MiniMage Never Stops Talking Tech

The truth doesn't always hurt; sometimes it amuses us

2011-08-12T14:44:00.002-04:00

My colleagues are laughing right now, because now that we're being forced to remove whatever antivirus software we were running and install McAfee, our Windows 7 machines are reporting that no antivirus protection is installed. Me? I don't really see a joke, there.

Earlier, the guys were crying about how much slower their computers were running. I'm a little behind--currently at the stage of uninstalling the unapproved app (in preparation for installing ePO), so I will be crying in a couple of hours, I'm sure.

Waking up to tech woes

2011-06-14T23:31:00.002-04:00

A tech-head who spends too much time playing with technology late at night needs help waking up. Sometimes, it's just hard to find good help. My mornings go something like this:

Standard alarm clock: "Howdy! I am loud, and I have nine-minute snooze intervals. In addition to beeping, I can play the radio for you!"
Me: "What can I do with nine minutes? That's entirely too short, and I don't want some radio personality blathering at me when I am trying to ~~go back to sleep~~ wake up!"

HTC HD7 phone with Windows Phone 7: "Check me out! I have five-minute snooze intervals, and you can set different alarms for different days of the week!"
Me: "Five minutes? That's worse than the alarm clock! Not to mention I don't like ANY of your alarm sounds; why can't I set what I want? No, no, please don't cry; your SharePoint and Office Live support is really nice, but it just won't get me out of bed."

Samsung Moment with Android 2.1: "I can set alarms for different days of the week, too! And if you choose me, you can have 10-, 15-, 20-, 25- or 30-minute snooze intervals. Plus, I can crow like a rooster!"
Me: "Annoying rooster noises aside, that would be GREAT...as long as you aren't stuck in a reboot loop...you know, kind of like the one you were stuck in this morning!"

iPhone 3G: "If you would just take me out of the backpack sometimes--"
Me: "Shhh! Grown people are sleeping!"

Lacking an extremely reliable device that has truly flexible alarm options, I almost always use the Moment as the primary alarm clock. As a backup for when the Moment is having one of its moments of FAIL, the HD7 is set to go off at the last minute, in case I'm not yet awake and getting ready for work, the workout, or play.

Thanks, Facebook, I think you botched it again

2010-05-28T00:15:00.004-04:00

You see, I'm pretty sure I had my wall visible to everyone before your meddling. My posts were set by default to be invisible to a couple of groups of people; since permissions for individual posts can't be set from phones, this seemed the way to handle things for when I'm out and about. If I really wanted a post to be visible to all friends or a broader group, then I'd find a PC for that status update, link, etc.

Now, it seems you've gone and "fixed" things so that individuals in my default "no-see" categories can't see my wall and, therefore, the posts I intended for them. Giving them the ability to see the posts they should apparently means setting the default for new posts to a visibility level I did not desire. My friend was right, I suppose, when he said during our BSD arguments that simpler just means having fewer options.

Can you be any more annoying?

Will punctuation help you get your point across?

2009-07-08T04:47:00.001-04:00

There’s a thread on FriendFeed that quite appropriately warns people of the dangers of failing to use a comma when tweeting. Anyone who’s given it much thought understands that punctuation can be key in getting your point across (or mangling it). However, sometimes using or omitting punctuation properly is lost on those who don’t give it much thought, and reading that funny thread made me recall just such an occasion.

Years ago, a friend and I'd had a discussion about my frustration with UNIX help files. After he'd made yet another suggestion, I went home and tried it, then emailed him to complain. His response was basically "why are you telling me about your sex life?" His suggestion? Enter "man man." In my subject line, I told him I “did a man man;” In the body of the email, I told him I received useless information for my efforts. My lesson? Sometimes the comma—or lack, thereof--doesn't help.

I no longer tell anyone I did a “man man.” In fact, I just don’t do a “man man,” just to save myself from having to explain later. If I need to know anything while working in UNIX, I just may hit Google up for answers. Almost all of us are doing Google, and like one FriendFeeder said, he tried Binging someone and got a nasty rash!

Technorati Tags: UNIX

Playing with FaceBook apps: What Element Are You?

2009-04-13T22:54:00.004-04:00

I used to find FaceBook apps immensely annoying, but they're starting to grow on me. I'm not sure if they are changing, or if I am. I'm still not going to be in any games that glorify crime or criminals, and I'm not so much into racing, but there seem to be plenty of things out there for the RPG-lover and strategy game addict I've been known to be. The latest of the apps I've given in to is the one that determines which element you resemble. As with my Inner Nationality Quiz results, I was not expecting the answer I got. Metal? me? really?

The new FriendFeed beta – what I want

2009-04-06T21:38:00.001-04:00

If you don’t know about the new look and functionality that is being scrutinized by the FriendFeed beta users as of today, then you probably aren’t reading this (unless you’re a family member). There’s a lot of talk going on about whether or not the real-time feature should be the default, whether the color scheme is tragic, or even how much it might resemble a certain other popular social media service. Lindsay D., well-known FFer, suggested that we FFans (well, the graphically-oriented ones, anyway) draft a comp with how we want our FF to work. Never mind what I’ve been doing with my new Dell Mini 9, my little brain decided this was a blogging opportunity I couldn’t miss.

The above screenshot shows roughly what I see in the FriendFeed beta now. Compare/contrast with the below:

As you can see, my mock-up does away with the grey that seems to offend so many and replaces it with a lovely aqua. Sadly, I’m not graphically-oriented, so the uneven coloring is due to the edits I was doing with the grey background before I re-colored. More important than the color, though, is the ability (optional, of course) to have a preview of a subscription area before I click. How many times have I seen (under the current live UI) that there was an update to a room an hour ago, but I go to that room to find I’ve already read the latest news? If I could see the last two or three entries of certain rooms or contributors on my sidebar, I could determine beforehand if it might be worth a click-through; a plus would be that I could absorb more information without having to leave the main page (or, as I often do, open another tab or page) at all. Sure, this stuff all scrolls through the main feed, but sometimes it flies right past my face before I know it; that’s what happens to those of us who want to know it all.

These couple of features aren’t all I want out of FriendFeed, but this is something I wanted to get out there. Maybe I’ll have more later, but if you read this blog, you know how likely that really is!

Technorati Tags: FriendFeed,Social Media

iMage to the rescue? iPod Touch troubles

2009-01-15T21:08:00.005-05:00

A co-worker was bummed out today, because she and her daughter had been trying for days to get the girl's iPod touch working. It seems that it stopped responding one day, when she tried to sync it, and calls to Apple support eventually resulted in being advised to take it to a Genius, with a caveat that even those hardy souls may not be able to bring the machine back from the dead. The closest Genius, however, is 60 miles away. The young iPod owner was so distraught over the device's apparent demise that she had been losing sleep (I fully understand!); throwing another $400 after the first bundle wasn't really an option. So what do you do when you're in this position and you see your PC support technician strolling down the hallway? Well, duh, you grab me--I mean her--and ask her if she knows anything about iPods.

I, of course, have extensive experience with iPod Touches, having had an iPhone for nearly three whole months and having been through the reset/jailbreak/awwcrapdoitalloveragain stage at least six times or seven times. Oh, wait, I mean I hesitantly told my co-worker that I knew something about iPods, wondering if I was lying. It took me a while to figure out that the multi-talented device was just stuck in recovery mode; you see, for the longest time, my iPhone has been showing me a drawing of Steve Jobs when it's in restore mode, and I must admit I had to resort to a YouTube video (embedded below) to confirm my suspicions. But, hey, being a good tech doesn't mean I know it all; it means I know where to get answers when I don't know enough. And it means that I got to show my co-worker the iPod's colorful home screen; hopefully it also means there's a young'un somewhere smiling tonight because of me.

iKeepass (and those of us who need it) waiting on Apple to recover from holiday binging

2009-01-10T23:36:00.003-05:00

KeePass is an application I’ve relied upon for years. Not only does it keep my many passwords in one encrypted file, but there are builds for Windows, Pocket PC, Linux, OS X, BSD, BlackBerry, PalmOS and J2ME. In addition to that, it’s portable. Ever since I got my secondhand iPhone, I’ve been waiting for KeePass to be made available for that device. Until tonight, the last I’d read was that the developer was still working out the kinks; now I know from his blog that he’s simply playing the waiting game that’s so familiar to iPhone devs. I’m not a patient geek, so I’m blogging about this. I know Apple will never know, but I need to post something, anyway; why not “APPLE, GET OFF YOUR BAKED CORES AND FREE THIS APP; IT’S BEEN A MONTH!”

Technorati Tags: IPhone,KeePass,iKeePass,password management

NOW I know why people find social media confusing!

2009-01-04T22:16:00.001-05:00

I’m STILL trying to figure this FriendFeed conversation out!

If you want to try to explain it to me, be aware that ovals at the end of a line cover the name of the person who posted the comment. The black ovals represent one name, and the red ovals represent a second name.

Technorati Tags: FriendFeed,Social Media,Culture

If I had 3,000 to spend on tech, I'd have a new Fujitsu P1630

2008-12-20T15:26:00.006-05:00

On FriendFeed, someone asked what tech-toys we would get, if we had $3,000 to spend. I decided to spec out a Fujitsu LifeBook P1630. I love the tiny netbook concept, but I've got to have my digitizer; it really helps me get paperwork done at my job without my having to keep up with paper. I really tried to stay below 3k, but it wasn't easy. Couldn't I sneak in a little more change?

Outlook ‘07 fun: why I haven’t enabled Instant Search on my home PC

2008-12-10T23:58:00.003-05:00

我真看不懂汉语！

(I’m hoping that means “I really can’t read Chinese!”)

I’ll try again later.

Technorati Tags: Windows Search,Office 2007,Microsoft Outlook

iPhunny: be careful deploying Google Apps to your users

2008-11-20T17:05:00.006-05:00

If you are one of the hordes of IT heroes supporting iPhones in your organization, take heed. Be very careful demonstrating the coolness of Google Mobile App's Voice Search. Today, a co-worker called to ask me about Google on her phone, and I talked her through getting the app installed. As we were ending the call, I mentioned that she could now talk to her iPhone to get searches done. Of course, now having said this, I was expected to demonstrate it. I had a few minutes to wait while some software installed on a laptop I'm getting ready for a new employee, so I wandered over.

After gesticulating wildly at the pertinent spots on the screen, repeating myself a couple of times, and then suggesting a random search topic (her favorite tennis player), the first successful search attempt was innocuous enough. However, my friend decided to do another search, this time for "pattycake." I couldn't resist telling her that her phone obviously knew her, when the first link proved to be for something called "Sexy Pattycake." I'm not even going to think about that one much.

My co-worker was delighted (with the phone's new functionality, of course), and she needed to show someone else. Amidst the ~~corrals~~ cubicles, she found an unsuspecting gentleman and told him to think of a search. She pressed the screen, and he said, "beautiful redheads." My friend immediately began reading off the first hit, "Beautiful redheads dancing nak..." and the rest was sort of obscured by the sudden realization that she should stop reading (and by the laughter of all around).

Love the tech, but by pattycake, be careful out there!

GenderAnalyzer guesses if the blogger is male or female

2008-11-09T19:14:00.001-05:00

And I’ve almost completely got it fooled. I like that.

GenderAnalyzer is 70% certain that my content on FriendFeed is written by a male, 75% certain that this blog is written/neglected by a male, and is neutral (with a slight preference for female) when it comes to my non-tech blog at Live Spaces. Beeyootiful!

via Jess Lee at FriendFeed

Technorati Tags: GenderAnalyzer

iPhone email ego battles

2008-11-03T20:05:00.001-05:00

My second-hand iPhone whispers seductively in my ear. He feels incomplete without a service provider. “WiFi is great, but it isn’t enough,” he laments.

My co-worker told me today that we can’t get corporate discounts on anything iPhone from AT&T, cementing, bricking, mortaring and asphalting my decision to stay away. “You don’t understand!” the iPhone cries. “I’m simply not used to working offline!”

I smirked. “That, my dear boy, is painfully evident! Let’s have a little discussion about how cached email really should work when one isn’t connected. Better yet, why don’t you just read what Nadyne Mielke has to say.”

No, that was not me checking out basic phone/data plans at the T-Mobile site a few hours ago.

Technorati Tags: iPhone

How many times did I tell you I wouldn't be wasting my money on an iPhone?

2008-10-29T21:34:00.002-04:00

Thanks to electrical issues, I haven't beem able to ride the scootercycle's for twelve whole days. I was desperate for something to occupy my mind, you know, before the devil found more work for my hands. I ended up forking over a small wad of cash to get my hands on my co-worker's 1st-gen iPhone. That's the only way I could go, since I didn't want to be locked into a terribly expensive contract with a company that doesn't even consider allowing tethering, and, while I am out of contract with Sprint, I have little desire to leave them. Yes, my carrier-less iPhone is basically an iPod Touch, but it can become a phone, if I whack my head on something hard and change my mind. Now, what shall I get into? Oh, yeah, EverNote was the FIRST app I installed!

Based on prior observations, I should at least be able to get better photographs than my Mogul puts out. Sorry, HTC, I do love you, but that means I can kindly tell you that you could have done a better job. Perhaps the CDMA version of the Touch Pro will have the quality -- and that includes decent RAM -- to get me back into a commitment. With that said, I've got some playing to do.

Dropped Your Motorcycle? Here's How to Pick it Up!

2008-08-04T18:40:00.000-04:00

I wish I'd been told about this three days ago, when I got my motorcycle. I'm delighted that my co-worker told me to hunt for this info on YouTube today, though! I wonder if they'll mention it in the motorcycle safety class I'll be taking this weekend.

I Got My Life from the Internet

2008-07-25T01:41:00.003-04:00

Steve Spalding asked on FriendFeed what the best thing was that the web had ever done for us. Since my internet-enabled empowerment actually predated the web, I must answer that pre-web net gave me nearly all I have today.

Through my email account and subscriptions to way too many listservs, I learned about MUDs. From a fellow MUDder (well, MOOer, actually), I learned about an awesome game called Magic: the Gathering. When my friend headed back home, I played against him on the MUD, and we would type out what cards we pulled and our actions. [Note: In those days, it was possible to know what every card did, because it was 1994, when the poorly-named Unlimited Edition could still be found in stores, the second expansion set, Antiquities, was just being released; I don't think I'd ever want to try playing someone via text these days!]. When my friend wasn't available, I found some folks on IRC, so I could play the card game with them. Eventually, I got tired of the speed of the game being limited by how fast we could type, so I found some people at a college hangout and started playing face-to-face.

Some of these Magic players would become friends. One of them -- I'll call him Ev -- owned an internet company; in addition to giving me an email account, he kindly helped me with my computer troubles. At some point, Ev became too busy to help me with my software and hardware installs, and he told me I was going to have to learn to fix my own machines. Oh, how hilarious I thought that sounded! Me, learn that complicated crap? Ev's a genius, though; he started me off with things like floppy drive installs, running Windows apps in OS/2 and hard drive replacements. It would be a couple of years before I was ready to take a machine down to the bare case, but with advice from my friends and fourteen pages of instructions from Tom's Hardware Guide, I did my first motherboard upgrade. That was in 1998. I was so nervous that I had to spend a bit of time huddled over a large, ceramic, water-filled bowl before heading out to pick up the parts. Fourteen hours later*, I flipped the switch and would have danced with relief (if it hadn't been 2am, and if I hadn't had neighbors below me). The darned thing actually worked!

Later that year, Ev said to me, "You know, people would pay you for what you know about computers." I laughed again. If I know this stuff, everyone knows it, right? I humored Ev and put my resume on Monster.com and had my first tech support contract job within weeks (Thank you, Aerotek!). The fourth contract turned into a permanent position, and I've been with that organization ever since. Thank God. I'm not sure I would have had as much fun being an Industrial Hygienist!

Ok, so you know how the net gave me my job and therefore my food, tech and home. What you don't know is that I met my husband and other friends through Ev and Magic. The husband found the dogs. I think that about covers it. Seems like I've told this story before, but I couldn't find it posted. I do apologize if I've been repetitious, but I wanted to answer Steve's question :).

*By 2003, the popped capacitor fiasco would have my motherboard replacement time shaved down to 8 minutes from the opening of an OptiPlex SX270's case to the closing of said case. I should have a video somewhere to prove it, but I was too embarrassed to post it, since I kinda fumbled a screw.

Manufacturers: Don't Break the WinMo Basics!

2008-07-13T11:56:00.006-04:00

It's true that Windows Mobile phone manufacturers need to make sure that their users don't lack for cool, efficient features. Ignoring progress and the desires of the end-user is one sure way to lose the game, and I must applaud the efforts that HTC, Palm et al make to try address the demands that Microsoft didn't or couldn't meet. However, making the devices more useful should not break the basic workings of the OS and make life hell for the developers (and their customers). We all need the developers, because Microsoft and the hardware makers simply can't give all of the consumers everything we want. Tablet experts know we need developers. I think even Apple even admits that developers make the world go round, if the opening of the iPhone App Store is any indication.

Look, manufacturers, I'm sure it's difficult to make a great phone and then make it work with someone else's operating system. I surely couldn't do it. However, as your consumer, and one who doesn't want to get stuck with AT&T or a BlackBerry, I'm asking you to be good to the developers and let the basic stuff keep working. Seriously, if you make my developers leave the fields of Bliss for the Orchard, I'm going to be one unhappy tapper.

Oh, and to Sprint and HTC, I'm loving GPS on my Mogul. Didn't even see much of a need for it two years ago. Thanks!

Ugly Racial Stereotpying Disguised as Satire Begets Beauty?

2008-07-10T01:37:00.008-04:00

Last year, many of us in what everyone is calling the Web 2.0 world knew what that Feldman guy was up to. With his TechNi**a series, he thought he was being clever and funny, and a bunch of other people thought so, too. In a time when I was paying more attention to my blogs and online participation, this guy asked, and in a patronizing and demeaning way, where the black tech bloggers were. My first thoughts were, "I'm right here, you hypocritical* bigot, and while I'm not much, there are other, more dedicated bloggers like Darla Mack, etc." Feldman's hints that people of my skin tone couldn't speak eschewed standard English, drug-free lives and technology-centered writing drove me to look around and find more bloggers of color that I didn't know about. I kept pretty quiet, though; while pretty sure I was too far under the yelling one's radar, I didn't want his particular brand of vitriol -- or that of his fans -- directed at me.

