settings
2. Click region+language
3. At the bottom, you should see "Browser & search language", if it reads "English (Canada)", well, change that to, you guess it, "English (United States)"
4. The unfortunate side effect is that the distances will be in miles (the locale and region formats are ignored)
5. Press the Hardware Search button and magically you will see this little icon appear to the 3 normal buttons you are used to getting.

6. Another place that you will see this magical little icon is when you start your Bing Map App (also added to the left of your regular 3 icons)

One of the cooler way to use Local Scout is you can pan to an certain map area (For example: say you live in Surrey, BC but you want see what's restaurants are in downtown Vancouver, pan to the downtown area) press the Local Scout button and the the restaurants and activity information will show up for that area.

Hope this helps!

How To Set Your Starting Calendar Day on WP7

One of the thing about Windows Phone 7 is that pretty much all the 1st party apps settings can be set via the phones settings page or you can set it up via the settings page for the app (i.e. emails, calendars, etc).  It's almost BlackBerry like but with the additional ability of the simple to use "Settings" hub.

However, when someone asked how he/she could set the starting date on their wp7 device calendar, naturally, I opened the Calendar app, press settings and I was a bit puzzled since there was no such setting which is a bit strange. 

The good news is that after digging a little bit more, I have finally found it.  Read on for the settings...

How to fix your WP7 Bing Map search in Canada

(Note that this should not be a problem if you are using "Mango".  to check, go to Settings->about and click on the "more information" button.  Check the OS version for something greater than 7720, if your phone's version is less than this, install Zune Desktop on your PC and plug in your phone and Zune desktop should tell you that you can update)

One of the biggest problem on a Canadian WP7 map search in Canada is the search results.  You know what I am talking about, you want to say search for the Zellers stores around your location and your damn WP7 device will find you City of Zellers somewhere in Russia.  However, I do have a very simple fix for us Canucks....

If you have gotten a Canadian WP7 handset, you'd probably be pretty pissed when you use Bing Map to search for say McDonald's around your area and the Bing Map would give you MacDonald city in British Columbia or some place like that.  Searching for a local address was quite frustrating as I had to type the entire address (including the city) and I was beginning to wonder what the hell was the "Use My Location" toggle for in the map search settings?

It was so frustrating that I was hoping for a Google map to appear on the WP7 marketplace.  Read on for the solution.