Blog:: Craig Pringle

SPAM is a pet peeve of mine.  If you manage a mail server or can influence someone who does - make sure they have configured SenderID.  For more information I refer you to a lengthy post I just put on my other blog.

To put it simply an email server that supports the SenderID framework queries a special DNS record to validate that the computer submitting an email is allowed to send for that domain.

Spread the word.

I have been living with the fact that SD Card reader on the LS800 does not work under Vista since I installed Vista last year.  However I recently had a conversation with a Motion Computing employee in which he indicated that he thought that issue had been solved.

Full of hope I rushed off to check the knowledge base article on the Motion site that documented the issue to see if it had been updated...

There is no SD card reader driver available for Windows Vista on the LS800/LE1600 at the time of this writing (1/29/2007).  Motion is working to provide this driver as soon as possible.  This knowledge base article will be updated at the time of the driver update.

Hmmm, still no joy.  However - while I was on the site I thought that I might as well see if there were any driver updates available.  Why OEMs don't put an RSS feed on their drivers page is beyond me.

While poking around I realise that there have been two BIOS revisions released since my version.  I'm was running A09 and A14 and A15 are on the site.  What happened to A10-A13 I wonder?

Nevermind.  I check the release notes for the two new BIOS releases.  Low an behold the Release Notes for A14 state:

What's New In This Release

· Support for Intel 1.1GHz processor

· Support for SD card reader in Vista

I check the release notes for A15 as well, nothing major in that one except one fix.  However BIOSes are cumulative, so A15 includes everything A14 had.  To avoid having to do two upgrades I flash the BIOS with the A15 version.

After a reboot I can see that the SDA Host Controller is listed in Device Manager without the little yellow exclaimation point it had before!

Full of anticipation I break out a SD card and slot it in.  **Poof**  Bluescreen of death.  Interesting.  I reboot and try it again.  **Poof** again.  Well at least the fault is repeatable...

Time to break out the Windows Debugging Tools to analyse the crash dump.  Not for the faint of heart.

After repeating this a few times and analysing three dumps I see the debugger pointing to three different drivers. None of which are the SD Card driver.  Given the highly repeatable nature of the fault I think it is clear that it is related to the SD Card Driver, so my guess is that the SD Card driver is corrupting bits of memory, which causes an exception when some innocent driver wanders along and falls into the whole.  Believe it or not - this is progress.

I recently came across an issue in one of my favorite productivity apps, ActiveWords. By its very nature this issue will only occur on a Tablet PC running Vista. if you are running XP or running Vista on a pen challenged PC then you are in the clear.

The symptoms are a bit weird and, to be honest, it took me a fairly long time to figure out what the heck was going on. There are two symptoms and they both only occur when ActiveWords is running.

The first issue is that the web buttons in the Tablet Input Panel (TIP) stop working properly.

What happens when you do use these buttons is just strange. Clicking the "http://" button will insert ":vv". The backslash button will insert "v" and the remaining web buttons insert "c".

The second issue is with the pen flicks. If you are using Navigation and Editing flicks as shown below...

...then you will find that the delete flick does not work when ActiveWords is running. When you select something and flick up and left you get the visual feedback indicating that the Delete flick has fired, but the selection is not deleted.

If you close ActiveWords than both of the above issues go away. Of course so does ActiveWords, so that is not a great solution.

The ActiveWords team are aware of this and are working on it with MS, but in the meantime there is n work around. Disable the buffer in ActiveWords as described in this Knowledgebase article.

While I was at the MVP Summit in Seattle Rob Bushway invited me to do some posts on GBM. What tablet blogger could say no?

I'll be contributing over at GBM semi-regularly now, though. I'll still be maintaining this blog as well.

Rob announced this on GBM and my first post is now live. Check it out.

I just spotted this in the sidebar area on my blog:

Somehow I don't think my readers are the audience this company is aiming for!

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.

I'm sitting in a departure gate in Sydney International Airport.  I'm on my way to the US for two weeks.  First up I'll be going to San Diego (where it is warm) to attend Interact 2008. 

Then I'll be heading to Seattle (where it is not so warm) to catch up with a couple of thousand more geeks at the MVP Summit. 

Should be a great time, but as with all trips from this part of the world to - well pretty much anywhere - it starts with a long flight...  In about 24 hours I should be touching down in San Diego - albeit a bit jaded.

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.

 Kevin Tofel points to TabletPCReview, who have the low down on a great travel accessory from Belkin.

On the run in your car with mobile devices all the live-long day? Belkin's Travel Power Adapter might be the best friend your glovebox every had based on this overview at TabletPCReview. For around $100, you get the adapter that fits in your vehicle's cigarette lighter and 11 interchangeable tips. Simply plug in your notebook or other device while you're driving and you'll be charging up your laptop on the go.

What a great accessory for the mobile geek.  I could of used this for a few long road trips in the past!

I've been out of the look for a few weeks.  I had a couple of exams to sit before the end of the month to renew one of my technical certifications. 

I even had my hands on some cool tablet gear last week and was too busy to do a review - how unfair is that.  I'll have to arrange a second sitting.

I passed both of them and now I can return to having some semblance of a life again.