Blog:: Craig Pringle

I love the potential of the RollTop concept PC from Orkin Design.  Out of the box thinking like this opens the door for some really great new ways to work.

This just cropped up in one of my Twitter searches and it really caught my eye. 

A 9” netbook with a touchscreen and a removable keyboard?  Could it be that someone has finally caught on to the fact that the HP TC1100 was a really good idea and would be excellent if refreshed with current technology?

Weighing less than 2 pounds and sporting a [8.9] inch screen, the Touch Book has moved away from the world of the Intel Atom CPU and delved into the mobile power of the ARM processor from Texas Instruments, and with its custom designed battery, the Touch Book runs for up to 15 hours unplugged.

The key design feature of the Touch Book is its ability to completely separate the screen from the keyboard, allowing the screen to be used as a standalone tablet. Furthermore, the screen is magnetic and can easily be mounted on any metal surfaces.

How cool is that – 15 hours battery life and you can stick it to the fridge!  The bad news is that it is not shipping yet but pre-orders are being taken.

Well the touch book certainly looks like an interesting device and I would love to get my hands on one to see how well the concept is implemented.  It looks like it is running its own OS and the ARM processor is usually associated with phones and PDAs but it could be a good step in the right direction.

Vital statistics from the website:

Key Specifications

• 9.4″ x 7″ x 1.4″ for 2 lbs (with keyboard)
• ARM Texas Instruments OMAP3 chip
• 1024×600 8.9” screen
• Storage: 8GB micro SD card
• Wifi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth
• 3-dimensional accelerometer
• Speakers, micro and headphone
• 6 USB 2.0 (3 internal, 2 external, 1 mini)
• 10h to 15 hours of battery life

A couple weeks ago the OS informed me that the extended battery for my Motion LS800 had issues and should be replaced.  Not really surprising as the battery is 3 or 4 years old and has been heavily used. 

I swapped back to the standard battery and now woe is me – it too tells me that it needs to be replaced.  This battery is actually even older than the Extended battery.

This could spell the end for my much loved Motion LS800, which is a real shame.  Worse than that it is my only tablet that is a slate.  And if I were to replace it – what would I replace it with?

Motion seem to have focused on vertical markets and as such all the new devices they are releasing are ruggudised, specialised or both.  Who makes a nice corporate Slate these days? 

Electrovaya and the Scribbler SC 4000 still seem to be around, but they have never made it downunder AFAIK.

The Tablet Kiosk Sahara range is probably the most comprehensive, but there has been little development in the year or so since I looked at it last.

Fujitsu have had an on again, off again affair with the slate form factor.

Why isn’t anyone building cool new slates these days?  Do you think we’ll see any new slates hitting the market when Windows 7 ships?

OK – here’s the scenario.  You work for company that has a few thousand employees.  The standard desktop currently has Windows XP on it.  And you wonder – should I start migrating to Vista now, or should I just wait until Windows 7 is released and deploy that?  After all, Vista got slated in the press but Windows 7 is getting rave reviews – surely that is a better move?

For my money no.  The short answer I give customers today is to ensure that they are buying Software Assurance so they are licensed for Windows 7 when it releases, but start deploying Vista where it adds value today.

There are two may reasons advice.

1. There are features in Vista that some of your users would benefit from today.  Starting your deployment with these low hanging fruit adds immediate value.
2. Your transition to Windows 7 will be eased significantly if you have already rolled out at least some Vista machines.

Lets look at those in more detail.

Add Value for the Low Hanging Fruit

Firstly – let me be clear.  Being a low hanging fruit is in no way a bad thing.  In our company I’m one!  What I mean by this is that there are some features in Vista that add immediate value to some users in most organisations.  For example I am a highly mobile tablet user with some commercially sensitive data on my machine.  As such the improved power management, fast sleep and resume, much improve handwriting recognition and BitLocker are quick wins for users like me in most organisations.

Easing Your Transition to Windows 7

The transition to Windows 7 will be easier from Vista than for Windows XP. Under the hood there was a significant change between Windows XP and Windows Vista.  The change between Windows Vista and Windows 7, however is relatively minor. 

Architectural changes in the operating system lead to driver and application issues.  As the architectural changes are cumulative the jump from XP to Windows 7 is slightly larger than from XP to Vista.  But if you start the transition to Windows Vista now, you can address the application compatibility, driver and hardware issues you will probably have now.  If you get all your applications running on Windows Vista then for the most part they will also run on Windows 7.  With a few exceptions if there is a Vista driver for your hardware it will work on Windows 7.  If your hardware will run Windows Vista it will run Windows 7.

The last point to note is that if you are planning for a Windows 7 deployment you can put  in place Microsoft Deployment Toolkit environment based on the MDT 2010 beta to deploy Vista and use this same infrastructure to deploy Windows 7 when it releases. This would allow you to build the skills to create, maintain and deploy standard builds and these skills would be transferable to your Windows 7 deployment

In Conclusion

Don’t wait.  If you are on Windows XP now, start deploying Vista to those who will benefit most.  This will add immediate value to your business and ease your transition to Windows 7 when it is released.

I’m not jumping on this “I’m a PC” bandwagon.  Why limit myself?  I’m not just a PC…  I’m a tablet pc!

With pen and touch at my disposal I can do so much more than a mere PC. This is especially true with the Windows 7 beta installed.

I took the liberty of fixing one of the logos from the logo pack on the web site. 

Feel free to grab a copy of the image for your own use.

If anyone from Microsoft wants to turn my version into a sticker – make sure you send me a few.

Following on from my previous post speculating that the netbook wave could lead to renewed interest in slates, there are a couple of discontinued devices I would really like to see revisited.

HP – word to the wise. 

• Take the TC1100 form factor.
• Put in an Atom processor.
• Add Capacitive Touch to the active digitize.

Instant success.

Another vendor that – I think – could do something similar is Motion.  You have the LS800 design, and it was a great design.  But it suffered heat problems.  Refreshing the LS range with an Atom powered machine would be great.

There is no doubt in my mind that the building wave that is the netbook craze is going to renew interest in tablet an touch technology.  Windows 7 provides a really nice tablet experience and is much more touch aware than Vista was.

We are also seeing something in the netbook craze that I think a great thing for all mobile PCs.  Lots of competition.

The Atom processors provide excellent performance and battery life, but they don’t seem to suffer the same heat problems.

Could it be that the planets are aligning for not only more tablets, but perhaps even more slates?  I think maybe the answer is yes.  The critical question is one of demand.  Is there demand for slate devices, particularly in the consumer space?

There is certainly interest – remember the interest sparked last year when it was revealed that an enterprising user was making a tablet out of an eee PC? 

And there is interest on the manufacturer side as well.  In December Fujitsu announced its first new slate in quite some time.

I hope we will see a revival of the slate form factor.

Way back when Windows Vista shipped one of my favourite features was the Search box in the start menu and in Explorer. 

Unfortunately it was a bit unwieldy when you were using the pen.  I found this really annoying and even had a go at writing a proof of concept application called SearchPad to try make Vista Start Search and Explorer a little more pen friendly.

The Windows 7 Beta makes this a little better.  When you click in a the search field in the start menu and launch the tip your pen strokes are recognised and inserted into the search field as you write – often even before the recognition result appears in the TIP itself.

We’ve had some guests staying with us for a week or so and tonight I am catching up on some of my feeds  from the past week. 

My good friend Nick Randolph, in a post about the Self Publishing Service pZing, points out that Dr Neil’s excellent eBook on Tablet PC Development is available for download from pZing.

Another book that was recently published via the pZing service was Dr Neil’s Tablet PC Development eBook:

If you would like to get into tablet and touch development but don’t know where to start this is well worth checking out.

I’ve downloaded and installed the Windows 7 beta – I currently have it running on my Toshiba M750, which I use as my main machine.  It looks fairly similar to the M3 build – but with a bit more of the eye candy implemented. 

There are a couple of hot tablet features I’ve spotted already – I’ll be blogging more on those over the next couple of days.  For now I better head off to bed as I have a wedding to attend tomorrow.

Yesterday I blogged about the revamped Display Settings in Windows 7 and how getting to this frequently accessed settings page was a bit easier in Windows 7 than it was in Vista.  Today that theme continues with something that is near and dear to mobile PC users' hearts - connecting to a network.

Like Vista, Windows 7 shows network connectivity status with a single icon in the system tray.  The star on the tray icon shows that connections are available.

Left clicking on the icon gives you a pop-up list of your dial-up and VPN connections, any manually configured wireless networks (regardless of availability) and any currently available wi-fi networks.  The list appears just above the system tray, rather than in a full window in the middle of the screen.  Next to each wireless network is an indicator of the current signal strength. Clicking on a network item in the list causes that item to expand slightly and display a Connect button (or a disconnect button if you are already connected to that network).

When you click on this connect button you get a progress dialogue until it connects. 

Once connected to a wireless network the system tray icon displays the green bars indicating signal strength. 

The connection process is just that little bit cleaner and more efficient than it was in Vista.  The process in Vista was to right click the network icon in the system tray and select "connect to a network".  This launches a new window with a list of networks.  You then select the network you want and click connect.  Not only is this more steps than in Windows 7 but it is less efficient well.  As I said in Windows 7 the list of networks appears just above the system tray.  In Vista the list of networks opens in a new window in the centre of the screen it also takes more movement of the mouse or pen to connect to a network.

Overall the process of connecting to a network is much simpler in Windows 7, making a better mobile experience.

The TIP in Windows 7 has had a lot of work to make it more usable.  I'm finding it to be a really good user experience so far.

This video explores some of the new features that are in the Milestone 3 build (6801) that was released at PDC. 

Windows 7 is much more pen and touch aware than Vista.  And it draws a distinction, too.  When you are using a tablet that supports both pen and touch - such as the Toshiba M750 that I am using - you sometimes get a different depending on how you are interacting with the computer.

The features I demonstrate in this video include:

• The TIP vanishing when you move you pen away from it
• The revamped text correction UI and gestures
• The changes in the On Screen Keyboard when launched with a finger rather than a pen

There may be more that I have not found yet, or that may be added into a future build - who knows!

Click the video below for a glimpse of some of what's new in Windows 7 for Tablet users.

Two of my machines are in desperate need of a rebuild.  Because it has been on my to-do list for a while I am going to look at Microsoft's updated desktop deployment solution accelerator - the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT).

I have used the previous solution (BDD 2007) to automate Vista builds in the past.  The constraint with BDD was that it could only do the desktop OS. 

MDT is an updated version of BDD that can deploy desktop and server operating systems.  There was a wealth of information in BDD, so I am looking forward to getting hands on with MDT to see what is there.  From the overview blurb:

Microsoft Deployment provides proven tools and practices with which IT professionals can:

• Create a software and hardware inventory to assist in deployment planning.

• Test applications for compatibility with Windows operating systems and mitigate compatibility issues discovered during the process.

• Set up an initial lab environment with imaging and deployment servers.

• Customize, package, and deploy applications.

• Automate image creation and deployment.

• Manage processes and technologies to produce comprehensive and integrated Lite Touch Installation (LTI) and Zero Touch Installation (ZTI) deployments.

• During deployment, migrate users’ documents and settings to their new computer configurations.

• During deployment, Microsoft Deployment supports the installation of all Roles such as Active Directory® Domain Services (AD DS), Domain Name System (DNS) server, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), Windows Deployment Services, Windows SharePoint® Services, Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) server, and Windows Server® 2003 Terminal Services. Additionally, Microsoft Deployment supports the configuration of the AD DS role.

• Ensure that computers are hardened to improve security within the environment.

Microsoft Deployment brings together time-honored and proven practices in addition to the following Microsoft technologies:

• Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0 for gathering application inventory and for testing and mitigating application-compatibility issues

• Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT) for migrating user settings and data

• Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) for configuring unattended Setup answer files (Unattend.xml) and capturing images

• Windows Deployment Services for starting Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) on target computers across the network

• Windows PE 2.0 for starting computers

As I write this I have a new Windows Server 2008 Standard virtual machine installing in Virtual PC that I plan to use as the deployment server.  After that is installed I'll be installing MDT.  Stay tuned.

This morning I was fortunate enough to have a one-on-one chat with Motion Computing's President and CEO, Scott Eckert.  Thanks for all those who posted comments and questions on my blog and on GottaBeMobile.  Rather than pose every question directly (as there were quite a few) I looked for the common themes in the comments and constructed questions from those. 

I met Scott in the foyer lounge of a Sydney Hotel.  We chatted for a couple of minutes about Sydney, the appalling weather and work, then got down to business.  He was pleased that I was taking notes on my LS800 at the meeting and allowed that he used one himself for two years.  This led nicely into my first question.  What follows is summary of my discussion with Scott.  This is not a verbatim transcript as I did not record the conversation.

--

Of the 12 comments posted on the two blogs (excluding the one about taking Scott hostage until he included ice cube makers - which we both took as a joke) fully 4 of them mentioned the LS800 directly and two others mentioned a desire for a smaller tablet.  When the LS range was dropped there were a lot of people who were very disappointed, myself included.  In my view Motion created and owned the Ultra Mobile category before the UMPC label even existed.   Given that there is an apparent market for these devices and that they were, and still are,  a device that really turned heads and got people interested in Tablets - why was it dropped?

In response Scott was pleased that I was crediting them with creating a category.  Their goal was to create a truly enterprise class UMPC and he felt that they had done well with that.  He also indicated that while the LS800 did enjoy some success in certain areas that it did not achieve the volumes needed to sustain it as an additional range.  That said the market for this type of device is still there and Motion is keeping an eye on it, there is ongoing R&D and as pen, touch and other technologies mature it is an area that they may re-enter.

Next I said that to me it seemed that sometimes Motion was focusing more on winning new customers than looking after their existing customer base.  Two examples I held up to support this.  The first was the inability to migrate accessories between ranges - such as the M-series range and the LE-series range.  The second was the relatively poor upgrade experience that Motion users had going to Vista. 

On the first point Scott pointed out that their ranges are expected to exist for about 3 years before being replaced by a new range.  They try to ensure consistency in the range, but in order to take advantage of rapidly advancing technology they won't necessarily have compatibility of peripherals between ranges. 

I suppose that this helps Motion evolve their products more quickly as they are not constraining a new range with the limitations of the old. 

Scott also pointed out that while accessories for previous ranges are not necessarily compatible, they are supported and spares are available long after the range stops shipping, which also helps to mitigate the issue for their enterprise customers.

On the second point Scott acknowledged that the Vista upgrade experience had not been all that smooth for end users.  They have learned from the feedback and hope to do it better next time.  He also pointed out that many of their enterprise accounts are still deploying XP based images on their Motion tablets.

There seems to be an increasing focus on verticals with the specialized range expanding and what I consider to be the general use/corporate range shrinking.  Is this going to be a trend that continues?

Motion are really highly focused on the verticals.  In fact when I was chatting to Scott this was very apparent long before I asked this question.  Scott told me that the way Motion look at it is that they have two primary verticals and three product ranges.  The vertical markets they are focused on are healthcare and field automation and the three product ranges can be applied to both of those.

This is not to say that there are not other niches and verticals that don't suit the Motion tablets.  Indeed some of the successful markets have come as something of a surprise to Motion.  The LS800 enjoyed quite a bit of success in the aviation market, and this was largely driven by a software partner who married up his software, the LS800 and a mounting solution and sold this as a bundle.

What other verticals interest you?

Motion's primary focus has always been people who need to use a computer while standing and walking. 

One of the questions that came up was around a slate for artists - any plans to enter that market?

Scott thought that the artist market was pretty well served today by the likes of the Wacom Cintiq which is not mobile, but it provides a much higher resolution and a better digitizer than what is available today in mobile devices.  There may not be too many mobile artists, but many of the ones that are out there are using the LE range devices today with success.

There were a couple of questions around multi-touch.  Motion was leading the market there - what happened?

The technology was very new and Motion just struggled to get it commercialized.  Touch, and the combination of touch and an active digitizer, is and will continue to be an important technology for future ranges.

(reading between the lines I take it there won't be one in the LE range, though I could be wrong.)

Motion also feels that for touch to really succeed it is critical that the applications are designed for and work well with touch.  This led nicely to my next question.

Again - from the questions posted is there any thought of entering the software market to help bring that about?

The short answer is that Motion is not looking to become a software house.  However Motion are already active in that space and they currently work with about 150 software partners in the vertical markets to help them write better applications.  It is better for Motion to have more partners and to work with them rather than compete against them.

This is where Scott talked about the aviation example and how a partner created a market for the LS800 and did really well in it.  Naturally Motion would like to find more partners like that, so for those of you reading this that write software - keep that in mind!

There are some general issues that most mobile users face, such as battery life and heat.  There are also some technologies that seem to be taking a long time to come to market, such as hybrid drives or that still carry a significant premium like solid state drives.  What do you see as the most important technologies coming.

Battery technology is really a chemical process, which means that adding capacity to batteries is not easy.  Motion have found it more fruitful to reduce the power consumption of the device and this is where they are investing.  This means both engineering better, more efficient hardware, adding technologies such as LED backlit displays and working with application developers to make the applications more efficient.

--

Some closing thoughts from me.  Scott is a genuinely nice guy and I really enjoyed my chat with him.  He is astute, passionate about his products and focused on the vertical markets and the Motion vision.  Motion are not merely aware of the bloggers, readers and commentors that make up the blogosphere.  They are not just listening to the conversations.  They are actively reaching out and engaging and I think that is a really good thing.  Thanks to Scott for taking the time to talk to me.

As I just posted Motion have reached out through me to one of their customers who posted a comment here about a poor experience he had with their support.

I think it is great that Motion are paying attention.  And not just to the bloggers, but to the comments as well.  This is a very good thing. 

Often we as customers feel like we are nothing more than nameless, faceless numbers to the companies we buy products from.  When they show that they are listening and want to help it is truly gratifying.  I don't know why more companies don't keep their finger on the pulse.  Good work guys.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty full on.  I never made it bat to CeBit after my previous post as a project I am working on ran into some issues and that demanded my full attention.

However, while I was there I talked with the guys from Motion Computing (who had a great stand at CeBit, BTW) and on Friday I got a call from the country manager here in Australia.  He tells me that Scott Eckert, the CEO of Motion Computing, is going to be in Sydney next week and asked if I would be keen to meet and talk to him.  Heck yeah!

Now it is no secret that I have long been a slate fan and that I've had a couple of Motion slates in my time.  My Motion LS800 is still one of my favourite devices and I've always wondered why there was never another in the LS line...  I've got plenty to things to talk to Scott about.  But then I'm sure some of you do as well.  So if you do have any questions, leave a comment here and I'll see what I can do.  I'm meeting Scott on Wednesday - Sydney time.

Well - not really, but this tickled me.  Ken Hinckley has created a paper cutout of an OQO Model 2 that you can download and print to make your own paper OQO Model 2. 

The man wants an OQO Model 02 so badly that he has created an OQO Model 02 origami and is now carrying it around with him, pretending it is real.

Ok...

You can download the Model 02  origami here.

Now I will admit here that while I admire the engineering I am personally not  a big fan of the OQO Model 2.  It is not a bad device, more of a personal preferences thing.  I just find the screen too physically small.  For me I would rather carry a slightly larger device and have more room to write.  If the screen size does not bother you then there is much to like about the OQO, but for me it is just not usable for how I work.  I do share Ken's bias to active digitisers over touch-screens, I just want more room to work.  (If only Motion would refresh the LS800 line as that was a great device.)

With that in mind you might understand why my first thought here was "wow, all the usability of the real OQO at a fraction of the price!"

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to see a Motion Computing F5 on stage at the keynote for Interact 2008.  It was used as part of a great demo.

There followed a great demo of the real value of UC. what was great about it was that it was not run from Office Communicator or from Outlook. It was a demo of a Point of Sale application that had been "Communications enabled" and it was run from a Tablet PC.

The demo scenario was a customer asking a staff member if they had a particular product. From their tablet pc the employee can check stock in other nearby stores.  He could then see who in the other store was online and available to take a call.

The call was then initiated from within the PoS app using the tablet's speakers & microphone. On the receiving end the incoming call had a subject indicated that the call was a stock enquiry for a particular product and the app automatically displayed info that was contextually relevant - their stock level for that product. This means that at the time the call is answered the person already knows what it is about and has the information required to help at hand. A very compelling demo.

This sort of scenario is perfect for a slate style device - which is more usable when you are standing or moving than convertible style devices. My full post on the keynote is here.

Over at GBM Rob has unpacked the Dell Latitude XT and recorded the experience.  While the video is not yet up on the site he has posted up some of his initial thoughts.  These include:

• I love the crisp look of the tablet: black, silver, and a nice charcoal finish. It is very professional looking and well designed.
• It is thicker and heavier than I imagined. The screen feels thicker than the Lenovo X61, but I put the screens side by side and they are exactly the same thickness. Go figure.
• Even though it feels thicker than I imagined, it fits quite nicely in the Tom Bihn Ristretto Messenger bag. The Lenovo X61 would not fit in there without some major pushing. So, I'm really stoked that the Ristretto and the XT are a good match.
• It rotates back and forth into landscape / portrait much quicker than other tablets I've used.
• The DLV screen is very bright and crisp.
• As I mention in the unboxing video, there is graph paper type grid that is slightly visible when the display is dim and looking at it from an angle. This must be the N-Trig digitizer because I've not seen that type of grid before on any other tablet. It can be seen at various angles when holding the tablet. Seeing that grid will take a little getting used to.
• It is very, very soft to the touch, but I've not experienced any vectoring issues using the active digitizer pen. I barely have to touch the screen at all to activate a button. I've not experienced hardly any fingerprint issues that one normally experiences with a view anywhere / bright screen. The fingerprints are there as one would expect, but nothing like the X61 SXGA or Motion LE1700 VA. I was a little worried about that part and am quite pleased to see that I now have the best of both worlds: bright, outdoor viewable screen and no finger print issues.
• The pen came with 6 tips: 3 blue and 3 black. The blue tip felt like writing on a matte / paper like finish, and was not as fluid as I like. I switched to the black tip, and it felt much more comfortable to write on.

There's more - so head on over to GBM to check it out.

After discovering that I could configure OneNote to stay on top of other windows I found it was a really great way to take notes on a document.  The problem I next encountered was that for the type of note taking I was doing I would prefer to use Mind Manager 7.