Fast forward to, oh, now, and we find that the work of which Feldman was so proud caused him to lose a lucrative deal with Verizon. Suddenly, more than bloggers and Web 2.0 folks knew of Feldman's shame (or, actually, his unfortunate lack of the aforementioned quality); the work in which he took such pride became known to those who read the Washington Post or listened to NPR. At this point, the Web 2.0 debate raged anew, and with apparently greater force. This time, it's more than just yelling man's supporters screaming "It's edgy satire," while the offended ones scream "It's racisim!"

Feldman's efforts have served to get people talking about how we hurt each other, whether we intend to, whether we pretend we don't intend to, or whether the harm was truly accidental. There are a lot of people out there who have discovered that racism and stereotypes aren't dead or harmless. This is true even of social media, where we'd assume that the most enlightened hang out, and where it's difficult to know what people look like before you learn that they just might think like you. Just a few hours ago, two of the bloggers Feldman didn't know about, or at least pretended not to know about, held a discussion on Yahoo! Live about the Verizon situation and black bloggers, and some childish chatters kept up a running commentary full of epithets. Having had my initial shock in the early 90's on UseNet, then experiencing more on IRC, MUDs, online RPGs, IMDB, and all over the web (that means you, too, YouTube!), it took me a while to remember how this unpleasantness could affect those who hadn't seen it until now and thought it was rare. As disappointing as it is, I couldn't help but be heartened by the outrage I saw others expressing and their determination to do what they can to eliminate the stupidity of racism. So many people are writing about it, and they are letting others know that, no matter what their skin color, they won't condone or overlook such behavior. As loath as I am to think positively of a man who has little positive to say, I can't help but realize that I am seeing the beauty of the Web 2.0 community, largely because he (and, to some degree, others) acted so extremely ugly.

I'm mostly done, but I have one more thing. I find the N-word to be offensive coming from any mouth. Now, may I have everyone's permission to be pissed?

*some of you might have seen the tirade Feldman launched against Guy Kawasaki after Kawasaki allegedly made a statement that alluded to a Jewish stereotype

Softies Freak Out, Run Screaming from Google to Mama

2008-06-29T18:18:00.007-04:00

MS folks who care only about spreadsheets and CRM should never leave. Great care should be taken to make sure they never even hear about Rise of Legends. Sure, Google may need to make some changes in the way they do business, but surely the solution is not a metamorphosis into a bleak sea of suits devoid of all creativity!

Anyway, I'm glad the Softies made their way back home. Being lost is stressful. I know; that's why this is my first blog post in over a month.

Please Pick Patty

2008-05-18T23:18:00.002-04:00

The pretty pussycat Patty prefers to be picked. Patty perhaps also prefers to be pegged as "handsome," but that is not prefixed with a P. Purr on!

Forget wishing on a star; Tweet!

2008-04-23T20:33:00.004-04:00

Does Twitter have the power to fix your problem? Today, at the Web 2.0 Expo, attendees who wanted to take photos at the Google booth were turned down. The messages from disappointed tweeters flew back and forth. Eventually, the texts took a more positive turn; someone had contacted Google PR and received a reply via email. The Googlers staffing the Expo booth were told they didn't have to prohibit photos. "Twitter wins again," was the next thing I read.

Interestingly enough, a problem that had been plaguing us for many months at my workplace suddenly became resolved within 48 hours after I posted my annoyance to Tumblr. Since I use Twitterfeed to send my Tumblelogs to Twitter (thank you, Stan Schroeder!), a note about my woes would have shown up there, as well. Do I really think our software vendor saw my complaint on Twitter and decided to make amends? No, but I can dream...or I could test it by posting about a problem I'm having with another of the vendor's applications.

I wonder what other problems have been resolved when tweets attack (I vaguely remember something about Comcast and Twitter, but I've succumbed to allergens and medication and can fight the brainfog only just enough to post this bit). I eagerly await the chance to see what else gets fixed by the Twitter community!

Dell Latitude XT takes it off!

2008-04-12T20:27:00.011-04:00

GottaBeMobiler and Tablet PC MVP Rob Bushway had a problem, and Dell solved it. Rob found that the digitizer grid on his brand new Latitude XT Tablet PC was just too distracting during usage, so the company contacted him and sent a technician with a new LCD/digitizer assembly. Rob snapped some pics of his new kid whilst it was en deshabille. Click the image below if you're like me and into nekkid tech action (hey, don't give me that look; it's part of my job, and I might as well enjoy it!).

The Dell-certified technician in me noted that it seems LCD replacements will be simpler in one respect and more difficult in another as compared to pre-D620 D series Latitude notebooks (my users haven't broken any D620s or D630s yet). The tech Dell sent apparently arrived with the screen as a whole unit; he had no need to pop the rubber tops off the screws, pull apart the top plastics and separate anything from the brackets as I've done with D600s and D610s. However, the technician had to pull antenna wires out of, then back through the back of the unit, which I have not had to do unless replacing a motherboard. Since I've seen only one XT in our organization, and I did resist the urge to take it apart, I will have to reserve judgment for a while.

TSA Teaching TSOs to Identify MacBook Airs

2008-03-29T18:27:00.002-04:00

11I find the whole MBA at TSA checkpoints flap very strange. I have flown with weird devices, and the issues others have encountered have not presented themselves to me. Of course, I have mostly avoided dealing with airport security, only flying twice since 2000. There were a couple of times in recent years that flying was the only way to go (and I'm not counting the time in 2006 we drove 20 hours to Miami to catch a cruise ship).

In July of 2006, I flew to Boston and back. It was the first time I'd flown since 2000, and of course the airline decided to encourage my continuing patronage by marking me for the special treatment going and coming. At this time, the additional security screening was too much of a novelty for me to get upset*, and the screeners were polite and professional. I was traveling with my ViewSonic Tablet PC V1250, a convertible tablet. I guess it's not hugely different from other laptops, with the difference that it has a digitizer, a pen and no optical drive, but it's not your average device. Other than asking me how to get it open, the screener wasn't overly concerned. I made sure to keep my hands behind the "drop it or you're dead" point as I answered.

In 2007, I took a trip to Orlando, Florida, thankfully with no special treatment this time। I don't recall anything particularly traumatic about traveling with my Tablet and my Asus R2H. I seriously doubt the UMPC looked like anything every screener had seen before, since it was of unusual size and lacked a keyboard or optical drive. Surely the GPS flap would have been a bit curious. But no, all I remember that was out of the ordinary was one Orlando TSO telling another, "For future reference, that shouldn't have gotten through," and I don't know if the officer was talking about my stuff or someone else's.

So what happened with me? Did I just luck up and get highly intelligent TSOs? I mean, I didn't fly through Lubbock, Texas, so...could be? Could the uber-securityfolks have been too busy, tired and harassed to see danger in those little packages? Or -- cue sinister music -- was my memory erased after my strip-searches and tortures? Scratch that, I'm pretty sure I made my flights; there just wasn't time.

But seriously, folks, does a MacBook Air's X-ray look less strange than an Asus R2H's? If not, what made the security folks more freaked out this year than they were in 2006 and 2007? I really would like to know what the TSOs see when they look at our technology, as long as I don't have to actually take that thankless job.

* Do you think that raised a flag? I certainly questioned my behavior, and my mother remarked on it as well!

Sprint's $100 "Simply Everything(SM)" Plan

2008-02-29T02:00:00.001-05:00

Major "attaboys" to Sprint for their announcement of a plan allowing users to have unlimited voice, data, text, GPS, etc for a monthly fee of $99.99. I knew I kept those guys around for a reason. I do take issue with their statement about using all your phone's features any time without worrying, since they specifically exclude the tethering feature.

I'm not griping, though. I don't think any company could offer all that with tethering for a hundred bucks a month(not if they wanted to stay in business). Not in the US, yet, though I don't know why.

Go, Sprint! Show "Unlimited means secretly limited" Verizon and the others how we want it! Hey, Verizon, can you read Sprint, now?

via InfoWeek

Technorati Tags: Sprint,communications,mobile

AbsoluteVista: Pirillo Doesn't Give 50 Reasons to Dump Vista for OSX

2008-02-20T23:54:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, Chris Pirillo posted what he felt were 50 reasons to switch from Vista to OSX. Blogger John Obeto vehemently begged to differ on all but 5 of Pirillo's points. Hey, I've got Vista, a Mac and an opinion, too! While I won't do like Parker and elaborate every point, I have to say a few things. Chris' comments are marked with [CP]. John's are labeled [JO]. My opinions follow. Caveat: I still haven't risked the move to Leopard!

Reason 2: Excellent power management in OS X. When I close the lid to my MacBook Pro, it falls asleep. When I open the lid to my MacBook Pro, it wakes up. Imagine that! Seems to be the case 99% of the time, and it happens quickly. [CP]

My MacBook and my friend's MBP wake up as reliably as my Vista devices, but the Macs don't let us in half the freaking time. we get to look at that disc spinning in-the darkness. My friend has to shut down hard; I put my Mac back to sleep; it will generally wake up again less grumpy.

Reason 3: I’m ready to experience different frustrations. OS X isn’t perfect, certainly - but I already see its noticeably more stable than Windows Vista has been. Kernel Panics at least look prettier than BSODs. :) Seriously, I just find OS X’s update schedule to be more to my liking - instead of waiting for gigantic service packs, I get minor point releases along the way to major revisions to the OS. Bugs are going to happen, but knowing that showstopping / security bugs are likely to be squished quicker gives me amazing peace of mind. [CP]

Would everyone who had to take a notebook in for a keyboard replacement after a Windows upgrade please raise your hand? How about those who had to do it twice?

Reason 4: There’s more interesting, useful, beautiful, and affordable software being developed for OS X. If you still believe that there’s no software for “the Mac,” you’re simply a fool who hasn’t done his or her research. [CP]

Eh, what about the FREE software, bro? ESPN Dashboard widgets aren't going to help me post to multiple blogs. I hunted for something as inexpensive and customizable as Windows Live Writer. I found jack (well, except for some nice Firefox things). I saved for this expensive MB for ten months; I'm not made of money. But yeah, I did find come cool stuff. I should blog about it.

Reason 5: VMware Fusion makes it possible to have every operating system at my fingertips (as well as every app that runs on ‘em, FTW). Performance and stability is a reality, not a dream. More importantly, with USB 2.0 support in VMware Fusion, I have near complete compatibility with any external hardware. Parallels is also there, which should keep competition lively. [CP] 

VMWare Server and VMWare Player are free and run on Windows, but not Macs (there he goes spending our money again!).

Reason 7: Not to say that Microsoft or Linux haven’t made great strides in recent years, but… at least Leopard feels like only one team was developing the UI. It’s not quite perfect, but closer to what perfect should be. I’m not a huge fan of iTunes or every other Apple utility - but at least with Leopard, they’re trying to make them look and work the same way.  [CP] 
1st semi-true point. The UI does look good. BFD! However, so is Aero ‘Glass’ [JO]

Both UIs bore me to tears. Give me cyan, teal, vines, bamboo, curves instead of lines! Give me more control! I want a riot of color. WindowBlinds saved me once.

Reason 8: I love the fact that most programs and their associated libraries are self-contained (apps). There’s no stress in installing / uninstalling most programs, and for true cleanup jobs there’s always AppZapper. [CP]
1st true point. For which I excoriate Microsoft daily. And cuss them the ‘F’ out whenever I run into it in client environments [JO]

The truth hurts. They made me remember how tired I get of fighting with the registry sometimes. Toss it. keep the libraries with their programs' folders. KISS

On the other hand, the Portable Apps folks are doing a lot of cool things for Windows users!

Reason 12: My iPhone is not going away anytime soon. Would I switch for better compatibility with a communications device? Not necessarily, but if the future of OS X is in the present of the iPhone… they’re going to gain consumer market share at blinding speed. Remember, I wanted to hate this device - after years of being a dyed-in-the-wool Windows Mobile advocate. [CP]

The iPhone won't go away for a little while after the battery stops charging? My Windows Mobile phone is more likely to go to heaven than anywhere without me. The iPhone is a pretty toy, but it can't sync contacts, calendar and tasks over the air with my employer's Exchange server; ergo, it is not worth the expenditure. I hope Apple put the fear of underperforming into Microsoft, so that they will work harder to make WinMo better.

Reason 24: Setting up services such as Windows File Sharing, FTP, and even Web sharing can be done on OS X with just a few clicks. If you’re telling me that I could set up FTP just as easily in Windows, then… it obviously can’t be done as easily. [CP] 

File sharing - Easy. FTP looks easy, but I like my transactions encrypted, so no thanks. Like FTP, Web Services are turned on by checking a box. Sooo difficult!Not sure how to do it with my Mac, but I'm too lazy to look.

Reason 26: Almost all of the audio and video formats out there can be played on the Mac with Video LAN Player (VLC). One less barrier to entry. [CP]

If only we had VLC for Windows...(link to download VLC for Windows)

Reason 29: You can still right-click in OS X - and the way Apple decided to implement it is far more convenient than you’d think. In fact, I find double-tapping the mouse pad far more intuitive than using a second mouse button. Didn’t take long to get used to it at all. [CP]

My double-clicking's for dragging. That left me with two-finger right-clicking. It stinks.

Reason 30: Wanna set up a VNC server on your Mac? No problem, its already apart of the operating system! Moreover, the feature isn’t buried three levels deep. It’s sitting right there in the Finder. Moreover, unlike Windows Remote Desktop, a Screen Sharing session doesn’t lock the remote user out of his / her session - one reason I’ve always loathed RDC. [CP] 

I prefer RDP, because I don't want someone observing me using my own computer, especially if I don't know the person's there. I also prefer the file-sharing aspect and the superior response. When RDP isn't feasible, I turn to LogMeIn.

Reason 33: A Mac costs about the same as a comparable Windows PC - for hardware and (for argument’s sake for those who don’t believe me) bundled software. And for those who still claim that Macs are still more expensive, they obviously have never seen or priced a gaming rig. Price / cost is relative. If you want a cheap machine, that’s your prerogative. The resell value on Macs has always been higher than that of an equivalent “Windows” machine. [CP]

Is he honestly claiming that my MacBook can do what a gaming rig can? What does resell have to do with anything? I've resold one machine in the 15 years I've been buying computers. I don't even know how many I've bought. Is it so hard to admit that people have to spend much more to own a Mac?

Reason 35: Dashcode appears to take the geekery out of widget-building. Moreover, the new “Web Clippings” widget appears to work better than anything I’ve seen come from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, et al. This is putting the user first… [CP]

Imagine 1 billion PC users wasting time writing widgets. Sorry. In the RDF, that is being ‘creative’. FYI, Visual Studio Express Editions are free [JO]

I can make a widget?

Reason 36: With a .Mac subscription, you can save common local settings as global ones. You only have to configure your Dock or System Preferences on one machine to have those same changes appear on all machines connected to your .Mac account. Unbelievable. [CP] 

With my 7-inch Ultra-Mobile PC, or a tiny OQO, I can have my computer with me at all times, with all my settings, documents, favorites, etc on it. Too fracking cool! Oh, yeah, and how much more money do I have to throw at this Mac? In thinking .Mac is nowhere near free.

Reason 37: Unlike Windows font management, you can activate fonts as you need them within Leopard. This translates to less wasted overhead by fonts that remain largely unused in memory. I can only imagine this results in far less resource-intensive sessions. Genius.[CP]
4th good point [JO]

I guess that's cool. I remember once having to delete fonts from a user's PC to get it to work right. Something about more than 500 being too many.

Reason 39: Can’t tell you how much I love Spring Loaded folders. Love ‘em. [CP]

I've had this Mac since October, and I don't know what Chris is talking about. Maybe I'll look it up one day.

Reason 41: Mail comes with “Data Detectors” which will highlight phone numbers, addresses, etc. You can then choose to do something with that information, like map it or store it as an appointment, contact, etc. This is a feature I had not seen outside of a pricey plugin for Microsoft Outlook. I may not use Mail.app, but at least they’re continuing to improve its functionality - ugly capsule toolbar icons notwithstanding. [CP]

Is this something Xobni does?

Reason 43: Expose works. ‘Nuff said. The only thing that surpasses OS X’s open window management is Compiz Fusion. None of this Flip3D nonsense. [CP] 

Sucks in Tiger. Does Leopard show individual, minimized windows, yet?

Reason 45: Guest accounts are purged after every session in Leopard. Wow. Guest privileges, on the other hand, seem to be lacking somewhat on the security front (but most of my Guests are computer clueless). [CP]

Why would I let someone else use my computer? I work hard to put spare computers in my home so that I don't have to share the ones I care about. If it's near me, I need to be using it!

Reason 47: Call me crazy, but I love the fact that in OS X, the keyboard shortcut for opening Preferences is always the same (Command + Comma). Convenient. Dependable. Quick. [CP]

Easily forgotten. How the *bleep* is anyone supposed to remember that and other shortcuts that don't have any rhyme or reason to them? Like the snapshot that saves to theclipboard; I always have to look it up. I love the fact that Win + L is how you lock the computer and that Win + E is how you open an explorer window. The letter that the word begins with is the action. Better yet, I live not using a stinking keyboard! I love my Tablet PC and my UMPC!

Reason 50: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Windows users need Apple’s software more than Mac users need Microsoft’s. That’s just a cold, hard fact. And given my severe disappointment with just about everything in Mac Office 2008, I’m even further driven away from Microsoft’s desktop software. [CP]

Depends on the Windows user. I basically bought my Mac to broaden my horizons. I'm grateful my employer had an unused Parallels license, so that I could run Outlook and work with my entire Exchange account (since Entourage 0 4 fell far short, and I hear Office 08 is still distance-challenged). In order to access the IT call database, I can use Netscape 7.2 (horrendously slow) or run the client in Windows. Vista's OK in Parallels; I can even use Windows Live Writer and Outlook 07 quite happily. If my Shuffle's battery hasn't died from neglect, I suppose I might need iTunes again one day. But really, what else would I need from Apple?

But really, I'm not hating on OS X. I just, ah, never mind. It never really ends. Enjoy your Mac. I'll enjoy writing on my machines with Vista (even my R2H). Maybe I'll be able to afford a ModBook late next year (but first, I have to get a Fujitsu P1620 with Vista on it!).

