Blog:: Craig Pringle

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 am finding that there are plenty of things that I want to blog about that just don’t fit into the theme of my current blog. This is largely because I have just started a new role, in a new country with a slightly different focus to what I was doing. So here I will be blogging about joys, trials and tribulations of Messaging and Collaboration, Unified Messaging, and Communications.
This is an exciting time in this space as we are finally beginning to see products that start to deliver on the convergence buzz word what has been floating around for the last five years or so. In my new role much of my focus will be on Exchange 2007 including Unified Messaging, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Groove and Office Communications Server so I would expect many posts around those products and integrating them into environments.

Check out my new blog here.

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.

There has been a bit of a post drought here on Blog:: Craig Pringle for the last two months and much of what I have posted has been around the challenges I have faced relocating myself and my family from Wellington, NZ to Sydney, Australia.

What I have not posted much info about is why I made the move and what I am doing now.

The impetus behind the move was my job. In NZ I worked for Gen-i, which is an IT company owned by Telecom New Zealand as a Senior Technology Consultant specialising in Mobile Computing and the infrastructure that enables mobile workers to function. I became aware of a position in our Sydney office that was a bit of a step up and a slight change in career direction. I applied, was interviewed. accepted and moved country in the space of about 6 weeks.

My new role is Messaging & Collaboration Practice Lead for Gen-i Australia. As a Practice Lead 50% of my role is still hands on consulting, which is essential to stay on top of the technology. The other 50% is developing our capabilities and our go to market strategy around Messaging & Collaboration technologies. This includes MS products like Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communications Server & Groove. It also includes concepts such as Unified Communications, Collaboration and Mobility - well as far as I'm concerned it does!  At any rate, try shutting me up about mobility.

This is an exciting time for these technologies and IMO Gen-i - as an IT company owned by a telco- is ideally placed to deliver on the promise of the convergence of voice and messaging services.

This is a newly created position so I am starting from scratch and have no shortage of things to do.

Passing this on as it may interest some of you:

Exchange MVPs will be on hand to answer your questions about Exchange Server, Outlook and Exchange for Small Business Server.  So if you are thinking of upgrading to Exchange Server 2007 or have questions about Exchange Server 2003 we hope you can join us for this informative online chat!

Chat 1

When:   Tuesday June 19^th

Time:    5pm PST or 8pm EST

Where:  TechNet Chat Room www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/chatroom.aspx

No password required

Add to your calendar:

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/07_0619_TN_ES.ics

Chat 2

When:   Thursday June 21st 

Time:    10am PST or 1pm EST

Where: TechNet Chat Room www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/chatroom.aspx

No password required

Add to your calendar:

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/07_0621_TN_ES.ics

=============================================

Q&A with the Security MVP Experts

We invite you to attend an Q&A with the Microsoft Security MVPs. In this chat the MVP experts will answer your questions regarding online safety issues such as phishing, spyware, rootkits as well as server related topics. If you have questions on how to protect your PC, please bring them to this informative chat

When:   Thursday June 21^st

Time:    4pm PST and 7pm EST

Where:  TechNet Chat Room www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/chatroom.aspx

No password required  

Add to your calendar:

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/07_0621_TN_Security.ics

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.

 if you one running Vista ultimate on a system that supports Dreamscene then you need eye candy! Checkout Background Motion. Darryl Burling provides more info...

What is it?

Backgroundmotion.com is two things. 

Firstly it is a community website to allow you to share backgrounds and background video for the DreamScene features of Windows Vista Ultimate.

Secondly it is a great example of a modern web application built on .Net 2.0.  When I say example, I also mean sample - the source code for the site is available on codeplex for you to download and pull it apart. 

There is also a "Code" tab on the site to help you get up and running with the source code.  The developer section of the site includes sample code, short introduction videos and resources to lower the bar to use these technologies.

Technologies used

One of the things that the guys did was to build in all the latest technologies and making the code available means that you can go and see how they did it.  Specifically, the technologies and tools they used include:

• .Net Framework 2.0
• .Net Framework 3.0
• ASP.Net 2.0
• ASP.Net AJAX 1.0
• Silverlight
• NUnit
• LINQ (May CTP)
• Web Client Software Factory (Composite Web Block)
• Lucene.Net
• RSS Toolkit (which was extended for the solution)
• Virtual Earth
• Sidebar Gadgets

Background Motion - now live!

Very cool. Well done guys!

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.

Broadband at home again. I've been connectivity challenged since leaving NZ, but while I was awayin the US our ADSLwas provisioned and ourcontainer arrived. I just finished setting up our ADSL & Wi-fi at home.

Feeds, whenever I want! Yay!

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.

Whoops - I'm not getting any comment notifications! No wonder it has been so quiet! Apologies to anyone who has commented and not had a response. I'll look into it and get it fixed toot sweet.

At TechEd, as you might imagine, there is a lot of wireless noise. There is the conference wi-fi, but there are also a bunch of ad-hoc or computer to computer networks with remarkably similar names. In the wireless list infrastructure and ad-hoc networks have different icons.

You have to question the motives of people trying to fists for wi-fi users like that. while I know better than to go connecting to ad-hoc networks willy nilly, I wanted to remove the risk of accidentally connecting to one with the same name.

In Vista you can, via the command line, filter the list of available wireless networks. To filter out ad-hoc networks run the following from a command line (running as admin, all on one line)

netsh wlan add filter permission=denyall networktype=adhoc

to reverse this again run the following:

netsh wlan del filter permission=denyall networktype=adhoc

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!

What does one do when they are in Orlando for a day before the big conference starts? Hit the theme parks!

I decided to go to Disney's Magic Kingdom for a bit of nostalgia, I went there as a kid 20 something years ago. What a blast! There are plenty of things there that I remember from my last visit and lots of new things, too. If they could somehow fix the massive lines and long waits it would be a lot better.

One thing that has not changed - Space Mountain is still my favorite ride.  However, since it is a bit hard to do a self portrait with a cell phone camera in the dark, here I am on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Some people never grow up, and it sure is fun being one of them!

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.

I see via Frank La Vigne that there is a new beta of Windows Live Writer available for download.

From frank's blog:

The new version includes a ton of new features, including:

New Authoring Capabilities

• Inline spell checking
• Table editing
• Ability to add categories
• Page authoring for WordPress and TypePad
• Support for excerpts and extended entries
• Improved hyperlinking and image insertion
• Paste Special

Integration and Compatibility

• SharePoint 2007 support
• New APIs enabling custom extensions by weblog providers
• Automatic synchronization of local and online edits
• Integration with Windows Live Gallery
• Support for Blogger Labels

Plus...

• New look and feel
• Available in 6 languages
• Improved accessibility and keyboard support
• Many other frequently requested enhancements!

You can download it for free at http://writer.live.com/

If they only included better inking support. ;)

Here here Frank! I'll download it and try it out when I am online again. I working offline in the old beta somewhere between San Fran and Orlando.

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!

I'm in San Francisco airport awaiting my fight to Orlando. The flight from Sydney to SFO was a grueling 13 and a half hours. I'm sure I've gotten taller because there seemedto be even less leg room than usual this time!

I've just had a surprisingly drinkable double espresso (for airport coffee) and I've got time to check and cache my feeds to read on the plane. On that note Nick Bradbury - the brains behind FeedDemon -has released a screencast of the new offline features in FeedDemon 2.5.

Keep an eye out for me @ TechEd, I'll be the slightly tall guy with the LS800.