Unfortunately, MindManager does not appear to offer this functionality.  However - a quick Google revealed a great little free utility that will let you keep one or more windows on top.  The application is called XNeat Window Manager - here is an out take from the site:

XNeat Windows Manager adds additional features to the Windows taskbar and system tray, that enables you to minimize any window to an icon in the system tray (instead of the taskbar), keep any window on top, set a custom transparency level, and also hide any window or tray icon, furthermore the program allows you to re-arrange the order of the taskbar buttons by simply dragging them around. XNeat Windows Manager integrates into the right-click menu of the taskbar and system tray. It also allows you to change the taskbar appearance by hiding the Start button, system clock and other elements.

For want of a better term - Neat!  Works exactly as it says and I was soon note taking in Mind Manager while reading a document in another window behind it.

I stumbled across a handy feature in OneNote today.  If you are reading a document and taking notes (I was studying for an exam) then switching between windows will soon become tedious.  But - you don't need to switch back and forth between windows at all.  In the Window menu there is an option to keep OneNote on top of other windows.

Doing this I found that I could work quite effectively with the X60 in slate mode on the train.  I full screened the PDF I was reading and then put arranged OneNote over the top of the bottom third of the screen and configured the window to stay on top.  I also found that using the panning hand in the PDF was the most effective way to re-position the content in the PDF - both pen flicks and the scroll bar had a tendency to scroll too far.

News from Tegatech:

For more details visit the new range here:

· Sahara Slate PC i440T rev 2.0 (TOUCH Tablet)

· Sahara Slate PC i440D rev 2.0 (TOUCH and PEN)

...

And finally, with much anticipation, we would like to introduce the docking desk stand for the Sahara i400 series:

· Powered Docking Cradle for Sahara Slate PC i4XX series

This is great news as I've always thought that a deck is a very important accessory to have when you own a slate. Good to see another player in the slate market.

I have a colleague who has a Fujitsu P1610 that he's only using as a remote control for his media centre - bit of a waste.  I have a Samsung Q1P that I hardly use at all.  Also a waste.

I thought that the Samsung would make a better remote and I wanted to test my theory about using a small convertible as a secondary device.  As I posted previously I am starting to think that since the ink experience on the small touch screen devices is not there yet it makes sense to have a keyboard.  So I proposed a trade.

We've swapped the two devices on a trial basis initially, with the understanding that if we both prefer the alternate devices then we will trade permanently.

So far I am really liking the Fujitsu. Ironically it is also the best ink experience on a small touch screen device I have yet found...

I'll post more thoughts about the 1610 once I've had more time using it.

I previously posted about a work around I have used to get around the Sleep of Death issue on my LS800.  Unfortunately the same fix has not worked for for other LS800 users - there must be more variables.

However - as annoying as the sleep of death is it is not dangerous.  There is another issue I think is much worse.  Vista Insomnia.

I have 4 Vista machines that I have been using for a while.  These are:

• The Motion LS800
• An Acer Ferrari 1000
• A Samsung Q1P
• A custom built Media Centre

All of these machines have suffered from insomnia.  What I mean by this is I put a Vista PC into sleep mode and some time later it resumes by itself.  The reason I think this is worse than the sleep of death is that a Mobile PC coming out of sleep at the wrong time could be dangerous.  As an example I was using my LS800 to check some emails and feeds at the airport a while ago.  I used right up to the boarding line.  As I approached the counter I hit the power button to put the device to sleep - watched it go down because of sleep of death - and then dropped it into my carry-on bag to board the plane.  When we reached out cruising altitude I opened my bag to read my synced feeds and the bag was roasting hot.  The LS800 was awake again!

Now as bad as that is - it gets worse.  What happens to your hardware if you hit both problems?  If you put you device to sleep and it wakes itself up - what happens if you hit the sleep of death issue and it does not come all the way our of sleep?  Is the OS running?  If the OS has not resumed properly can it shut itself down if it gets too hot?   The night my LS800 died it was plugged in and lying flat on the desk.  The next morning it would not boot.  When I opened it up there was evidence of extreme heat damage and both the motherboard and hard drive were toast.  I can't prove it but I think the combination of these two Vista issues killed my device.  At any rate I have always been careful since to charge the LS800 in it's bumpcase so I can prop it up since then.

Warner Crocker points out some of the highlights in Vista SP1 for mobile users.

 As Microsoft prepares to roll out the Release Candidate of this to users soon, it might be worth taking a look. Some highlights that might be of interest to mobile users:

• Improves the effectiveness of a Windows ReadyBoost™ device in reducing the time to resume from standby and hibernate by increasing the amount of data stored in the ReadyBoost device that can be used during a resume cycle.

• Includes improvements to Windows Superfetch™ that help to further improve resume times, in many environments.

• Improves the time to resume from standby for a certain class of USB Hubs by approximately 18%.

• SP1 reduces the number of UAC (User Account Control) prompts from 4 to 1 when creating or renaming a folder at a protected location.

• SP1 addresses issues many of the most common causes of crashes and hangs in Windows Vista, as reported by Windows Error Reporting. These include issues relating to Windows Calendar, Windows Media Player, and a number of drivers included with Windows Vista.

• Improves power consumption when the display is not changing by allowing the processor to remain in its sleep state which consumes less energy.

Long Zheng of istartedsomething has posted an extensive list of fixes and it is on view here.  Worth checking out, methinks.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the tablet and UMPC form factors lately.  I have always been a fan of the slate tablet form factor.  For my main machine I prefer slates.  I currently use a Motion Computing LS800 - which is a real gem of a machine.  Of my other previous and current tablets (and there have been a few) the only other one I think as highly of is the venerable HP TC1100.

There have been a number of events of late that have got me thinking about what my next tablet will be. 

Firstly, Motion have announced that they are discontinuing the LS800 - however they have not yet announced a successor.  Will they step up and plug the gap?  As Warner has already pointed out there are very few options for those of us looking for a small form factor device with a great ink experience. 

The other events that have had me thinking lately are the recent reviews I've done.  The Motion LE1700 has re-ignited my love of the larger slate.  That is a great unit.  A full sized slate with an active digitizer gives you the best inking experience you will find on a tablet PC.  Generally speaking slates are easier to hold and more natural to write on when they are being held.  You can comfortably use the device as you actually move.  That is mobility. 

In addition two UMPCs - namely the Fujitsu U1010 and the HTC Shift - have convinced me of the need for and utility of a keyboard on the small touch screen devices.  The ink experience is not good enough for me.  I would not use a UMPC for extended note taking or data entry.  So if the handwriting experience is not there - why wouldn't you want some kind of a keyboard for text entry?  Until that issue is fixed - either by hardware or by software - the original Origami dream of the super small, super light slate tablet will not be realised.

So where I am leading with this is I think that the ideal device combination for me on the market today is contrary to the market trends.  For my main machine I would favour a full sized slate with a good docking solution over a convertible.  Embedded 3g would be highly desirable.  For a secondary device I would go for a very small, touch screen convertible. 

Of course mobile devices are by their very nature a very personal choice.  YMMV.

Several people have asked about the inking experience on the Shift in comments on my previous posts about the Shift. 1, 2, 3 & 4

The Shift has many good points. Inking is not one of them.  Like many UMPCs the Shift is fairly uncomfortable to write on.  If you do try it out you will find that you need to hold you hand up off the screen, otherwise the ink will jump between the point of the stylus and the heel of your palm.  This is because the Shift does not have any palm rejection technology.

In short, the Shift offers a much better touch experience than the inking experience.

This is very sad news from Blognation:

At some time between 7:30 and 8:10 AM on Sunday Morning December 2nd, 2007, Marc Orchant, my fellow author on this blog, as well as one of my closest friends sustained a massive heart attack while working in his home office. At this time Marc is in critical condition at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Critical Cardiac Care Unit, Bed 3. He is not expected to regain consciousness for the next 24 to 48 hours.

For those who have not met him Marc is a great, intelligent guy with a huge rest for life. That makes this sad news all the more shocking. My thoughts are with Marc and his family.

Hang in there buddy - I'm looking forward to seeing you again!

There is a brief article in the Australian Reseller News about how Queensland Academy of Science, Maths and Technology (QASMT) is rolling out 400 tablet PCs.

They have selected the Lenovo X61 tablet.

There is no word on what the units will be used for but:

. . . the institution's commitment to accelerated learning and cutting edge technology was behind its decision to choose tablet PCs

Good choice.

One of the comments on my post about the HTC Shift's two operating systems has led me to a pretty interesting discovery.  There's a GPS in there!

In the screenshots of the tools in the HTC Debug Tools folder there is an icon called HTCGPSTool.

This led Hugo to ask if there was in fact a GPS in the device.

I had investigated this tool breifly over the weekend but it seemed a pretty basic tool and I had assumed that it was there to test an external GPS such as a bluetooth unit.  The comment got my interest up and I had some time on the train on the way to work, so I decided to investigate further. 

I started up the debugging tool.  There is a dropdown box with Com Ports listed.  By default it was on COM4.  I clicked on Open and low and behold I started seeing GPS strings in the output window.  I changed it to a different COM port and clicked open - and I got an error saying it could not find a GPS device.  Clearly the tool actually thinks there is a GPS in there.

I swapped back to COM4 and opened the port.  There are a number of tabs that show GPS information if you have a fix (which I didn't) and another radar display that shows the satellites that the device can see.  Initially there weren't any (hey I was on a train) but suddenly I saw one pop up.  It dropped off again a minute later.  I kept the GPSTool running when I got off the train.  As soon as I got out of the station and into some fairly open ground I got a satellite again.  Within 100m I had three more and even (breifly) got a fix.  Not bad in the middle of the CBD as the valleys between the buildings play hell with a GPS.  At my desk I can see one satellite - so I recorded a short video of the tool and clicked through the tabs before I had to give the device back.

So it would seem that the device does have a functioning GPS internally that is accessible inside of the Windows Mobile OS.  There is not, however, any software installed to actually use the GPS in Windows Mobile.

But - as I mentioned in my previous post is is possible to connect the Windows Mobile OS and the Windows Vista OS via Windows Mobile Device Centre over a "virtual" USB connection.  This means that it may be possible to install moving map software such as TomTom onto the Windows Mobile OS from Vista.

I could not find a way to access the GPS device from the Vista OS, nor could I see it listed in device manager.

Since HTC announced the Shift there has been some confusion about how the two operating systems on the device play together.  What can you do in each one?  Do they talk?

Well I have to preface this whole section by stating that as far as I know the software on the unit I had to evaluate is not the final version that will be on the devices when they ship.

In Windows Mobile...

The WM6 installation on the Shift has been stripped down and customized.  It is important to note that even though the device includes the 3G radio there is no phone application.  The Shift is not a voice device.  When you access the WM interface you are presented with a heavily customized Today screen.

This gives you access to your next couple of appointments, the date, time and calendar.  There are also buttons to access your full calendar, email, SMS, contacts, weather information and some settings.

The weather interface is quite nice - cool thunder storms tomorrow :)

The settings button takes you into an explorer view that gives you access:

Notice there are a bunch of things that are usually in WM6 that are missing?  Most of the settings interfaces have been replaced.  Don't expect to add too many applications either.  There is no programs folder so you would have to launch them through the file explorer.  And there is not much memory for running applications either.

The HTC Debug Tools folder in the settings folder gives you a bunch of little utils.  I don't know if this is going to be the same in the released version.

The bottom most icon in that - oops name was cut off - is called USBTool.  This offers a menu with two options - cable in and cable out.  When you select cable in with Vista running it creates a virtual USB connection between the two personalities of the HTC Shift.  This allows you to run up Mobile Device Center and explore the WM OS from Vista.  This makes it easier to set up things like Exchange ActiveSync.

The Windows Mobile OS stays running even when the Vista OS is sleeping or powered off.  If you configure it to use Direct Push you can receive your Exchange email even when Vista is off.  If you prefer or if you don't have an email account with Direct Push, you can use the virtual USB cable described above to sync directly with the local copy of Outlook in the Vista environment.  Of course in this configuration you will only see in WM a copy of what is in Vista.  You will not receive new emails while Vista is not running.

In Vista...

In Vista there is also a Connection Manager type of application that is called - for reasons that escape me - The Shag Control!  This is a fairly clean interface that gives you access to connection management, power management and other settings.  There is a gem buried in there - here's a tour:

Opinion

Given how stripped down the WM OS is I almost wondered why they bothered doing it that way.  I'm not saying that it is not useful - far from it - but I would almost rather that the second OS was implemented as a sideshow host rather than a WM environment.  You would not be able to do the push email, but you could access the data from the local instance of Outlook...  and potentially do a bunch of other cool things.  Food for thought.

In my previous post I gave a tour of the HTC Shift.  I promised to explore, among other things, what it is like to actually use the device.

One thing I quite like about the HTC Shift is that it is designed in such a way that it is very flexible.  There are three main ways in which you can use this device. 

Firstly you can use it as a slate.  Like most slates this has the advantage of actually being usable while you are standing up and moving around. 

The next option is to slide the screen up to expose the keyboard and use it as a thumb board.  This is a little cumbersome compared to other thumb boards, but it is usable. 

The third option is to put the device on a hard service and tilt the screen up, making it more like a laptop.

The video below explores these three modes.

Some questions I have had sent through about usage are below - with my answers in blue:

What is the screen like compared to the Q1 Ultra (or even the Q1)?

Similar - the screen is clear and viewable indoors.  The screen is not an outdoor viewable one, and the screen is hard to read in direct sunlight.

How long does the battery last under normal conditions?  In Vista? in WM6?

My experimentation here has been limited due to the short time I've had the device.  I've not tweaked the power settings at all, but at default it gets about 2 hours when using Vista for browsing and feed reading over wi-fi.  When I hibernated Windows Vista and left the device with Windows Mobile and push email the battery only lost 4% points of charge over 6 hours.  This leads me to believe that the battery life if you use Windows mobile exclusively will be measured in days.

How solid is the keyboard/screen mechanism?

It is easy enough to use but firm enough to support the weight of the screen at any viewing angle you should choose.

How useful is the touchpad?

It works well enough, but I don't tend to use it much.  I personally find it easier to just touch the screen.  One thing I did find odd is that it does not work in the Windows Mobile OS.  This seems a waste as WM does support using a mouse.

How useful is the WM6 component in reality?

I'll talk about this more in my next post.

How well will it work with voice applications such as Skype?

I did not try it, but I recorded a screencast on the device and the audio from the microphone seemed fairly good.  I would think that it would work well, though bear in mind that cellular networks such as HSDPA are usually quite latent and this can impact your voice experience.

I'll be interested in how the battery life is as well as the ease of text entry if you are holding it with both hands.

Battery life as above.  Yes you can use it holding it in two hands - using the keyboard like a thumb board.  As thumb boards go it is a fairly sizable one - and that can make text entry a bit cumbersome.

...the biggest question I have is regarding the battery life as I am considering a shift to replace my laptop. I have a desktop computer at work but regularly leave the office, travelling the country a fair bit and would like to know if the Shift could really satisfy my mobile needs?

It would depend on what you are wanting to do with it.  If you are primarily thinking of email then using Windows Mobile the battery life is stunning.  If you are wanting to use Vista for extended periods then the battery life could be an issue.  It is worth noting here that the power brick is quite small.

My Conclusions

The Shift is designed as a secondary device - to be used in conjunction with a "real computer".  At this it excels because you are actually getting a secondary device and a tertiary device in the one package.  I often say that mobility is all about having options.  Therefore a good mobile device needs to be a multi-tool.  Your Leatherman is not likely to be the best pair of pliers, knife or corkscrew you could own, but the fact that you have more than one tool in the same compact package is useful in and of itself. 

The Shift is the same deal.  The screen is ok for reading emails and browsing the web, but it can be a bit small for working on a large document, video or images.  There is of course a VGA port so you can always plug in a monitor.  Similarly the keyboard is neither a great keyboard or a great thumb board - but it can be used as either and that is powerful.  And of course there is a USB port - so you can plug stuff in.

I've now had some time with the HTC Shift and I'm getting to know it a lot better.  I've already had some questions posted in response to my earlier post - but I'll repeat the call.  I only have this device for the weekend so if there is anything you want me to investigate then post a comment and I'll do my best.

One of the first questions I had was from Chippy at UMPC Portal- is this unit the retail version?  The answer is no.  I understand the hardware is final, but the it does not have the final version of the system software installed on it.  This is an important caveat when I am talking about the software features of the Shift - they are not yet carved in stone.

I thought I would start with a tour of the physical device.  I'll follow up with posts about the software, usage and the interplay between the two operating systems.

In slate mode the Shift is small, thin and light.  On the front bezel there are a number of features worth noting.

In the top left corner there is a web camera.  In the top right there is an ambient light sensor. 

The two hardware buttons below the light sensor are function buttons.  When in Windows Mobile mode they don't do anything.  In Windows Vista the top button launches the Shift Control center.  The button below that toggles the screen resolution between 800x480 and 1024x768.

The black square below the two function buttons is a touch pad that allows you to control the mouse pointer in Windows Vista.  The left and right mouse buttons are the two buttons below the web camera on the left.  There are also two black oval slots.  These are the speakers.  Below the right speaker is the fingerprint reader.  Below the left speaker is the hardware button that toggles between Windows Mobile and Windows Vista.  Along the bottom of the screen (under my thumb) there are a number of indicator lights, including power, battery indicator, caps lock indicator, HDD activity, wireless indicator, 3g indicator and alert light.

On the right edge there is the power button, one USB port, the power input and an SD Card slot.

The silver power button is a soft switch.  Sliding this to the right toggles the power switch.  If you slide the switch to the left it locks in place and this disables all the buttons and the touch screen.

On the left side of the unit is the headphone jack.  This is on the left of the picture below.  Just visible on the right of the photo below is the inbuilt microphone.  There is also another hole on the front edge of the same corner.  Roughly in the middle is the slot for the stylus.  The stylus is ejected by pressing the end in, it then pops out.  When slotted in place it locks in positively.

On the top edge, when in slate mode, is a VGA output.

Sliding the screen upwards reveals a qwerty keyboard.  The screen slides up quite easily.  You can use the device quite comfortably in this mode while sitting or standing and using the keyboard as a thumb-board.

You can also convert the device into laptop mode.  The hinge is fairly stiff - this allows you to position the screen at any angle that suits you.  It does mean that you need a fair bit of leverage to pull it up.  You can achieve this one handed if you place your thumb at the base of the screen and pull up on the top edge with your fingers.

In order to use the onboard HSPDA you need to insert a SIM card.  To do this you need to remove the battery.  This is done by removing a cover on the back of the unit to expose the battery.  You then slide back two red clips that hold the battery in place.

Once you remove the battery you can see the SIM card slot. 

The only other points of interest on the back of the unit are three vents that let out heat and four rubber feel.  The rubber feet provide good grip on smooth surfaces - which is important when you have such a smooth finish on the unit.

Overall it is a good looking unit and feels well made.  Stay tuned for more on what you get when you fire it up.

Because I have a HTC Shift in my hot little hands for the weekend.

I'm really excited to have this opportunity. I think the Shift is an incredible and innovative device. Packed into it's tony frame are two operating systems - Windows Vista and Windows Mobile. It has embedded 3G wireless. There is a lot to play with.

Unfortunatly there is also a lot of confusion in the market about it as well. I aim to try and help clear someof that up. If there is something about the Shift you want me to check out while I have it leave a comment.

There is an issue that many mobile and tablet users have encountered with Windows Vista, myself included.  Warner Crocker also has encountered this issue and describes it thus:

I’m still frustrated with Vista on one front here and that is putting the Tablet PC to sleep. 3 times out of 4 everything will work as advertised. Close the lid, unit goes to sleep, open the lid, unit returns. But occasionally the OS just goes off into its own world without sleeping, or after a successful sleep, not returning. Occasionally it will return from sleep but the screen will stay dark.

I personally believe that this issue is not a Vista issue per se, but rather a driver issue.  I think that some drivers are poorly written and interfere with the sleep and resume process.  I also think that this issue is much more serious than it initially appears.  I have come to refer to it as the sleep of death.  But that I'll leave for another post. 

For Warner it seems his issues are related to when he is using Wi-fi.  For me it was BlueTooth.  Either way it points at drivers.

I’m beginning to think (this seems to be somewhat reproducible here) that these issues have something to do with being connected or disconnected to our WiFi network. Here’s what I’m experiencing and maybe someone smarter than me can help out here with some thoughts.

What worked for me was to disable the Power Management features for the affected driver.  For a wireless driver you would do this by going into Device Manager, right clicking on the relevant device and selecting Properties.

You may then see a Power Management tab.  Not all device or drivers implement this interface, so if yours does not you will not see the tab.

If there is one select that tab and then clear both of the checkboxes shown in the screenshot below. 

I have done this for my LS800 and it has all but eliminated the dreaded sleep of death issue.  I use to encounter this several times a week and now I get it less than once a month. 

GottaBeMobile have posted an entertaining recap of the Tablet Pc's short 5 year wishy:

Five years ago, on November 7 2002, Microsoft launched Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. Bill Gates himself was on-hand to launch the new platform at a large press event.

"The launch of the Tablet PC marks an exciting new era of mobile computing that is limited only by the imagination of its users," Gates said. "The Tablet PC is a great example of how computers are adapting to how people really work, whether they're taking notes in a meeting, collaborating wirelessly with colleagues or reading on screen. We're just scratching the surface of what is possible."

As it comes time to celebrate the 5 Year Anniversary of Tablet PCs, it's only natural to look at how far we've come since that first operating system release. So let's take a brief walk down the dusty paths of Tablet PC history and look at how far the OS has evolved in five short years.

Sierra recaps the major milestones of the tablet PC. whether you have been there from the start or have just joined us, it is well worth a read.

My, how far we have come!

Source: GBM 5 Years of Tablet PC: Operating Systems

You may remember my colleague Lee, who cut a deal with his wife - give up smoking and buy a tablet.  Sadly Lee is off the wagon. 

His wife it threatening to sell off his LS800 - I reckon that she should find out if it will blend and then sell the dust on eBay.

Are they you ask?  I think so and, quite frankly, it really annoys me.

SilverLight is a platform that offers a lot of potential to the tablet community as it opens the door to real ink on the web.  It is also a direct competitor of Adobe flash.  Flash is well established and SilverLight is the new kid on the block. 

To gain real acceptance in the market Microsoft need to convince developers to choose SilverLight over Flash.  The more developers that are using it the more widely the browser plugin will be deployed. 

So why are Microsoft still using flash on their sites?  I've seen this on a couple of MS sites lately - but tonight it was on Zune.net.  I don't get it.