[Update 02/23: I attributed John's post to another blogger before, and I've corrected it.]

via Neowin

Technorati tags: Vista, OS X

File Transfer Preferences

2008-02-12T01:06:00.001-05:00

Chris Pirillo asked his readers/ viewers what FTP clients they use. Like Chris, I'm a fan of WinSCP in Windows. I pretty much avoid unencrypted file transfers, if I can help it (I'd be more successful, if Windows Live Writer supported SFTP/SCP).

My Linux box, if involved, is almost always the server. I don't initiate file transfers with it, unless I'm downloading apps from the web via Firefox.

On my 4 month-old MacBook, uh, well, I've kind of stopped using it, so I don't remember what I installed on it. Don't you give me that look! The Mac has a keyboard and an annoying touchpad. I do digitizers. Give me a tablety Mac, and we'll talk. Anyway, I still carry the MacBook to work daily, just in case. As much as I spent for it, I'd better.

Er, back on topic. The one place I haven't gotten happily settled as far as the file transfer thing is my Sprint Mogul. My Linux machine has just about every decent Handheld PC and Pocket PC app I've ever found, and I would love to be able to grab some of those apps directly from my phone. Now, a lowly desktop support tech with a rarely used, relatively new MacBook isn't going to have a lot of dough, so I like my freeware. There is a ton of FTP freeware out there for Windows Mobile, but we're rather out of luck for secure putting and getting. There's a port of OpenSSH that also has SCP and SFTP, but command-line by thumb doesn't thrill me. I had resigned myself to dropping 20 bucks for zaSFTP, but when I couldn't even transfer one file with the trial version, I held off. That little trial expiration message might be by design, but I'm not going to pay $20 to find out it isn't. Basically, this means I'm not doing FTP on the PPC right now. I wish I were.

Technorati tags: FTP, SCP, SFTP

MicroYahoo? Will the Users be Spanked?!

2008-02-02T17:01:00.001-05:00

When Yahoo acquired Flickr, I had to give up my cool login and use my not-so-cool Yahoo! credentials, which had been created with the concept of professionalism in mind. As if that wasn't bad enough, Yahoo dumped their own photo sharing services in favor of Flickr's. Because my free Flickr account had pretty much all it could hold, I opted to let the photos on Yahoo disappear with the service and hope they were elsewhere, since I never saw any easy way of getting them all, and since deleting enough Flickr photos, many of which are linked in my blog articles, wasn't an option I was comfortable with exploring. Certainly, my camera-phone efforts weren't worth a paid Flickr account, though it would have given me a lot more storage.

Now, my tech news feeds inform me that Microsoft is proposing buying Yahoo, and I've got to wonder what new ~~problems~~ "opportunities," as they say in my workplace, this would provide. It could be painless (for those of us who aren't employed by either enterprise): as I understand it, the decisions Yahoo made were related to reducing the amount of resources required to support and maintain their systems; perhaps I'm being a bit naive, but I'm thinking Microsoft could do the resource allocation bit without raising a figurative eyebrow. I haven't forgotten, however, that Microsoft is a business, and that businesses, whether small, large, or merely of galactic proportions, are always concerned about the bottom line.

I'll be waiting to see how this measures on the PITA scale at the tail end end of this.

Update 11:17 pm: Naturally, I'm not the only one (or the first one) to wonder what we end-users stand to lose from such an interesting ~~combination~~ assimilation (link to Washington Post) .

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Yahoo

The North Pole is on Mars?

2007-12-27T19:28:00.000-05:00

I am not making this up, I promise! Rudolph is obviously from Mars, just like human males.

A Windows Tablet User Tries Out a Mac. Why?

2007-12-02T21:57:00.000-05:00

Despite my love of all things Penabled, the last computer I bought was a MacBook. I pulled the trigger a heartbreaking 16 days before the last refresh, so my specs are as follows:

* 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 2GB of RAM (I ordered it with 1GB and maxed it out to 2GB the following week; yes, the current MacBook maxes out at 4GB, and that's what's so heartbreaking)
* 120GB hard drive
* DVD-R

Of course, being a fan of the light and ultra-portable, I went with the 13.3-inch. Not being a fan of having the most common thing around, I splurged and bought a black one. I supposed I needn't have worried about looking like everyone else, though, because my Mac-using co-workers all have metal-clad MacBook Pros, which means a cheaper, white MacBook wouldn't have been in any danger of conforming.

Why did I get a Mac? One of the reasons is that I'm stagnating at work, and I wanted some experience that would allow me to grow as an IT professional. My current job doesn't really allow me that. I image a machine here, run a batch file there, blah, blah blah, maybe get to take apart a PC or laptop from a heretofore unmolested series, and, oh, yeah, we do have access to all sorts of CBTs. True, the stuff I get to see under NDA temporarily transports me from the tech support doldrums, and, sure, I supplement my usual activities with BSD and Linux play at home, but who wouldn't want more after a while? So yeah, I'm hoping some Mac skills will help me find a new challenge; at the very least, it's provided me with some challenges to get it integrated into my workflow while I plod through Microsoft critical updates, laptop and PC motherboard replacements and owsupp.dll renaming day in and day out.

Another reason I got a Mac is because I was forcing myself to wait a full year before buying a new Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC), and I was having trouble waiting that long. I had no such strictures against buying a Mac, and I'd wanted to investigate OS X for years. My beige G3 wasn't cooperating at all, as its hard drive had given up the ghost before I could even use it, and I didn't want to bother with X Post Facto, anyway. The only reason I hadn't replaced the G3 sooner was that I was spending my limited funds on phones, tablets and UMPCs. In late October, I still had eight months to go on my latest phone's contract, I didn't want another full-sized tablet, and, while I was saving for a new UMPC, I didn't see anything that was being offered in that world that was a match for my needs. UMPC makers are using slower processors than last year's, and though my time with the Fujitsu U810 (link to product on Amazon) allowed me to understand that the A110s can do the job, I really do not want to go backwards again (my Asus R2H has a 900MHz Celeron processor). It's just against my principles. Also, with the exception of Asus and Fujitsu, manufacturers are shunning the "hard touch" screens that allow for an excellent writing experience. Writing on the offerings by Samsung and the like means being very careful not to brush a digit or palm against the screen, or you will almost certainly experience vectoring. The soft-touch digitizers are great for those folks who want the screen to be responsive to fingertips; those users generally are interested in launching non-inking apps and interacting in ways that do not require the precision of a pen-like apparatus. I, however, use my pen or stylus to write, write, and write some more, and I want accurate, smooth input and the ability to rest my palm on the device, since that is how I learned to write on paper decades ago.

Also behind my decision to buy a Mac is my compulsion to collect computers and operating systems. I have too many computers; I try to control my inventory by allowing myself only one of each brand, and by insisting that I not run the same OS on more than one machine (Microsoft is making this difficult; I'm going to have to switch one of my tablety devices back to XP TPCE, and I have a desktop that's slated to get Vista, but I may cheat and allow a distinction between Business and Ultimate). My collection lacked a Mac that could do what modern Macs do. Since the G3 is substandard, well, I needed to acquire a Mac that could handle OS X well. Don't ask me about the other three ancient Macs in my house. I'm going to get rid of them, honest! As soon as I find them...Do I have to get rid of the PowerBook Duo 250? That's practically a historic artifact! Next on my list is one of those pretty SGI machines...but I digress.

I'd hoped I'd have room on this post to delve into the last reason I bought a Mac, which is the mantra that it just works. Since this has gotten quite long, I'll have to discuss my experiences with the workings and not workings later. I do want to talk about the things the Mac does to aggravate me, and the things it does to please me. I'll tell you this much, though, it's a computer, too, not manna from heaven, but if you've been reading up on the Blue Screen of Death, firewall and keyboard and battery life issues with Leopard, you already know that. Me? I haven't dared update to Leopard, but I got it the week after it was released, thanks to the free upgrade policy (I did have to pay $10, ostensibly for the media, since the shipping was free); I'll give it a try when my R2H comes back from Asus (of course, I have to send it to them, first!), but I'm not going to risk rendering both of my newest mobile devices unusable at the same time.

Technorati tags: Apple, OS X, MacBook

MacBook Unboxing

2007-11-04T01:31:00.001-04:00

Sixteen days ago, I finally got my MacBook. I'd been wanting a MacBook for years, but I couldn't afford one, since I was spending all my money on penabled computers, software and accessories. I'd been saving money and planned to get a faster Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) once my 900 MHz R2H turned one in December; after taking a look at the lower-speed offerings the manufacturers had to offer, I figured I'd have nothing to spend my money on until next December, and I decided to get that Mac*. I had to pretty much ignore it for other projects the first week, but I've been playing with it ever since. I hadn't used Macs much since the early 90's, and I had (and still have) a lot to learn. At any rate, no matter what else I had going on, I did unbox the new kid the first day, and a kind soul obligingly photographed the moment with his iPhone (thanks, RC!).

"I didn't even stop to put my keys down."

"Oooh, I love cool computer boxes with handles!"

"Says 'MacBook right here, so you don't have to guess."

"Old RAM modules are perfect for this kind of job, and won't get you strip-searched at the airport."

"I see it! Sorta..."

"Whazzat? Oh, yeah, I forgot about the remote control; never got one of those with my Wintels."

Lemme just slip my hand in and touch you, baby!

A Mac in the hands is worth...

"It's so light! That's a weird-looking keyboard."

"Are you sure the memory is user-replaceable?"

Being that I'm a Windows geek who dabbles in Linux and UNIX, my Mac and I have been loving and fighting ever since. It's my first Core-Anything machine, let alone Core 2 Duo, and that alone makes me happy. The opportunity to broaden my tech horizons makes me fairly giddy. The joy is coupled with pain (both mental and physical), but we are surmounting the obstacles and finding new ones, even in creating this post. You see, although I'm using the Mac to post this, I still had to use Windows. I used iPhoto to crop my photos, but it just doesn't do enough; I'll hunt for Gimp or something else later. Since my Google searches indicated that there isn't a decent free blogging app for OS X, and since I had to have Windows installed to access my tickets at work, I fired up Vista in Parallels and used Windows Live Writer to compose and publish my post. Honestly, like other people in the world, I wonder why iWeb can't take off its blinders and see the rest of the world.

At any rate, I'll have more on this WinTableteer's experiences with the penless competitor another day. It's time to go from A to ZZZZZzzzzzz.

PS: That fellow in the background is the one I mentioned at the top of the page. I offered to blur him out of the pictures, if he wanted, but he said it didn't matter. Thanks, RM!

*Alright, so maybe the thought of waiting until December to buy a new computer had something to do with it. I'd vowed I'd wait a full year before buying another UMPC, and the R2H arrived in late December of 2006.

Technorati tags: Apple, MacBook, unboxing, OS X

This Mac/PC Video Will Never Be Shot

2007-10-28T02:53:00.000-04:00

Mac: Gurgle...gurgle
PC: And I'm a PC--er, what the heck did you just say?
Mac: Gurgle...blub
PC: Mac, what the heck happened to you? Your shirt looks like it's been shredded by claws!
Mac: Blub...gack!
PC: Did something chew on your neck, or are you into some new piercing fetish?
Mac: Leo...gurgle
PC: Something's definitely not right here. Mac, you're turning blue! Come on, we've got to get you off the floor.
Mac: (screams, although not too effectively with his jugular ripped out)
PC: Somebody help! Mac's been savaged by a Leopard!

I'd have had Leopard ordered already for my 9 day-old MacBook, but the Apple Store seems to think I don't exist. I wonder if this means I'll never again be able to play the songs I bought from iTunes. Rock on, FairPlay. Think the RIAA would believe me if I told them Cupertino lost my credentials? Yeah, yeah, I know, the move is being made toward DRMless, and I've emailed the folks at Apple to see if they can help me out, but I have to have my say.

And Lo, the Fruity Suit Begins

2007-10-11T18:19:00.001-04:00

We all knew it was coming, right? The iPhone geeks were happy, as long as they could hack their way out of their manacles, but I guess the crippling patch was the feather that broke the camel's back...either that, or it just took that long to finalize the act of siccing the legal beagles. My initial response was elation; of course people should be able to use the phones they desire on the networks they desire! My second response, as an Apple shareholder, was "uh-oh, what's this going to do to my tiny pile of beans?" I settled down to a positive reaction, though, since I'd agreed with what I'd read elsenet, that more networks where iPhones can work, and work without outrageous roaming fees and threat of disconnection, means that more people will want iPhones. Not only that, but the iPhone's increased success will mean that the baby will grow up and become useful to someone like me. The non-GSM user in me decided that even if the iPhone never goes CDMA, its success will mean that Microsoft will have to make major, greatly needed adjustments to Windows Mobile phones (many of which do work on CDMA networks) to get users to continue to choose their brand. I'm seeing a couple of wins for me in this news, and I don't even have an iPhone!

Technorati tags: iPhone, Apple, AT&T, smartphone, mobile phone

HTC Advantage X7501 and Various Browsers

2007-10-10T01:56:00.001-04:00

Pocketables' Jenn Lee has updated her browser performance article with information about a fifth browser. In addition to Opera 8.65, Minimo 0.2, Picsel 1.0.0, and the garden variety PIE*, you can now see how NetFront 3.4 fared. NetFront is the only mobile browser I've ever bought, and it fared pretty well against the winning browser (I'm not telling, so read Jenn's post, if you haven't already!)

Well done, Jenn!

*I guess I can no longer call it that, since, like a lot of other products from Redmond, it suffered an identity crisis and changed its name)

Technorati tags: Mobile browsing, Mobile Internet, Opera, NetFront, Internet Explore Mobile, Picsel, Minimo

Verizon Tosses that "Unlimited" Word Around Again

2007-09-23T20:52:00.001-04:00

The folks who admitted -- reluctantly and under fire, I might add -- that "unlimited" meant "no more than five gigabytes per month" when it came to their data service have applied their now-dubious adjective to VZ Navigator. I'm definitely not interested, but I'm curious as to how far someone would get on a long trip before Verizon pulled the switch for exceeding the limits (I'm pretty sure the commercial didn't say). Does unlimited mean 500 miles in Verizon-speak? 5000?

Seriously, I've got to wonder which navigation method would be more reliable:

A paper map in a rainstorm (while driving a convertible)
A navigation service from a company that says a service is unlimited but shuts you off without warning for using said service too much

I think I'll go with option one. Even if it was in more than one piece, a soggy map would still be available. While paper maps obviously have their limits, the folks selling them don't try to convince consumers otherwise.

Technorati tags: Verizon, Navigation

Tech Thoughts Keeping Me Awake - And Not in a Good Way

2007-09-11T05:00:00.001-04:00

Perhaps if I write about it and expose my demons to the world, I can get back to sleep. Here goes.

I keep having this dream tonight. I end up in a room with Stealey and McCaslin. I don't actually see processors floating around, but I always know what I'm up against, and keep trying to distance myself. Sometimes I'm walking away, and sometimes no walking is involved; instead, I think myself away. No matter what, somehow, I always end up back in the same room, with Stealey and McCaslin exploding (literally) in my face. Every time I find that I've returned to the demonic duo, I wake up (I won't claim that it's out of horror, but you make your own conclusions). Returning to sleep returns me to Stealey and McCaslin and the race to escape. After several rounds of this, I'm having trouble getting back to sleep. My body is in "fight or flight" response.

I guess I know what's brought this on. I had my bouts with HTC Shift mania. First I wanted one (when I saw Hugo's video), then I didn't (when I learned it was sporting Intel's 800-MHz A110 processor), then I wanted one again (when I learned it might be faster than my current UMPC, an Asus R2H). After returning from a sort of unintentional vacation from the mobile tech world (as much as one who works in tech support can have, anyway), I came back to reports that the Windows Mobile 6 in the Shift, which had so attracted me before, was some sort of Sideshow-like BIOS that doesn't have all the features of WM6 (still pretty cool, but not what I'm looking for), and that battery life (which was why Shift was supposedly going with a slower processor in the first place) could be "up to" two hours. While I'd decided a couple of weeks ago to spend my new UMPC fund on a new MacBook -- I ought to have one modern, functioning Mac, don't you think? -- I'd still thought a Shift was in my future...and then I read my feeds tonight, not stopping until it was past my bedtime. You'd have thought someone who'd read as many Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels as I have could handle it.

This isn't April Fools' Day, and I'm so not exaggerating. With my (possibly pathetic) story told, I'm going to try to go back to sleep; however, this time, there will be a Tablet PC with a Core Solo processor in the room to keep the demons at bay. It's a lot like cuddling with Winnie the Pooh, when you really need Hobbes at your side, but it's the best I've got. If I thought sleeping in the kitchen close to my RS/6000 would help, I'd do it.

Technorati tags: Stealey, McCaslin, UMPC, mobile tech

Too Much Mobility Weighing You Down?

2007-08-27T23:12:00.001-04:00

GottaBeMobile.com's Rob Bushway, who was known as the Man of Many Tablets (before his fellow Microsoft Tablet MVP and GBM-er, Hugo Ortega, revealed that he was apparently opening his own mobility museum) is contemplating lightening his considerable load. As I read his post, I mentally compared his stockpile with my own -- not that there's much of a comparison.

Like Rob, I've got a neat eval tablet that I will have to relinquish. Unlike Rob, I can't talk about it.
Rob recently purchased a new tablet to review; he also has another. I still have only my 3 yr-old ViewSonic Tablet PC V1250 as my only tablet (unless you want to count my Fujitsu Point 510 and my Fujitsu Stylistic 2300). I'm not planning to buy another full-sized tablet, because the UMPC form factor works for me.
Like Rob, I have a UMPC. Unlike Rob, mine is an Asus R2H.
Rob has a MacBook. I have a PowerBook Duo 250. I get color (via external monitor) and LAN access when it's in the DuoDock.While its the only mobile in my Apple Arsenal, it's not the best fruit-flavored machine; I also have a beige G3 with a dead hard drive. If I appear to be crying, I'm just laughing with you...really.
I also differ from Rob in that I have no UMPC to evaluate, and no itty-bitty, like his OQO.
Last on Rob's impressive list is an internet tablet. Does my ePods count? What about my Fujitsu PenCentra 130? No,I didn't think so.
I've also got a Gateway Solo 5300 laptop.

