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I'm out of town for two days...

I’m in Auckland for two days. I flew up this morning. Wouldn’t you know it – not one but two tablets I have been expecting for a while arrived today. (Well actually 14 Tablets. 13 of one and one of the other.)

The 13 tablets are Toshiba M400 DualCore beasties with 2GB of RAM. One is ear-marked for me as my new work provided machine. These have been purchased for some of the consulting team as part of our Vista Readiness programme of work because they are one of the few mobile devices with a WDDM compliant video driver available.

The 14^th tablet is just as cool, but I need to confirm rules of disclosure before I say any more.

TabletPC

Tuesday, August 08, 2006 4:51:47 PM (AUS Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10:00)

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TUG Meeting Tomorrow

The next meeting of the Tablet PC User Group will be held on August 3rd. This is a little later than it should be but we wanted to get the best speakers for the topics.
We are over half way through the year now and suddenly Office 2007 and Windows Vista are not very far away. Both the Office and the Windows Vista betas are public now so we thought it would be a good time to have a look at what is in the new Windows Platform and Office suite for the tablet user.
Microsoft is hosting the meeting and we are going to be treated to two top notch speakers. Windows Platform evangelist Nathan Mercer is going to give us the lowdown on Windows Vistas new features for the Tablet PC and for mobile computer users in general.
After that Ryan Duguid, Microsoft Technical Specialist, will brief us on the new Office suite.
We will as always wrap up the meeting with prizes and a chat over beer and pizza.
Where:
Microsoft New Zealand
Level 12, 157 Lambton Quay
Wellington
When:
6pm-8pm Thursday, August 3rd 2006.
RSVP:
TUGRSVP@pringle.net.nz
Look forward to seeing you there.

TUG

Wednesday, August 02, 2006 7:17:58 PM (AUS Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10:00)

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Practicing what I am Preaching

I have not abandoned BlogPad - though I do think I need a complete code review. I have been doing a lot of learning about tablet and smart client development recently in preparation for the session I am giving at TechEd NZ. In line with this I have decided to add Network Location Awareness to BlogPad and combine this with defensive programming techniques. In short - I'm going to track network state and only try to talk to the server if I'm connected. Simple enough to do.
The other change I am making is something I need to do to make BlogPad easier to use on a small screen tablet - I'm adding the ability for the user to configure the pen size.
I have found that the easiest way to do this is to create a DrawingAttributes object, configure the settings and assign the drawing attributes object to the DrawingAttributes property of each InkEdit on the main form.
Right now I have it hard coded to fine to suit the LS800 until I create the GUI to allow the user to configure it. It looks like this:

' Create DrawigAttributes object
Dim myPenSettings As New DrawingAttributes
myPenSettings.PenTip = PenTip.Ball
myPenSettings.Width = 3
myPenSettings.Height = 3

Me.iEditTitle.DrawingAttributes = myPenSettings

Me.iEditBody.DrawingAttributes = myPenSettings

BlogPad | TabletPC Dev

Wednesday, August 02, 2006 7:02:07 PM (AUS Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10:00)

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Dell Laptops Exploding

I was just reading this article on stuff.co.nz about a series of incidents where Dell laptops have experienced spontaneous combustion.

I am suddenly very glad that Dell don't make tablets!

Check out this article for more details and photos of a Dell doing half a Pheonix act at a conference in Japan!

General | TabletPC

Tuesday, August 01, 2006 12:10:25 PM (AUS Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10:00)

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Speaking at TechEd NZ

Great news – yours truly is confirmed as a speaker for TechEd New Zealand. My session is titled “Getting Started With Tablet Development” and my main goals for the session are:

1) Introduce developers to the tools ad resources they need to get started with Tablet Development.

2) Get more developers enthused about the tablet PC as a platform.

The only bummer is the timeslot that I currently have allocated – 9a.m. the morning after the party! Looks like I won’t be cutting loose this year. That could still change so here’s hoping!

Sadly – for those of you in NZ – if you have not already registered for TechEd then you are missing out this year as the event is sold out. Is it just me or is there a need for a bigger purpose built conference venue in New Zealand? I vote for building one in Wellington!

General

Saturday, July 29, 2006 7:17:23 PM (AUS Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10:00)

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Accessories for the LS800 have been arriving

When I was given my LS800 the first thing I did was order a memory upgrade. Shortly there after I ordered a docking station and the extended battery. Both have now arrived and I will be posting detailed reviews of them soon.
One thing is clear - Motion Computing do design really, really well.

TabletPC

Friday, July 28, 2006 1:39:20 PM (AUS Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10:00)

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Great two part video review of 2 Origamis

I'm a little slow on the uptake here but Hugo Ortega has posted a great two part video review contrasting the TabletKiosk eo and the Samsung Q1 Origami devices.
Show Notes:Part 1 [35MB/9.25 minutes]
Ergonomics
Ports, buttons and stands
The XYZ Factor (chapter 1)
Part 2 [37MB/9.56 minutes]
Touchscreen weight (pressure sensitivity) and DialKeys
The XYZ Factor (chapter 2)
The speakers
The Pen ouch!
Interpolation of pixels
The verdict

TabletPC

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 12:25:46 PM (AUS Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10:00)

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Geekzone '06 Event

Great news, the Geekzone 2006 Event is all confirmed. This will be a fun and informative event I'm sure.
from Geekzone:
Geekzone has confirmed the geek and technologists gathering, Geekzone 2006, will be happening in Wellington, New Zealand on 16th September 2006.The event brings together a small group of IT enthusiasts, geeks in general to discuss, share and learn more about technology, mobility, blogging and other topics.The event will take place at the Paramount Cinema, Brooks Lounge, in Couternay Place, the centre of the entertainment district in Wellington, New Zealand's capital.Currently schedule to speak are Jay Templeton (Mabode) speaking about content, media devices, and Juha Saarinen (The Techsploder) talking about the media move to the Internet, blogs and other related topics. Geekzone 2006 will be a free event, with limited capacity due to the venue size. Advanced registrations will be required, and more information is available in the official Geekzone 2006 Blog.

General

Monday, July 24, 2006 8:37:12 PM (AUS Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10:00)

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More space saving tips

Darren over at Tablet Minds provided this space saving tip in a comment to an earlier post:

“One thing I use is TrayIt (http://www.teamcti.com/trayit/trayit.htm). It allows you to send programs into the tray, and you double click them to restore them. This is great for Lotus Notes, which I have to have open all the time, but won't minimize to the tray. With TrayIt, it will. Now I don't have to suffer with Notes hogging a spot on my taskbar when it isn't in use.”

Sounds like TrayIt could be useful for any app you need to have open in the background all day. Great tip!

Outlook, for those that use it, provides a native way to do this. Simply right-click the icon in the systems tray and select “hide when minimized”. When you minimize Outlook there will be no icon on the Task Bar, just the icon in the System Tray.

Outlook | TabletPC

Monday, July 24, 2006 6:00:51 PM (AUS Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10:00)

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Sony UX Micro PC against the TabletKiosk eo UMPC

A couple of my friends, Mauricio Freitas and Darryl Burling had a chance to compare the Sony UX Micro PC against the TabletKiosk eo UMPC
I am looking forward to checking out the Sony in person myself soon.

TabletPC

Sunday, July 23, 2006 12:57:34 PM (AUS Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10:00)

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Tablet & Mobility Musings