After a litany of supply problems I won't recount here "new" but "end-of-life" tablet arrived. It is a Lenovo X60. (I will say that the issues were internal and were not due to Lenovo.)

Since we are only allowed to connect certified hardware to the corporate LAN I have been working with two devices and synchronisation strategy that would challenge most people for the last 6 months.

Now I have the X60 life just got a whole lot simpler.

My only gripe -and it is a big one- is that the standard image is XP Tablet Edition. More on that later.

The Mobile Tech Roundup team and Warner Crocker over at GBM are asking where the slates have gone.

Its true. Relative to the whole tablet market, there are fewer slates around now than there were. When I say "relative to the whole market" I am referring to the new form factors such is UMPCs and the new entrants such as Dell.

But why are the slates disappearing?

More accurately what is preventing slate adoption growing as rapidly as their keyboarded cousins?

I'd put the answer in three parts.

1. Fear. People are use to having a keyboard and giving one up (albeit part-time) scares some fairly savvy users.
2. Pen-abled applications - or more accurately a lack of. We need more applications that either expose more functionality when run on a tablet or are written explicitly for the tablet.
3. Natural language Input is just not there yet. Many working age people can type faster thanthey can write.  And that percentage is only increasing. Speech is a good alternative and works well, but it is fairly resource intensive, and many smaller devices such as UMPCs just can't hack it. Not to mention it is simply not possible to dictate to your PC in many situations. I'm inking this post on the train, can you imagine the irritated looks I would be getting if I were talking to myself?

That may sound pretty dire, but does it mean that slates will only be a niche player? I think not.

Why? Because the first two of those points are addressable now.

The fear factor can be addressed by education. Teach the market that you can use a computer without a keyboard. Teach them that if you dock a slate it works just like a "normal" PC. We call this education of the market "marketing" and it has been sorely lacking since the tablet was launched in 2002. It is time for Microsoft and OEMs, especially slate specialists like Motion, Tablet Kiosk and Electrovaya to lift their game.

On the second point there are some really good pen-abled apps out there, but we need to see more marketing from the companies that develop that software. It's a differentiator, promote that fact. But we need more, too, so as a community we need to educate developers and most importantly demand pen features in the apps we use now.

The third point will be eased as hardware performance improves, but will not be eliminated (lMO) any time soon. We need at least the next version of the Windows OS. We can't write off Apple here, either. Now that we have all seen the i-phone you can imagine that a Mac tablet would challenge the UI paradigms we operate in.

Check out this very short video of me with the Motion LE1700, filmed the night before I had to send it back.

It shows the auto-rotate feature, where the tablet uses an accelerometer to determine its orientation and rotates the display accordingly.  This actually works at a very shallow angle, or even when flat on the table it you give it a bit of a flick.

I've been luck enough to have a Motion LE1700 in the house for a while but I have not had the time to really explore it.  I had just started having a real look at it when low and behold Motion needed it back.  C'est la vie.  I snapped a few photos before I sent it back so I could post this mini-review.  Click on any of the photos in this post for a larger image.  Motion have promised to send a unit with the WWAN module in it, so I'll do a full review then. 

I've had a couple of Motion slates in the past, including the LS800 I still use on a daily basis.  I have always found them to be well designed and with quality construction.  The LE1700 is no exception.  It has a very functional design and the silver and black finish is striking.  The unit is very comfortable to hold in either portrait or landscape mode, because it is very well balanced.

Here's a tour:

The tablet buttons are similar in design to previous Motion tablets.  There is a directional pad with enter in the middle, surrounded by four buttons.  On one side you have the programmable buttons, on the other you have an Esc button and a function button, which alters the action associated with the other buttons if you press it before another one of the buttons.

On the side below these buttons are the infrared port and the PCMCIA slot.  There is also a SD-card reader, but that is just out of the shot above - you can see it better below.

On the other end of the same side is the stylus and the antenna for the embedded WWAN module.  This particular unit did not actually have the WWAN module so I can't report on that, but you can see how the antenna can be raised up as shown or lowered so that it sits flush with the front of the tablet. 

The antenna is designed to snap on and snap off, so that if it takes a hard knock while raised it will snap off rather than breaking or transmitting any force into the body of the tablet.

Here's the antenna sitting flush.  Just below the antenna you can see one of the three microphones on the outer bezel of the tablet.  The other two are in the bezel as well, but in the bottom left and bottom right (when the unit is in landscape mode).

On the side below the screen (when the tablet is in landscape mode) is a Motion accessory port and (under the cover) a connector for when the tablet is used with either the convertible keyboard or the FexiDock.

On the left side of the tablet (when it is in landscape mode) you will find the following up the top on the front.  Two indicator lights - one for power and one for charge.  The fingerprint reader and the Windows Security button (pressing that is like pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del on a keyboard).  Notice there is no HDD activity light.  I've had another tablet without a disk activity light and it was a minor annoyance.  However the version of the Motion Dashboard that comes with the LE1700 puts an icon in the system tray.  This can optionally be configured to blink on disk activity - nice touch.

On the side of the unit below the activity lights are a hardware switch for the wireless, the power switch and two USB ports.  A couple of points worth mentioning here - the power switch is on the opposite side on this tablet than it is on my LS800 - though the units are otherwise laid out pretty similarly.  This is not a problem, but it does take a little getting use to.  However that is always the way with a new unit.

The other difference between the layout on the LE1700 and my beloved LS800 is that on the LS800 the USB ports are upside down - in that the top of most USB devices ends up facing towards the back of the tablet.  I'm pleased to report that this has been corrected on the LE1700.

In the middle of the left side there are microphone and headphone jacks; next to that is a DVI-D output, below which is a SIM card slot for the WWAN.  On the right of the photo below is a VGA output.

On the bottom left corner there is an RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet port and a laptop lock slot.  On the front bezel you can see another of the array microphones and the ambient light sensor.

Last but not least - on the back you will find three covers held in place with screws.  The top left one covers the WLAN and WWAN modules, the bottom left exposes the HDD and the third cover exposes the two RAM slots.  Very easy to service.  The sliding cover you can see exposes the extended battery connector.  One of the great features of the LE series tablets is the shape of the back - note how there is a slight inset about an inch below the top of the tablet?  This is so that when you fit the extended battery to the unit it sits quite flush.  Because the battery is rectangular and flat the additional weight is evenly distributed and the unit is still easy to use for extended periods when you are moving about.

Using the LE1700 is a joy.  I've had 12 inch slates before and I've had tablets with SXGA screens before (which gives you a native resolution of 1400x1050) but to have both really is having your cake and eating it, too.  The unit I had did not have the ViewAnywhere display option - having had that on my LS800 I would highly recommend it.  The unit I had was the Core 2 Duo model and the performance was fantastic.  It came with XP Tablet edition pre-installed, but with Motion's permission I rebuilt it with Vista.  The Vista experience is flawless.

Overall a great experience.

I was cleaning out my digital video camera today and found a quick video review of the Sahara i440d slate from TabletKiosk (available in Australia from Tegatech).  I had recorded the video literally just before I had to step out the door to drive across town to return the unit to Hugo Ortega.  I went straight from there to the airport to pick up my wife and daughter who were returning from a quick break in New Zealand.  I got a bit sidetracked and never posted the video!

Overall I thought it was a good device - though not the prettiest.  It is white and fairly blocky, which is not a particularly corporate look.  However as I say in the video it does not actually feel blocky, it is quite comfortable to hold.  Certainly worth a look so check out the video.  (sorry - I never grabbed the screenshot or the photos I mentioned in the video.  I finished recording and had a "oh (*#& - need to leave now" moment)

One of the authors of StudentTabletPC.com - Andrew Ferguson - is guest blogging at GottaBeMobile.

His first post is about the myth of battery life - or lack there of.  I agree with many of the points an I have to admit that I operate in a similar fashion to Andrew: 

Most of the time when my tablet is on, it's plugged into the wall. At home, I drop it in my port replicator and it basically becomes a glorified desktop. I have a separate power cable in the living room that I plug into when I do homework. Another brick remains in my bag for when I'm out and about and I'm pretty sure I have a fourth one floating around somewhere "just in case."

I've managed to get away from the brick in the bag now, as I have an extended battery for my LS800.  I only carry a brick in the bag when I am travelling.

In short, my life revolves around power cables and where the electrical outlets are.

I've been known to favour cafes, airport gates and even airlines where I know I can get power.

I completely agree that the focus needs to be on better battery technology rather than better power management.  I want all the performance, brightness, bells and whistles - for 12 hours without plugging in.  No amount of power setting tweaking is going to get us that.

The technology that looks the most promising in this area is Fuel Cells.  I know of at least two vendors who have working prototype notebooks.  One will run for a month on a full fuel cell. 

However there are a number of challenges here.  Fuel cells are not charged by plugging them into the wall.  There is no infrastructure in place yet to manage this, but the process would probably be more akin to recycling inkjet cartridges than recharging a battery.  There is also the small matter of fuel cells not being allowed on planes yet by the FAA - which effectively kills the business market.  I can't see how fuel cells could be viable until these two significant issues are resolved.

I've seen the U1010 briefly a couple of times, but tonight I've got one in my hot little hands for the whole night.  And that is long enough to do a quick review with lots of photos. Click on any of the photos for a larger version of it.

The U1010 is a very exciting device.  Personally I think it is the most compelling UMPC sized device I have yet seen.  Fujitsu have packed an incredible amount into a really tiny package.  The photo below - that's a Zune next to it!

In laptop mode the Fujitsu U1010 offers a usable keyboard.  Fujitsu have maximised what they have squeezed into the device by giving a lot of the keys a secondary function (which is accessed by pressing the Fn key followed by the key with the function you want).  This has allowed them to do away with the traditional F1-F12 keys, thereby doing away with an entire row of the keyboard. 

The external styling of the U1010 is nice - you can see why some people have dubbed it "The Stormtrooper".  Overall the unit is white with black trim.  The "Fujitsu" and "Lifebook" logos on the back of the lid are in silver.

The U1010 is well designed to be used in slate mode, too.  The screen is offset away from the hinge, giving you a space to hold onto without obscuring the screen.  This is an important usability consideration for an ultra-portable device, but one that some vendors seem to forget.  In addition all of the hardware buttons are accessible when you are in slate mode, which is of course when you need them most.

The screen is crystal clear.  The native resolution is 1024x600 so you get a fair bit on that little screen.  Naturally on a small screen there is not much room to write, but if you do try it you will find that the U1010 offers a surprisingly good ink experience for a touchscreen.

Now a quick visual tour...

On the front right corner (when in laptop mode) there are the usual indicator lights.  From left to right power in indicator, battery level indicator (goes from green, to orange to red), disk activity and wireless network activity.

On the right side there is a compact flash slot, the power switch and a USB port that is hidden under a little white rubber flap.  The latter two are white on white, so are a little hard to see in the photo below.

Ah.. there's that USB...

There is nothing across the back, just the battery.

On the other side there is a wireless hardware switch by the power connector (again, white on white so hard to see), an SD Card reader (which unfortunately I could not get to work with ReadyBoost), volume up and down controls, headphone jack and microphone jack.

On the front edge there is a connector for a dongle that gives you both an ethernet port and a VGA out.

There is also a mouse of sorts.   To the right of the hinge (in laptop mode) there is a little joystick pointer.  Also just above that on the screen bevel you can see the Ctrl-Alt-Del button and the bottom edge of the fingerprint reader.

On the other side of the hinge there are the left and right mouse buttons.  Yes it really does run Vista!

There are a number of other handy hardware controls.  Next to the mouse thumbstick there is a function button and a scroll up and scroll down button.  The function button alters the action of the other hardware buttons.  For instance function scroll up or scroll down = page up or page down.

Directly above the hinge there are two programmable hardware buttons and a screen rotate button.

By default one of the programmable buttons turns on the head lights.  This is a handy little feature that illuminates the keyboard so you can type in the dark.

Another handy feature is the integrated web camera on the top edge of the screen. 

Another good design feature is the stylus.  It has been designed to telescope out so that it fits into the device but is still big enough to be usable when extended.

Before...

After...

Over all the U1010 is a very usable device.  There is a lot packed into this tiny package and every aspect of the design shows that it has been carefully thought out.  The price is very reasonable and performance is surprisingly snappy.  All told a solid offering.

GottaBeMobile points out an announcement from Motion that they will not be offering the LE1700 WriteTouch tablet.

Sad news to be sure as the WriteTouch was a very innovative product. That said Motion have a reputation for quality and if they wear not able to ensure quality and supply then the decision is understandable.

In a surprise announcement in its partner newsletter, Motion Computing said that they will not be offering the LE1700 WriteTouch Tablet PC. Based on the announcement below, it appears that while working on technical issues on the WriteTouch model, manufacturing and supply issues came up that then began to conflict with their upcoming product roadmap. I'm working to find out if they have plans to use the WriteTouch technology with future products.

Here is their announcement:

Based on Motion's unrelenting commitment to delivering the best customer experience with the highest quality, we have made the decision to not offer the LE1700 WriteTouch feature at this time.   We have worked diligently to close technical and usability challenges, but some manufacturing and supply chain challenges continue to impact our schedule and overlap with key roadmap deliverables.  The decision is a difficult one but is in the best interest of our customers while affording us time to focus development and execution efforts on delivering best-in-class solutions.

via: Motion Computing: Not Offering LE1700 WriteTouch Tablet PC
Rob Bushway @ gottabemobile.com

 James Kendrick has posted a great review of the HP 2710p he just purchased. James include what he bought, what he is running on it and his conclusions. a good read.

It is no doubt apparent that I am very pleased with what HP has brought to the tablet with the 2710p.  It is not only a great Tablet PC but also a stellar thin and light notebook computer, something that other OEMs have attempted to do but none as successfully as this in my book.  The hardware components are a decent compromise for providing great battery life while still providing very good performance, even under the resource hog that is Vista.  HP has done a good job making sure that the entire package works as flawlessly with Vista as anything I have seen yet.  The thin and light design is stellar at providing a great OOBE and daily usage. 

This is a post I have been meaning to write for a while. 

There has been a lot of discussion of late about Vista and its readiness - or lack of - for the public.  Lots of people have lamented that Vista is just not there yet.  That it came out too soon.  That it is a failure.  Some have even reverted back to Windows XP as they believe that it is more stable and performs better.

Lots of people have voiced opinions one way or the other.  James Kendrick was one of the first to speak out against Vista, and his post  included most of the key gripes.

First and foremost in the area of performance.  I have not seen adequate performance running Vista on anything less than a Core 2 Duo processor.  Those are only available in the larger Tablets so the UMPCs and smaller Tablets are out of luck.  Vista also needs 2 GB of memory to run well and the smaller mobile devices usually are only offered with 1 GB, which isn't enough. 

...

If you use Sleep and Resume you quickly fall victim to the dreaded Vista la-la land where the device fails to resume properly.  Sometimes the device comes back fine but without a screen which is oh so useful.  Other times it comes back but hangs the entire device up in just a few seconds. 

...

One of the most beneficial things you can do to improve the mobile device experience is use it with a dock.  Don't even get me started with how badly Vista handles docking and undocking of these mobile devices, especially if you hang an external monitor off the dock.

Other general concerns are performance, battery life and mysterious disk thrashing. These are all real and valid concerns.  However, they are not the end of the world and they are not unique to Vista.  In fact - I believe that many of them are not the fault of Vista at all. 

I disagree with those that say that Vista is a dog and I will not be going back to XP on any of my machines - ever.

The first point I will make in Vista's defense is to point out that not everything bad that happens in on a computer is the fault of the OS.  On every single computer there are hundreds of device drivers and bits of software that could be the culprit for some of the issues outlined above.  Specifically the resume from sleep and docking station issues described above are most likely driver issues.  XP has been around for a while and hardware manufacturers have had a lot of practice writing nice, stable and functional drivers for the XP platform.  Vista is both new and very different.  I am disappointed, but not very surprised, that driver support is not that great.

Secondly, none of this is new to Vista.  I am an IT consultant.  I worked on a very early Windows XP deployment for a government client in New Zealand.  And guess what?  Driver support was appalling across the board, but it was worse for mobile PCs.  Performance was a joke.  There was no way Windows XP could really run on a machine that just met the minimum specs.  Blue screens and hangs were common.   When XP shipped it was worse than my experience working on a project with Vista in the Technology Adoption Program using beta code.  The released code is far and away more stable than Windows XP was at the same time in the product lifecycle.  What is significantly different is that the flaming and debate happened in the newsgroups rather than on the blogs we have today, which was much more of a closed community.

When Microsoft ships a new OS they tend to lead the hardware.  By that I mean that it is the hardware that comes out 6 months after the OS that runs it really well.  I think this is probably intentional - perhaps because it then extends what they can include in the product at ship date, bearing in mind that it will need to be a viable product for a couple of years.  I suspect that this will be the same for future OS releases.

The short version of all of that is that the issues we are seeing today are normal for a new OS and they are much more complex than "Vista is Bad".  Some of the blame rests with application developers.  Some rests with hardware manufacturers and some rests with Microsoft, but it will all be fixed in the fullness of time.

Until then I won't go back - simply because the benefits out weigh the pain.  The tablet functionality is way better.  The networking is better.  The Mobility Center is better.  Presentation mode rocks.  All of that functionality is nothing compared to the security enhancements.  When XP shipped the world was a different place.  The general public knew about viruses but had never heard of root kits, malware or spyware.  The Internet was not the efficient distribution system of nasties that it is today.  User Access Control (UAC) and protected mode IE go a long way to preventing then initial infection and Windows Defender makes it easier clean up after the fact.

Vista is here to stay.  I'm not going back and the experience will get better as the hardware catches up.

A test post from Silverlight.

Interesting...

Gavin Gear points out a cool sample available on the Microsoft website that demonstrates using its on the web with silverlight.

There's a new sample live on downloads.microsoft.com that I wrote a while ago that demonstrates implementing ink support in Silverlight using a reusable class called "InkCanvas" - InkCanvas code was originally written by Sam George here at Microsoft. This sample implements reusable functionality similar to the InkCanvas element in WPF.

Here's the download link.

looking for a venue for the previously mentioned Geek Coffee in Sydney. Can anyone recommend a cafe in Sydney CBD that has WiFi? Not a must have but nice to have...

 I love seeing a tablet developer getting a bit of recognition... no pun intended :)

Via Gottabemobile:

If there is a developer out there more committed to getting Ink onto the web than Loren Heiny I’m not sure who it would be. Loren created a version of his SearchTip, using Siverlight, that allows a user to Ink a search query. Someone was watching and the SearchTip was recently mentioned in Microsoft’s Silverlight Showcase. Congrats, Loren!

Great stuff Loren!

It was a beautiful day in Sydney today and I had a few friends around for a BBQ. Among them was fellow MVP Nick Randolph.

Both Nick & I were pretty active in the communities in our respective cities and we have both recently moved to Sydney.

While chatting we talked about setting up a weekly mobility geek coffee in Sydney for a bit of informal networking. How many readers out there are working in the Sydney CBD?

lf you are and you think you may enjoy catching up with like minded souls to talk geek stuff leave a comment or send me on email via the button down the bottom of the left menu. Right now we are thinking of having the first one on the 10th of October, the and venue TBA.

 The Outlook Team have a very detailed post about how to hide the navigation pane and To-do bar in Outlook 2007. This is a great feature when you are using Outlook on a small screen device or a tablet in portrait mode.

Check it out.

 Rob Bushway and his wife, along with a ton of other people were recently caught in a hailstorm that passed through the area. This caused widespread damage and, or you might expect, an influx of claims for insurers.

Several days later, we called our local State Farm agent, and learned that they had set up a "catastrophe tent" to handle the large number of claims being submitted. This past weekend, we made our way to the claims area and were met with two processing agents wielding Fujitsu slate Tablet PCs outfitted with bumpcases. I didn't see much inking going on, but they were busy tapping away on some forms application and going through car diagrams, as they processed our two vehicles. Within no time, they had finished our claim, reviewed their findings with us, cut us some checks, and had us on our way.

This is a great example of the value proposition for slates. They can be used standing up. Which speeds the process and wekas it better for everyone.

It is also a good example of a "soft benefit". It seems to me that apart from the measurable financial benefit of being able to process a large number of claims quickly State Farm also benefited by generating good will in their customer base and now some free PR. I would beinterested to know if these less measurable benefits were accounted for in the business case or if they will be when assessing the success of theexercise.

At any rate, well done State Farm.

 Loren Heiny has done something cool... again!

Remember the ole ActiveX-based inkable search tip I wrote awhile back which enabled you to search Google using handwritten queries? Well, now it has a cousin: a Silverlight-based version.

Check out the full post, then give the Silverlight Search Tip a whirl.

At TechEd Australia in the Gold Coast I had the chance to talk tablet on camera for the Virtual TechEd crew. The only catch was I had to bring my own interviewer. No problem Lee Williams was at TechEd with me and stepped up to the plate.

We had a good fun chat. Check out the video here.

You can also check out the other Virtual TechEd videos here.

Linda Epstein at TabletPC2.com knows her Tablet PCs, and her review of the T2010 is glowing - like the screen of said tablet.

the Fujitsu Lifebook T2010 Tablet PC has the best indoor - outdoor display I have ever seen on a Tablet PC.  You can clearly see the T2010 screen even in very bright sun.  Adding to the accolades for this screen is that fact that there is no loss of brightness or clarity indoors, so you don't have to compromise indoor quality to get outdoor visibility! 

At 3.5 pounds and with up to 11 hours of battery life there is a lot to be impressed with in this machine. One of the features I find most interesting is the bi-directional hinge. Very cool.

The specs from TabletPC2.com:

LifeBook T2010 Tablet PC

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor Ultra Low Voltage U7600 (1.2 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB)
• Genuine Windows Vista® Business with
  Microsoft® Office OneNote® 2007
• 12.1" WXGA indoor/outdoor active digitizer display with wide viewing angles
• 2 GB DDR2 533 MHz SDRAM memory (1 GB x 2)
• 100 GB S-ATA 150 (5400 rpm) hard drive
• Multinational3 56K4 V.90 modem and 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet
• Intel® Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN (802.11a/b/g/n)
• Integrated Bluetooth wireless
• Integrated Fingerprint Sensor, embedded TPM, dedicated Smart Card slot, Fujitsu Security Application Panel
• High-capacity main battery: Lithium ion (9-cell, 10.8V, 8700 mAh, 93.9 WHr, rated up to 11 hours)
• One-year International Limited Warranty

Another of my co-workers has started blogging about all things mobility. This time it is Lee Williams of "using an LS800 to keep warm" fame.