Am I thinking about thinning my list? Well, I've been planning to get down to one Fujitsu for over a year; naturally, I'd be keeping the 2300. After learning about the handwriting recognition now available for Linux, I wonder if I could try it out on that. I'd actually like to replace my four ancient Macs with something that could run OSX well; no X Post Facto for me, thanks! I'd love to have something that runs Parallels, but that is just a dream. There's really no reason to keep the Gateway around, except that it's my only Gateway. and I like having different brands around. It's time for me to get a better desktop; if I get a Gateway, then I will feel ~~compelled~~ free to give away the laptop, and that is currently the plan. Counting even the ancient devices I hardly ever touch, I'd go from nine portables to five. Maybe I should consider losing the ePods, especially since I'm thinking about getting an HTC Shift (I'll not be getting rid of the R2H, I assure you!).

You know, this sounds rather meme-ish to the Mage. Hey, Sumocat, do you need a U-Haul for your portables?

Technorati: Mobility, mobile+devices

Can Vista work on the UMPC? I Think So!

2007-08-26T00:56:00.001-04:00

Thanks to CTitanic (Tablet PC MVP Frank Garcia) at Ultra-Mobile PC Tips, I'm aware of jkOnTheRun's James Kendrick's post disputing Windows Vista's suitability for Ultra-Mobile PCs and Ultranauts' Mark's response to JK. A lot of machines have touched James' hands, and nothing less than a Core 2 Duo has provided him with a satisfactory Vista experience. With new Ultra-Mobiles starting to ship with 600 MHz and 800 MHz processors, those of us carrying UMPCs can only dream about one day having even Core Solo in the palms of our hands.

As much as I respect James' superior mobile device knowledge, and despite what I've said before about my 900 MHz UMPC's Vista performance issues and the questionable decision to use processors with slower clock speeds than are found 1st-generation devices, I cannot entirely agree with Frank's fellow Tablet MVP. Naturally, I don't expect any machine equipped with a 600 MHz processor to do well with Vista, but I want to see one of the A110 (800 MHz) devices at work before I pass final judgement on those; from what I've learned from usertests and talking with an Intel rep, with their faster bus speeds and L2 cache, I might find one of them might actually serve me better than my R2H. In addition to that, though I am a demanding user, I have seen the kind of performance I desire from a couple of the little guys. The VIA-enabled Amtek T770 is one of them; I really enjoyed using Vista on that one (if only it had a heavy touchscreen!). The Fujitsu LifeBook P1610, while not technically a UMPC by Microsoft's definition, did just fine with Vista, and it has a 1.2GHz Core Solo processor.

This post was written from Vista using my Asus R2H Ultra-Mobile. Look, ma, no keyboard!

Technorati tags: Ultra-Mobile PC, Vista, UMPC

Are the OEMs to Blame for Intel's Slower UMPC Processors?

2007-08-19T22:13:00.001-04:00

There's been a lot said about Intel's new A100 (600MHz) and A110 (800MHz) processors. It seems Intel's answer to demands for more battery life was to give manufacturers the ability to make slower machines. Some end-users see this as the only logical way to accomplish the goal; for others (including yours truly), this decision is incomprehensible. How is it helping, if I have a little more battery life, but it takes even longer to send email, close a help desk ticket or submit my time/mileage?

For one thing, these new machines are pretty much going to have to run Windows Vista. I thought we all understood that a pleasant Vista experience required more than XP. Not just more hard drive space or more memory, but more everything. I have seen absolutely nothing to indicate that Office 2007 is less resource-intensive than its predecessor; in fact, I've spent a fair amount of time troubleshooting performance issues since we started implementing it in the enterprise for which I work. Now, as I compose this, I'm on a 1GHz Tablet PC with 768 megabytes of memory, and it has been running Vista since 2005 and Office 2007 since, uh, I forget. It BSODed while my friend was using ArtRage yesterday, but it mostly does ok.

My Ultra-Mobile PC, the Asus R2H, sports a Celeron-900 processor,and also has Vista on it. It's a bit sluggish and has driver-related issues I've mentioned before, but it's mosty doable. Still, I'm ready for something new. Because of my experiences with this slower processor, you can be sure I will not be allowing anyone to take me on a trip further into the past; I have done this for UMPC once, now it's UMPC's turn to come forward with me.

Try to see it from my point of view. There are those who say we can't do better right now, but I recall the posts from people who were using full-sized Electrovaya tablets in 2003 and getting up to 6 hours of battery life; why should I think manufacturers shouldn't be able to wrangle more out of smaller screens four years later? Sure, you can argue that bigger devices can have bigger batteries, but let's look at the Fujitsu LifeBook P1510; in 2005, I witnessed that little guy getting over five hours of battery life with the extended battery, and the current model, the P1610, is doing the same, I'm guessing, since Fujitsu claims up to 7 hours of battery life for the successor. Try to forgive my skepticism, then, when I'm told that in order to get the same kind of battery life I have with my R2H, we have to use processors that are much slower!

As I considered this and posted my thoughts to one of the forums where the debates rage in several threads, I began to wonder if all the anger/absolution should be directed toward Intel. I'm beginning to think that they shouldn't even have to make a slower processor. If Electrovaya and Fujitsu can achieve what they have with what Intel already had on the market, why can't the other manufacturers? I could be totally way off base, here, but I think we need to call out the OEMs, not Intel.

There have been a bunch of scooter and car analogies out there in the debates, but I have another. Intel's processors are like tests. Electrovaya and Fujitsu seem to be scoring high, but Intel is having to issue the new A1xx tests, so that the kids who don't study as hard can still pass. I think we all know what happens once such kids enter the real world and are expected to contribute to society.

Technorati tags: Intel, Ultra-Mobile PC, McCaslin, Stealey, A100, A110, UMPC

(HTC) Shifting My Direction?

2007-08-12T14:36:00.001-04:00

I just caught the video Hugo Ortega of GottaBeMobile.com posted of the HTC Shift, and of course, I've caught the excitement. I am enamored of the Ultra-Mobile PC platform and the Windows Mobile platform; putting both operating systems on one device and including HSDPA capability makes it heart-poundingly sweet, indeed! Ever since I purchased my Asus R2H in December, I've been saving up for the next great machine; as I watched Hugo do what all the GBM guys do so well, I began to wonder if this was where I was headed next. In fact, I liked the idea so much that I actually considered -- gasp -- not buying a new machine this year, so that I would have enough saved up to get it by this time next year; I'm not under any illusion that the price will be low enough for me to be Shifting responsibly in 2007, and there's another consideration, which I will mention later.

This is not to say I don't have my reservations. Hugo reports that, (like most other UMPCs, it seems) the Shift has a lightweight touch screen. As he stated, one would have to be careful to only rest the palm against the bezel to avoid vectoring, but this means that interaction with the fingers is a breeze. My R2H has a heavy screen, which allows me to rest my hand on the screen when writing and even usually accidentally brush a digit against the LCD without the device noticing. This makes for a great inking experience; but this means the device is less responsive when you use your fingers to interact. As I am mostly a pen/stylus person, HTC's digitizer choice is disappointing for me.

Like the Raon Digital Everun, the Shift can accept a sim card and use HSDPA. The ability to always be connected without having to tether to my mobile phone is so extremely alluring.I have several issues here, though. The first is that, unlike the Everun, the Shift has no voice capability. Ok, so no one wants to hold a 7" computer to her head to talk (not even me, at least not more than once), but what about Bluetooth or wired headsets? The second issue is HSDPA. I'm an EVDO user. Since I'm not willing to have more than one mobile carrier, in order to fully utilize the Shift, I'd have to leave the only mobile service provider I've ever had. Unless Sprint change some terms of service on me again, or unless I become a pesky user, I'm locked into a contract for ten more months. My current phone, being CDMA, won't work, so I'd have to get another; the functionality I require from my mobile phones mean I will almost certainly not choose anything that is free with a new contract, so that is added expense. Of course, I am pretty sure I'll be buying a new phone, anyway. I don't really have a desire to become an AT&T customer,though, and not just because the right data plan would probably cost a lot more than I'm paying now. Even with the concerns I have, the Shift is very tempting. I want to replace the R2H with something that's got a better processor and better performance when running Vista; since the kind of digitizer I want seems rarely implemented, I may not have the option of holding out for a good Inking experience. I'm also ready to get away from the 915 graphics that Intel disowned like an embarrassing heir. Even though I rarely use a keyboard, I still want the option. And finally, being able to choose between Instant-on and complete PC functionality is, well, a dream come true. At any rate, I'll not allow myself a new UMPC until I've had the R2H for a year, so we'll see what happens, come late December.

Technorati tags: UMPC, HTC Shift, Ultra-Mobile PC, Windows Mobile, HSDPA, PDA

Hugo Ortega to Speak at MS Tech-Ed 2007 (Australia)

2007-08-06T20:05:00.001-04:00

Are you attending Tech-Ed 2007 in Australia this week? If you're thinking about deploying UMPCs in your business, Hugo's session (on the 8th) is one you should attend. I'm not sure anyone has owned half as many penabled devices as this particular Tablet PC MVP, and, if he had no other qualifications, that alone would make him worth seeking out.

I almost wish I were there, but I wonder if I'd understand all the accents.

via GottaBeMobile.com

Catch ThisTech-Ed Australia 2007 Tablet and Mobility Session

2007-08-01T19:46:00.000-04:00

Microsoft Tablet PC MVP Craig Pringle will be crushing Tablet PC myths and delving into how Tablet PCs and Ultra-Mobile PCs work in a mobile enterprise. I recommend catching this session!

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Links in Ink v2 Beta Test

2007-07-26T01:25:00.000-04:00

Just giving Sumocat's Beta of Links in Ink a try.

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NVIDIA BSOD Strikes My Desktop Down

2007-07-23T01:35:00.001-04:00

It's not often that I want to use my desktop PC at home, but I needed the 19" screen tonight. When I turned to it, it was frozen, so I rebooted it. Windows XP was moving rather sluggishly, and the monitor kept alternating between goring black and showing me a far more intensely-colored desktop than I recalled. Finally,I received the nv4_disp Blue Screen of Death and had to reboot again.

I had an idea of what to do next, but I decided to use my UMPC to search on the message while waiting for my disk check to complete. Within minutes, I'd found a blog post from someone who'd experienced the same issue last year, but with an NVIDIA FX 5200; I had an NVIDIA GeForce MX4000. While I worked toward a resolution on my PC, I scanned through all the comments left by people who'd read Jason's post; for some, updating the drivers was enough; quite a few others had blown capacitors and had to acquire new graphics cards. I'd hoped that I would be a member of the former group, but installation of the latest drivers didn't help. With a heavy heart, I opened my PC case and peered inside. The purple capacitors looked ok from that angle. I decided to be thorough and actually pull the card out for inspection. Though I was to see that the swelling was slight, I'd seen enough blown motherboard capacitors in the past three years to leave me with little doubt: my video card was bad, bad, bad.

One of the reasons I even bother with a desktop PC anymore is gaming, otherwise I should have been happy to use the HP's on-board graphics. Alas, I will be shopping for a replacement for the NVIDIA dud this week, no easy task when I have one of those small desktop PCs.

Ahh well, I did want to move up to a card with 256 megabytes of memory. looks like I'll have my ~~arm twisted~~ chance.

Technorati tags: NVIDIA, GeForce, MX4000, BSoD, nv4_disp

Is Your PC Feeling Blue?

2007-07-18T23:50:00.001-04:00

Never had I seen blue PC memory until today, though I'd seen the blue boards on notebook hard drives long before. I do like the color, but It was a bit of a shock. It's like taking away a kid's favorite, tattered blanky and giving her a new one. I'm surprised at how attached I really am to the familiar, comforting green.

Technorati tags: PC Memory

Dell System Notebook Software Kills D600 USB Mouse Hangups?

2007-07-16T09:20:00.000-04:00

A weeks-long fight with a user's D600 USB issues ended today. Several times a day, his mouse and keyboard would stop responding, and he would have to unplug the devices from his docking station and re-insert them in order to keep working. Interestingly enough, one sure way to reproduce the problem would be to run AdAware. Since I'd been through malware issues with him in the past, that's where I started. When that didn't pan out, I moved to updating Windows XP, the drivers, and even the BIOS. Diagnostics turned up nothing. We replaced the mouse, the keyboard, and even the dock, and nothing helped. I continuously researched the issue, exhausting all tips, only to eventually find that others were waiting for Dell to fix the problem.

Finally, last Thursday, I ran across a months-old (if not years-old) post that mentioned the Notebook System Software. I figured it couldn't hurt, right? At best, I was facing a complete reload of the system; at worst, I'd be ordering parts and trying not to lose the tiny screws that hold the machine together. With little hope, I wandered over to the Dell support site and started downloading the Notebook System Software installer package. Not the observant type, I casually grunted a reply to my user, when he mentioned the date the software was released. I suppose it was about three minutes later that I suddenly realized what he was trying to tell me; I was doing this install on July 12th, and the Dell site said the system software had been released just the day before! I tried to fight it, but that darned hope just started welling up. I fought the traitorous feeling as I installed the software. As I had been used to doing for weeks, I asked my co-worker to work with the machine, and give me an update. He felt confident that the solution we desired had finally been delivered, but I chased my pessimism all the way home.

This morning, I learned that he has seen no problems since I last touched the PC. For the first time in weeks, he was able to work a full day (Friday the 13th was lucky for him!) with no interruptions, and I got to go fight with another laptop. I do prefer it when the scenery changes.

Sumocat's Scribbles Turns Two!

2007-07-14T23:51:00.001-04:00

The Inkfather, Mark "Sumocat" Sumimoto, has officially been inkblogging for two years, and he does a grand job of it. Sumocat has certainly inspired me to do some scribbling of my own on Tablet PC Blogs (link above). He even has an app that can help others do the same. I couldn't resist this opportunity to make Scribbles a birthday card.

via Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Technorati tags: Inkblogging

Happy Fair Use Day!

2007-07-11T13:05:00.001-04:00

Today is the third annual Fair Use Day. I checked the project's web page, but I can't tell if every July 11th is supposed to be the day, or if it's something like every second Wednesday in July. Either way, I made everybody a Fair Use Day card, just because I can.

Just so we're clear, that one product should come with the ability to make backup copies (for the consumer or recipient of the product, not the whole world), and once the product is sold to the customer, it should not matter if she's using her PC, DAP, stereo game console or DVD player to use the product.

via Techmeme

Technorati tags: Fair Use

Everun Overun

2007-07-09T23:51:00.000-04:00

The UMPC/mobility community has been all atwitter about the Raon Digital Everun, and I've just been sitting back and letting the jealousy soak in. Folks like Uber Tablet's/GottaBeMobile's Hugo Ortega and UMPC Portal's Chippy have been seriously wowing us with videos and deets. I was riding the wave of excitement for quite some time, but for different reasons than the others. This device excites me, not because of what it is now, but what it presages.

Anyone who's read what I've written or listened to me for half a minute knows I love my ultra-portable, ultra-mobile machines, and the Everun definitely fits the bill; he's cute, too! However, though the Everun has my required digitizer, it comes with Windows XP Home, not the superset of Windows XP Pro with the Tablet PC bits, so no Tablet Input Panel...no Ink! With a 600 MHz processor, the improved tablet functionality of Windows Vista is out of reach, as well. It's like buying the canvas and paintbrushes, but instead of getting some nice watercolors or oils, you whip out last Easter's egg coloring kit. But oh, I'm so glad the canvas has been spread! From cave drawings to Michael Whelan, baby!

Another thing about the Everun that appeals to me is the potential for staying connected. As Hugo demonstrates, the right sim card in one of these babies can get you communication---voice as well as data. For this road warrior, whose work-issued Cingular AirCard was deactivated while attending a conference in another state, that HSDPA thing the Everun has going is enticing. Reality is that this self-same geek is firmly in the less expensive EVDO camp, but figures all of God's signals will one day be received by the Everun's successors. Can I get an "amen?"

Up to six seven hours of battery life on a standard battery? Yes, please!

I'd prefer it to the iPhone (at least I'd have a chance of synchronizing all my PIM data with my employer's Exchange server), and I'd like to look it over, for sure, but the Everun is not for me. In my case, the Everun attraction is in what it can and should become. It is the torch, lighting the way.

Technorati tags: UMPC, Everun, Raon Digital Everun

Jumping on the iPhone Bandwagon -- Blogging, not Buying!

2007-07-02T17:22:00.000-04:00

My Sprint PPC-6700, my boss' 8GB iPhone and a fellow technician's Cingular 8125
(Thanks, J, K and R!)

At least three of my co-workers bought iPhones on launch day, and I got to get my hands on a couple the following day. My first thought was that it was a wide fellow, but oh-so wafer thin!
Some of you love that. Me, I'm thinking the first time I dropped that puppy, I'd be in mourning for a week. Look, I dropped my Sprint PPC-6700 the first day I got it, and I've been dropping it ever since. In the year I've had it, I've not had to use my insurance at all. I bet the iPhone doesn't bounce like that!

It's as gorgeous in real life as it is in the pictures. I think there's been one other time in my life I would have not felt ridiculous calling a bit of technology "sexy." At the moment, I cannot recall when that other time was.

I got to see the multi-touch for myself. I love how this guy responds to finger movements and changes in alignment. I wondered, though, how my boss could possibly use that little virtual keyboard with his thick fingers.
Sunday, at a friend's house, I tried the keyboard out. I made sure to use wide parts of my fingers (since I'm small for an adult, and have proportionately small hands, I couldn't possibly come close to matching my boss' experience, but it's the best I could do). The results weren't always right, but I was surprised at the level of accuracy!

To my untrained ears, it didn't sound any better playing "White and Nerdy" through external speakers than my 6700. I assume the wheat is separated from the chaff when buds are in use.
It wasn't until I checked out my friend's phone that I learned about the iPhone's ability to find and watch YouTube videos. I am so jealous! I want YouTube on my phone! Microsoft, get on it (yes, I just learned about m.youtube.com, and no, it's not doing squat for me)!

Photos of my friend's iPhone YouTubing. He was jealous of my phone's ability to do photo bursts. Can the iPhone not burst, or is it that he hasn't learned how, yet?

Note: Picture quality is definitely due to limitations of my phone!

