ICYMI: March 11, 2016

Happy Friday! Let's finish strong today.

*

The biggest story of yesterday and why you should care today:

Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 14283 hit the fast ring on the Insider program today, so good news if you're a) an Insider and b) using one of the following phones: the Lumia 950, 950 XL, 650, 550, Xiaomi Mi4, and ALCATEL ONETOUCH Fierce XL. 

The biggest changes:

There are now missed call and voicemail waiting indicators in the Phone app. Note that, according to Gabe Aul:

Once you navigate to a tab with a missed call or voicemail – the indicator goes away. We’ve got another change coming that will keep the indicator in place until you navigate away from the tab. There is also a bug where you might not see the indicator clear right away – a fix is coming soon for this as well. 

There's an update to the Outlook Mail and Calendar apps that let you easily eliminate junk mail or send "I'll be late" meeting notifications to people from your phone.

There are still bugs, including one that might raise alarms for the security-minded: 

Connectivity to older Wi-Fi networks using the WEP encryption security method may be broken. WEP is an insecure method for protecting your Wi-Fi connection but a small percentage of Windows users still use it.  A workaround would be to configure your wireless routers to use WPA or WPA2 or wait for the next Insider flight when this is fixed.

Also worth noting: A patent application that Apple recently filed suggests that a few devices in its mobile ecosystem could work together to alert 911 if a person with these devices (say, an Apple Watch and an iPhone) were having a heart attack. No word on whether this will be talked up at the pending March 21, 2016, Apple event.

*

The most useful tech news:

You don't need a product key to install and use Windows 10 -- you just need the disc image.

Extension support for Microsoft Edge is purportedly being tested in-house, leading to speculation that the browser's ability to support extensions is coming soon.

Here's what to do if your smartphone is stolen (and how to plan ahead for that dread event).

Get some free BI and Excel know-how courtesy of Microsoft itself: the inaugural Data Insights Summit takes place on Tuesday, March 22 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. PT and Wednesday, March 23 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. PT. You can watch the live streams of the keynote and select sessions at PowerBI.com.

Did you know about these eight ways you can import data into your Word docs?

Track when specific builds of Windows 10 hit the slow and fast rings. 

*

The most amusing tech news:  If only these hackers had autocorrect, they would not have made a spelling error that lost them over $800 million. Hackers managed to break through the Bangladesh Bank's defenses and grab the credentials they needed to authorize transfers, then bombarded the U.S. Federal Reserve's New York bank with requests to transfer money from the Bangladesh Bank to different accounts in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. While $81 million was successfully transferred, a spelling error for a transfer to the Shalika Fandation raised alarms, and routing bank the Deutsche Bank raised alarms. Between that and the Federal Reserve noticing the unusual number of large-amount transfers, the Fed stopped another $850 million in transactions from going through. The Bangladesh Bank is going after the Fed for the lost transfers.

*

What we published yesterday: 

How-To: Save Windows 10 Screenshots to OneDrive by Default — Many of us take advantage of the built in screenshot capability in Windows 10 by using the Windows Key + Print Screen keyboard shortcut.  By default that image is stored in the clipboard. Ever think about storing those screenshots on OneDrive?

Q. Why is my computer communicating with me via a series of beeps? — We'll be featuring an abridged Q&A from Fred Langa's LANGALIST, a feature available exclusively to paid subscribers of the Windows Secrets newsletter. Today's Q&A: When my computer starts up, it lets loose with a series of beeps. Why?

Microsoft Band Users Should Stay Away from Windows Mobile Insider Builds for a While — Even when Windows 10 Mobile finally gets a public release (even the 950 and 950XL still run a pre-release version of Windows 10), the Band will need a Microsoft Health app and firmware update to work correctly.

How to Locate and Use the New Auto-Pause Feature for the Microsoft Band 2 — To find it and turn it on and off (its off by default), open either the Run or Bike tile, swipe left until you are on the GPS page and then swipe up to page down past the Use GPS and GPS Power Saver options.

Unannounced New Band 2 Feature: True Type font rendering — The True Type font rendering capability means that the Band 2 now supports over 150 of the most common emoji and delivers expanded Latin character rendering. 

Is the Surface Pro 4 Type Cover Worth a Purchase for a Surface Pro 3? — If you just want to refresh your keyboarding experience without taking advantage of Windows Hello’s biometric capability, the non-fingerprint ID Type Cover still feels like a major upgrade.