I'm sure that Lee will continue to find many new and interesting ways to use technology to enhance his life. I look forward to hearing all about it.

Hat tip to Ash.

 The two stalwart champs of the tablet related podcasts have released another edition of Ontherun with Tablet PCs

From the official blurb:

Listen here ( MP3, 11.6 MB, 34 minutes) or

Subscribe to the show with this link  (RSS)

Marc Orchant and James Kendrick are back with show #39, no wait, Marc's not here!  Marc had technical difficulties that made recording impossible but we both agreed that it was important to produce a show since it's been, like, forever since we did one.  Marc sends his regrets but he'll be back for the next show.

Congratulations to Marc for his new blogging gig at BlogNation, a new startup blog network that looks like a promising source of useful information.  They will be successful with Marc on board, that's for sure.

This show focuses on the state of the Tabletscape with a look at the new Tablets that have appeared so far this year and a look forward to what we can expect for the last half.  The discussion looks at Tablets first and then at UMPCs to cover the whole inkscape.

Enjoy the show!

Special thanks to Tiedye Keith for the great song "Vulnerable" with vocals by Tony Lindsay of Santana.

OnTheRun with Tablet PCs podcast #39- state of the Tabletscape

Kevin Tofel over on jkontherun.com is asking... 

 How much do you use your Tablet PC or UMPC as an actual tablet?

Like Kevin I use multiple devices. Wost of all my official work provided machine (which according to policy is the only incline I can connect to the corporate network) is a laptop. I have an X60 on order.

However my primary machine while mobile & at hone is my LS800

I would put my state non-slate use at about 90% to 10%

I find that slate users tend to have a higher mix than convertible users. I also found this to be true for me when my work provided machine in NZ was a M400.

Now that I have posted the PressureLevels utility I thought that I should give some insight into how it works - in case any real developers want to look into something similar. :)

While it is trivial to collect ink on a tablet using the controls provided by the Tablet SDK if you want more direct, low level access to stylus information then you need to use the Real Time Stylus API.  This is a pretty bare bones API that provides a stream of packets as the stylus moves around.  As a developer you can create a plug in that basically filters this information to just what you are interested and executes code every time on of those "events" fires.

I found this CoDe Magazine article by Marcus Egger to be very well written and extremely useful.

I have a class that contains this plug in that looks roughly like this:

Imports Microsoft.StylusInput

Public Class SimpleStylus
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin
    Dim iLastPressure As Integer = 0

    Public ReadOnly Property DataInterest() _
    As DataInterestMask _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.DataInterest
        Get
            Return DataInterestMask.Packets _
                Or DataInterestMask.StylusDown _
                Or DataInterestMask.StylusUp
        End Get
    End Property
    Private attachedControl As Form
    Public Sub New(ByVal form As Form)
        Me.attachedControl = form

    End Sub
    Public Sub Packets(ByVal s As RealTimeStylus, _
    ByVal data As PluginData.PacketsData) _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.Packets
        Dim g As Graphics = _
           Me.attachedControl.CreateGraphics()
        Dim packetCounter As Integer
        For packetCounter = 0 To _
        data.Count - data.PacketPropertyCount _
        Step data.PacketPropertyCount
            Dim iX As Integer
            Dim iY As Integer
            Dim iPressure As Integer = 10
            iX = g.DpiX * data(packetCounter) / 2540
            iY = g.DpiY * data(packetCounter + 1) / 2540

            If data.PacketPropertyCount > 2 Then
                iPressure = data(packetCounter + 2)
            End If
            Console.WriteLine("P: " & iPressure & ", LP: " & iLastPressure)
            If iPressure < iLastPressure Then
                g.Clear(Form.DefaultBackColor)
            End If
            g.FillEllipse(Brushes.Black, _
                iX - iPressure, iY - iPressure, _
                iPressure * 2, iPressure * 2)
            iLastPressure = iPressure

        Next
    End Sub

    Public Sub StylusDown(ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
    ByVal data As PluginData.StylusDownData) _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.StylusDown
        Console.WriteLine("Stylus Down")
    End Sub

    Public Sub StylusUp(ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
    ByVal data As PluginData.StylusUpData) _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.StylusUp
        Console.WriteLine("Stylus Up")
        Dim g As Graphics = _
           Me.attachedControl.CreateGraphics()
        g.Clear(Form.DefaultBackColor)

    End Sub

    Public Sub CustomStylusDataAdded( _
    ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
    ByVal data As PluginData.CustomStylusData) _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.CustomStylusDataAdded
    End Sub

    Public Sub [Error](ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
    ByVal data As PluginData.ErrorData) _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.Error
    End Sub

    Public Sub InAirPackets(ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
    ByVal data As PluginData.InAirPacketsData) _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.InAirPackets
    End Sub
    Public Sub RealTimeStylusDisabled( _
ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
ByVal data As PluginData.RealTimeStylusDisabledData) _
Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.RealTimeStylusDisabled
    End Sub
    Public Sub RealTimeStylusEnabled( _
ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
ByVal data As PluginData.RealTimeStylusEnabledData) _
Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.RealTimeStylusEnabled
    End Sub

    Public Sub StylusButtonDown( _
    ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
    ByVal data As PluginData.StylusButtonDownData) _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.StylusButtonDown
    End Sub

    Public Sub StylusButtonUp(ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
    ByVal data As PluginData.StylusButtonUpData) _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.StylusButtonUp
    End Sub
    Public Sub StylusInRange(ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
ByVal data As PluginData.StylusInRangeData) _
Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.StylusInRange
    End Sub

    Public Sub StylusOutOfRange(ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
    ByVal data As PluginData.StylusOutOfRangeData) _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.StylusOutOfRange
    End Sub
    Public Sub SystemGesture(ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
ByVal data As PluginData.SystemGestureData) _
Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.SystemGesture
    End Sub
    Public Sub TabletAdded(ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
ByVal data As PluginData.TabletAddedData) _
Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.TabletAdded
    End Sub

    Public Sub TabletRemoved(ByVal sender As RealTimeStylus, _
    ByVal data As PluginData.TabletRemovedData) _
    Implements IStylusSyncPlugin.TabletRemoved
    End Sub
End Class

In the data interest mask I state that I am interested in StylusDown, StylusUp and Packets events.   This means that every time the stylus comes into contact with the screen or is lifted from the screen the StylusDown and StylusUp subroutines respectively will run.  I use the Stylus up event to clear the drawing so that when you lift the pen you get a clean slate ('scuse the pun).

The workhorse is the packets subroutine. A packet is generated every time there is new data to send.  This will include at least an x and y coordinate and may include a pressure level.  What this routine does is convert the X and Y coordinates to screen coordinates (the digitizer has a much higher resolution than the display), and if there is a pressure level it converts that to the radius and draws a circle on the attached control (which is the main form you see when you run the app.

The other subroutines are just stubs that could be used if you edited the data interest mask.

On the main form I just use the load event to instantiate a RealTimeStylus object then add the SimpleStylus plugin in the class above and pass it the form itself as the attached control.  Here's the code for the main form.

Imports Microsoft.StylusInput

Public Class Form1
    Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
    Private rts As RealTimeStylus

    Private Sub Form1_Load _
             (ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _
             Handles MyBase.Load
        Me.rts = New RealTimeStylus(Me)
        Dim plugIn As New SimpleStylus(Me)
        Me.rts.SyncPluginCollection.Add(plugIn)
        Me.rts.Enabled = True
    End Sub
End Class

And that is really all there is to it.  Pretty cool that you can get access to such low-level information so fast, eh?

I previously posted about a little utility that I was working on that shows off the pressure levels detected by all most active digitizer tablets.  (Rob Bushway pointed out in a comment that not all active digitzers present pressure information to the OS).

Well - I've not had much time do more work on the util but I have decided to release it as is for people to have a play with.

It was written against version 6.0 of the Microsoft.Ink assembly - so in theory it will require Vista.  I don't have any XP tablets to test it against but I would not expect it to work.

Basically you run it up and as you press down in the window a circle dynamically sizes around the tip of the pen - the radius is relative to the pressure level being recorded at the time. As pressure decreases I have to refresh the drawing area so you can see the new circle, which causes some flickering, but you can still see what is going on.  If you run it on a touch screen device or on a device without an active digitizer it will work, but it is not that interesting because these devices always return the same value for pressure (if at all).

Download the tool here - it is really just a toy with no real use, but any feedback is appreciated.  Guaranteed to provide minutes of entertainment or your money back.

One of the cool thingsabout active digitizersis that they arepressure aware. Thedigitizers in most Tablet PCs can detect256 levels of pressure,whereas some of theeternal ones artists usecan detect 512.

While I was at TechEd Australia I had a cool sideline conversation with a chap from Wacom. My colleague Lee was with me at the time and be asked this guy if they had any little utils that could be used to show off pressure awareness in tablets. The answer was no, but we all agreed that it was a cool idea. I foolishly opined that it would be easy to make one, hence volunteering.

I'm still tinkering and will release code soon, but I'm using the real the stylus API to detect the pressure levels and render a circle where the radius is relative to file pressure applied.

Still a bit rough but the Gif below might give you an idea of what it looks like.

 Warner over on GBM is pretty excited about fuel cells. Lets face it, when you are talking about an exponential increase in battery life, what mobile geek wouldn't get excited?

Hmmm? Samsung is showing off a new fuel cell battery (DMFC-which stands for Direct Methanol Fuel Cell) that will supposedly run your laptop for a month of 8 hour days. Yeah, you read that right. I love, and we need, to see advances in battery technology, but when I say that I’m thinking on a smaller time scale, like 24 hours or so. I mean within in 30 day period you would think you could plug in once or twice, right?

There are two major barriers to widespread adoption of fuel cells, as I understand it.

1.  Infrastructure- with fuel cells you don't plug in per se. The process is more akin to getting your printer cartridges refilled. Therefore there needs to be a battery exchange infrastructure and pricing model around that before this will be really viable.
2.  Airlines. Fuel cells have bad things in them. Even if you could go out and buy fuel cells today you could not take it on a plane.

The problem is that fuel alls contain reactive chemicals. That is how they worts. From Wikipedia:

Fuel cells differ from batteries in that they consume reactant, which must be replenished, while batteries store electrical energy chemically in a closed system. Additionally, while the electrodes within a battery react and change as a battery is charged or discharged, a fuel cell's electrodes are catalytic and relatively stable.

Many combinations of fuel and oxidant are possible. A hydrogen cell uses hydrogen as fuel and oxygen as oxidant. Other fuels include hydrocarbons and alcohols. Other oxidants include air, chlorine and chlorine dioxide

So for now the two issues above are implicitly causing a third problem -the lack of critical mass in the market. The technology is actually there today, logistics are the problem.

I'm hanging in the speaker room and my session is in an hour.  This is the first chance I've had to look at my feeds and do a quick post.

Tablet PC is here in force this year - I am doing a session about positioning Tablet PC for Enterprise Mobility, which I will blog more about after the fact.  Hugo did a session focused on UMPCs and he was his usual, enthusiastic self.  He had a huge number of devices with him - which was great because it really showed off the diversity in the UMPC form factor.  Like tablets, you really need to get a UMPC in your hands to really understand the value.  I've got 5 tablets of various types with me so people can get a feel for different form factors.

The other thing that strikes me about tablets here this year is the number of speakers and attendees using them - there are heaps!  Other than my own I've seen:

• Motion Computing LS800s
• Toshiba M4s
• Toshiba M400s
• Toshiba R400s
• Lenovo X41s
• Lenovo X60s
• one HP TC1100
• HP TC4200s
• HP TC4400s
• and even a Panasonic ToughBook convertible!

I was also interviewed on camera for Virtual TechEd so that should be up there soon.

The party last night was at the Movie World theme park.  I ran around like a mad man trying to get on as many rides as possible.  We've got a great photo from the Lethal Weapon ride that I will post up once I can scan it in.

The new version of OmniPass for Windows Vista seems to have a few issues with IE7.  My friend Lee identified this issue and - having just rebuilt my LS800 I installed OmniPass to see if I could reproduce the issue.  I can, and not just with IE.

When secureapp.exe (the OmniPass tray icon application) is running then whenever IE has the focus iexplore.exe hammers the processor.  The same thing happens with Windows Live Writer and Feed Deamon - when they have the focus then they hammer the CPU.  If secureapp.exe is not running then they don't.

With both apps running, but with IE minimised task manager looks something like this:

The CPU is pretty idle at 13% and secureapp is there, but idle.

Maximising IE cause the CPU to get hammered until IE is minimised again.  It looks like this:

If you kill off the secureapp.exe process after you log in then this does not happen.  The down side is that you cannot store application passwords in OmniPass and authenticate with fingerprints without this process running.  You can, however, still log on and unlock you machine using fingerprints without the secureapp.exe process running.

In Windows Defender you can prevent the secureapp.exe process from running at start up, which will save you killing it off manually.  In the Control Panel click on the Change startup programs link under Programs.

In the Windows Defender dialog click on the Show for all users button to enable the disabled controls.

Once you have confirmed for UAC that you want to allow this you will be able to select the Softex OmniPass item and then click the disable button.

With a Windows Mobile 5 device, once it was paired with your Tablet you could create a dial up connection on your computer that would connect to the Internet via whatever data protocol your device uses (e.g. EVDO, GPRS or HSDPA).

With Windows Mobile 6 you can still connect to the Internet using your SmartPhone as a modem, but the process is slightly different and requires you to complete steps on both the device and on your tablet.  The following steps outline the process.  This assumes you have already paired your phone with the tablet.

1) On the Windows Mobile 6 device select Internet Connection Sharing

2) Next click the Connect button.  This establishes the connection to the Internet and readies the device to accept a connection from your tablet.

Now that the mobile device is ready to accept the connection you need to go to the tablet to establish the connection. 

3) On the tablet right click the Bluetooth icon in the system tray and select join a personal area network.

4) In the Bluetooth Personal Area Network Devices dialog select your phone in the Access Points area and then click connect.

Viola - you are online!

Well - I think it is exciting anyway...

Great news everyone! I have managed to get myself slotted in as a speaker this year in TechEd Australia.

If you are attending try to stop by and catch my session @ 11:30 on Friday 10th of August:

UNC320 - Positioning Tablet PCs in Enterprise Mobility

Mobility has long since ceased being about push email and RAS. Unfortunately that is how is mobility is approached in many organisations. This session will explore what mobility really is, what enterprise mobility is and where UMPCs and Tablet PCs fit in the enterprise mobility strategy. In addition we will crush a few Tablet PC myths and have a few cool new devices you can get your hands on. You will go away with a better understanding of what Tablets are (and aren’t) and where they would fit in your organisation.

If you already have aticket then I'll see you there! If not then my, its sold out.

 Matt over on Gotta Be Mobile links to a cool YouTube video that is worth a look.

It's about insurance companies changing over to use Tablet PC's in their daily field visits.  It goes on to talk about  a custom application that was developed for the company and how they feel it will increase productivity by about 10%.

Have any of you been involved in this kind of 'technology shift' with Tablet PC's?  Anybody out there use a similar application - If so, has it increased you productivity??

I've come across a couple of similar projects in my work in NZ. One actually was an insurance company and the other was a govt. agency with a group of auditors who would go out on site. In both cases the benefits were substantial. In the govt. department the biggest benefit was not the productivity increase, it was the reduction in churn in their auditors. This was a result of the improved productivity as auditors were able to reduce the backlog and this led to a significant reduction in stress levels and greatly enhanced morale. There is a lot more to it than improved productivity.

After getting my LS800 back I started the long process of rebuilding.

Today I layered on more apps including:

• Zune software
• Windows Mobile Device Centre
• Techsmith SnagIt
• Techsmith Camtasia Studio

Still more to go...

Like I posted yesterday every Vista form that does not wilt not resize and fit into 600 pixels wide is a failure.

Here's another I stumbled across today.

 Both this one and yesterday's dialog are forms in control panel applets that only apply to Tablets. What's with that?

One thing that really irks me is some bits of Vista just don't fit on a 800x600 screen in portrait mode.

See how the right side of the dialog is off the screen?

This is just poor design. The minimum supported resolution for Vista is 800x600. Vista includes tablet functionality. Tablet screens rotate.

If you are building Vista apps assume that screen resolutions will vary and make sure they are still readable at 600 wide. Good design would have the above form resize.

In the process of installing all my software and I just came across something strange.  

Vista popped up one of its little problems and solutions dialog and informed me that there were new solutions for some of the issues found on my computer.  Clicking through I see three new solutions listed - which are all driver updates.  These included the Authentic AES2501 Finger Print reader, the Infinion TPM and the Motion Button Driver.  Since I knew I did not have a driver for the fingerprint reader yet I click on that to view the solution.  What I got was this message saying that I need to install the driver from the manufacturer's website.

Why is this weird?  Well clicking on the link takes me to a page on HP's website, not Authentic's.  On that page there is a driver for the fingerprint reader, but it also relies on HP's security suite, so I'm not going to grab it.  But very stange...

I've got my LS800 back and I'm in the process of rebuilding it.  So far I've got the following installed:

• Windows Vista Business
• Office 2007 Ultimate
• Nod32 AV to keep the bugs out
• FolderShare to sync my Documents and Favorites between my work computer and the LS (so I don't have to use my pen challenged laptop too much...)
• FeedDemon to get my daily RSS fix
• Windows Live Writer to give a little back
• Windows Live Messenger to keep in touch

Of course I have done a ton of patching and countless reboots as well.  Painful.

I have a stack of things yet to install - I'll have to do them as time permits over the next couple of days...

Tegatech is now offering a new Mobile PC in Australia.  The Nova Sunpad is available in a number of configurations and with various OSs including Windows XP Tablet Edition.

Some of the features look promising - from Tegatech:

· Industry best outdoor viewable display (optional)

· PCMCIA, CF, LAN and WLAN and BT all std

· 8.4” display, Integrated touch screen with "on screen" keyboard and palm rejection

· Rugged qualities

· hot-swappable, secondary battery pack

· Flash memory HDDs standard

· Windows XP Embedded and XP Tablet PC Edition available

· and more

Should be interesting.  I like the idea of a device that is almost a UMPC (technically the screen is too big to be what MS call a UMPC) that has a hot swappable extended battery.  v-cool.

Hello Kettle?  This is Pot...  You're black!

When I read comments by Acer president Gianfranco Lanci stating that the PC industry is 'disappointed' with Vista I openly scoffed. 

I have worked with Vista since about November 2005.  Given how long partner organisations - including OEMs - had access to prerelease code before it shipped I was pretty disappointed with the availability of drivers and supporting applications when Vista shipped.

In fact around about launch time I was one of the group of MVPs and bloggers that received an Acer Ferrari to test Vista on.  A beautiful 64-bit laptop.  One of issues I have with that device is that the driver support is crap and the all the supporting applications (such as the Voice Call Manager) are 32-bit.  Hey Acer - is your software mature?  Get your own house in order before attacking other. 

In truth I think much of the onus for Vista's initial luke warm reception lies with the hardware vendors.  There has been quite poor support for existing models - I point to the likes of the Motion's still absent driver for the SD card reader on the LS800 (hello?  it has been 7 months since you guys updated your KB article?!?!) and the madness of vendors like Creative charging for Vista driver.  The cynic in me thinks that most vendors are more interested in trying to get you to buy new hardware than in supporting the user base they have.  I think this is short sighted and basically sends your customer out to market again with a negative impression of your products.

Warner Crocker over on GBM has spotted a press release from Qantas announcing that it will be offering Wi-fi and electrical outlets in the premium economy section on some of their new fleet...

Don’t you wish every airline would do this? No word on how much this will add to the cost of the flight.

While I don't know how much it will cost for PE on Qantas I do know that Air New Zealand has offered power in their PE section for quite some time.  On a Auckland to LA flight booked at the last minute I know that this adds about NZ$600 one way.  With the way the NZ dollar is at the moment (about US$0.80) this equates to US$480.  If you are travelling for work having power on an 11hr flight is well worth it.  As a bonus you get more leg room and better food as well.  That said when I fly for work they always stick me in (false) economy.  The only time I've flown premium was when I upgraded on my airpoints.

Air New Zealand don't offer Wi-Fi though - I wonder how effective that is going to be?  I am hanging out to try it.

In my last post I touched on a few reasons why the Samsung Q1P does not quite work for me in my work life.  No offence to anyone who loves the Q1 range - heck I do too - but it does not fit how I work.  Lets face it the "P" in PC & UMPC stands for personal.

That said I do use the Q1 quite a bit and there are some use cases that it absolutely owns.

Here are some areas I use the Q1 where it just rocks.

• As a Navigational tool.  I use the Q1 in the car with a beta version of an application called C1 Mobile.  The C1 interface is really easy to use with a finger and the screen size an geometry is perfect for moving map applications. I just need to get a bracket so I can mount it in my car.
• Personal media device.  I catch a train to work and home again every day.  It is about 40 minutes each way and I usually work.  However sometime I can't be bothered working.  I just want to kick back and watch an episode of Family Guy that I recorded on the media centre the night before.  Excellent.
• Games!  I am so addicted to Chuzzle from Pop Cap games. 

Those are some areas where it works for me.  I also think that for some mobile workers who primarily perform a particular task - like for instance meter readers - you could build a pretty compelling mobility story around a UMPC, location and a touch optimised line of business application.

Since my LS800 is off being repaired I have been struggling with devices that are just not quite the right fit for how I work.  I have my work provided laptop which is OK, but it is just a laptop.  So to fill the gap in my mobile work life I've been turning to my little Samsung Q1P. 

I have to say that while the Q1P is a great device, it is not a good fit for how I work.  Key words there - for how I work.

In my work life I divide my time between my desk and meetings.  I use my LS800 extensively in meetings.  My absolute primary use for a tablet in my work is note taking.  The next two most common uses for my tablet after that are reading and mind mapping in that order.

The first two tasks in that list rely heavily on ink and the Samsung Q1P is a device that is optimized for touch, not stylus input.  This causes me a couple of problems.

1. The inking experience in OneNote is very poor.  There is a lot of palm interference, so you have to arc your palm to try and keep your palm off the screen.  This is not only uncomfortable but it forces you to write much more slowly.
2. The size and geometry of the UMPC does not give you a lot of writing room.

The issue with the third use is actually related as well.  The size and geometry of the screen means that you are either working at a very low resolution (800x480) or zooming to 800x600 or 1024x768 and introducing both a loss in fidelity and horizontal distortion. 