I was asked several times during the weekend (and once today) if I was getting an iPhone. I seem to have acquired a totally undeserved reputation for getting the latest and the greatest cool tech; not sure how that happened! As lovely as the device is, it will not become part of my arsenal, for several reasons:

I have one year left on a contract with Sprint, and little desire to leave, even when my year is up. I like paying only $15 a month for PCS Vision.
My work email account is on Exchange. I want the push, the whole push, and nothing but the push. I do not want to use iCal to sync my calendar, nor can I right now (although I should have a MacBook in the next couple of weeks). I do not want to have to connect to a larger device (PC or Mac) to sync my contacts. I want to sync my tasks, too.
I think the flattie-hottie would shatter into hundreds of pieces in my first week of ownership. It just looks fragile. It felt solid, but I couldn't get over the impression of frailty.
AT&T? No, thanks!
The option to tether is non-negotiable. It will be allowed, or there will be no purchase. Sprint, pay attention, please, because I will be thinking about a new phone in...uh...ok, I'm thinking about it now, but we will be talking in 12 months, unless you force me to stay with the 6700 due to lack of tethering options.
Me, shell out over $350 bucks (after taxes) for a phone? It had better be part Ultra-Mobile PC!

Anyway, I was happy for the photo ops.

Here's my friend's 8GB iPhone on top of my Asus R2H.

Technorati tags: iPhone, Apple iPhone

Amtek T770 Ultra-Mobile PC Review

2007-06-27T18:15:00.001-04:00

Tablet PC Buzz has my review of the Amtek T770 Ultra-Mobile PC; check it out, if you like! Want to see how the little fella looks? There's a CeBIT 2007 video of it.

Technorati tags: Amtek T770, UMPC

What Was in My TechEd 2007 Bag?

2007-06-21T22:00:00.001-04:00

There was a LOT of stuff in my TE07 bag, but I'm only going to mention the gadgets.

Not pictured is my Sprint PPC-6700. Judging by the quality of the photo, it's kind of obvious what that beloved Pocket PC Phone was doing at the time, but just in case you haven't guessed, it was taking the picture. Yeah, I'm slamming on the phone, but you know I wouldn't be caught without it. When the wireless at the conference and the hotel let me down, sometimes the phone helped me up. Only sometimes, because when the redshirts closed the doors, I'd often lose my cellular signal.

That cable wrapped around everything is my Lil' Sync® Pro Cable. In conjunction with the Lil' Sync® AA Battery adapter (just above the Ultra-Mobile PC), it helped to keep my phone charged all day and part of the night. Thanks, Pocket PC Techs! Occasionally, I was a bit too much for it, but we're talking 12-hour days, here, and me snapping pics, tweeting and reading my favorite techie blogs during the breaks.

On top of the R2H case is my Nokia phone from work; it doesn't do much, other than keep a charge forever and make phone calls (yeah, yeah, I know, some people like that kind of thing!), so I don't even know what model it is. Its lack of features is my own fault; when the folks who were ordering phones asked for my advice, I didn't know I was picking my own phone, as well as what others in the department were getting, so I was honest. I'll bet they won't ask me again! Anyway, I carried the Nokia as emergency backup.

The little silver device on top of the case is my Hawking wireless USB stick. I used to hate it, but when my Asus R2H's WiFi went unstable on me in Vista, it came in really handy. You can imagine how I felt, then, when the Vista troubleshooter reported that this device isn't supported. At any rate, I seem to have stabilized the internal wireless card in the past few days (but that's a different post).

I'm well known for overkill, so my bag also contained several stylus-pen combos (including the one I picked up from the User Productivity booth I ~~harrassed~~ frequented. I'd brought the USB mini-keyboard and my cool, see-through Vista mini-mouse, but I discovered that I hadn't brought my keyboard's cable, so they weren't toted.

The largest items in the bag (not counting the giant stack of Groove documentation on the last day) would be my Asus R2H Ultra-Mobile PC, its case, and the spare battery. I took notes (in OneNote) on that R2H every day, pretty much every session. Yeah, it was heaven.

Technorati Tags: whatsinmybag

TechNet Event: Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Forefront Client Security

2007-06-20T22:21:00.001-04:00

You'd think after spending a blissful but exhausting week at TechEd 2007 that I'd be settled down at the usual work routine -- what passes for one for me, anyway -- for a while, but less than two weeks later, I showed up at a TechNet event. I'd actually registered for this shindig before I learned I would be going to TechEd, but I still looked forward to it.

Microsoft's Matt Hester was our speaker at the sessions. I'm pretty sure he was the same guy who spoke at the Vista launch I was too lazy to blog about.

Hester's the guy on the left. Are those supposed to be safety helmets on the kids' heads? If you think this photo quality was poor, you should see the ones I took when Hester was speaking.

Tablet Guy was furious with me for not taking him to TechEd. I thought I'd make it up to him.

Of course this was Vista Guy's show!

So, I heard more talk about Windows Recovery Environment, ReadyBoost, Server Core, Read-Only Domain Controllers, Forefront Client Security, and lot of other things. I got to enjoy the We Share Your Pain video again.

Matt saw me using my R2H to take notes and asked me about it. I think he took a liking to Vista Guy, too. Matt, if you ever see this, Vista Guy laughed at all of your jokes!

This event will be held in the very near future in Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi and other states in the US.

The tangibles I took away from my well-spent four hours.

Technorati tags: TechNet, Windows Vista, Windows Sever 2008, Forefront Client Security, Live Event

TechEd 2007, Day 5 (June 8th)

2007-06-15T18:32:00.001-04:00

The day I dreaded arrived. The beginning of the 8th marked the inevitable end of the great times. I did not oversleep. My mood was subdued as I rode the shuttle to the Orlando Convention Center for the last time, as I ate my last TechEd 2007 breakfast.

The first thing I did was head back to the Virtual Labs (Client). I didn't want to leave Orlando without going through the Vista Lite Touch Installation (LTI) lab. I did as much as I could before it was time to dash to my first session...ok, so I did more than I could, since I was late.

As I slunk into Windows Vista Gadgets That Talk to My Mobile Phone, I looked up to see a familiar face. It was that guy from yesterday, the one I thought might by Dr. Neil Roodyn! Well, I was too late to see his name on the big screen at the beginning of the presentation, so I whipped out the R2H and prepared to learn something. Alas, I'd goofed with my scheduling once again, because this session was for developers, but I did manage to learn a few things. After seeing www.roodyn.com a few times in the code snippets the speaker displayed on the screen, I knew at last that Dr. Neil was indeed here in the states. I listened harder. After the session ended, I walked up and told Dr. Neil that I'd seen his face on Hugo Ortega's blog, so I just wanted to say hello. He returned my greeting, and I wandered off to let the adults talk. Craig Pringle was there, too, with chocolate-covered coffee beans.

Other sessions I attended:

Windows Vista Application Compatibility and Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 (I really learned a cool thing in that. Of course, I was learning lots of cool things all week!)
The Life and Times of Ultra-Mobile PC (thank you, Craig, for letting me know about it!)
Advanced Microsoft Windows Troubleshooting with Sysinternals Process Monitor (I learned what I've been missing by not using this tool!)

Before the last session, I hit the Groove booth to grab info and bug the heck out of the poor blue-shirt standing there. I had a mandate from my boss to bring back useful tidbits about this app, and I tried very hard (just not hard enough to catch the Sunday pre-conference opportunity, but it's a lessson learned) to comply.

Sometime during the day, I tried to finish my Vista Lite Touch Install lab, but the virtual machines bombed on me, even after I changed to a different physical machine. I couldn't even email the lab instructions to myself; thankfully, the red-shirt (instructor) logged in and emailed it to me and the Zero Touch Install instructions, as well.

With long glances back, I boarded the shuttle for the last time and sighed my way back to the hotel. It was over, and I was considering halting all computer purchases and saving for TechEd 2008. I just don't know; this was supposed to be the year I finally got to play with OSX...

It was the end of TechEd, but not the end of the day. I caught rides to Downtown Disney at the request of a friend. As evening approached, I found a rock to sit on and lifted my face to the eastern sky. A crowd gathered in the area, and we watched the Space Shuttle Atlantis rise into the heavens. I'd missed my one other opportunity to catch a gllimpse of a Shuttle, so for me, this was the perfect ending to a week of technological bliss, even if my 6700 wasn't man enough to get a good photo.

Technorati tags: TechEd 2007, Microsoft TechEd

TechEd 2007 Day 4 (June 7th)

2007-06-14T21:38:00.001-04:00

I had a little trouble dragging myself out of bed. I had zero energy. In fact, I couldn't even make the first session. When I finally dragged myself in, I headed to an IE session.

When the IE session turned out to be one that was more for developers (newbie mistake!), I snuck out while the speakers' backs were turned and found an IE talk that desktop support techs like me could understand (Deploying Internet Explorer 7 in a Business Environment). Thanks to another attendee's question, I learned something I hadn't observed working in Vista: running IE as admin is not going to be nearly as productive in Vista as it is in XP. Microsoft has managed to separate Internet Explorer from Windows Explorer itself, I was told, so browsing to the hard drive (or network drives) and running apps isn't going to happen. I can understand the need to tighten security, but I can't help observing that this is going to make remote software installs harder for this road warrior. When I asked for clarification, the answer turned out to be with the folks I'd run out on! One of them let me know that they had ended up fielding a lot of usage questions, especially about tabbed browsing.

I had another session, not really useful for me, but the best option for that time slot, but I opted not to go. Instead, after I realized I had left myself pretty much no time for the Hands-on Labs, I headed in that direction and started learning about making Windows Vista images with BDD. (Like my hat? I sure do; I wore it 7 days in a row...five of them because I'd hoped to win something; truly, though, just being there was a HUGE win for the Mage)

Other sessions I attended:

Working the Microsoft Windows Recovery Environment
Best Practices and Lessons Learned in Activating Windows Vista in Enterprise Environment

Between those last two sessions, I headed to the tail end of Frank La Vigne's session on writing apps for Tablet PCs. The break after was the time Craig Pringle had set aside for Tablet lovers to meet and greet. There was a fellow at Frank's session I thought looked suspiciously like Dr. Neil Roodyn, whose face I'd seen on Hugo Ortega's blog. I tried a surreptitious peek at his badge (you can guess how well that worked, given the man was seated in the row in front of me), but then I decided there was not much chance Dr. Neil would have come all the way over to Orlando. Yeah, I was wrong, and I learned that when I attended a session he was leading the next day...but that's another post. At any rate, I saw Craig again, was introduced to Frank, and also met Andy Gray, among a couple of others. I might have followed Frank and Craig around for a few minutes like a lost puppy; it was only a few minutes, though! No, really, it was!

I hit the floor for a bit (I'm pretty sure I went by that poor User Productivity booth again), then it was time to go to the party at Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure. My typical luck affected everyone; just as it was time to go, the rain started pouring. The rides were shut down for some time; even when the rides were opened, the Incredible Hulk stayed down with technical difficulties. I did get to ride The Dueling Dragons (fire) and The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ride (that was mind-blowingly cool!). Yes, they served beer, and I don't think I've ever had a finer funnel cake.

The Green Goblin really is quite kind. When my PPC-6700 couldn't get a shot of him in the street, he got up in the window, so that I'd have adequate light. Thanks, GG! You look a heck of a lot better than Willem Dafoe did (no offense, Mr. Dafoe).

Thanks, heroes!

On the way back to the shuttles, I looked over to my left, and there Terri Stratton was!

Until tomorrow, Make Mine Marvel! Tell you what, do that even after tomorrow, too!

Technorati Tags: TechEd 2007, Microsoft TechEd

TechEd 2007: Day 3 (June 6th)

2007-06-13T23:42:00.001-04:00

Did a day go by where I didn't hit the User Productivity booth?

Fatigue set in. I thought this would be restful. I wasn't doing any work, after all; I was just sitting around listening to people talk, taking notes on my cool, little UMPC, asking my questions after the sessions, because I wasn't about to bleat ignorantly on the microphones for all to hear. Dashing from one side of the hugemonstrous convention center to the other with a goody-laden backpack did take some effort, but it wasn't a trek though the Himalayas. My suspicions that someone had underestimated the Mountain Dew consumption rate of geeks was strengthened.

Sessions I attended:

Security Fundamentals in the 2007 Microsoft Office Clients
Top 10 Features is windows Mobile 6 (I was excited about this one for weeks)
Mobile Messaging and Device security and Management
Duet for Microsoft Office and SAP: Technical overview and Product Roadmap
How to Effectively Manage Your Organization's Mobile PC with Windows Vista

I felt as though I had too much focus on Windows Mobile 6 and not enough on Vista and Office 2007, but it's kind of the way the scheduling worked out with my preferences. I often felt like I had to choose between a great Vista session or a great WM session, and since I'd been using Vista since 2005, but had only read about WM6 on blogs and other tech sites, I had to go with the more unfamiliar ground to get more balance.

I meant to attend the Women in Technology luncheon, but I'd hit the Partner Expo to locate a vendor booth, as requested by my SMS admin, and time got away from me. Lieberman Software's product looked really cool to me (not that I have a lot to compare it with).

This was a short day; the last session on the schedule ended at 6:45. I was at a loss for what to do with myself, so I caught a shuttle and fought with the hotel wireless before composing and emailing my report to my management. The thought that the dream was more than halfway over weighed heavily on my mind.

Technorati tags: TechEd 2007, Microsoft TechEd

TechEd 2007, Day 2 (Only a Week Late!)

2007-06-12T23:43:00.001-04:00

Sessions I attended on June 5th:

Deep Drive into Windows Vista Group Policy Changes and Troubleshooting
Active Directory Domain Sevices in Windows Server 2008
Understanding the Microsoft Support Lifecycle (it was important to me to know how long XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 was going to be supported, even if I don't use it anymore!)
Wart the World's Best Web Mail client? Use Outlook Web Access in Exchange Server 2007
Windows Mobile Demo Extravaganza
Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007: Windows Vista Deployment Walkthrough
Birds of a Feather: Managing Your Network from Your Wireless Device (I could have enjoyed it, if they'd ever let me say anything)
BoF: Geeks with ADD: It's an Advantage! (I just wanted to see if they sounded like me)
BoF: HealthCare's IT Wants and Desires: All Things to All People (didn't seem like input from support techs was relevant, here, so I bopped out to another session)
BoF: Estimating Desktop Support Staff Levels (I might have been relevant, had I known how many techs I wok with, and how many devices we support)

I do not have the words to convey the joy I felt being there and learning about the changes in Windows deployment, Windows Mobile and Exchange Web Access. Don't let my boring list fool you; I was in geek heaven! I was scribbling away furiously on my R2H, trying to get the best bits down for future consumption and praying my batteries would last the day.

There was more hitting the Expo and the MS booths during the day, and there was more beer...I didn't see any more Hollywood actors, though, unless they were in the foam suits.

I decided to get the full TechEd experience and go to the Jam Session that night. That one dude singing the blues on the stage at the groove was worth the trip.

The day's report was submitted the following morning, rather than that night.

TechEd 2007, Microsoft TechEd

Technorati tags: TechEd 2007, Microsoft TechEd

TechEd 2007: What an Awesome Week it Was!

2007-06-11T23:51:00.000-04:00

One of the things I'd planned to do when I went to TechEd was blog, blog, blog. With people like Robert Scoble and the GottaBeMobile.com guys (and far too many others to mention; you know who you are) showing me the way, I figured I could handle it. I knew I'd be sitting around taking notes, listening to people talk; I'd not be crawling under desks, editing registries, replacing motherboards and fighting with malware the whole week, so I'd have plenty of time and energy for writing, right? NAIVE CONFERENCE NEWBIE ALERT! To be honest, the conference wore me out... or I wore myself out, or something.

I'm hoping I can salvage this opportunity; I'll be blogging everything a week late.

Day 0 (Sunday, June 3):

I thought I'd catch the trolley, ride around and see some of Orlando. Although I'd been there since Wednesday night, Thursday and Friday had been spent at Epcot, Magic Kingdom and MGM Studios (I rode a Segway! Yay!), and Saturday had been a day for staying off my aching, flat feet. When I left the hotel, my feet headed directly for the Orlando Convention Center. I thought I'd just get a peek at the Softies (do they mind being called that?) getting the playground ready. I'm glad my feet took over, because I ended up getting my badge and bag that day.

I didn't hurry away, but I did eventually get my trolley rides.

Day 1: (Monday, June 4)

I couldn't stay in bed; it was time to go! Totally against character, I'd laid clothing, technology and other items the night before, so it was just a matter of scooping everything up after I'd made myself presentable.I met some nice folks at the breakfast; we tried to guess what we'd missed out on by being government employees (government employee bags were segregated from the others). I later found out it was a minimum of a t-shirt and an Office Ultimate 2007 giveaway (we can't win anything worth more than 25 bucks). I reminded myself that I was there because I was a government employee, so I was already a winner.

The keynote was a shocker for this noob. Do they often have Hollywood actors and ride Deloreans onto the stage?

Bob Muglia and a host of others spoke. No, I still haven't bought a good camera.

And then the sessions began. Oh, boy, talk sexy tech to me! First on my list was getting my Groove on; I'm still sore at myself for missing out on the pre-conference Groove talk on Sunday.

Other sessions I attended:

The Proliferation of Mobile PCs in the Enterprise and the Impact to IT

Accelerating End-User Success with the 2007 Microsoft Office Client Release

Structured Content Authoring Using the 2007 Microsoft Office System and XML (I didn't choose it; it was way over my head!)

I also hit the Microsoft booths often. In fact I ran into Craig Pringle at the User Productivity booth; does that seem odd? They did have three Q1s (including an Ultra), an OQO,a Gateway E155C, a SideShow device and a demo Fujitsu that couldn't actually be used.

(Thanks for the photo, Sarah!)

Having the understanding that Birds of a Feather sessions would be going on into the evening, and that most people at the conference were attending on employer funds, the newby wasn't prepared for what came next: beer at the Partner Expo Reception. I just... didn't... know. I was truly in shock -- culture shock. Fortunately, there were sedatives available. After a dose and hitting the booths, I wondered how I could hie myself away to TechEd 2008.

Only the threat of having to walk to my hotel alone in the dark could pry me away...well that and they were closing up the Expo. I opted to skip the social event and head to the hotel to compose and submit my required daily report of my experience (and get ready for the next day!).

