Blog:: Craig Pringle

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.

Unified Communications is becoming a pretty hot buzz word in the industry these days.  On my other blog I recently posted about how and why UC and Mobility are converging. 

This is something that mobility professionals should have on their radar.

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.

The good folks at TechSmith have a cool new project called Jing.  What is it?  Good question as I have not installed it yet...  but the concept sounds great.  From the website:

The concept of Jing is the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere.

It’s something we want to give you, along with some online media hosting, to see how you use it. The project will eventually turn into something else. Tell us what you think so we can figure out what that is.

Try it, you’ll like it. Find out more.

I'm in the process of installing it now so I'll feed back my thoughts when I've had a play.

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!

Congrats to Mark "Sumocat" Sumimoto.  Sumocat has been blogging in ink for two years now. 

Many blogs fail in less time than that because - lets face it - blogging can be pretty damn time consuming.  Some people out there could be forgiven for thinking that I'd stopped recently.

Blogging in ink is harder.  It takes more time.  Kudos to Sumocat for carrying the flag for the last two years.

Make sure you stop in on Sumocat's Scribbles.

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...

My poor little LS800 has gone back for servicing after its tragic demise.  I'm told today could be the day, but I'll have to wait and see.

Something that a lot of people don't realize is that Motion Computing tablets can be serviced locally here in Australia.  I've sent mine to DH Technology, which is an authorized service agent for Motion Computing.  The guys at DH have been pretty good - taking my constant requests for updates in their stride (patience is not a virtue that I possess) and keeping me informed of progress.  Thanks for the efforts, guys.