Other issues I have found with using the Q1P in place of my LS800 include:

• No docking station, which means no grab and go functionality.  In order to leave my desk and dash off to the next meeting I need to unplug a USB cable, a network cable and a VGA cable.
• I have not got as many Q1 accessories as I do LS800 accessories.  It is just handy having a choice of batteries and cases.  I particularly miss having an extended battery - I'm sometimes away from my desk for longer than the Q1P can last.

I'm suppose to be getting a work provided tablet at some point, which will probably be the Lenovo x60.  Even then I'll still be using the LS800 as well because you can't beat it for the combination of size, battery life and real tablet functionality.  I'm hanging out to get it back.

I was just reading over an interesting article on Computerworld NZ listing the 10 biggest technology flops of the past 40 years.

It is an interesting article and the author - David Haskin Framingham - gives some interesting background on each technology as well is explaining why it is on the list.

The list includes:

1. The Apple Newton - before it's time.
2. DIVX - not what you think...
3. Dot-bombs
4. The IBM PCjr
5. Internet currency
6. Iridium
7. Microsoft Bob
8. The Net PC
9. The paperless office
10. Virtual reality

The thing that caught my attention is that the Tablet PC was not on the list.  For years the Tablet has been much maligned by the "mainstream press" and I would not have been too surprised to see the tablet listed, though I would have disagreed bitterly.  Two or three years ago the tablet would have likely featured.

Could it be that the mainstream press is coming around to what we the tabletscape have been saying for ages?

Anyway - it is a good read, so check out the full article here.

A while ago I blogged about my friend Lee - who gave up smoking so he could buy an LS800.  Last night Lee found a creative new use for his tablet that possibly saved his skin.  There is a bit of a story behind it...

You see, we had a few drinks after work to celebrate a customer win.  It was a messy night.  I had to be poured into a taxi fairly early and some of the others, including Lee, carried on.  Now, Lee lives way out of Sydney - about 1 1/4 hours by train out.  He got on the train in his merry state and fell asleep.  He awoke about 40 minutes after the train trundled passed his stop.  In a panic he jumped off at the next stop intending to catch the next train back in the opposite direction.  He fired up the LS and jumped online to check the timetable and discovered that that was the last train for the day.  The first train for the next day was two and a half hours away!  It was dark and it was cold and there was no shelter at the train station.  Too far to catch a taxi - Lee was stranded, with nothing to do but wait it out. 

As he shivered on the platform Lee had an idea.  He turned the brightness up to full and kicked of a defrag on his LS800 and stuffed it inside his jacket - as a heater!  With the extended battery on it there was more than enough juice to keep Lee mildly warm until the next train.  So if ever you find yourself a drunken idiot stranded on a train platform at two in the morning - make sure you have a tablet to stuff into your jacket!

Amazingly Lee still showed up to work on time the next day.  Needless to say we have been giving him a very hard time.

Yesterday I got my LS800 back.  I was thrilled.  It came back with a new HDD - among other things - on XP installed. 

When I went to rebuild it last night I kicked of the Vista install using a BDD server that I just happened to have lying around at home (yes - I'm that much of a geek).  The strange thing is it got to point where it wiped the partitions off the disk and copying the image down and it turned itself off.  I restarted the LS800 and it showed the Motion splash screen for ages before it booted through.  I started the BDD build again and it turned itself off again - but at a different point.  Repeating the exercise you get the same results.  Sometimes it turns itself off after a minute or two, sometimes almost instantly - while still on the Motion splash screen.  Looks like I'll be boxing it up again tomorrow and sending it back.

My much loved LS800 is back from the shop and looking good.  The drive was toast too, so it's come back with XP on it.  I'm going to rebuild it tonight (it  was in need of a rebuild anyway) and restore my data back onto it tonight and then I'll be good to go.  Yay!

The last couple of weeks have been a bit intense.  I had a major customer presentation that ate about a week.  And I have about a million unread feeds.  Here are some links that are worth looking at that I've just caught up with.

On GottabeMobile.com

• Warner Crocker points to a cool add-inthat makes sending to OneNote mobile a bit easier.
• Warner also reviews his first week with the Lenovo X61
• Motion Computing get FCC approval for HSDPA in the LE1700.  I understand this is also underway in Australia.
• Please don't wear a OQO Model 02 on your belt.  Here here.
• Demo of touch screen pen flicks.  I love pen flicks...
• Creative charging for Vista drivers!  Dispicable - my advice is vote with your feet and buy something else.
• Interactive Whiteboards vs. Tablet PCs
• Hugo gets his hands on the Raon Everun
• Frank Garcia becomes a tablet MVP, as does Matt Faulkner.  Great stuff guys!
• MS are going to address a flaw in ReadyBoost in SP1 for Vista.
• Dell to release a UMPC?

On jkontherun.com

• Beautiful beer girls with Tablets.  Am I dreaming?  Actually - if I was dreaming it would not be an American beer!
• Samsung are getting ready to release a 64GB SSD - now we are talking!
• Tweak OneNote for a little bit more battery life.  Who'd of thunk it...
• Read your feeds faster on a UMPC - I need to be doing this!
• Touchscreens with hover are on the brink - using projected capacitive touch.  In other words it can tell when your finger is almost touching the screen - how cool!
• Intel and MS teaming up on a new slate platform called the "Edy Personal Computer" platform - will be watching to see where this goes.
• Use your smartphone as a bluetooth webcam.  Groovy Baby (sorry - Austin Powers is on in the back ground.  Britney Speirs just exploded.  Good job...

That's about half my unread items.  I'm off to bed...

Woe is me!  My much loved little LS800 is down and out.  After using it for a couple of days with its 2GB RAM upgrade I grabbed it off the desk and headed out. On the train on the way into work I pulled it out of my bag and flicked the switch.  The power light came on and nothing else happened.  Uh-oh.  We have a problem. 

Naturally because the RAM had just been upgraded I suspected the new RAM as the issue.  I swapped out the new RAM and replaced the old, but to no avail. 

When I opened the LS800 to swap back the RAM there were some indications that make me think the unit may have gotten very hot.  I think that this is the root cause of the problem.  While I can't prove it I have a theory about what happened. 

I have my tablets configured to sleep when I hit the power button.  On occasion since upgrading to Vista the LS has failed to sleep properly when I hit the switch.  When this happens you need to force the unit off by holding the switch down.  When in this insomniac state the unit will not go into shutdown to protect itself if it gets to hot.  I know this as I had this happen to me once before when I flicked the power switch and chucked the LS800 into my bag to change location.  When I pulled it out again it was in this hung state and stinking hot.

The other time the LS gets hot is when it is on power.  This is where I think I went wrong.  It was late and I was tired.  I'd been running off battery for several hours so the charge level was low.  I flicked the switch to send the LS to sleep, plugged in the power and went to bed.  I left the LS flat on the desk, not propped up as I would if I was leaving it plugged in and on.  I don't recall watching it to make sure it did actually sleep.

While I don't believe that putting 2GB of RAM in the LS800 caused the issue I hasten to point out that I don't believe a 2GB upgrade to the LS800 is not supported or recommended by Motion.  It is certainly not supported by me - so if you are looking at that upgrade be aware that it is at your own risk.

I'm hoping to get the LS800 fixed, but in the interim I'm using my Samsung Q1P as my main tablet.  This is an interesting and very different experience and I am sure I'll have much to blog about from this unintentional experiment.

I stopped by to see Hugo Ortega on the way home this afternoon to help him restore a Vista Complete PC backup onto one of his many devices.

While I was there I caught the bug that has been afflicting Hugo recently and cracked open my LS800 and put in a 2GB DIMM just to see what would happen.  What happened is it just worked like a charm.  Since I was unwilling to then part with said RAM I told Hugo to get TegaTech to invoice me for it.

Now the LS800 is running really well.  It really needs a rebuild as I have been installing and uninstalling a bunch of software I have been evaluating recently and much of that has been pre-release.  However even in it's sub-optimal and in need of a rebuild state it is noticeably faster now. 

Hugo snapped a sneaky snap of my beautiful LS with her clothes off - which he is going to send me later to post.  I'm sure it will end up on his blog as well.

Yesterday I posted about entering text with the Tablet Input Panel. Once you have mastered text entry with the TIPI recommend you look of some of the options you can tweak to change the way the TIP works. The TIP is actually quite flexible and you can adjust it to suit how you work.

To get started click on the Tools drop down in the TIP's menu bar and select Options, as shown below.

This will bring up the options dialog, which will be similar to the one shown sow. I'm gathering screenshots on Vista. for the most port the options available on XP are the same, but there may be some that are missing in XP Tablet Edition.

One of the important things to note we is the Restore button in the Restore default settings area. Don't be afraid to experiment as you can always get back to the original settings.

On the Settings tab you can tweak where the TIP icon appears. you can also change the insert buttons behavior so that hovering the point over the insert button will insert the current text (without tapping the button). I find this a great time saver but I do know other people who find it annoying.

The AutoComplete function is only available in Vista. It is on by default and I, personally, would leave it that way. I posted about autocomplete a while ago in this post.

On the Opening tab you can control how you launch the TIP.

Similar to tweaking the insert buttons you configure the tip to launch when you point at the TIP tab or the TIP icon.

On machines with lower end graphics you might want to consider clearing the checkbox that says Show the Input Panel sliding open from the tab.

Also, if you find the TIP tab gets in the way of what you are working on then you can clear the Show the Input Panel tab when the per is out of range checkbox.

Lastly on the Writing Pad and Character Pad tabs I like reducing the thickness of the ink to Extra Fine Point, which gives me more room when writing in the TIP.

There are more settings there that I have not covered. Experiment to find the settings that work best for you.

I'm struck by the number of people who have a tablet but don't use it as a tablet. So this is a back to basics post - you've got a tablet, here's how to enter text with a pen.

Anywhere you can type you can enter text on a tablet using the stylus. This is an important point because the upshot is that pretty much any application will run on a tablet. when you tap the stylus in a text entry field you will see this little guy pop up.

This is the TIP icon, and clicking it launches the Tablet Input Panel or TIP.

The TIP offers three basic text entry options. With a couple of exceptions the TIP will open in the last mode you used, but you can switch with these three buttons up in the top left corner of the TIP.

The left most button enables the writing pad...

It's pretty simple - you write and the recognised text is displayed below.

If a word is wrong you can tap the recognised word to correct it.

The corrections interface actually uses the second TIP mode, the character pad. you can switch to character pad by clicking the middle button in the top left corner of the TIP.

Character pad is test entry that uses handwriting...

The last mode of text entry is the on screen keyboard.

Access this by tapping the right button in the top left of the TIP.

These three methods are the key ways to enter text on a tablet. Try then all, learn their strengths and weaknesses. You will find they all have a place.

While I was at TechEd in Orlando I sat in on a great session by  Dr Neil Roodyn on developing sidebar gadgets.  In his session Dr Neil reminded us all that SideBar gadgets are just mini HTML applications.  I had the thought that now that we have Siverlight with great ink support we could probably knock together some pretty cool gadgets that leverage Silverlight to provide ink functionality.

Now Gavin Gear not only confirms that this is so - he provides and example.  Pretty cool.

In this post, I’ll show you how to use Silverlight to create an inkable surface on a sidebar gadget.

Here’s the example running on my desktop:

 

Check out the full post here.

I keep seeing something at TechEd that is bugging me. People sitting in sessions with a tablet on their knee in laptop mode typing.

I don't get it. There are a few use cases where a tablet really shines and taking nots in presentations is one of them. It is more comfortable and less awkward. You can sketch diagrams and graphs. It is just so natural! Why would you want to type? Any thoughts?

I had a great time at the Influencers party at Tech Ed last night. I caught up with fellow Tablet MVPs Terry Stratton and Frank LaVigne, and lots of other great people.

Here's me with some new friends.

Photo courtesy of Frank's Tech Ed 2007 Photos

If you are @ TechEd 2007 in Orlando and you love, have, want or develop for tablet PC then we should catch up.

As it happens there is a Tablet Developer’s Birds of a Feather session going on at  Thursday, June 7, 2007 at 2:45 PM, in Room S331.This is being moderated by fellow Tablet MVP Frank LaVigne.  It further happens that there is a break right after this session.

Perfect! I'll be at the BOF session and my suggestion is that we meet outside room S331 at 4:00 PM for a little ink geekiness.

If you are interested then come along and look for me. I'm the guy with the shiny head holding an LS800.

Last year at TechEd in Boston I struggled to find much Tablet content. There was one session on getting started with mobile PC development that had some ink bits in it.

This year - sessions number one (after the keynote) is Tablet PC as a Smart Client Platform presented by Tablet MVP Frank La Vigne.

Frank covered:

•  What is a tablet -stressed that tablet is a full PC and that they run the full version of the .net framework.
•  Overview of tablet form factors.
•  Some basic tablet usage demos including the TIP, handwriting personalisation is Vista, and ink in OneNote, PowerPoint and Outlook.
•  Positioned tablets in the enterprise against other mobile devices
•  Talked about the cost of manual solutions -"paper is expensive" :) Great quote!
• Adding ink and reco support to a windows form via the ink collector object in the tablet SDK.
•  Ink Analysis
•  Cool demo of live blogging in ink, converted to text via ink analysis and posted live

All and all a great sessions - well done Frank!

In case you had not worked it out (with all the posts I composed offline appearing) I have now arrived in Orlando.  Some 24 hours of traveling, with only a few broken hours of sleep on the flight across the Pacific - and yet I feel way too awake.  I've had some food and a nice glass of red wine (for medicinal purposes of course) and now I'm off to bed to try and force myself to sleep.

The billion dollar question - what sort of presence will the tablet PC have at TechEd this year?  If my room key is anything to go by I think we are going to see a couple...

TechEd here I come!

Tablet PCs are great for artists. And doing a quick sketch is a cool way to demo your device to the uninitiated. Just one problem... Everything I draw ends up looking like a monkey drew it. And not one of those talented monkeys you see on Discovery channel from time to time, either!

Sound like your own artistic lack of talents? This might help!

One of my favourite tablet artists Chad Essley points to Mark Chong’s Ten Minute Drawing Blog!  Mark does some really cool screencasts on his blog showing the process he goes through to draw, explaining it as he goes.  Very cool.

Check out Mark's great blog and brush up on those drawing skills.

Since arriving in Sydney I have been too busy getting set up and too disconnected to stay on top of my feeds. As a result I'm using some downtime on a flight (to TechEd. yeah baby!) to catch up on a backlog of things that I either have not gotten to yet or flagged to follow up and have not gotten back to.

As such I am reading about things that have happened in the last couple of weeks all at one. I've noticed a trio of events that are unrelated, but that I think speak volumes about the future of the tablet experience.

The first event was the release of the Gateway CX210X Tablet PC for only US $899.99 as reported by GottaBeMobile. While certainly no light weight this is an impressive entry level tablet at a very good price. Event 1: the entry level tablet price drops.

The next event that caught my eye - of course - was the announcement of Microsoft Surface.

Picture a surface that can recognize physical objects from a paintbrush to a cell phone and allows hands-on, direct control of content such as photos, music and maps. Today at the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer will unveil Microsoft Surface™, the first in a new category of surface computing products from Microsoft that breaks down traditional barriers between people and technology. Surface turns an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, dynamic surface that provides effortless interaction with all forms of digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects. Beginning at the end of this year, consumers will be able to interact with Surface in hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues.

The intuitive user interface works without a traditional mouse or keyboard, allowing people to interact with content and information on their own or collaboratively with their friends and families, just like in the real world. Surface is a 30-inch display in a table-like form factor that small groups can use at the same time. From digital finger painting to a virtual concierge, Surface brings natural interaction to the digital world in a new and exciting way.

“With Surface, we are creating more intuitive ways for people to interact with technology,” Ballmer said. “We see this as a multibillion dollar category, and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror. Surface is the first step in realizing that vision.”

Undeniably cool. Also undeniably not a tablet. Make no mistake though, this is an important innovation and it is only a matter of time before multipoint touch technologies arrive in the mobile PC space.

The third event that struck me as really important was the release of the Google Gears beta. Kevin Tofel over at jkontherun provides the official Google description:

• A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
• A database, to store and access data from within the browser
• A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background

The exciting thing about Gears is that it offers another approach for developers to provide offline capability to their applications when they are running on occasionally connected mobile PCs. More tools will lead to more apps that are mobile friendly, and that will lead to more you can do when you are moving between pockets of connectivity.

In short these events portend a richer tablet and touch experience, more flexibility at a cheaper price. Bring it on!

Like Greg Hughes I am planning to head to TechEd in Orlando next week.

All though I've been booked for the conference for ages my flights got stuck in an approval loop and were only booked today. Phew! Don't get me started on what I think of that!

'spose I should do something about a Tablet Meet-up @ TechEd!

Loren Heiny had an experience recently that got him thinking about the social implications of a slate over a convertible tablet. 

A couple friends came over for a bit this weekend and we got into a discussion about breeds of dogs. It didn't take long before I realized I needed some pictures to go along with the discussion. So I grabbed my Samsung Q1, booted it up, and Googled for each of the breeds we were talking about. Each search took only one query and in no time I had pictures of the dogs being talked about that I could pass around. No doubt a UMPC is quite "passable." Then it struck me: A slate (such as a UMPC) is more "social" than a convertible Tablet PC. I'm much more likely to pass around a UMPC or slate than a convertible.

This is an interesting new take on some thinking that has been around for a while. Notebooks, and convertible tablets in laptop mode, form a barrier between you and the person you are working with in a meeting scenario. For all sorts of psychological reasons, this is sometimes considered a sod thing in a business scenario.

As Loren points out a state is also more social in non-business scenarios because they are more passable as well as not being a barrier.

The smaller and more portable a device is the more personal it becomes. For this reason small slates and UMPCs are very much putting the personal back in the PC.

My friend Lee's long wait is almost over - his new LS800 is on the way.  He asked me today what he should do with his new tablet when he gets it.  There are tons of things you can do with your tablet and discovering those things is one of the joys of tablet ownership. 

That said here are 10 tips - things you can do with your new tablet to get you started.

1. Install Vista
   There is a lot to love in Windows Vista if you are a tablet or mobile user.  The Snipping Tool (which is available for XP tablet users in the free Tablet Experience Pack from Microsoft), Pen Flicks, multiple selections in Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer's panning tool, autocomplete for URLs and email addresses, an updated Tablet Input Panel and handwriting personalisation make Vista a compelling offering for tablet users.  You can read more about all of these in this post I did way back in April last year, during the beta.  There are some more mobile friendly features outlined here as well.
2. Make a Mind Map
   Mind mapping is a great way to plan things out or get your creative juices flowing.  I use Mind Jet's MindManager 6 - but there is a new version coming out soon, so that will be well worth checking out.  If you are running it on a small screen tablet, check out my optimization tips.
3. Ink on a PDF.  Tablet users delight in freaking people out.  A great way to do that is to return a PDF form that has been emailed to you by emailing it back within minutes all filled out.  I use PDF Annotator to do this.  Apart from being very efficient it is good fun.
4. Take some notes.  Note taking is where a tablet comes into its own.  If you have OneNote installed you can use that, but if not all tablets (Vista or XP) come with Windows Journal.
5. Do some drawing.  Drawing is great on a tablet.  For the best tablet experience you want something that is aware of the different pressure levels that are reported by an active digitizer.  My favorite is NZ grown ArtRage - even my daughter loves it.  Another good option is the free photo editor Paint.NET.
6. Read a book.  In slate mode a tablet makes a great platform for reading eBooks.  I've used both Microsoft's Reader and Palm Digital Media's eReader and they are both good.
7. Ink in Word - You can use ink in Word to markup documents or to insert ink comments.  If you are using Word as your editor in Outlook 2003 or if you are using Outlook 2007 then you can also ink email messages.
8. Ink on PowerPoint Slides - Another great way to show off in front of the ink challenged masses.  More on that here.
9. Ink Instant Messages - If you use Windows Live Messenger then you can chat in ink.  Great if you happen to be having an IM conversation while on the train (I've done that!)
10. Most importantly of all - Have fun!

Lora Heiny over at WhatIsNew.com is passing along a great tip from Josh Einstien (author of TEO) on how to multiselect emails in Outlook 2007 without using the shift key. 

Josh passed along a great tip. The cursor switches directions so that you can actually multi-select emails without having to use the Shift key.

1. Open Microsoft Outlook 2007 in normal view mode
2. Move cursor position to the left side of the mail envelope and the right side of the divider, and the cursor direction switches to point to the right.
3. Now, drag the pen or mouse position down et voila! you can select multiple emails.

Great tip guys - works on any PC, but is awesome on a tablet!

Source: How to select multiple emails in Microsoft Outlook
Originally published on Thu, 17 May 2007 05:11:00 GMT by Lora

I neglect my feeds for a week or two and what happens?  Only one of the most speculated on and anticipated announcements in tabletscape!  No, not the Apple Tablet... (unless I have not gotten to that post yet)  It's Dell!  Dell have finally gotten off their bums and made a Tablet PC!

Check out the video where Jeff Clarke confirms that Dell is bringing out a tablet later this year.

My initial thought was great - another MTC (Me Too Convertible) but I have to say that watching the video I changed my mind.  When he changes it into slate mode it looks to be about as thin as the Toshiba R400, which I really liked and called "far and away the most slate like convertible I have ever handled."

Most people I know who have seen the R400 have also liked it, but most have also balked at the price of that unit.  This begs the question - what price point are Dell going to bring the Latitude in at?

If any of you have tried to ink enable web applicaitons you will know that it has historically been far from easy.  Basically you had to build a custom control into your page, which meant that users had to have you in their trusted sites group to use the control (with default settings).  This might be OK on the intranet, but it made Internet Ink just too hard.

At Mix '07 Microsoft announced the Siverlight (nee WPFe) beta 1 and in the announcement they pointed out that Siverlight has ink support.  How cool is that?

Gavin Gear has put up a great series of posts on the subject that you really should check out if you want to build ink enable web apps.  These include:

Silverlight 1.0 Beta with Ink Support Announced at Mix07

New Channel 9 post on the basics of adding Ink to your Silverlight webpage

How To: Implement an Ink enabled Silverlight Photo Annotation Webpage

Want to see some demos of Ink in Silverlight? Check out this video from Mix07!

Silverlight Ink Session @ Mix07, See the video!

Silverlight ink enabled photo browser – download the example code!