Technorati tags: TechEd, TechEd 2007, Microsoft TechEd

Really Starting to Loathe Vista on the R2H

2007-05-27T02:01:00.001-04:00

Oh, how I hate to admit it. With the exception of a couple of months after RTM, I've been using Vista since September of 2005. The day I received my Beta invitation, I felt like I'd won a pageant, except brains counted and I'd get to keep my clothes on (luckily for the Vista teams!). I really do want this product. It works on my Tablet PC, but on my UMPC, it's really just hacking me off.

After Asus repair returned the device to me for the second time, I installed Vista a third time. I carefully followed the driver/utility order specified in this GottaBeMobile.com thread. Everything was pretty good, until I realized no one at GBM seemed to be using the fingerprint reader. Since I do, I was forced to wing it at that point. Wireless card stability quickly went down the tubes; the device began dropping out of Device Manager almost as soon as I've begun to use it. The touch screen likes to go out for a walk, sometimes, too, and that's a bigger problem, since I have a Hawking USB wireless adapter (that I no longer hate), but am not willing to attach a keyboard to get around the inability to use my R2H's primary input device. I carry a mini-keyboard and mini-mouse daily; I just don't want to use them.

I'm not using my Vista product key, because I can't. Although I qualified for the free Vista upgrade, I've yet to receive my media and license. Moduslink must have known I'd been plotting this post for a few days, because I received an email this morning stating that my order had [finally] been shipped. It'd only been ordered in January/February, rejected/resubmitted in March (I still question their grounds for rejection), and approved in April. I guess June will be the magic month. I'm guessing it will arrive (if it arrives) when I'm at TechEd and unable to put my hands on it. Oh, and no matter what I say about Moduslink, you should know that they believe they are doing a heck of a job.

Let's move on to the little issue of Vista not activating. Since my own copy of Vista isn't available, I took advantage of my employer's Work at Home licensing. Instead of entering a product key, machines are supposed to connect to the internal network and validate the OS by communicating with a KMS server. Instead, I get a 0xC004F059 activation error:

I am running the latest BIOS available from Asus, 207. Basically, what this means is that my installation of Vista could cease to fully function on the day I'm flying back from TechEd. I'm torn between my options. As I see it, I can let the machine run as it is, poke it into some Softie's face at the conference, then ask for help. I could also just let the deadline come and hope that my Moduslink package -- with a product key -- will be in my hands mere hours after Vista goes into reduced functionality mode and prevents me from watching movies on the way home (note to self: copy some movies to the PDA phone). Finally, I do have a few days before my flight out; I could re-install Vista and deal with any issues 30 days from now, rather than 14. For those who might suggest the other options I've noticed bopping around on the net, well, I'm not sure how many other UMPCs are going to be floating around this Microsoft conference, but I expect mine to attract at least a tiny bit of notice and curiosity, and I do not intend to spend any of my precious (first) TechEd moments being tasered by Orlando's finest while shrieking "but I'm legally entitled to it!" just because something looked suspicious. I also don't want to end up on Microsoft's permanent "do not admit" list. Paranoid? Yes, but I'm not hurting anyone but me.

In time, I hope Asus and Moduslink will come through for me.

Technorati tags: Vista, R2H, UMPC, KMS, Vista activation, Ultra-Mobile PC, Asus R2H

The R2H and Asus Repair Again

2007-05-09T01:22:00.001-04:00

On April 15th, I wrote a rather gushy post about my experience with Asus tech support and the repair job they did on my R2H. Since I dove into Vista almost immediately after getting the UMPC back, and since I was fighting--and not always winning--with Vista drivers, it took me about four days to realize that my customer service saga wasn't over.

You see, my primary concern was being able to use my UMPC at work. This meant that my priorities lay in the areas of connectivity (wired, wireless and VPN), performance, readability and input. It look me four days to give up battling with tuning those areas and to try to watch an online video. Watching it was no problem, but hearing it was. So was hearing any music in Media Player, though Vista's Device Manager showed no errors, and WMP looked like it was playing the song. I checked everywhere in Vista I knew to check before checking the BIOS, then booting back into Windows XP Tablet Edition, which had been loaded by Asus repair (I had wiped the drive before shipping it off). My heart sank as I realized there was no Windows startup sound, and I felt even worse when I dredged up a set of headphones and plugged them in... because there was my sound.

I, who have wanted the dogs to stop barking, asked my husband to turn the TV down, and unsuccessfully willed the neighbor to stop mowing at 9 am, suddenly found silence depressing. Sitting-in-your-car-staring-at-it-instead-of-driving-home depressing. I didn't even have the heart to play with Bluetooth.

I called Asus repair again. We talked. The next day, an RMA and instructions for shipping arrived in my email. I procrastinated as usual, until Vista crashed and would boot no longer, and for all of five minutes, I felt I couldn't get the R2H away from me fast enough. Around the sixth minute, I was already missing it. I shipped the computer Monday, April 30th. This time, I put in the note that they did not have to call me for permission to reinstall the operating system; I wanted no delay, as I was starting a week-long on-call rotation the following weekend and would need all the help I could get. On May 7th, a week after I dropped it off at FedEx, my baby was back in my hands.

Traditionally, I have disliked the Windows startup sounds, but the joy I felt when I heard the little one log me in was, well, indecently excessive.

There's a little voice in my head telling me to check. eveything. out. now! but I want to get back to Vista. Hey, I know wireless, graphics, touchscreen, USB, SD slot and audio work (haven't tried cam, GPS, LAN and Bluetooth).

So, do Asus tech support still make my grade? Sure. They lost points for the sound issue, but gained them for fixing cosmetic issues I didn't ask them to fix and for other steps in the process toward making it right. Plus, I can't afford to point any fingers, as many times as I've closed up laptops and PCs with drives or input devices disconnected, or with cables pinched or parts forgotten.

Technorati tags: R2H, UMPC, customer service, tech support, Asus

How Do You Flick?

2007-04-30T22:20:00.001-04:00

Here's how I have my Flicks set up in Vista, with a little bit of why:

Ever since I saw Kevin's post at jkOnTheRun about Pen Flicks in Vista and the how-to at GottaBeMobile, I've wanted to compare how I Flick with how others do. I may not get my wish, but here's hoping!

Technorati tags: Vista, Tablet PC, Flicks

Vista and the R2H: I Just Can't Get it Right

2007-04-24T17:47:00.001-04:00

Warner can do it, Dave Maiden can do it; what's wrong with me? Have I spent so long loading other people's images that I no longer know how to set up an operating system from scratch? Should I step up my plans to buy a better Mac?

Despite my embarrassing paucity of posts, I'm not new to Vista; I've used it a lot since I was accepted into the beta in September 2005. In fact, I used it to write the majority of this post on my ViewSonic Tablet PC V1250. It works ok there. However, the R2H and I have issues, and this isn't even the first time I've installed Vista on it!

For the installation, I mostly used Warner's posts as my guides. I knew that I wasn't ready to rely solely on Vista, so opted for dual-boot, sticking Vista on the second partition. Everything was going somewhat smoothly, until I decided I wanted my GPS to work. By accidentally leaving the original Asus driver CD in the external DVD burner, I learned that I needed the ATK0100 utility to make Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 detect the GPS. As that caused some Blue Screen of Death nastiness, I got the ATKDrv utility for Vista from the Asus download site...the global link, since the US link always seems to be "busy." This is when my real trouble started. Whenever this utility was installed, my wireless NIC would disappear from Device Manager. It wouldn't always show up after a reboot. At first, I removed the offending utility and tried to get on with other installation tasks, but, judging by the messages I kept getting, the utility is needed if I want to utilize my hotkey buttons and higher resolution emulation, so I had to put the utility back and hope the wireless would settle down after everything was installed. The Realtek LAN card would sense the network and get an IP address, but would never see the world beyond my router, so I was essentially disconnected, which was completely intolerable. I've ended up using a USB wireless NIC during desperate moments or using my cell phone as a Bluetooth modem.

Goodness, I can't write a short post to save my life. That's enough for now, especially since the R2H has to go back to Asus, because it hasn't made a sound in any OS since it came back from repair, and I'm ready to send it back (I miss it already!). When I get it back this time, I think I'm just going to take those CDs that came with it, slip a second installation of XP TPCE on the second partition, and then try a Vista upgrade. I don't care what anyone else says, upgrades always work fine for me; perhaps it will work better than the clean install has.

Technorati tags: Vista, Ultra-Mobile PC, R2H, UMPC

Windows Vista on the ViewSonic Tablet PC V1250 - Getting Connected

2007-04-16T19:54:00.001-04:00

I'm happy to say that getting on the LAN with my V1250 running Vista was a simple matter. When Vista booted, it worked right off.

Wireless was a different story. Updates found a driver online for my Intel 2100 3B Wireless card, and though the initial report was that the driver couldn't install, it was working normally (I guess) after a reboot. Still, it was a pain making the machine connect to my hidden, WEPped , MAC-restricted D-Link router. This, I was prepared for. As a beta tester, I'd been using Vista since September 2005, and I'd always had to configure and re-configure wireless settings 5 to 7 times before I'd actually get a connection with an IP address. To tell the truth, it's rather been the same with XP. Fortunately, I could copy the 26-character hex key and paste, paste, PASTE! After I got connected once, it usually would connect automatically afterward. I have had to be just about as persistent connecting to the wireless access point at work, too, but it seemed even more difficult with RTM than with the betas. Also, there have been problems getting back on when I come back home, but only a couple of times. After a couple of weeks, wireless issues seem to be just about non-existent now...with known networks, anyway.

I have had much less trouble getting the Cingular Sierra AirCard 875 to work. I installed 3G Watcher, rather than the Cingular Connect Manager. Sometimes I have had to disable and re-enable the AirCard to get Watcher to see the network, but once it gets connected, it usually stays that way. This really sucks down the juice, though!

No abnormal issues using my Sprint PPC-6700 as a wireless modem, once I'd found this PDAPhoneHome.com forum thread. During the Vista beta, I'd used the same inf file and dialer that I'd used for XP, but I guess things change. Getting the phone properly recognized as a CDMA modem is something that takes persistence and patience for me, but that has almost always been the case, be the OS Windows XP or Vista (beta or final).

So far, though I have Cisco, Citrix and Netmotion Mobility XE (beta) VPN clients for accessing the resources at work, I have only tried the last one with Vista Final. I have little desire to try the others, because Mobility XE is working well witih all networks; I don't have to run it; I just have to give it a password every once in a while (I think it's every time I log into the PC, as opposed to some VPN clients' requiring input of a password every time the machine gets onto a network).* There seems to be a minor bit of fuss involved when using domain credentials to authenticate without actually joining a computer to the domain, but that's easy enough to fix.

The labeling of different networks as home, work or private (and therefore safe or not for file sharing, etc) is a new thing on me. I think I like it.

While working without wires isn't the simplest matter in the world, I'm confident that my three year-old tablet can help me remain mobile and connected, even in the Vista era.

*The Cisco beta worked fine in Vista Beta 2. Citrix worked in Vista Beta 1 with Firefox (I couldn't get it to work with IE7), but stopped working. I've no idea if it is supposed to work now or not, but Netmotion's offering doesn't play well with other SSL clients, so I can't give it a try.

Technorati tags: Vista, ViewSonic V1250, Tablet PC, VPN

Asus Support Makes the Grade (A)

2007-04-15T00:18:00.001-04:00

Last week, I sent my beloved R2H off to Asus for repair, because it couldn't charge. The adapter was loose on the motherboard. The UMPC basically traveled to the opposite end of the US. The lady at FedEx said it would probably arrive four days later.

The following week, I got a call from an Asus tech. I wasn't quick enough to grab my phone, so he left a message. Although he wasn't available when I first called, the next time I tried, "J" answered. It was a little tough for us to understand each other, but "J" wanted to know if it was ok to reload XP Tablet PC Edition on the device. When I gave my assent, he warned me that I would lose everything. As I'd already done a backup (Ghost) and KillDisked the drive, I told him that wasn't a concern. Since it seemed obvious I wouldn't need it for a while, I let my co-worker borrow my Easy Sync cable for a few days so he could transfer files from his old home PC to his new one.

Less than 24 hours later, I was headed out of the building to a staff meeting at the main site, and I casually swept my eyes over the packages at the receptionist's desk. I was in a hurry, but my feet froze in mid-step when I saw my name on a box. All thoughts of being on time for my meeting fled, and I grabbed the prize and went back to my area, my mind racing through possibilities, but none of them coming up with Asus--at least until I saw their name on the box. I was stunned. Did my R2H never get there? If so, then why did "J" call me the day before and recite my RMA number? The box I'd used to ship the UMPC to Asus was packaged in another box; I dove through the peanuts. There was my baby, looking just as I'd shipped him, with one important exception: the little pin inside the power input didn't budge. It stayed right in the center. Because I didn't want to overly antagonize my management (before TechEd 2007, anyway!), I stowed the device in my office and went to my meeting. Fortunately for me, anyone who could write me up made it in after I did!

Since I was completely unprepared to receive my computer the day after the technician basically let me know they were looking at my machine, I didn't have a battery or ac adapter with me. I had to wait until I got home (or really, to a friend's house, since it was game night) to see if it would charge. Oh, the joy I took in seeing that little red light on the bottom of my R2H! It was indecent!

Thank you, Asus! This former substitute teacher gives you an A!!!!!

Technorati tags: Asus, R2H, UMPC, customer service, tech support

Windows Vista on the ViewSonic Tablet PC V1250 - the Driving Experience

2007-04-08T03:36:00.001-04:00

I had been running Vista betas on my convertible tablet since September 2005, but it wasn't until a week ago that I finally installed the final version. So far, so good. Most drivers, like video, audio and Wacom digitizer, installed without any input from me.

The Ricoh Secure Digital (SD) card controller, the tablet buttons, and the modem all had to be installed manually; it was a breeze using the drivers I already had copied onto another partition.

I don't recall any trouble getting the Cingular Sierra 875 HSDPA AirCard and 3G Watcher to work. Getting the Intel Pro Wireless 2100 3B driver to work was a different story: I tried multiple driver versions, including a set downloaded from Intel that specified that it supported Vista, and I got no joy. As I'd not had to do anything to get my Realtek LAN card working, Vista was happy to tell me that it had found a driver online; that, too, failed to install. After a reboot, however, the driver installed, and I got to move on to the headache of making the machine connect to my hidden, WEPped , MAC-restricted D-Link router.

One driver issue has steadfastly refused to be resolved:

This error in Device Manager only shows up when I insert an SD card, or even a miniSD card in its adapter. I'm wondering if this is related to the hotfix Microsoft recently released for problems with Vista recognizing SD (source: Geekzone, via jkontheRun). Unfortunately, it looks like I'll have to call MS to find out.

Technorati tags: Vista, Tablet PC, ViewSonic V1250

Hello, Help Desk? I Need a Spell Checker Installed

2007-04-06T17:21:00.000-04:00

I found this is my queue today. I can think of one other PC that could benefit from the addition of more spell checking software.

Tag this ironic!

TechEd Countdown Gadget

2007-04-05T00:05:00.001-04:00

After days ago I wondered why I was keeping Frank La Vigne in my list of feeds; the fellow is just way over my head. Tonight, I wonder no longer, because I found his post announcing that he'd created a gadget that counts down the days until TechEd 2007 starts. It didn't take me long to accept that gift, even though it means I'll now have to use my Vista Sidebar (I'd eschewed the Sidebar due to lack of screen real estate). Thanks, Frank; you are a .GEM!

I guess this means I will have to stop posting "Is it June, yet?" to Twitter...naah!

Technorati tags: TechEd, Vista Sidebar

(Water)Dropped Calls

2007-03-28T17:33:00.000-04:00

Weeks after the notice went out to pick up our Vocera badges, I finally got mine. I do comprehend that it's an amazing little device, but it still seems like a monster to me; I expected something smaller. Especially since it's got to share that space on my chest with my ID badge, my time clock adminstrator badge, my flash drive and a micro-flashlight (you try earning a living crawling under people's desks without a light source!). Yes, I will be able to look down and see a virtual crowd...but not for a couple of days.

Today was a overcast day. I went over to the main site to pick up a PC I had to install at another location. It was completely unlike me to remember to pick up the communicator, but there you go. By the time I got out of the building, it was pouring. I stood under the overhang and waited for it to abate, making a dash for the car when the precipitation let up a little. I had to do a little more waiting when I got the PC to it's destination. After I completed the install, I went back to my car and noticed a familiar object glistening on the blacktop under my car door. My first thought was something like, "I couldn't even wait until I used it once before destroying it!"

The poor thing was soaked, but I'm holding out hope that I won't have to admit this to my management. You see, unlike the techs at the main site, I don't have a charger. Also, most of the sites I support don't even have wireless, and the location of my PC install was no exception. What all this means is that I had decided to take the battery out of the unfortunate device before leaving my car and shoving it into my jacket pocket, and this means it had a powerless shower. I'm hoping that I can just wait a few days for it to dry out, and that I will soon have a new medium for ~~harrassing~~ getting advice from my boss.

Tags: Vocera

The HTC Shift UMPC Could End My VIA Vendetta

2007-03-27T01:07:00.001-04:00

The mobility sites are all a-twitter about the HTC Shift UMPC. Despite my anti-VIA sentiments since the 4in1 issue with Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds a few years ago, I'm excited, too. I can't help it. It's an Ultra-Mobile PC, it's from HTC (the maker of my beloved Pocket PC Phone), it's got a keyboard, it runs Aero, and it's got a faster processor than my tablet; what chance did I have, really (and what chance do I have of being able to afford it?)? Sure, as a Sprint customer, though I can appreciate what it means for mobility, I can't find the 3G connectivity extremely attractive, and the 30gb hard drive is even less so (and is that a touchpad? I'd rather have an eight-way); still, here's hoping this handsome fellow can perform at least as well as the Fujitsu P1610 and deliver a writing experience similar to that of the Asus R2H.

Source: Only UMPC

Technorati tags: HTC Shift, UMPC

Craig Pringle: Ship Convertible Tablets in Slate Mode

2007-03-25T16:58:00.000-04:00

Tablet PC MVP Craig Pringle has seen people using tablets purely as laptops. So have I. He's also seen people with tablets who never even knew they could even be used in any other way. To help correct this problem, he suggests that OEMS start shipping the devices in slate mode, with cleverly-placed overlays which give the new user info about switching from one mode to another. At first, I thought, "Why the heck not," and then I thought of a reason why.