Overview of Ink support in Silverlight, MSDN conceptual topic

Gavin also points to Julia Lerman who is doing some investigation of the ink support in Siverlight.

Want to get started?  You can download the Siverlight beta here.

(Sorry for the mass linking - I'm playing catch up.  I'm still getting setup in Sydney and living in temporary accommodation.  I have to take connectivity when I can get it.)

One of the cool things I am finding out about Sydney is that there are more major events here than there were in New Zealand.

In the three weeks that I've been here I've gotten into the zone at CeBIT and this week I checked out MEDC.

MEDC was a riot - even though I was not speaking there in an official sense I was of course using my tablet and it attracted quite a bit of attention.  In pretty much every break I ended up giving a little talk about what a tablet is, how I use it day to day and how I'm finding Vista on the LS800.

I'm finding that Aussies are not shy about asking about something they think is cool, which is fine by me because I love any chance to talk tablet.

I'm into my third week in Sydney and I'm starting to have an impact on my new workmates.  Several have been very impressed by my Motion Computing LS800, and have made noises about buying one for themselves.  However none have been quite as enthusiastic as Lee...

Lee was so impressed by the tablet experience that he struck a deal with his better half - if he quits smoking he can buy a tablet and use the money he saves to pay it off.  No problem - Lee slapped on a patch and started shopping.

Having given up one addiction Lee is just itching to replace it with a new one...  The problem is that tablet procurement can be a long and frustrating process.  It would be fair to say he is not taking the delays very well.

Stick with it Lee, it is well worth it.

On the floor @ CeBIT Australia I just came across the coolest Wi-fi access point for travel. The Level 1 WAP-0004.

 Pictured next to my LS800 you can see it is tiny.

Again, the RJ-45 connector in the back gives you on idea of scale.

This looks just great. very small and light. Can be powered off mains or USB I includes a carry case & cables and runs at just AU $99.95

Not for show on any of the stands but when I saw Hugo he gave me a quick look at the OQO 02.

The unit he was sporting had the extended battery fitted and this gives it ~5 hours battery life. The display is a bright, clear and readable 5" with 800x480 native resolution.  It was the model with the 1.5GHz processor and was running Windows XP Tablet Edition.  The same unit is also available with Windows Vista pre-installed.

The slide out thumb board is quite usable.

Another cool feature is the two scroll bars on the edge of the screen.

Dragging on these will scroll the active window.

Quite a functional little device.

Just bumped into fellow Tablet PC MVP and all round tablet enthusiast Hugo Ortega in BloggerZone at CeBIT Australia.

Looking sharp, Hugo

One of the things that is quite striking about CeBIT Australia is that many of the Mobile PC vendors are noticeable by there absence.  Motion Computing and Panasonic have sizable displays on show, but there is no sign of Toshiba, HP, Acer, ASUS, Samsung, Fujitsu or any of the other big players I was hoping to see here.

Those who are in attendance are reaping the benefits as both the Motion and the Panasonic stands are packed every time I walk past.  I hope the competition is at least attending the show and learning that they should be here next year.

I spotted something at CeBIT Australia today that just embodied the value proposition of a slate over a traditional convertible tablet PC.  There are a couple of people walking the floor with Motion Computing LE1600s (pretty sure - but they could be 1700s) using a web application to conduct live surveys from the trade show floor.

This is where a slate excels.  You can use it standing up, you can use it walking around.  While you can do these things with a convertible it is much more comfortable to do this for extended periods with a slate.

Also at CeBIT Australia...

Panasonic have a good range of Toughbooks on show. 

There is a Toughbook 19 in a Perspex case and you can press a button and spray it with water.  Rather ominously it appears to be either off or dead...

One of the cool things about Vista is that if you are running Home Premium, Business, Enterprise or Ultimate then the tablet features are there, all you need is a Digitizer to turn them on.

Wacom has an awesome stand at CeBIT Australia that has an excellent range of external tablets you can connect to you standard PC or laptop to pen enable them.  Developers - This is a great way to ink enable your development machine so you can start writing those ink enabled applications. *hint*

These range from small USB tablets...

...to a massive 23" digitizer monitor that would be awesome for the professional artists and media types.

Very cool - though I would not recommend reading with in bed with that tablet!

The other one I think would be very cool to play with is the Bluetooth digitizer. 

No wires and the stylus just stores in the back of the unit. 

Would be great with a Vista based Media Centre PC.

Walking the floor at CeBIT Australia I dropped into the Motion Computing stand.  There is a lot of interest in the Motion range.  The C5 is drawing considerable interest.

However one of the coolest things on the stand - IMO - is easy to miss and you really need to play with it for 5 minutes to really get in touch with the unique experience that is WriteTouch.

On the stand is one of the new LE1700 units equipped with the WriteTouch option.  This is Motion Computing's answer to the dual mode touch and active digitizer model and it works very well.  If you are attending CeBIT Australia, then make sure you drop in and check this out.

Before WriteTouch there were basically two ways that touch and digitizer have been implemented together.  The first is to turn the touch screen on and off based on the proximity of the pen.  If the pen is in range then touch is disabled.  If the pen is out of range then touch comes on.  This is also known as the soft switch approach.

The second approach to this problem that emerged was a hard switch approach.  In this model there is a hardware button on the device that toggles touch on and off. 

WriteTouch is a combination of these two approaches and could best be described as a hard switch on, soft switch off.  What I mean is that touch is disabled completely if the pen is in range, hence the soft off.  However you have to proactively enable touch when the pen is out of range.  The difference is that there is no button to enable touch.  You simply double tap the screen with your finger and touch is enabled.  This gives you the ease of use of the soft approach without the accidental screen clicks that you sometimes get with the hard approach.  Very, very cool.

There are some other differences between the WriteTouch tablets and other touch enabled tablets I have used in the past.  These differences stem from the fact that it is not a resistive touch screen - it is capacitive touch.  A resistive touch screen responds to pressure and therefore needs to be a little spongy so there is give - i.e. something to press.  The capacitive touch screen, however, recognizes your finger as a finger because it is conductive.  This means that the Capacitive screen does not need to be spongy and the WriteTouch Le1700 has a writing feel just like any of the other Motion slates.  Another side effect of this is that you have to use the fleshy part of your finger, not your fingernail or a ballpoint pen. 

Overall I was very impressed by the WriteTouch LE1700 and look forward to getting one to play with for a bit longer in the near future.

Motion Computing have posted a fairly useful kb article that steps you through the process of enabling and configuring the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) on a Motion Tablet.

Because this involves configuring things in the BIOS it is difficult to screenshot for documentation purposes.  Motion Computing have side-stepped that issue by photographing the proportion of the setup that occurs in the BIOS.  Very useful.

I've just finished a short video showing three text entry options for UMPC's in action.

The video shows:

• The TIP's onscreen keyboard
• The TIP's writing pad
• Dial keys

Check it out.

These are not the only ways to entertext on a UMPC, but are three of the biggies.

Watch out Orlando, here I come!

That's right, I've confirmed that I can attend and have now registered for TechEd US! Can't wait, I had such an awesome time last year and learned heaps!

Tablet meet-up anyone?

One of the toys I picked up while in the US recently is a Samsung Q1P that has been provided for evaluation.

Physically the Q1P is looks pretty much identical to the Q1 and the Q1B.  The shiny black finish gives the unit a smart, sophisticated look and the Q1P will look right at home your lounge.  Here's a quick tour of the exterior.

Across the top you of the unit you will find...

A) The power switch

B) The Windows Security button (a recessed button that sends Ctrl-Alt-Delete - you need to use the stylus to press it)

C) A Compact Flash Slot covered by a dust flap, rather than a removable insert

D) RJ-45 network port.  This is also covered by an attached dust cover.

On the left side there is a mini AV output, a USB port headphone jack, volume control and a lock switch.  The lock switch disables the touch screen and the hardware buttons so you can't do anything by accident.

On the right side of the unit there power input, a second USB port and a VGA connector under a dist cover.

On the front left below the screen there are four indicator lights.  Left to right they are drive activity, network, charge indicator and power indicator.  There are also two microphones on the front bezel.

There are hardware buttons and controls on the front of the unit on both the left and right of the screen.

On the left there is a directional control and a resolution zooming button.

The directional control basically emulates the directional keys on a standard keyboard.  Pressing the zooming button toggles between the native resolution (800x480), emulated 800x600 and emulated 1024x600.  When zooming to a resolution higher than the native resolution, there is naturally some loss of fidelity in the image, but it is handy for dialogs that don't fit into a screen 480 pixels high.

On the Right there is a control that looks like a D-pad, but is actually four programmable buttons.  These are called the User Buttons and Samsung provides a utility to create and switch between profiles that assigns different actions to each of the buttons.

Below the User Buttons are an Enter button and a button that brings up the menu utility provided by Samsung.

One of the fantastic design features of the Samsung UMPCs is the integrated stands.  When not in use these sit flush with the back of the unit.

The larger of the two stands props the unit upright.

The smaller stand props the unit up at quite a shallow angle, for better on table viewing.

The initial impression is that the Q1P is a little heavier than it looks like it should weigh, but there is a lot in the package to account for that.  The petit size belies the power in the package.  The Q1P boasts a 60GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM and a 1GHz Intel Pentium M processor.  That is more than enough to run Windows Vista, and in fact that is just what I am doing. 

More on using the Q1P and the general Vista-gami experience coming soon.

 I'm catching up on screeds of feeds that I have been neglecting for a couple of weeks. I just came across a cool post and photo of NZ's Prime Minister using a tablet PC in Redmond. Hail to the chief!

From Nathan Mercer:

The Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, met with Microsoft’s senior executives at the company’s headquarters in Redmond.  The group exchanged a broad range of ideas around technology solutions designed to create opportunities for New Zealand’s continued economic development and growth plans. 

Helen Robinson (MSNZ MD), Helen Clark (NZ PM), Chris Liddell (MSFT CFO exNZer), Steve Ballmer (MSFT CEO)

This photo is taken in the Microsoft Centre for Information Work (CIW) click here for a virtual tour and here for an image gallery of the facility.

Source: New Zealand Prime Minister Tablet PC-ing in Redmond
Originally published on Sun, 25 Mar 2007 04:13:55 GMT by nmercer

Big round of applause please for Kevin Tofel, the newest Tablet MVP on the block. This is great news and is very well deserved. Well done Kevin!

Among the things in my backlog of "things I should be blogging about but have not had the time" are a couple of new gadgets that I have acquired of late.

First up is a Zune that I purchased while in the US recently. 

So far I am quite happy with it - apart from the absolute debacle of trying to install the software on my tablet while I was in Seattle.  Both my "Documents" and "Pictures" folders were offline copies of a network drive.  This is not something that the Zune software could cope with - it would error out with an error with words to the effect that the drive was invalid. 

Being a long time media centre user who has never owned an iPod I find the interface exceptionally easy to use.  I have yet to "squirt" anyone yet as I only know one other person with a Zune in Wellington.

The other device I picked up is a Samsung Q1P that has been provided for evaluation (of hardware and software).  This is running Windows Vista Ultimate and has a bunch of evaluation software - much of which is of little use to me outside the US unfortunately.  This warrants a whole series of posts but suffice to say for now that I am having a pretty good Vista-gami experience on the Q1P at the moment.

During one of the many discussions had among MVPs at the MVP Global Summit a couple of weeks ago I made a throw away comment that I late thought was actually a really good idea.

One of the other MVPs commented about how some people who have been given a convertible tablet at work have never rotated the screen around into slate mode.  This is something I have encountered as well and I have even met people who did not know that you could rotate the screen around!

The comment I made was that OEMs who ship convertibles should ship them in slate mode.  This got a good laugh at the time, but the more I think about it the more I think it is a good idea.

The OEM could stick one of those transparent overlays on the screen with illustrated instructions explaining how to convert from slate to tablet and back.

What this would do for the Out of Box Experience would be profound.  A user's first experience with their new tablet PC would be in slate mode.  They would instantly receive a nudge to get them thinking about ways they could use their new computer other than the traditional clamshell notebook experience.  In addition to this the user would be educated at the outset on how to convert their machine.  All this with minimal additional cost to the OEMs.

Naturally - if anyone is involved in deploying tablet PCs in their organization then this is something you could act upon without waiting for the OEM.  Once you have deployed your organization's standard image onto the machine, put the unit is slate mode before putting it back into the box to deploy to the user.

One of the common beliefs I encounter from people who have not used a tablet is that the OS will never be able to decipher their particular brand of handwriting because it is not neat or consistent enough.

My usual response is to show some of my handwritten notes and demonstrate how they have been correctly recognized and are searchable in OneNote.

However, while at the MVP Global Summit in Redmond recently I decided to dispel this myth once and for all with a little help from some of my fellow Tablet MVPs. I opened a new page in OneNote and passed my LS800 around. What follows are actual handwriting samples from some tablet MVPs. These are all very heavy tablet users and all report very high levels of accurate recognition, especially in Windows Vista.

Here's mine:

Marc Orchant:

Frank la Vigne:

Trevor Claiborne of The Student Tablet PC:

James Kendrick:

Honorary Tablet MVP Charlie Russel:

Gotta Be Mobile's Rob Bushway (nicely put Rob!) :

Also from Gotta Be Mobile, Dennis Rice:

WNewquay:

Hugo Ortega:

Linda Epstein:

As you can see even those with great penmanship have inconsistencies and chickenscratchers (like me and JK) can still experience a high level of successful handwriting recognition. Hopefully this shows that your handwriting is not a barrier to realizing the amazing benefits of using a Tablet PC.

Rob Bushway invited the Program Manager for Outlook to one of the dinners the Tablet MVPs were having during the recent MVP Summit.  We had a really good and fruitful discussion with him and MS are looking for more feedback on how Tablet and Mobile PC users use Outlook. From GBM:

We met with Microsoft's Outlook Program Manager last night. They are in the planning stages for Outlook 14 and 15, and have requested some specific information from the tablet pc community in regards to Outlook and tablet pc / ultra-mobile pc usage.
What they are looking for is how you currently use Outlook with your Tablet PC / UMPC. Describe your work scenarios when in convertible and slate mode. When operating in slate mode, how are you currently using your pen to interact with Outlook.

This is an excellent opportunity to help MS understand how you use Outlook.  It is not a gripe session!  Head on over to this thread in the GBM Forums, have your say and help MS help you.

Since putting Vista on the LS800 I've had a couple of issues that have been every so slightly spoiling my Vista goodness.  One of those issues is that the SD Card Reader on the LS800 does not work.  This is a real shame as I would love to throw a 2 GB SD card in there full time and use it for ReadyBoost to make the machine run a little faster (not that it is that bad, but any gain is good.)

However, Motion are aware of and working on this problem.  Here is the related article in their Knowledge Base.  Good to see Motion are on the case

Note you can subscribe to the feed for the LS800 related kb articles. 

In in the lounge in Auckland waiting for my flight to LA. On my way to Seattle for the MVP Global Summit! Yay!

Engadget has details of the new Samsung Q2 UMPC.  This looks like a very cool device.  One of the nifty features is the split QWERTY thumboard, which looks very cool.

And check out the picture on Engadget - is that 3D Flip?  Looks like it is probably a photo shop mockup to me - but I can't wait for more info on the internals to emerge.

Among the details that Engadget have released:

"...7-inch touchscreen, 1GB of RAM, and 60GB hard drive..."

"...the Q2 will sport an unknown Intel (not Via) CPU running Vista Home Premium, a 1,024 x 600 WSVGA resolution (no 800 x 600 here), two digital cameras (1.3 megapixel for "photography" and 0.3 megapixel for videoconferencing), and a fingerprint scanner..."

And much more!  Check out the full post and pictures here.

I had a question arrive from a blog reader via email today asking if I could point to a concise summary of the benefits of Vista over Windows XP Tablet Edition on a Tablet PC.  I've been blogging about the pros (and cons) of Vista for a while now, but I think that this would be a good time to summarize the key benefits of Vista over Windows XP for Tablet users.

One of the key things to remember is that when all is said and done Tablet PCs are a member of a larger family of computers - Mobile PCs.  As such many of the benefits of Vista on a Tablet apply to the broader category of Mobile PCs as well.

Mobile PC Benefits:

There is a lot in Vista for mobile users.  In essence these can be grouped into these broad headings.

• Security: This is a big one and is at the top of the list for a reason.  The world has changed since XP released.  Users are much more mobile, and this can expose organizations to significant risk.  The Internet is full of malware, hackers and viruses.  It is inherently dirty and untrustworthy... and is an essential business tool.
• Ease of use:  To be an effective mobile user with XP you need to be something of a power user.  Vista is just makes it easier to be a mobile user.
• Efficiency: Less down time.  Has to be a good thing.

Let me expand on these three topics.

Security

Bit locker - As previously mentioned more and more people are taking their computing mobile - both at work and in their personal lives.  For businesses this presents a very real risk.  Every time a machine leaves the office it is at risk of being lost, stolen or falling into the wrong hands in some other way.  With an unencrypted machine it is trivial to retrieve data off it when you have physical access.  BitLocker provides whole volume encryption and therefore provides protection for the data on the machine even if a "bad person" has physical access to it.  As with all security measures there are some best practices and caveats around this, but on the whole BitLocker is a good thing for Mobile PCs.

Boot file integrity checking - How many of us knew the term "Root Kit" when XP shipped?  OK - I probably did, but I am a geek.  Root Kits are a very real problem.  Put simply the way they work is they either replace or shim a critical system file so that they can alter what that system file returns and therefore what is displayed.  For instance, some root kits target the system driver that read the disk and provide info to - for example - Windows Explorer.  If you try to browse the directory that the root kit resides in, it will remove itself from the list of files in the directory and thereby become invisible. Boot file integrity checking stores a hash of the key system files and checks each one at start-up.  If a core system file has been replaced or modified then the machine won't boot until you restore the correct version of the system file using the recovery tools on the Vista DVD.

Firewall - Bi-directional and configurable by Group Policy.  At last!

UAC - The much maligned User Access Control (UAC) addresses a very real problem.  Things are not always what they seem.  In Vista, by default, even if you are logged on as an admin (not the admin - that is different) every action you perform or program you run will happen in the context of an unprivileged user.  If you run something that needs more rights it will ask you if you want to do this.  Here's a scenario.  You need to convert a file from one type to another.  You Google it, find a util and down load it.  You try to use it to convert your file and it returns an error message that does not mean much to you, so you download the next one on the list and use that to convert your file.  Meanwhile, the first app you tried, between you clicking on the "Convert Now" button and the error message tries to disable the firewall, installs a key logger, starts sending your info to some dodgy site out on the web and writes something to the registry to ensure that the key logger et al will start up every time any user logs onto the machine.  In XP if you are local admin that will work and lots of laptop users out there are running as local admin because they had to in order to be able to do simple things like change the timezone.  In Vista UAC will see the request to do something that requires admin rights and either prompt for consent or credentials, depending on how it has been configured.   If you download a simple utility and it wants admin rights to run - here's a tip.  Click Cancel.  UAC is intrusive - but it addresses a very real problem and is therefore a necessary evil.

Protected Mode IE - Lots of the bad things to which out machines are exposed come in via the browser.  In Vista IE7 runs with less privileges than a standard user.  This does not apply to IE7 on XP, because there were some architectural changes required to make it work.  Much like the UAC scenario above, this protects users form ActiveX controls and scripts on sites they visit running with elevated privileges and doing bad things to your PC.

There are lots of other security enhancements, but for my money those are the big ones.

Ease of Use

Mobility Center - To be a really effective Mobile User in Windows XP you had to be a bit of a power user.  You needed to know to go to Network Connections to configure and join wireless networks, power options to tweak power settings, a tab on the property page of a network file to configure Offline Files, a control panel applet to configure tablet buttons and screen rotation and Display settings to attach a second monitor.  In Vista all this and more is pulled into the Mobility Center, which you can access quickly by pressing Windows Key + X.  You can also configure one of your tablet's hardware buttons to show or hide the mobility center.  Check out my Mobility Centre Drill Down.

Backup - Mobile users who are away from the office for days or weeks on end could potentially lose a lot of data if they have a hardware failure.  Using the native tools in XP to back up data was a bit lame and for the most part people would use 3rd party tools (which cost money) or not bother (which could end up costing a lot more!)  In Vista the backup tool has been completely rewritten and is very easy to use.  With minimal instruction most users could back up their files onto removable media.  There is also a very cool Complete PC backup feature that I have blogged about here and posted a video of here.

Offline files - If you tried to use offline files in XP you probably ditched it pretty fast and tried some other method.  The main complaints were poor performance when online and the fact that certain file types were skipped.  Even when it was working fine it was way too chatty and this would confuse users.  In Vista offline files work really, really well.  Firstly it is less chatty so you hardly notice it is there.  There have been some changes that make it work much better as well.  For one thing all reads are serviced from the local cache when you are online.  This improves the connected experience considerably.  Writes still go to the server copy when online as that is considered the master copy.  Also if a file is changed on the client while offline then only the changes (not the whole file) are synced back to the server when you reconnect.  This change has made it possible to include all file types as well, as the file types that were excluded (such as Access databases) were excluded because they were large an changed often - hence making them expensive to sync.  The cached copy is also encrypted by default, even if you are not using BitLocker - so your local data will have some protection.

Efficiency

Reduced Start time - From a cold boot Vista presents a usable interface to the user faster than XP does...  But...

Sleep mode - Who needs to do cold starts?  Vista supports a new power state called sleep that is really cool.  Unlike XP's standby a computer in Sleep will consume very little power.  Also if it does start to run low on power when in sleep it is awake enough to know this and will write everything in memory to disk and hibernate.  From a user point of view you get a machine that will resume very quickly without going flat or setting your laptop bag on fire.

Again there is plenty more to love in Vista - I've just hit one some key ones for Mobile users.

Tablet PC Goodness

In addition to the general Mobile PC benefits above there are a few others that are specific to Tablet PCs.

Learning handwriting - the handwriting recognition engine in Vista rocks.  It can learn.  You can train it.  In XP, it trains you.  After using a Vista tablet for a few weeks (assuming you use it as a tablet and write on it from time to time) your handwriting recognition will be much higher.  If you spend 15 minutes to do the training sessions it will go through the roof.  I actually thought the recognition in XP was pretty good, but Vista blows it away.

Pen Flicks - pen flicks allow you to use a quick pen gesture to do simple tasks like:

• Scroll up and down
• Navigate forward and back in the browser history
• Copy
• Paste
• Delete
• Undo

These are very handy and a great time saver.  You can also customize them if you like to make them really work for you.

Snipping tool - This use to be available as an add-on in the experience pack, but it is bundled in with Vista.  a great little tool.

Better TIP -  The Tablet Input Panel has been reworked.  It now docks on the side of the screen (you can choose which side) and hides away nicely.  You can also use the stylus eraser in the TIP if your stylus has one.

AutoComplete - Common pain points for people using the pen to enter text in XP were the Browser address bar and the To: field in the mail client.  These both support a new autocomplete feature where by as you start to write the recognition result is compared to you history (in the browser) and recent recipients (in Outlook).  Possible matches are displayed above the TIP.  If you see the one you want you click on it and it will be inserted and navigated to (for the browser anyway).  No need to then press enter.  Very efficient.

The above tablet points were all covered in a bit more detail in this post I did way back in April last year!

Before heading away to Seattle I wanted to rebuild my trusty LS800.  I've recently had some stability issues and wanted a clean start.  I don't think you should read too much into the "stability issues" statement...  When Vista released many of the drivers and applications installed were still in beta.  As the final versions have become available I've removed the betas and installed the final versions.  Doing this for one or who drivers and apps may not present much of a problem, but doing it for a host is a recipe for disaster!

The other reason I wanted a rebuild is I still have a couple of outstanding issues and I wanted to see if a clean build with the released Motion drivers fixed the faults.  Will keep you posted.

I deploed Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 Ultimate using Microsoft's new deployment tool, BDD 2007.  Man that is slick!

Since then I have manually layered on:

• Live Messenger.
• Daemon Tools
• Windows Live Writer
• Feed Demon
• eReader
• Flash
• Java
• Acrobat Reader

I still have lots to put on and I'll get to those over the next few days.  Things I have to have include:

• TechSmith SnagIt 
• TechSmith Camtasia Studio
• MindJet MindManager
• Tablet Enhancements for Outlook
• PDF Annotator

So much to do - so little time...

I'll be packing my geek bag this weekend and heading off to Seattle for the MVP Global Summit.  This is a conference for all the MVPs and IMO is one of the major benefits of being a MVP.  I can't wait!

For one thing you get to hobnob with the product teams from Redmond - which should be fantastic.  I'm also really excited for an opportunity to actually meet the other Tablet MVPs in person.  So far the only one's I've met in person are Hugo Ortega - he's in Sydney so only a 3 hr flight away - and Terri Stratton, who I met in Boston at TechEd last year.

Can't wait!!!

Motion Computing have just announced the release of the Motion C5 - a new tablet PC designed specifically for teh Health Care industry.

From the product brochure:

The Motion C5 was designed based on input from thousands of clinicians to simplify workflow and
improve efficiency. It is the first mobile clinical assistant that integrates technology from Intel® Health.
A convergence of technologies in the C5 allows you to do everything you normally do during your
shift such as administer medication, record clinical notes and take pictures using one single device.
With Intel® Centrino® mobile technology and high-speed wireless connectivity, the C5 integrates key
functions that clinicians require to be productive during the course of the day.

The C5 includes some really innovative features and options including:

• Integrated camera
• Integrated RFID
• Integrated barcode reader
• View Anywhere screen
• Integreated moulded handle
• Semi-rugged, sealed case (so it can be wiped down with disinfectant)

The camera, RFID and barcode reader could really enable some cool end-to-end solutions that streamline the data capture and start off automated workflow.

Off the specs the unit looks quite capable:

Processor/Cache

• Intel® Centrino® mobile technology with the Intel® Core Solo
  Processor U1400 (2MB of L2 cache, 1.20GHz, 533MHz FSB)

Operating Systems

• Windows Vista™ Business
  Microsoft® Windows® XP Tablet PC Edition

Chipset

• Intel 945GM

Display

• 10.4" XGA TFT LCD (1024 x 768)
• View Anywhere® option
• Intel Display Power Saving Technology (DPST)
  

System Memory

• DDR2 533MHz SDRAM memory
• Base configuration of 512MB
• Upgradeable to maximum 1.5GB

System Storage

• 1.8" Hard Disk Drive (HDD) with 30GB or 60GB capacity
• PCI bus master enhanced IDE
• Supports Ultra ATA 66/100

Communications

• Integrated Intel® PRO/Wireless a/b/g network connection
• Optional Atheros 802.11 a/b/g card available
• Integrated Bluetooth®

Dimensions

• 10.0" x 10.0" x .95" (256mm x 256mm x 24.3mm)

Weight

• 3.1 lbs.

Battery

• Lithium-ion standard battery with 40WHr capacity

Preliminary specifications. Subject to change.
Weight represents approximate system weight measured with a 40WHr battery. Actual system weight may vary depending on component and manufacturing variability.

I love Motion Computing.  I think they have the coolest slates on the market.  However sometimes they do things that baffle me, and this is one of those times.

If you have recently purchased a Motion Computing LS800 or LE1600 with Windows XP Tablet Edition pre-installed - or indeed purchase one today - one of the applications installed will be the Omnipass suite, which enables the fingerprint reader hardware.  Without Omnipass (or some equivilant applicaiton) you cannot use the fingerprint reader in Windows XP Tablet Edition.

However if you then go and install Windows Vista on that tablet and download all the drivers for it you will find that the Omnipass download is a 30 day trial.  If you want to use the fingerprint reader in Windows Vista it will cost you.  From Motion's Vista Upgrade Guide document:

Softex’s OmniPass version 5.0 for Vista is a major release that includes new features and is available to Motion customer’s as a downloadable, free 30 day trial at http://www.motioncomputing.com/support/driver_download.asp. Motion has negotiated a reduced price for our customers for the fully licensed version of OmniPass. In the free downloaded OmniPass application, there is an option to purchase at the lower, negotiated price. OmniPass is a required application to use the biometric finger printer reader/security software. Note: You will not be able to import your profiles or information into the trial version. You will be able to import your profiles and information into the fully licensed OmniPass 5.0.

And how much is it?  The special reduced price for Motion customers is US$24.99  On checking the Softex site retail price from their store for OmniPass Client Edition 5 is US$49.00, so the discount is about 50%

I could be wrong - and if I am I would welcome comment from Motion - but I suspect Motion had a choice.

1. Absorb this cost by coming to an arrangement that would allow all existing Motion Tablet owners to upgrade for free.  They know how many they sold, they could come to some arrangement I'm sure.  It would not be hard to have the software vendor in question produce a version that is tied to Motion hardware.
2. Pass this cost on to their exisitng customers.

The problem is that by choosing the latter course Motion Computing have sent a message to their customers - if you buy our product today it may or may not work with the version of the OS tomorrow.  Don't they care about repeat business?  This is an especially bitter pill because the fingerprint reader was for a long time one of the features that set the Motion slates apart from their competition. 

Now that other vendors have cought up and integrated fingerprint readers into their units as well Motion risks falling behind again by effectively disabling this feature in any existing Motion slates that move to Vista. 

How do other vendors compare?  I work with several vendors and I know for a fact that HP, Toshiba and Lenovo all have Vista versions of thier fingerprint software available as a free download.  In my opinion this is how it should be.  I think it a shame that Motion have not seen fit to follow suit.

I dropped in on the Wellington .Net User Group today to deliver what they call a lightning talk.  The whole meeting was a succession of speakers, each alotted 5-10 minutes to deliver their message.  That is not a lot of time for anything more than a quick intro to a topic.

My topic was "Why you should be developing for Tablet and Touch technologies" and I went bare-bones.  No slides.  No projector.  No demos. 

I just gave a bit of background on the evolution of tablet to date - Windows XP Tablet Edition, Tablet Edition 2005, making the Tablet OS available on touchscreen devices, UMPCs and now Vista.  Then I put it to the audience that if - and I am not sure that this is the case - the tablet has failed to deliver on its promise then fault lies with developers.  Brave thing to say if you are in a room full of developers perhaps, but I stand by the statement.  Why?  Because tablet is just a platform.  Platforms in and of themselves do not add much value.  Applications that leverage the features of the platform to enable users to work better add value.

Next I outlined three classes of applications.

1. Tablet ignorant applications are unaware that they are running on a tablet at all.  They treat the stylus just like a mouse and you need to use the TIP to enter text.  A classic example would be Notepad, but in fact most applications fall into this category.
2. Tablet aware applications offer additional functionality to the user when running on a tablet.  Examples of this include MindJet MindManaer and most of the Office suite.
3. Tablet specific applications are designed to run on a tablet and don't work well (if at all) on a non-tablet.  Some examples of this include Windows Journal and the apps in the tablet experience pack.

I closed with a call to action.  In short I said:

Work with a tablet if you can.  This is the best way to understand their strengths and the painpoints of tablet ignorant apps.  Next start making your existing applications tablet aware.  Lastly if you find a use case that lends itself to ink input then consider writing a tablet specific app.

One of the major limitations of the Acer that Microsoft and AMD sent me is that it is not a tablet.  I previously blogged about using an external Wacom graphics tablet to enable the pen and ink features in Vista.  However, truth be told, using an external graphics tablet, while better than nothing certainly does not make the Ferrari a Tablet PC.  It is simply not as easy and natural to write off to one side and have the ink appear on the screen in front of you.

So while you can add tablet functionality to an ink challenged mobile PC it does not a tablet make...

...But there is hope yet for the Ferrari to redeem itself.  If it can't be a tablet, then the next best thing is for it to do is to empower real tablets by being used to develop tablet applications.  Here's how to go about setting up a Vista machine to develop tablet applications.

Step 1.  Ink enable your Vista development machine by adding a Wacom graphics tablet as I described here.  You can develop tablet apps without any pen functionality, but it is really hard to get a feel for how your application feels when you are emulating ink with a mouse.

Step 2. Install your development environment.  I am using Visual Studio 2005 Professional, but you could equally use one of the express editions.

Step 3. If you are installing Visual Studio 2005 or one of the Express Editions then install the appropriate version of Service Pack 1.

Step 4. Install the Windows Vista SDK.  According to Gavin Gear...

This option does not install the InkAnalysis binaries, but exposes the Winforms, COM, and WPF InkAnalysis binaries – this allows you to use InkAnalysis with the Windows Presentation Framework!

 Step 5. Install the Ink Analysis binaries.  Gavin's step 4 gives you two options to achieve this, I went for B because I like command lines.  Make sure you run the following as administrator.  Also note that I've replaced the dashes (-i) in Gavin's example below with foreward slashes (/i).

Option b: Manually install the InkAnalysis binaries:

Open a Windows SDK cmd shell from Start->Programs->Microsoft Windows SDK->CMD Shell

Run the following commands:

cd %ProgramFiles%\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Tablet PC\v1.7

gacutil /i iacore.dll

gacutil /i microsoft.ink.analysis.dll

cd %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0\Bin

gacutil /i ialoader.dll

regsvr32 iacom.dll

And you're good to go!  Gavin also provides a couple of good articles for getting started with Ink Analysis in WPF.  Check out:

Tablet PC: Getting started with InkAnalysis in WPF

Shape recognition with the Tablet PC Platform InkAnalysis API

Yesterday I picked up a Portege R400 from Toshiba for review.  I unboxed the unit and found that it had Windows Vista Business pre-installed.  This innovative new convertible from Toshiba has drawn some flack from some because it lacks some features people have come to expect from Mobile PCs.  And this is in fact a valid criticism.  There is no 6-in-one card reader.  There are only two USB ports and no FireWire.  There is no integrated optical drive. 

On the other hand there is a lot to like in this tablet.  The R400 is far and away the most slate like convertable I have ever handled.  It is light and thin and this makes it very comfortable to use in slate mode.  It is also the quietest Core Duo device I have yet seen.

In addition it has a very innovative hinge design that completely eliminates the floppy head that some convertables suffer from.  I also suspect that the new hinge design has eliminated a lot of weight from the swivel.  On either end of the bottom edge of the screen there is a foot - for want of a better term - that seats into a plastic guide.  The screen will only rotate when it is roughly at right angles.  The rest of the time there is no side-to-side play at all.    Here is a close-up of the foot on the right.

The innovation does not stop there.  The R400 also sports integrated EVDO - which is not activated on my demo unit.  Indeed I know that Telecom New Zealand requires that any EVDO device used on the Telecom network be certified and I don't know if this has been done yet on the module in the R400.  For my American readers - there is a link in one of the utilities that takes you to the Verizon site to activate the EVDO.

In addition the R400 sports a Windows SideShow enabled LCD display on the front bezel that supports something that Toshiba call "Active Notifications".  This display is extremely hard to photograph, so sorry if it is a little blurry.

You may not have heard of Active Notifications before, but it is not actually not a new thing.  Active Notifications uses Exchange DirectPush, which is the same technology that enables push email delivery to Windows Mobile 5.0 devices.  The net effect is that you can recieve notifications of new emails on the SideShow display, even if your tablet is in Sleep mode.  That is very, very cool. 

The other cool feature of the R400 is the wireless port replicator, which alas - I don't have for this review.  What I do have is the tablet itself, so lets go for a wee tour of that.

On the front bezel, in addition to SideShow display, there is (left to right) the pen, an array of indicator lights (power in, power state, battery state, aux. battery state, disk activity, Wi-Fi activity and cellular state), a microphone, the SideShow, three buttons for use with the SideShow display and a Wi-Fi hardware switch.

On the right there is a PCMCIA slot, the volume control, headphones and microphone jack.  Thw two jacks are right at the back and, if the R400 port replicator lacks audio output like the M400 port replicator does then I much prefer the new placement.

The back of the device includes two USB ports, ethernet, power and a vent.

On the left there is a lock slot, VGA output and the edge of the pen, so you can push it out the front.

The stylus is quite compact and includes the traditional right click button on the barrel and an eraser on the top.

In slate mode, as I said, the R400 really feels good, for a convertable.  The hardware buttons available in slate mode include a power button - which has a lock switch so you can store the tablet in slate mode without risking it turning on in your bag.  There is also a joystick directional control that can be pressed in to send "enter".  The next three buttons are Esc/rotate, Windows security and an email button.

There is also a finger print reader.  In slate mode the screen is offset (in portrait) so you can adjust the orientation based on your handedness and still have an edge that is comfortable to hold.  Since I am right handed I put the buttons (which are on the edge you would hold) on the left.

Over all this is a really nice convertable.  While I think that some of the criticisms that have been made are valid (the lack of an SD card slot in particular) the R400 looks great and has a nice feel to it.  Performance is snappy and it rates a respectable 3.1 on the Vista Perfromance Rating. 

I am very excited by the innovative features such as the hinge design, the wireless port replicator and the SideShow display that is powered by DirectPush.

I just wandered down to Toshiba and collect a brand new R400 to review.  It's Friday today, Tuesday is a holiday and like most people I'm taking Monday as well, so I've got the R400 'till Wednesday.  I've not had time to really look at it, but it has Vista Business pre-installed.  More later...

Microsoft have released Vista versions of a couple of good downloads for the Tablet PC.  Firstly there is the Experience Pack:

Media Transfer
Copy or stream media files from your home computer to your Tablet PC, so that you can enjoy your favorite music, videos, or pictures wherever you go.
Ink Crossword
Solve crosswords on your Tablet PC using your tablet pen. Twelve puzzles come with Ink Crossword. You can also download a free daily puzzle and purchase more puzzle packs online.
Equation Writer
Easily add mathematical expressions to your papers. Handwrite a math equation, and then convert it into a neatly typewritten image to paste into a report or a presentation.
Ink Flash Cards
Create flash cards to help you learn facts or study for an exam. Handwrite a question on the front of a card and put an answer on the back. Draw, insert graphics, and add text, too.

Also available is an updated version of Ink Desktop:

If you have a Tablet PC, you’ll love using Ink Desktop. It’s like having a portable dry-erase board on your screen all of the time. Whenever you want, you can jot down a phone number, directions, or top priorities for the day.

Source: Tablet PC downloads for Vista.
Originally published on Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:43:46 GMT by Colin Walker

Motion Computing have released drivers for the LE1600 and the LS800 slates.  You can get them here.

Strangely the place holder page they put up a couple of days ago that says that Vista Drivers are Coming Soon is also still up - so if you have been checking that URL to see if the drivers were there yet (like I was) you may have missed the release (like I did!).

While leaving the placeholder page up was not their best work I do have to commend Motion on the detailed upgrading informaiton they provide to help users make the transistion.

When I first posted about the release of the new EVDO bump case for the LS800, Suzanne McClure from Elegant Packaging offered to send me one to review.  Naturally I jumped at the opportunity. 

The case came via Motion Computing's Australian office - so it took a while to get here, but it arrived this morning.

For evaluation I have borrowed a MiniMax USB EVDO modem, which is distributed by Telecom (my employer) here in New Zealand.

The case is an updated version of the standard bump case (which I also own so I have something to compare it to) that includes an elastic loop on the front and internal cable routing to support a USB EVDO modem.  Pictured below is the case with both the LS800 and the MiniMax fitted.

The elastic loop and the moulded padding around the modem hold the modem snugly in place.  It is certainly not going to dislodge easily.  Close up of the EVDO modem.

In fron of the elastic loop is a nylon flap that velcros down to secure any excess USB cable.  This flap also covers the slot that lets you take the cabling inside the case.

The cable can then be routed out the top left corner of the case for a straight drop down to the USB port.  This could be tidied up further by using a USB cable that has a right angle connector on this end of the cable, but I did not have one available.

This case shipped with an adjustable shoulder strap that attaches to two D-rings on either side of the carry handle.  Attaching the strap gives you perhaps one of the geekiest geek bags one can have :)

Like the original bump case the EVDO version includes an integrated wire stand that can be set at a fairly wide range of angles by adjusting a velcro strap.  The same velcro strap can be cinched tight to keep the stand tucked in place when it is not required.

Another nice improvment of the EVDO bump case over the original is that it will fit the LS800 with either the standard or extended battery fitted.  To be fair the extended battery didn't exist when I got my first bump case so I can't fault the old version too much.  This is achieved with the help of a removable insert that attaches to the inside of the top flap of the case via velcro.  The insert is simply removed when the LS800 is used with the extended battery.

Over all the case looks very well constructed.  My other case has held up very well over time and I have every reason to expect this one to do the same.  Like the original the EVDO case is well designed and provides complete access to almost all of the ports, buttons and inputs on the device.  My one compaint here is that one of the USB ports is covered and one is not.  I would prefer to have both ports uncovered as it would save me having to use a USB hub if I wanted to setup my mobile desktop and use both my BenQ mouse and the EVDO modem.

Finally, I have heard from a colleague that he recieved a case where the wire poked out of the piping on the edge of the case.  There is no evidence of that with the unit I recieved.  I suggested that he return the case and ask for a new one.  Based on my one I would think that his one was an annomolly.

Full disclosure - I do not have to return the case.  I use an LS800 as one of my main PCs so I will be keeping it.

The guys over at GBM pointed out that there were now drivers available for the Lenovo X60 tablet PC.  This is good news, but I suspect that this model is not nearly as widely distributed as its predecessor, the X41T Tablet PC.

I did a quick check and it looks like Lenovo have released drivers for quite a few models and the X41T is among them.

Yesterday I recieved a new addition to my mobile kit bag - a Think Outside StowAway Sierra BlueTooth Keyboard.  I'm already in love with it.  Used in conjunction with my BenQ Wireless Travel Mouse and my Motion Computing LS800 my new mobile desktop for trips away would look something like this.

The bump case for the LS800 includes a built in stand - this is what allows the LS800 to be easily propped up.

One of the key reasons I opted for the Sierra over other folding keyboards is the inclusion of the number keys.  This additional row, in conjunction with a Fn key that converts many of the keys to a secondary binding, give a full complement of keys including Funtion keys 1-12.  This is very useful on a keyboard that is going to be used in conjunction with a PC.  Many of the foldable keyboards on the market are designed primarily for use with PDAs such as Windows Mobile and Palm devices and for that reason do not include the full complement of keys.

Setup was very easy.  You press a button on the unit to make it discoverable and then tell your PC to search for devices.  Once the device is located you specify the pin on the tablet using the TIP and then type the same pin on the keyboard and press enter.  Done. 

Folded, the Sierra is about the size of a chunky PDA.

To use the keyboard you flick a latch on the right and unfold...

Then you push the red tabs towards the middle to join the three sections of keys together.  The Bluetooth is not enabled until the key sections are joined, so there is no risk of the Sierra transmitting keystrokes, and thus wasting battery, when it is folded up and put away.

On the subject of battery the entire unit runs of a single AAA battery, which works well with my mobilisation strategy of standardising on accessories that use a common battery type.  Several other device I own use AAA batteries, so a have a number of rechargable AAA batteries and a USB powered charger.  Currently I'm using the included alkaline battery but all I can tell you on battery life at this stage is that it is more than one day of light use.

I was on the Motion web site today looking for some pictures to plug into a presentation I'm putting together today for a customer.  I noticed that they had given their site a bit of a new look and included a tag that "Motion recommneds Vista Business" to several of the pages.  I thought it would be worth checking to see if they had released Vista drivers.

They haven't but they have added a place holder link to Vista drivers that goes to this page:

http://www.motioncomputing.com/support/driver_download_vista.asp

Great to see - this certainly adds weight to the rumour that Motion will be releasing drivers on the 30th of January to coincide with the Vista launch.

Alas they still have not added an RSS feed to their drivers pages, which I think would be of huge benefit.  This is something I wish all manufacturers would do.

We hope you had enjoyed your holiday break and are ready for another year… The WMUG starts the year with a couple of very interesting presentations:

• Origami anyone?  Eric Ryder from Vantex introduces the range of Tablet PCs and Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPCs) that Vantex are now distributing in New Zealand.  The range includes the Tablet Kiosk range, the Samsung Q1 UMPC and the Raon UMPC.  Should be a great session with lots to of interesting things to look at and a first chance to have a look at these new products only now available in New Zealand.
• Si Partners will then talk about BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) installs with Microsoft Exchange Server, and demonstrate a few products, including the Impatica Showmate (http://www.impatica.com/showmate/) which has just been released for Windows Mobile as well as BlackBerry, a digital pen which uses OCR to convert handwriting and drawings to pdfs and MS Word documents (www.PaperIQ.com) and fieldforce automation.

When: 25 January 2007 6pm

Where: Gen-I (109 Featherston Street, Wellington)

Drinks and pizza available after the meeting.

Please RSVP to wmug@geekzone.co.nz and pass this forward to anyone you think may be interested.