In my IT shop, the devices generally come to us for re-imaging before they go to the user. We open the boxes, and we don't glance at or keep the documentation. Although I'm the only one who uses a tablet full time, we all know at least something about what tablets can do (Interestingly enough, we have maybe ordered one convertible that I know about; the other 30 or so tablets are slates). How many more businesses have IT organizations that work the same way?

I still like Craig's suggestion. Even in my organization, we have a large segment of users who are responsible for their own computer purchases and who have their machines delivered to them. Many of them wait for us to come and open the boxes, but there are those who can't resist the temptation. Surely some of them would benefit from seeing the tablet in its proper position and from seeing the documentation laid out as Craig recommends. For those tablet buyers who are making personal purchases, the IT department intermediary wouldn't be an issue.

So, any recommendations for getting desktop support technicians everywhere to deliver the machines in tablet mode?

HP tx1000: Changes Needed?

2007-03-19T22:56:00.000-04:00

At work, we make, er, occasional, emphasized use of the word "opportunity." When we say that, we mean something has gone wrong, and we need to fix it. Rather than seeing it as an annoying hindrance, we are supposed to see it as a chance to improve our ~~user's~~ internal customer's experience, and the way we work, and, perhaps, as a chance to learn from the experience.

Judging from what I've been reading in reviews and on my favorite mobility forum of late, it seems Hewlett-Packard have developed quite an opportunity with their new Pavilion tx1000, a convertible touch screen tablet. While it is said that it's basically a decent machine, some people are reporting problems with touch screen responsivity, which detracts significantly from its usefulness as a tablet.

I've not had my hands on a tx1000, but because I'd had a similar experience with a Lenovo X60's passive digitizer, I'd begun to wonder if it's just more difficult for tablet manufacturers to make touch screens work as well on the larger models as they do on ultra-portables like the Fujitsu LifeBook P1610 and the Asus R2H. Perhaps it is, but I do not recall any reports of such issues with the touch screen version of the Motion LE1600. Then again, I can't say I recall hearing wonderful things about inking on an LE1600TS, either, and my searches for reviews come up rather blank. Has anyone had any joy using a stylus on an 12" passive digitizer?

CNET review by Dan Ackerman
PC Magazine review by Cisco Cheng
PC World review by Kalpana Ettenson
Laptop Magazine review by Steve Smith
Tablet PC review.com review by Tiffany Boggs

Windows Home Server Beta 2 Diary, pt 4

2007-03-18T22:41:00.000-04:00

I know it's nothing special, but I just had to post this while on the interstate and using my ViewSonic Tablet PC V1250 and a Cingular AirCard 875!

Friday, March 9
Remembered to bring the new DVDRW drive home today after work. Also bought a couple of copies of Rise of Legends at CompUSA for 20 bucks apiece. A friend invited us out to watch The 300 with him and a couple of others, so there wasn't really time to get that last bit of hardware in the WHS machine.

Saturday, March 10
After all the bad luck I'd been having, I didn't even have the heart to try today. I played Rise of Legends, instead.

Sunday, March 11
Got the DVD burner in and did the happy dance. Windows Home Server is finally installed!

No, life wasn't done screwing with me, yet; my network connections back to the router didn't work. I wired these things myself, and I'm no cabling expert, so I figured my shoddy work needed to be redone (never mind the fact that the rest of the house seems to be working ok). I searched for my crimping tool.

Monday, March 12
I kept searching for my crimping tool. When I didn't find it, I started looking for either of my punch-down tools; I figured I'd just re-punch the surface mount jacks in the "library."

Tuesday, March 13
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! I hate technology!

Wednesday, March 14
I'm ill. Let's not say it was stress, ok? I can handle this! Anyway, I found my punchythingy! I took painkillers, I yanked out cables, I cut cables, I re-pumched cables into the surface mount jacks, even taking the time to look up the proper color coding scheme. My cable tester matched all 16 lights up just as they should...and still, I got no IP assignment from the wireless router. I cut the cable on the router end and stuck a surface mount box on it, too. Cable tester reported all was well, but the router still reported dropped packets for the WHS box's MAC address. I called up a friend, who explained to me something about not untwisting the wires for more than an inch. He said this is why he gets outside work to do his cabling, because it's a pain in the rear (he owns an ISP). I decided to buy a crimping tool the next day.

Thursday, March 15
Crimpers purchased. It's game night with the friends again; I'll get nothing done. I take out my aggressions on friends who didn't spend a whole day playing Rise of Legends and were new to the game. It's ok; they'll get the hang of it, and I'll never dominate them again. I suck at strategy games.

Friday, March 16
Resist the urge to be antisocial and stay home after work. I wish I had; I really didn't want to see The 300 again, though the abs and gams were just as glorious as the week before. GLORIOUS!

Saturday, March 17
Patty brought me luck, I guess, and I didn't even drink any green beer. I whipped out my new crimping tool and the RJ-45 ends I'd scrounged up days before. I made the cable as close to specs as I could, and as the date changed, so did my luck. My Windows Home Server Beta 2 machine finally got a dadgummed IP address! It downloaded updates! I can now test, right?

Sunday, March 18
Visiting with relatives in another state all day...they're great people. I guess I'll start testing Monday. No more "diary" posts. Hopefully my next posts will have useful info about the beta...if I haven't missed out on it all just trying to get in the game.

Windows Home Server Beta 2 Diary, pt 3

2007-03-15T10:55:00.000-04:00

Sunday, March 4
Yay! I can download the dadgummed ISO! I get the WHS ISO and the Vista Ultimate (I'm not taking any more chances with my gratis copy). The internal DVD burner I installed in my rebuilt HP Pavilion doesn't cooperate, but I have no problems with the DVD burner I'd stuck into a CD burner's USB enclosure. I can't believe it... I'm on my way!

I'm fairly bouncing over to the other room, where the machine waits. As I reach down to press the button to open the drive drawer, I realize that this machine has a CD burner with NO DVD-reading capabilities. That figures.

Hey, but I'm not done, yet. I'll just go grab my external burner, right? I bounce back to the computer room, dive though the mess of cables, and emerge triumphantly. It was the last triumphant feeling I was to have that right, because my chosen test computer would not boot from a USB disc drive, although it did offer to boot from a USB floppy drive (I don't even have any, and it wouldn't have done me any good, if I did). Strike 8!

Back to Newegg.com and 3-day shipping.

Thursday, March 8
Yay! My new DVD burner arrived at work!
Silly me! I went home without it! How on earth could I have forgotten it?
Ah, well, tonight's game night with the friends, so I wouldn't have time to do anything, anyway.

Windows Home Server Beta 2 Diary, pt 2

2007-03-12T21:51:00.000-04:00

Saturday, March 3
The day after the lights went out in CompUSA (during my abortive attempt to buy a suitable hard drive), I was at it again. I'd located my Best Buy gift card, so I headed out there after my morning workout. To my dismay, the selection of IDE drives was not worth talking about. I think it was kind of nonexistent, but we're talking about something that happened nine days ago, so my memory is definitely non-existent. I wandered into the phone section to see the offerings, so that my trip wouldn't be a total loss. The guy in that section asked me if I was finding everything alright; I knew he wasn't asking about what I was truly looking for, but I told him nonetheless. Of course, he pleasantly suggested I talk to one of the associates in the computer section or the Geek Squad. Me? Talk to a member of the Geek Squad? I got out of there in a hurry. My apologies to G-Squadders everywhere, but I remember Best Buy's computer repair department's reputation in the 90's, and I personally knew someone who'd had bad experiences (that is more than one!), so...I just can't.

I was prepared to head out to Circuit City when I noticed the Office Max sign and thought, "what the heck?" Twenty feet from the door, I saw signs to make my little geek heart soar. There, right in front of me, was ONE 80gb hard drive for a mere $40! And then, the pain started--right next to this treasure were several 200gb hard drives for a mere $70! I stared, my eyes going first to the left, then to the right...footsteps approached...My spindly little arm shot past the couple coming dangerously close. My fingers seized the prize, and faster than you could say "CPU," I had the lower-priced, smaller-capacity item clutched close to my body. I might have given the nearby people cause to give me a strange glance; I'm not saying either way. Mission mostly accomplished, I decided to do a little extra shopping before leaving with the 200gb drive--yeah, this is me you're talking about, so naturally I couldn't leave the store with the smaller drive. I went home and went to sleep.

After waking up, I decided it was time to download the Home Server ISO and burn it. Unfortunately, the Microsoft site didn't decide to give it to me. Yep, that's right. The darned site was down, or partially down, or something. It was all my fault, because I could of course have only one success that day. I put the hard drive in the PC and went back to sleep. Ok, well that's not entirely true. I decided to install FreeBSD on the PC while I waited for the ISO to become available. Never got the stinking thing to install right, and I don't usually have that kind of trouble with BSD (not that I'm any UNIX guru or anything). After that additional failure, I really did go back to sleep.

Windows Home Server Beta 2 Diary, pt 1

2007-03-05T23:33:00.000-05:00

My experience with trying to beta test WHS seems to me to be nothing short of comically tragic...or tragically comic, so I thought I'd put it down (since I can't be bothered to do anything else with my blog of late).

Application Day
"Yep...got that...yep, got that...lessee...how many computers do I have? Let's only count the ones that are running and my husband's...that comes to...uh...let's just say seven...Yep...yep...yep...submit!

"Ooh...wait...did I just tell Microsoft that I had a spare hard drive that was at least four times the size of any of my current spares? Uh...I think I did...well, I suppose I can go out and buy another hard drive...or replace that dual 166MHz Proliant that I can never find matched processors for heeheeheehee."

[starts checking eBay for Proliants, not liking the selection, mostly due to insufficient hard drive capacities]

Friday, March 2nd
"I do believe that application did ask for more hard drive space than I have...hmmm...well, I suppose I could get a PowerEdge, but I've already got a Dell.

"Well, it isn't an issue unless I get--

"Hooray! I'm in! Now I've gotta buy a hard drive!"

[heads off to CompUSA after work]

"Hmm...where the heck are the IDE drives? SATA...SATA...external USB...external firewire...notebook drives..."

[wanders around the whole store looking for a cheapo bin, gets distracted looking for Tablet PCs and UPSs; eventually comes back to the hard drives]

"Well, I guess I could buy that 120GB notebook drive that's on sale, replace my Tablet's 100GB hard drive, then use my 40-pin to 44-pin adapter--wtf? What happened to the lights! Aww, sheesh, it would be just my luck the power would go out! Maybe if I just stand here, the power will come back on in a few minutes."

Unseen CompUSA staff member: "Hey [name forgotten], we should have all the customers gather up front so no one falls down."

I think to myself, "You mean so no one gets a five-finger discount while the security system is down!"

I quickly turn on my Pocket PC phone, hit the camera button, and use the flash to light up the shelves before me. As a floor dude comes to herd me toward the front, I ask him a quick question about the sales price, grab the box and go where I'm wanted. I am still stupidly hoping the power will soon be restored. My hopes rise when a clerk announces that her terminal is still on. Another staff member tells her that she will have power for a few minutes, until the backup power is exhausted. A manager announces to those of us milling in the front of the store that cash purchases can be made for the next few minutes, but credit cards cannot be taken. I debate counting my cash, but I had hoped to use a CompUSA gift card to help with this acquisition, and I suspect that it will not work today. A young lady at the Customer Service desk confirms my suspicion. I consider waiting a little longer, but then I just give in, put the drive down, and go out. After all, Best Buy is right across the street. As I search my wallet for my Best Buy gift card, I'm nearly blown down several times by the wind, which is probably responsible for CompUSA's power loss. Alas, I don't have that card on me, so I head home to pick up my husband and meet my friends for dinner. We're late...can't imagine why.

To Be Continued (it doesn't really get better, not yet, anyway)...

Comparing/Contrasting HealthCare Pros' Reactions to the UMPC

2007-02-25T17:20:00.001-05:00

Whilst reading the feeds, I came across a post about a physician who found his TabletKiosk eo to be a huge benefit to his practice. As I read the various posts, I couldn't help mentally c/c'ing my own experience demonstrating (informally) my Asus R2H to some hospital professionals.

The testing of the physician order entry app was initiated because some of the healthcare professionals felt that the Motion LE1600 was too heavy, at 3.13 pounds. Though the R2H weighs in at 1.83 pounds (the same as Dr. Rubin's eo), it, too, was deemed too heavy. There's no denying the R2H is a bit brickish.

The hospital's software was designed for 1024 x 768 resolution. Vital order information was cut off at the native 800 x 480 resolution of the R2H. This problem did not exist when the R2H emulated 1024 x 600, though some scrolling was necessary. However, at any resolution, the response was that the caregivers, who average about 50 years in age, would find the 7-inch screen too difficult to read. I noticed that Dr. Rubin looks like he's seen a few decades, too; perhaps his EMR software is tailored to fit the smaller screen without resorting to tiny print.

In a fascinating development, I've heard that my correspondents are quite excited about the Motion C5, despite the fact that it weighs almost as much as an LE1600. When I asked about this, the explanation I got was that the benefits of having a device that is durable, sealed and can be wiped with disinfectant far outweighed any weight considerations. I hope to see these babies in action soon.

source: TabletGear.com

TabletGear.com's source: MedicalTabletPC.com

Technorati tags: EMR, UMPC

SETI Coolness

2007-02-22T23:48:00.001-05:00

Ok. so SETI hasn't found any aliens, yet, but it did help a fella recover his wife's stolen laptop. Very cool! I just wish they'd found the thief.

I don't suppose it was an Alienware laptop?

via the folks at Engadget, who got it from SlashDot

Chris Acksed; the Axim Has Been Axed

2007-02-21T22:55:00.000-05:00

(misspelling in the title is deliberate)

A Dell rep informed the AximSite's administrator that there will be no new Axims. Wow. I bought their first offering, the X5, in December 2002, and that means Dell was in the PDA business for less than five years.

via Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine

A Newer, Better Day Means Dismissing Reminders Only Once

2007-02-21T00:25:00.001-05:00

jkOnTheRun's Kevin Tofel understands my pain. While grateful that the existence of Exchange and its various clients allows users to have access from multiple devices to appointments and tasks without having to spend a lot of time getting the information synchronized to each device, like me, he wants more. Then again, I should probably say we want less, as in less time spent dismissing reminders on our various clients.

You see, if I create an appointment or task on one client and specify a time to be reminded of my appointment, then all clients which connect to my Exchange account will remind me at and after the appropriate time...even if the event has passed and I've dismissed the reminder on one of the clients. Dismissals don't sync. So what, right? I'll tell you so what! When the PC at work, the PC at home, the Tablet PC, the UMPC, the Pocket PC phone and Exchange On the Web Access are all reminding me about the same dadgummed thing, and each device has to be told not to keep reminding me about it, well, the efficiency kind of stops right there, especially when it comes to my tasks (a new reminder is likely to make me wonder if I forgot to do something I've already done).

Like Kevin says, it's time for reminder management to be handled at the server level. I look forward to the newer, better day.

Technorati tags: Exchange, Outlook

Microsoft ActiveSync 4.5 Released

2007-02-14T23:50:00.001-05:00

Link to additional information and download

source: Pocket PC Thoughts

Technorati tags: Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, ActiveSync

RIAA Learns Bullying Innocent People Doesn't Always Pay Off

2007-02-13T00:28:00.001-05:00

Supposedly, these persecutors of grannies and preteens will usually drop a case when things start to go badly for them; this time, they couldn't see it was time to go home (apologies to Billy Joel). It was decided in this case that the RIAA's intended victim wasn't liable for someone else's misbehavior with her internet account, since she didn't know about it. Furthermore, because the RIAA continued to harass the owner of the account even after learning who the guilty party was, they were ordered to pay her attorneys' fees.

Link to Ars Technica article

Technorati: RIAA

Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2: Comcast: When Unlimited Means, Well, Not Unlimited

2007-02-12T00:50:00.001-05:00

Comcast, perhaps never really the darling among cable television and internet service providers, apparently decided to join Verizon in shutting down customers who expect companies to be honest when advertising their services as unlimited. Honestly, whatever happened to Truth in Advertising?

Where I live, the cable company's ownership used to change every couple of years. I've had my gripes with Insight, but I'm going to pray that they stay put for now; if Comcast comes to town, it will be wireless broadband only from then on out, at least until DSL is available in my area, and my husband will finally get that dish he's always wanted!

via Life on the Wicked Stage

Technorati tags: Comcast, Truth in Advertising

Tablet PC Roadshow in Orange County

2007-02-11T17:18:00.001-05:00

If you're going be in Orange County on the 15th and would like to see Tablet PC hardware and software solutions and talk tablet with some experts, here's your chance! Representatives from Allegiance Technology Partners and Active Ink Software will be at the Hyatt on Harbour Boulevard from 1 to 5 on Thursday.

via Tablet PC Talk

Technorati tags: Tablet PC demonstration, Allegiance Technology, Active Ink

What's Running on Your UMPC?

2007-01-24T00:12:00.000-05:00

L0g1cmaster wants to know. So do I. If you haven't already, wander on over to the Origami Project's forums, and let's talk about it. Don't have an Ultra-Mobile PC, yet? Come on over, anyway and tell us what you're going to run. You won't be the first.

Some of the apps I listed:

True Launch Bar
ritePen (cuz they took away Write Anywhere)
uxtheme hack (cuz regular XP themes don't come in colors I like)
Tablet Enhancements for Outlook 3
GIMP (cuz Paint.NET is horribly slow on my R2H)
Art Rage 2 Free (thinking about buying it)
Foxit Reader
GoBinder 2005
Cisco & Citrix VPN clients
CDMA USB/Bluetooth Modem dialer
AxCrypt
Firefox 2 + add-ons (probably the app I use most)
Some Experience Pack and Education Pack components
FloatTip
Windows Live Writer + Ed Holloway's Ink Blog Plugin
Big Fish Games' Catan (it's sort of finger-friendly!)
Of course, it came with the Microsoft Touch Pack, Microsoft Streets and Trips (for use with the GPS), and other stuff.

Technorati tags: Ultra-Mobile PC, UMPC

I Caught the Bus

2007-01-17T01:31:00.000-05:00

The Vista Coach Tour Bus, that is. I learned about it only last night, so I was extremely lucky not to have missed it. I watched that tracking map all day, despairing when I saw it staying in Nashville for hours, then heading in the opposite direction. At the end of the work day, I checked the map again and discovered it was on the way, and all thoughts of grabbing my second meal of the day were discarded (I can always eat, you know, and I don't exactly look like I've missed any meals). Finally, the blog revealed that they were heading to my city's largest mall.

Did I ever mention that I hate malls? To be honest, I do most of my shopping on eBay. Still, there was no question. Call to my inner geek, and I will be there.

The updates to the map seemed a little irregular (I later learned why), so while it seemed the bus might still be a couple of hours away, I decided to head to the mall. Big mistake; Godiva got a nice portion of my last paycheck, after I drove around the mall to make sure my victims hadn't arrived already. I peeked out the doors, saw nothing, and went in search of food.

Food in hand, I headed outside again to look for my target; the cold temperatures making my eyes tear. Back Indoors, near the front of one of the mall entrances, I fired up Pocket IE on my Pocket PC phone to see if the tour blog had been updated. Nope, it still said they were headed here. I tried remoting into my PC at home to check the bus' location, but I couldn't read the map most of the time; everything was black.

Just as I'd gotten an EVDO connection on My Asus R2H (via tethering to my PPC-6700) and fired up IE, I looked up to see a blue-green blur though the mall doors, and the unmistakable white lettering: Windows Vista.

I didn't put anything away. There wasn't time. I barrelled out of the doors with UPMC, PocketPC, UMPC case, backpack, hot chocolate, untouched sandwich, and chocolate-covered fruit precariously balanced in my arms. I proceeded to chase this bus through the parking lot. I'm pretty sure it made a complete circle, heading first away from where my car was parked, then ending up a few rows away from it. When the bus finally stopped, and I caught up to it, I put everything down and started taking pictures. Since it was full dark, and since I'm too cheap to buy a nice camera, the picture is...uh, to put it most eloquently...crap.

I enjoyed my journey. Since I had been a beta-tester and was no stranger to the new OS, we talked about things I'd missed or hadn't yet seen (like the new Vista launcher for the UMPC). They had tablets, as well as um, those Acer Ferrari laptops, and there was a Samsung Q1 Ultra-Mobile PC. I couldn't resist whipping out my R2H, ever if I don't have Vista on it, yet. No slight intended toward the guys, who were terrific, but it was definitely a bonus meeting Terri Stratton; we'd spoken to each other a few times at the TPC Expert Zone chats Microsoft used to hold (and really should have again).

Of course, I was hoping to leave with more than just knowledge.

The first item is a 300+ page Windows Vista Product Guide.

The sandwich? I ate the soggy thing after I got home. It went great with the pricey truffles.

Technorati tags: Vista Coach

Only Apple Apps on the iPhone?

2007-01-11T00:29:00.000-05:00

Ed Hardy of Brighthand reports that Apple will not be allowing third party companies to produce apps for their new OSX-powered iPhone (provided Cisco's lawsuit doesn't prevent them from calling it that). Good thing I wasn't planning to get one. Sorry, but third-party apps are what make the Smartphone world go 'round. Where would we be today without developers like Astraware, Chapura, DataViz, Epocrates, Good Technology (Wow, I didn't know Motorola was buying them!), Phatware, Resco, Qusnetsoft, SoftMaker, WebIS and scads of others? Where would we be without those cool, free apps that many developers give out of the kindness of their hearts (and/or the desire to make names for themselves)? I'll tell you where: nowhere I want to be.

Part of me gets Apple's stance. While I can well understand wanting to avoid the tech support hassles resulting from users' indiscriminate installation of flaky third-party products, I can't help but be on our, the consumers', side in this. For the record, my money will be spent on phones that let me install what I please.

Technorati tags: iPhone

WM_IN: Channel 9 Spotlights Microsoft Techies of the Female Variety

2007-01-10T01:08:00.000-05:00

From the Channel 9 site:

From interns to vice presidents there are some amazing women who work at Microsoft, and we want to feature them on Channel 9. Charles Torre and Jennifer Ritzinger have started a new series featuring women at Microsoft who work in development, marketing, research, and evangelism who have interesting stories to share about their success in the industry and ideas on how to grow diversity in IT. Meet these women at Microsoft, what makes them tick, and hear more about women and technology.

via Anna Liu's Weblog

Technorati tags: Women in Technology

Fun CES Bits from Those Who Could Go

2007-01-09T00:50:00.000-05:00

The most hilarious blog post I've read about CES 2007 has to be the one from NeekTalk. I laughed out loud at what they said about the Keynote. Go read it. If I were Bill Gates, I'd eventually end up flattered! This may be the list time in history that teenaged girls called him "cute."

While they warned that it would not give your laptop the gaming power of a dedicated rig, Engadget declares the Asus XG Station "ready to game."

The guys of jkOnTheRun found the new HP Pavilion tx 1000 Tablet PC. They have pictures.

Gizmodo's Zune was socially snubbed in the CES press room.

CNet has a gallery of photos and videos.

Craig Pringle couldn't actually go, but he let's us know what would be in his Geek bag if he went. I feel a copycat mood coming on!

Technorati tags: CES 2007

I Can't Really Complain about 2006

2007-01-05T12:04:00.000-05:00

Sure, I suffered a few disappointments in 2006, but I realized (and it took me only four days) that I probably had a banner year. I'm still sifting through the holes in my memory, but let's look at the good things I can recall so far, somewhat chronologically ordered:

I got two raises.
I became an iPod owner; I traded for a 512mb Shuffle.
I finally got to get my feet off of my continent.

I now own a passport.
I went on my first cruise.
I saw water that looked the colors I'd only seen in pictures (unless they looked that way when I was in Miami when I was two, or Acapulco when I was five, but I don't remember anything of the first or much of the second).
I got to explore Mayan ruins. Real ruins, and I'm not talking about my back yard!
I hung out on a beach in Grand Cayman, a place I'd heard about but never truly hoped to see. I saw some of those banks I'd read about.
Now my mother and sister aren't the only ones in my immediate family to have gone to Jamaica. Also, I experienced my first fall in a waterfall...and second fall...and...oh, shucks, I guess I fell all the way up the darned thing (well, it wasn't quite that bad; I wasn't one of the tourists going to the hospital, although my friend was).
I went through Customs!
I got back safely to my inexpensive broadband internet connection, which I missed sorely. Note to Carnival: the sight of women shaking their bethonged bottoms while hanging from "jail" bars will never even come close to being a suitable replacement for affordable internet connectivity (perhaps it would be if I were a guy, but I doubt it). Honestly, I can't believe they called that entertainment.

I finally got a PDA Phone; I've wanted one since 2000. We fight over his memory management, but I wouldn't be without him.
I went to Boston for the first time in my life.

I didn't particularly want to, but I shopped at the nation's oldest off-price store, Filene's Basement. I have nothing against Filene's, but I would rather have been shopping at the nation's oldest technology store.
When I needed an internet connection, my trusty new phone helped me out. That includes using Google Maps to locate places and things.
I had lunch at Cheers Boston (the Bull and Finch Pub). I have a picture of me behind the bar. No, you can't see it.
I also checked out the Cheers set replica at Feneuil Hall.
I rode in a DUKW! I didn't even know those things existed!
I heard the Bostonian accent.
I ate at Boston's oldest restaurant, Union Oyster House.
I didn't particularly want to, but because I was following my relatives around, I saw my nation's first college.
I saw the Boston Harbor. Unfortunately, because I was determined to see it before leaving Boston, and because I miscalculated on my timing, I missed my plane and had to stay another day. Fortunately, I'd planned to leave a day before my relatives, so I just spent another day with them.

Windows Live Writer and Ed Holloway gave me the ability to post in Ink!
I got a foam guy (Visual Studio 2005 Superhero) from Microsoft. I probably would have gotten the SQL Server foamfriend, but they canceled one of my two required webcasts at the end of the dadgummed month! Haven't I mentioned repeatedly that I love swag? Hmm...they are giving away foamies again; must sign up!
I became a Staff Reviewer for Allegiance Technology Partners. I get to handle and review the technology I love (and the first device was a Fujitsu P1610). Is that not the coolest thing? Thanks, John!
I finally joined the Bluetooth generation and bought a headset to use with my Pocket PC Phone and...
I got my Ultra-Mobile PC. I've been wanting one since I first heard about them. Mine is an Asus R2H. I'm fighting with it, too (process management issues), but it does what I need it to do (just not quite fast enough for me, yet, and I'm truly taking into consideration the 900 MHz Celeron processor). No matter what the others say, my GPS works just fine, thanks! I get good signals.
I played with GPS for the first time. Sure, I've heard Microsoft Streets and Trips is not the greatest app for GPSing, but it serves my needs.
I got tagged for the first time. Yeah, I'm one of those kind of bloggers, but then you probably already guessed.

If anyone ever hears me complaining about how I fared in 2006, just whack me in the head with my R2H. Don't hurt the computer, though.

AMD Loves Craig Pringle?

2007-01-04T01:09:00.000-05:00

With the exception of a comment on GigaOm, I've mostly refrained from commenting about the freebies (you know what freebies I'm talking about...Om called them Blogger Kryptonite). Of course, that's mostly because I want freebies, too (but not laptops; I'm only into Penabled computers and Pocket PC Phones), however I saw the headline "Another gift arrives from AMD for no apparent reason" in my feed and just started chuckling. It just struck me as funny, and I had to say something after that.

It doesn't bother me (other than the occasional pangs of jealousy) what other bloggers are given. I expect if I work hard enough, companies will give me things, too, and I will keep reminding myself of that until I get to that point (and maybe after, too!). The way I see it, it really isn't in my best future interests to cry foul when those who are where I want to be get the good stuff. I just hope that the top dudes will keep it honest while making it rewarding for the deserving companies to let their goods be sampled.

Now, if Craig gets another package from AMD with plane fare and tickets to CES so that they can see him there (read his post, if you don't know what I mean by that), I'm gonna go in a corner and cry until I have no more tears left ;)

Hey, at least I'm honest!

Mobience Sokey Now Supports Computer Keyboard Functions

2006-12-31T17:45:00.000-05:00

Going through my feed reader for the first time today, I noticed a post on the Tablet PC Questions forum that announced that version 3.0 of Sokey introduced support for "complete real computer keyboard functions." I'd never heard of Mobience or Sokey before today, and I decided to check it out on my R2H.

The first thing I noticed about this app was that it was the pretty eye candy that I love and that stodgy professionals eschew. As I went about testing Sokey by creating this post, I began to like it more. At first, I didn't like the voice calling out every key I pressed, but I began to see rather quickly how it often made me aware of my typos before I got too far along. I just wish the voice were male!

My decision to let Sokey speak means I will have to use my Bluetooth headset when entering text in the field. The sound can be turned off, or it can be set so that you just hear ticks.

There are a few things that wouId have made my input experience better. I wish I could say that I used Sokey to get my screen captures, but I couldn't actually find the Print Screen button. There is a place where one can apparently add custom keys, but the method wasn't immediately discernible to ne, so I just used the Windows On-Screen Keyboard. The placement of the Enter key above the Backspace key led to quite a few errors. Also, it's a little startling to hear the lady call out "zed," when I type "z."

Though I've been using Sokey about three hours, I've already decided I like it better than DialKeys, which came with my Asus R2H. Interestingiy enough, the ability to enter text with one hand delights me, while that was something I didn't want with my Pocket PC Phone.

Technorati tags: Sokey, Mobience, UMPC

No Longer a GPS Virgin, Thanks to My Asus R2H

2006-12-29T14:41:00.000-05:00

I must confess that I never understood all the fuss about GPS. When I bought my Asus R2H last week, the GPS functionality wasn't a selling point; I'm not sure I even knew that it had built-in GPS until I unboxed it.

Sometimes I'm an opportunist, though, and, as we make our way to a family gathering in Ohio, I find myself mesmerized by the ever-advancing blue line and delighted by the altitude and coordinate information. My husband indulgently smiles when I tell him the names of streets we pass and even asks questions. He encourages me when I debate tethering my phone to update construction information. I know there's a lot more to the GPs thing, but I think I'm beginning to get it, now. I just couldn't resist posting about it right away. Bye for now. I've got to learn more before we reach our destination.

Technorati tags: R2H, GPS

Top Ten (and 20) Wired Colleges

2006-12-27T13:43:00.000-05:00

While early comments (found here, here and here) indicate that that PC Magazine's Tablet PC Buying Guide shows a clear lack of understanding of the primary purpose of a Tablet PC (again), there's still plenty of good stuff coming from them. Check out the article on the top ten wired (US) colleges. A link takes you to a page where you can select up to eight schools to do a comparison.

Top 5:
1 Villanova University
2 M.I.T.
3 Indiana University Bloomington
4 Swarthmore College
5 Creighton University

via Gizmodo

Technorati tags: PC Magazine, Education

Alright! I've Been Tagged By Sumocat!

2006-12-24T11:53:00.000-05:00

Hmm... 5 things about me:
1) I was supposed to get a newer vehicle this year, but I'd rather stay at home and play on my computers than shop for cars and deal with car salesmen.
2) The martial artists at MySpace had me depressed until I reminded myself repeatedly that I was in Tae Kwon Do to lose weight.
3) I'd debated using the money I'd saved for my R2H to go to CES.
4) I'm considering getting a Mac Mini in a few months (after I've saved up enough for it). I really need to get to know OSX.
5) I never hated Wesley Crusher.

Who to tag?
Jenneth, of Girls Gone Mobile
Alan, of Daily Gadget

The Geekiest Person You Know Might Not be Afraid of Females...

2006-12-17T18:40:00.000-05:00

because she might be one.

I've said before that the two X chromosomes don't preclude women from geekiness, and I'd say it again, but now there's a book about it that probably gets the point across much better than I would. She's Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Nerdy Stuff is a collection of essays by female scientists, engineers, comic book writers, and game designers.

Annalee Newitz tells us more at Table of Malcontents

I want this book!

RIM to Samsung: You Can't be Black, Because WE'RE Black!

2006-12-14T00:03:00.000-05:00

BlackBerry pusher Research in Motion (RIM) is suing Samsung over the naming of the Korean tech company's recent smartphone offering, the BlackJack. According to RIM, having the word "Black" in the name of a device that has a similar form factor will confuse consumers, causing the ~~poor, dumb sheep~~ unsuspecting souls to think that the Samsung product is connected with RIM. Even better, they're also suing over the Black Carbon, a phone that doesn't even remotely resemble a BlackBerry.

Give some of us a little credit, here, RIM!

So what's next? Should expert martial artists start wearing grey belts? Should we eliminate blackjack at casino tables to prevent misdirected tech support calls? Perhaps RIM will want BlackICE software to change their name to InvisibleICE!

Alright, so I'm exaggerating a little. Black belts, blackjack and the BlackICE products do not look similar to a BlackBerry. However, I think RIM's being a bit naive, here. Nothing will prevent people from thinking that a non-RIM device is associated with RIM. Trust me on this; I have had to explain all too often that my Tablet PC is not a "Palm Pilot."

via PDAStreet

Technorati tags: BlackJack, BlackBerry, RIM, Research in Motion, Samsung, Smartphone, Windows Mobile, Black Carbon

Inveneo Can Put Your Old Thumb Drives to Good Use

2006-12-13T00:48:00.000-05:00

Graduated to a larger (or flashier) flash drive and don't have a use for the old one? Non-profit organization Inveneo will help you get it to a student, aid worker or small business entrepreneur who can use it. Want a receipt for your Thumb Drive Drive donation? Provide an email address and let them know the value of the drive.

via Gizmodo

Brighthand: What's the Difference Between the Two Types of Windows Mobile?

2006-12-12T01:28:00.000-05:00

Before this year, I didn't even know that there were Windows Mobile (WM) phones that didn't have touchscreens. I thought that Windows Mobile Smartphone was just another name for Pocket PC Phone. I couldn't afford one, so I didn't need to know any better. By the time I had to support any WM phones, my Sprint PPC-6700 was on order, and I quickly learned the difference, well, as far as input was concerned.

Brighthand is continuing my education (of course, that's why the site is listed in my RSS reader). You see, I haven't actually worked with a Smartphone, so I didn't know until now that they don't come with Microsoft Office Mobile, and therefore cannot edit Office documents, although some Smartphones ship with apps that allow one to view said documents.*

Thanks to Brighthand, I am even more firmly convinced that I never want a Smartphone (unless a plain old phone is my only other choice). Now, if the folks at Brighthand would tell me how to turn off (temporarily) Microsoft Direct Push on a Windows Mobile Treo (without turning off the phone), I could happily close one of the support calls in my queue. On my phone, it seems to be just a matter of hitting the button in the Comm Manager, but I can find nothing like that on the Treo.

The Brighthand article has additional useful information. Check out the link below:

Link to What's the Difference Between the Two Types of Windows Mobile?

*Sounds like one of the reasons I said a reluctant goodbye to Palm years ago.

Technorati tags: Windows Mobile Phone, Smartphone, Pocket PC Phone

Craig Pringle Converts a Physical Machine to a Virtual

2006-11-19T13:46:00.000-05:00

Ever better, he tells us how it's done! I have to admit, this is something I've wondered about for a couple of years, and even pondered last week. I never really looked into a solution; I just assumed there was maybe a way to create a backup image of the original machine, create a rather blank virtual machine, then re-image the VM. Event if that would work, using the VMWare Converter (which is currently in beta) sounds a lot easier.

You're beautiful, Craig! I, on the other hand, can't seem to develop the skill set to get Linux or UNIX running in a VM. The darned things never boot! :(

Technorati tags: Virtual Machine, VMWare, VMWare Converter

Windows Live Writer: But I Have the Stinkin' 2.0!

2006-11-15T00:20:00.000-05:00

Most, if not all, of my beautiful plugins won't work, and when I start Live Writer, I get multiple boxes like the one above. As you can somewhat plainly see, I do have .NET Framework 2.0 installed. I got the errors to go away once by removing and reinstalling all .NET Frameworks and updates. I think I got one use out of it before the errors returned.

It's interesting that my problems with WLW began as soon as I fixed my issues with the Tablet Input Panel. Perhaps it's not a coincidence.

I surely do miss my Ink!

Technorati tags: Windows Live Writer