Update: I had a brain fart when typing the name of the tablet I was using.  I can't even call it a typo, it was just a mistake.  The correct model is a Wacom Graphire 4.

In my review of the Acer Ferrari 1000 one of my criticisms of it was that it was not a tablet.  This was only partially tongue-in-cheek.  The fact is that I would not buy a pen and ink challenged computer as my main Mobile PC.  But since I have this one, lets see what we can do about ink enabling a Vista machine that does not have a digitizer.

Full Disclosure:  To do this I am using a Wacom Inspire Graphire 4 graphics tablet that was provided to me gratis by Wacom Australia. 

This graphics tablet is one of several that were provided to selected MVPs for the purpose of demostrating Windows Vista pen functionality to their respective communities.  I have a session prepared for my user group to be presented next time we have a speaker gap.

What you Need

On the computer side you need a Vista Machine that is running one of the following SKUs:

• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Enterprise
• Windows Vista Ultimate

In other words, not Home Basic or Started as those SKUs don't have the tablet functionality such as the TIP and pen flicks.

In addition you need some hardware to replace the missing digitizer hardware.  This is where the Wacom graphics tablet comes in.

The Process

1. Connect the external tablet to the laptop.  In the case of the tablet I have this is via a USB cable.  At this point the pen will move the mouse pointer, but the position of the pen on the tablet will not relate to the position of the cursor on the screen.
2. Install the Wacom driver and software (Note: I am currently using pre-release software, but I would expect that Wacom will release the drivers in the very near future.)  At this point the position of  the cursor on the screen is relative to the position of the pen on the tablet, but it still acts like a mouse cursor. There is a restart required. 
3. As Vista restarts it must detect the new hardware and enable the Tablet functionality automatically.  You will see the TIP docked on the left.  Pen flicks will now work.  You will be able to use Jounal and if you have OneNote or any other ink enabled apps you will be able to ink directly into them.

If you want to turn it off again...

1. Go to the Control Panel and select the Programs group
2. Under the Programs and Features heading click on Turn Windows features on or off
3. Clear the checkbox for Tablet PC Optional Components and click OK.

 Rob Bushway has posted a fine round-up of all the tablet and UMPC devices he saw at CES and some tabletscape musings.  The short version of the list includes:

• The OQO Model 02  - a stunningly beautiful unit.

• The TabletKiosk Sahara i440 series - a very nice slate to hold and use.

• The Flybook V5i - If they featured palm rejection technology and I didn't already own the P1610, I could see myself owning one. The form factor is perfect and the keyboard is just the right size. Integrating 3G via a sim card is very, very smart.

• The Toshiba R400 - underpowered

• HP TX1000 - HP will sell a lot of these at $1299

• The TabletKiosk eo TuffTab v7112XT - I was surprised how comfortable the eo TuffTab felt to hold.

• The S-XGen - nice pocket pc with integrated keyboard and 8 hour battery life.

• Intel vs Via - Via is making huge strides in the UMPC arena.

• The Medion UMPC - finally a UMPC with a usable slide out keyboard.

• 3G - As Scott Eckert and I talked about in our interview, WWAN is becoming almost a necessity in mobile pc solutions.

• Vista - Needless to say, CES 2007 was mostly about Microsoft and Vista, and how all these new devices can talk to each other through Vista services.

• Motion Computing - a lot has been said about Motion not having any new products to announce at CES.

---

Check out Rob's post for the full list. On that last point - I agree that Motion is probably wise to wait, but don't make us wait too long!  Motion slates are one of my favorite ways to sake my ever present thirst for new tablets...  And it's a long time between drinks. 

Already from CES we have seen a couple of devices with secondary displays supporting Windows Vista SideShow. But not as many as I had hoped.

SideShow first appeared as secondary display on concept laptops and this is still how many people think of it. This week Toshiba announced the first Tablet to be released with an integrated SideShow display, the R400.

 But while that may have been the first we saw of SideShow it is only the tip of the iceberg.  Another concept that appeared this week was the very cool messenger bag from Eleksen.

Other devices are coming.  This article in CoDe magazine from 2005 introduces Windows SideShow and has pictures of concept devices for laptops, keyboards, remotes and more.  I really like the idea of a digital photo frame that connects to your PC via BlueTooth. 

I know there are more cool devices out there that have not yet been announced. I guess some are being held back for the official Vista launch.  I say bring it on and I can't wait to see what manufactures make of it. 

SideShow, in my opinion, may well turn out to be an enabling technology that becomes ubiquitous - much like the mouse wheel.  Before the mouse wheel came along everyone thought the mouse fine as it was.  Now if you you find yourself using a mouse without the wheel you may well find yourself stroking the seam between the buttons when you want to scroll. 

Lots of potential...

If you want to get started developing for SideShow then I previously blogged about an article by Daniel Moth that may be of interest.

I recently started a series of posts detailing what is in my geek bag.  In part 1 of the series I explored my "traveling light" load, which in fact does not include a bag at al per se.

CES is running this week and I really wish I was there.  So much so, in fact, that I am packing my geek bag (virtually, at least) with a different load - what I take for an overseas conference.

Here's the the gear I would be taking for this trip if I were going.

So what have we here?  Here's the rundown:

1. The Oakley Vertical Computer Bag 2.0 that AMD sent me for my trip to CES even though I'm not going.  If I were I would take the bag to give it a good test run.
2. 3 x AAA NiMH rechargeable batteries.  Through some prudent device selection I have several devices that take the same sized batteries.  Hence I just need to carry one sort and I can use them in whatever goes flat.  In this load the MP3 player, wireless mouse and noise canceling headphones all use the AAA batteries.
3. SD GPS Receiver and leather pouch.  I won this at a user group meeting I attended once.  Used in conjunction with an old PDA (7) with Pocket Streets and Trips installed I can find my way around strange cities with ease.
4. A pair of Panasonic RP-HS11 headphones.  These are my favorite headphones for everyday use and for use while exercising.  They are very light and have an over the ear hook that keeps them in place even if you jog with all the coordination of a computer geek :)  Another thing I like about them is that the pads are soft rubber rather than foam - nothing to absorb sweat.  Good sound, too.
5.   A pair of Jensen noise canceling headphones.  These fold up relatively small.  They are great for planes and trains (and include an adaptor that you can use to plug them into those weird airplane armrests) where the noise canceling feature is worth the extra weight.  Not great if you are moving around a lot though.
6. My Telecom HTC Apache (aka Sprint 6700) phone.  Not as much use in the States as it is here in NZ because the data does not roam, but I still like being contractible by phone.  Also included a spare battery and stylus for the phone that pretty much just live in my bag full time.
7. My old HP hx4700 PDA.  Great VGA screen that makes it a perfect partner for the SD GPS Receiver (3).
8. Minolta DiamgeX Digital camera.  This is actually our old camera, and is not as full featured as our new one, but it is so small and light that it is great for trips away where you are only doing point and shoot photography.  And besides, I was using the other one to take this photo!
9. Targus 4 port travel USB 2.0 hub.  I've got stacks of USB hubs but this is my favorite for traveling.  This also pretty much lives in my bag. 
10. Short USB Extension cable - always in my bag.  Useful if you need to connect a wide device to a USB port that would then obstruct the other port or to make travel USB hub sit on the desk.
11. Adaptor for my NZ power cables to make them fit into US plugs.  I actually have a couple of these, but I only included one in the photo.
12. Canary Wi-Fi detector.  I won this at a stand at TechEd Boston last year.  Actually I won an Xbox game that was no use to me because it was zoned for the US - so I negotiated and got this instead.  Press the button and it gives you the name of the best wi-fi network and tells you if it is open or secured and what channel it is on.  Keep pressing the button to cycle through available networks.  Great to see if it is worth getting the tablet out to try and sync your mail and feeds!
13. USB 2.0 SD card reader.  Unfortunately one of the things that does not work on my LS800 with Vista is the SD card slot.  I use this reader to get photos off my camera without carrying the cable. 
14. JNC MPio MP3 Player.  Great little device I've had since before iPods dominated the digital music world.  I've not felt the need to replace it because it works so well.  Runs off a single AAA battery and in addition to it's tiny 128MB internal flash (that was huge when I bought it of course) it has an SD card slot.  Naturally I just use the SD.  It also has a FM Receiver, which is handy.
15. A device that should need no introduction.  This is my Motion Computing LS800 slate in the bump case. 
16. Wacom Cross Executive stylus - a really nice tablet stylus that lives in my bag.  This one in particular was given to me by Dr. Neil Roodyn the first time I met him.
17. 80GB External USB HDD.  Used for on the road backup, mostly, but you never know what you might be able to grab a copy of from someone on a stand if you have one of these with you.  "I'd give you a copy, but we only have the one CD..."  Well...  Again, through some cunning device selection the cable that connects the drive to the PC can also be used to charge my phone (6)
18. A Targus keyboard.  I won this (along with (9) and some other bits and pieces I gave away) by dropping my card into a fishbowl at a trade show.  This is a USB keyboard that feels like a laptop keyboard and is only slightly bigger.  I'm one of those weird people who prefers a laptop keyboard when I have to suffer one.  While I would probably take this (in my checked luggage) I may well not use it at all and it would remain in the room of the Hotel the whole time.  Basically it is just there in case I feel the burning need to write up a really long blog post about the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.  I want to replace this with one of the ThinkOutside Bluetooth keyboards, but I have not had the toy money to spend on that yet.
19. SwissBit 512MB USB fob and trusty Swiss Army knife. Of course this would be in my checked baggage too.
20. BenQ Wireless mouse.  I love this little guy.  Great portable mouse.  The receiver slots into the body of the mouse when not in use, making it a nice compact unit.  Also it is automatically turned off when the receiver is in the body, so it does not waste battery power. And of course, because it is red it goes faster.
21. Extended battery for the LS800.  This gives me 5-6 hours and the standard battery gives me 2.5-3.  Between the two I get a whole day of Show Floor walking without running out of juice.
22. Half of the power cord for my LS800
23. The other half of the power cord for my LS800
24. Business card case.  You have to have business cards if you want to win anything good and network with people.  Why do we go to these shows anyway?

In addition to all this there are a couple of items that should be.  They are in at work and I would have to go and pick them up on the way in.  These are:

• Sync and charge cable for the hx4700.
• USB battery charger for the AAA batteries.

There are a couple of strategies I have employed to simplify things.  Look for synergies.  For example my MP3 player, phone, digital cameras, laptop and both my tablets have have SD Card slots. 

Similarly, selecting devices that all use AAA batteries, such as my mouse, MP3 player and noise canceling headphones allows me to buy a number of rechargeable batteries and share them among devices.

Lastly by using USB charging I don't have to carry lots of power adaptors.  I carry the power supply for my tablet and charge my phone, the PDA I use as a GPS and my battery charger off that.

 Just after I posted my last post about a MacTablet (though not from apple) I see this from Loren Heiny...

David Sobotta gives us several reasons why Apple is unlikely to launch a MacTablet...

Check out Loren's post for more.

Source: Will Apple announce a Tablet at MacWorld?
Originally published on Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:59:03 GMT

If this is true it will be both cool and very interesing. 

Rob Bushway over at GBM writes:

"Looks like we might be getting a MacTablet soon. According to a press release from Axiotron, Other World Computing will be unveiling the ModBook, as designed by Axiotron, on January 9th during MacWorld."

I can't wait to see what a Mac tablet is like.  I'm full of anticipation - I want to read the reviews, especially those done by seasoned pen computing people.  Because Microsoft has been the sole player in the Tablet OS space for a couple of years there is a risk that a pro-MS bias may creep into the reviews.  This would be a shame and I hope anyone who gets the opportunity to review one of these keeps an open mind and gives it a fair chance.  My pick is that there will be some things that are better and some things that are worse.  the only question is what's the split.

With Colin Walker's open letter still fresh in my mind I can't help but wonder if a little competition is exactly what is needed to jar Microsoft into really promoting the Tablet PC form factor.  We live in hope.

A couple posts recently, including this one from Marc Orchant and this one from Rob Bushway have asked readers to delve into their gadget bags and reveal what is inside.  I try to always walk the line of taking everything I need and nothing extra.  As such I have a couple of different setups that I use, depending on where I am going and what I am doing.

This post is the first in a series exploring my mobile setups that I use.  Today I am looking at my lightest mobile computing load.

My Lite Load is what I take with me when I'm popping out of the office for up to 2 hours.  I use this when I am going out to client meetings, meeting colleagues for coffee or lunch and scooting around the office.

The surprising thing about my Lite Load gadget bag is that there is not actually a bag - here's what I take with me as a bare minimum.

That's it.  There is the LS800 in it's bump case and my Telecom HTC Apache (which is the NZ version of the Sprint PPC 6700).

The Apache is used as a Bluetooth modem if connectivity is required and there is no wi-fi coverage handy.  Because this burns battery, especially on the phone, I tend to work offline and only connect if I need to get something or feel like synchronizing.  The main application I use that needs to sync is of course Outlook.  I always work in cached Exchange mode, so working offline is completely seamless.  As soon as I go on line or dock the tablet any emails I have composed offline are sent and calendar or contacts added are synchronized with the server.

Actually to be fair there is also usually a 512MB Swissbit Victorinox in my pocket as well, but that is more habit than planning!

I've just gotten an email from Microsoft telling me that I have been reawarded my MVP Award for 2007.  I am tremendously pleased and honoured to be reawarded.

I was first awarded in January last year and the renewal has led me to reflect on my year as an MVP.

2006 was an amazing step forward for me.  The access to information and expertise as an MVP is positively taggering.  My brain hurt for the first couple of months. 

Being an MVP has opened other doors as well and through these opportunites I have met some fantastic people and made some great new friends.

In March Toshiba sponsored me to attend their MobileXchange event in Sydney.  While I was in town Hugo Ortega (who has since been awarded as an MVP as well) invited me to join him at the Sydney Windows Mobile User Group (SWMUG).  On the flight over there I had one of those chatty little old ladies who was amazed that I was being pick up at the airport by someone I had never met in person before.  I'm sure she was expecting to read in the Sydney Morning Herald the next day that I had been brutally murdered!

In the car on the way to the User Group meeting Hugo informed me that he had arranged for me to "talk tablet" for 10 or 15 minutes.  I mind mapped out some things to talk about in the car on the way over!

At the meeting I also met Dr. Neil for the first time.  Hugo, Neil and I also recorded this hilarious podcast sitting in the corner - you even hear the pizza arrive!

Later on in May I was offered the chance to attend some Vista Readiness Training in Singapore.  The training was great and I also met several Asia pacific MVPs and Microsoft employees while I was there. 

Also while in town I hooked up with Soon Jinn of local ISV Heulab who gave me an unforgettable tour of their "Classroom of the future".  Truely remarkable.  Unfortuantly the link seems to be broken - I'll investigate.

June saw me taking advantage of the MVP discount for TechEd Boston and putting together a proposal for myself and Active Directory MVP Tony Murray (who also worked at Gen-i) to attend the US event.  In a brain crushingly stupid move managment decided to only send one of us.  I was the lucky one and Tony no longer works for Gen-i.  What a waste - people like Tony are impossible to replace.

However I had an amazing time in Boston and met with the tablet team, the exchange team (Exchange being a strong side interest) and lots of other MVPs and Microsofters.  Three MVPs in particular that took an interest in looking out for me were three of the four Mobility Guys: Steven Hughes, Jack Cook and Don Sorcinelli and I had a great time with them.

In August I spoke at TechEd New Zealand.  I had some issues with the then current build of Vista and the KVMs that were being used (as did everyone else) but I still delivered two sessions which were both well revieced.  My lunchtime session allowed me to talk about what is new in Vista for Mobile and Tablet users (lots) and on the final day I delivered a session on getting started with Tablet Development.

Thanks to all the people who have made it such a memorable year.  My MVP friends I look forward to meeting more of you in person at the Summit in March.  2007 looks to be just as good.

Quickly getting to the explorer view of a drive in Vista can be a bit of a pain on a slate. To make it easier configure the computer item to show as a menu in the start menu.

Once this is done you can expand computer within the start menu and click a drive, which will take you straight to the explorer view for that drive.

To do this:

Right click the start button (the pearl) and click properties.

On the Start Menu tab click the Customize button next to the Start Menu item

Then for the computer item

And click ok a couple of times to close the properties dialogs.

I stumbled across this today via technorati.

Thousand Sketches is a project to post 1000 digital sketches created on a Tablet PC in one calender year.

The artist, Walter Logeman, lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. Walter has been working on the project for a couple of months already so check out thousandsketches.com for some cool tablet art.

As I was Googling around for something I came across this post from Warner Crocker in which he explores the question:  Will Windows Vista ReadyBoost work with SD Cards (and other Flash media) or not?

(He posted this at the beginning of the month - don't know how I missed it then!)

Well the definative answer from one who has tried it with multiple Tablet models is... *drumroll*

Maybe.

In fact it aboslutely will work provided the OS can read from the card fast enough to support ReadyBoost.  Whether or not it can depends on two factors:

1. The speed of the flash reader.
2. The random read speed of the media.

The Reader

I know from experince that all card readers are not created equally.  I have not been able to get any SD Cards to work in a Lenovo X41T - including the ones that work in my Toshiba M400.

The Media

The speed of the media is the other critical factor.  The sad news is those speed ratings on the card don't actually provide a meaningful indicator of wheter they will  work or not.  I have a 120x card that works and my colleague has a 133x that does not - in the same tablet.  The reason for this is the cards are rated using a process that writes a file to the card and then reads it off again - which is of course a sequential read.  When Vista tests the card to see if it is fast enough it performs a random read. ReadyBoost is trying to boost system performance in part by servicing random read requests off the flash card rather than from the page file on disk - so the random read speed is what is important. 

Why the difference you ask?  When I was chatting to a MS guy at TechEd in Boston he told me that some cards have a chunk on "good" flash up the front and cheper, slower flash providing the bulk of the storage.  As such the perform well for the sequential rating test but still are not fast enough to pass the random read test performed by ReadyBoost.

Figuring out what will work

It is hard to know which media is going to work and which isn't - and this will no doubt add to the confusion.  The best advice I can give you is to take your device into the shop and insist you can try before you buy.

To know if your Reader is going to be fast enough you will either need to find a card that you know works in other devices or try to find reference to someone who has made it work.  Here's my results so far with a known good SD Card:

Motion Computing LE1600 - Worked

Lenovo X41T - Too slow

Toshiba M400 - Worked

Motion Computing LS800 - Have not been able to make the SD Card reader work in Vista as of yet :(

The last point I'll add is that it is so worth the effort.  Even on a well speced machine (my M400 has 2GB of RAM) it still makes a noticable difference to the performance of the machine.  Hopefully this post helps clear some confusion instead of adding to it...

This is post number 2 in my "things I should of blogged about ages ago" series. Post number one in the series was my review of the Motion LS800 Mobile Dock.

I purchased the extended battery for the LS800 shortly before Tech-Ed New Zealand this year. I was going to be at a conference, wandering around all day and I wanted to have a ready supply of power for my LS800 because that is the best device ever for carrying around all day without a laptop bag and taking notes in sessions.

Pictured below is the LS800 with the extended battery fitted. The standard battery is alongside for size comparison.

Like the standard battery the extended battery has a push button charge level indicator. I love this feature, but my only gripe is that the button and the indicator LEDs are on the part of the battery that gets inserted into the tablet and is hence covered up when it is in the tablet. I wish the indicator was accessible when the battery is in the tablet. It is nice to be able pull a device out of your bag and check the charge without removing the battery.

The on the standard battery I get about 2:45 – 3:00 hours depending on what I am doing, but in addition to that I can get 5:30-6:00 hours from the extended battery – a bit more if I get brutal with the power settings.

However that is not what has impressed me about the LS800 extended battery. Frankly I would expect an extended battery to extend your battery life – hence the name. I have used extended batteries with a number of devices and most (not all) are clunky, unwieldy things that seem to have been tacked on as an aftermarket afterthought. The frequently make the device not only heavy but awkward to use. This is particularly true on convertible tablets with a "Wedge" style extended battery such as the Toshiba M400.

The LS800 with the extended battery fitted is – by contrast – still very well balanced and easy to use. In some cases the extra width between the edge of the screen and the edge of the battery is a bit of a boon.

If there is one thing Motion do really well it is practical product design. This battery is another example of that.

I first reviewed the Motion Computing LS800 in August 2005 and I’ve been using the one for about 6 months now and I am a big fan of it.

I’ve purchased some accessories for it – though I realise I never reviewed those.  So I’m going to start putting that right with this review of the Motion Computing LS800 Mobile docking station.

From the Motion Computing Website:

Key Features:

• Three piece design to accommodate different usage models:
  - Docking Cradle/Port Replication
  - Desktop Dock Base/Port Replicator
  - Notepad Travel Stand
  - Wall/Arm/Cart Mount
• When docked, will convert LS800’s 10/100 Ethernet to Gigabit* Ethernet automatically
• Replicates and expands ports
  - VGA
  - 2 USB
  - 10/100/1000 Ethernet
  - Microphone/Headphone
  - Headphone/Speaker
  - Motion Accessory Port
  - Power
• Lightweight and compact
• Dock Base includes VESA compatible holes for wall or arm mounting
• “Grab and Go” design
• Supports landscape viewing

The back of the port replicator looks like this:

Like the LS800 itself the docking station has been designed to provide incredible flexibility and with mobility in mind.  The package includes (Top to bottom):

·         The port replicator

·         A travel stand

·         A desktop/wall mount stand

·         A right-angle VGA connector and various screws etc. (for use when wall mounting the port replicator) (Not Pictured)

This gives you a number of options for how you use the docking station.  I’ve snipped some of the photos from the product pictures PDF as they looked heaps better than my photos.

Firstly you can mount the port replicator vertically in the desktop stand like this:

Alternatively you can mount the tablet in note taking mode like this.

In note taking mode you can still make use of an external monitor by using the supplied right-angle VGA adaptor.  The other ports on the back of the port replicator are accessible, if a little cramped.

Likewise you can wall-mount the docking station and rotate the port replicator 90 degrees so the tablet screen is vertical.  Again you need to make use of the VGA adaptor to connect a monitor and the access to the other ports is a little cramped.

My preferred modus operandi, however, is to use the travel kickstand.

The replicator and the kickstand together are eminently portable.  Because of the modular design the kickstand can be easily removed from the port replicator for transport.  Together the port replicator and the stand are about the size of a chunky remote control and are very light.  They easily slip into a standard laptop bag with the tablet, a USB hard drive, lunch and space to spare J