Tangled up in Purple » Technolust

Vista on the Tablet

nix — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:09:10 +0000

I have managed to install Vista Ultimate Edition on the M400 and so far I am reasonably happy with it. This is a cautious install – there are a few things that I’m uncertain about – so I have retained my Tablet Edition (XP) in a dual boot configuration.

Early impressions:

Good

Vista installed very easily.
Tablet functionality is excellent – a vast improvement on the earlier software. Handwriting recognition is much better.
Aero glass looks good. Even though the graphics score of this machine is only 3.0 it looks great.
I installed Ultimate Edition so I have access to Media Centre. Looks good – as above. I don’t think that my aging TV card will work under Vista. Might need to find a new one.
It seems to be more stable than XP. I hope that I am not tempting fate here!
Ready Boost – it’s happening, and I think I’m faster!

Bad

I have set Firefox to be my default browser but Vista doesn’t listen – I am not impressed with the fact that I can’t get IE7‘s new tabs to open in the background.
I haven’t got Remote Desktop ~~or Logmein~~ working to my server yet. I haven’t tried hard though.
Constant dialogue boxes and “are you sure?” questions could drive me demented very quickly.

EDIT: I am not impressed with having to go to the Microsoft Site and download the Mobilie Device Centre to get my iPaq Pocket PC to synchronise with Vista. That’s something that should have been sorted for RTM.

Indifferent

The sidebar. Not sure yet.
I haven’t got the power options sorted yet.

The geek in me wants the latest ~~and greates~~t operating system on my computer. The pragmatist knows that it’s really important to get my work done on a well functioning computer. At this point I won’t be dropping my XP partition anytime soon. Certainly I’ll get more work done on Vista because it won’t let me do my usual morning’s scoot through FeedDemon opening masses of links in the background for a later peruse . On the other hand I think it could be faster than XP and I haven’t had the annoying 20-30 second freeze that is an annoying ‘feature’ of Tablet Edition on the M00.

There are a couple of things concerning me about Vista – one being the DRM and content protection measures built into the operating system (read here). On the other hand, in my line of work I will be asked to support Vista reasonably early this year.

iPhone – Smoke and Mirrors?

nix — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:32:50 +0000

Cool – the iPhone has been released by Steve Jobs – how exciting! It will be available at some point in 2007 and will come do almost everything that a mobile user could possibly want.

If the iPhone is even half as wonderful as Jobs claims then it will be an amazing device. However, until it’s really released, no one really has any way of knowing. And for New Zealand Apple fans that wait might take just a bit longer. After all we have only just got iTunes in this country. Adding to my dismay the device doesn’t support 3G – so really, for many Kiwis the iPhone is going to be a backwards step.

From the Apple website:

This device has not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. This device is not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, until authorization is obtained.

Which is fairly convenient.

EDIT: The guys at Gizmodo got a quick look and were impressed.

Getting the Jobs Done

Short Bits

nix — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 18:13:13 +0000

We got back from the holiday yesterday and then proceeded to spend yesterday catching up with the washing and, for some inexplicable reading, building a raised herb garden. After almost getting on top of those two tasks I hit some other stuff.

Quote from Nicholas Negroponte:

“In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint,” Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview. “I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools.”

From MSNBC. It’s not just happening in the developing world and it’s not just happening in the labs. The approach that starts with the tool / toy / application will always end up just teaching the mechanics of machine usage.

Rachel at Bard Wired tagged me with a Five Things meme. I’ll look at that one later.

The BBC are saying that people will soon be watching up to 10% of their TV viewing on their PC.

Early trials of the BBC’s on-demand service showed that users spent 10 per cent of their video-viewing hours online, and Highfield expects this to hold true when the iPlayer is launched. The figure includes internet video watched on the television or home computers, as opposed to TV services broadcast by more traditional means such as analogue and digital terrestrial or satellite.

TVNZ have some plans to do this ~~next~~ this year, although I did find these two links recently: TVOne and TV2. The quality isn’t great (come to think of it, neither is the content usually) but it could be a useful way to keep an eye on a programme. I’ve found it to be a useful way to listen to BBC World in the middle of the night while cruising through other web sites.

So is it going to be useful? I’m not too sure. I think that bandwidth with be a killer. Afterall, recently even my ISP of choice decided that while I could have as much data as I wanted, I couldn’t have it at peak time. Yes I can get 7 hours of streaming video. But if the other members of the household want some of it or want to do something else then I might be down to dialup speed halfway through something. Another drawback is the stuff that’s available. The BBC won’t let me watch their online material because I’m not in the UK IP range. Sure there is YouTube and Google Video. Perhaps Venice will be the answer. Democracy is starting to show some promise – although there’s still a lot of rubbish.

EDIT: Just found TVU Networks too – could be worth a spin.

No related posts.

Tablet Apostasy

nix — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 22:14:45 +0000

So | find myself in something of a conscience crisis.
lam in one of those is it really working moments that is happening all too often at The moment.
First up. This tables PC thing. I’ve got myself an absolute monster of a machine. Hs gel a cove Duo processor, a gig of ram. Its gel a 12 inch Screen so potentially its light enough to always have at hand to quickly jet down a nougat through to a website. I have 80 gigabytes of hard dive space that, can full up with useful “stuff!! ¥ paid for a DVD miter so I can shave my shut. And on it goes.
When I first got mu. tablet I prepared itself to become
• garn. A abutter. A tablet evangelist converting hither and thither.
I traveled the web looking for applications that would Show off the miraculous properties of my new torn.
first on my list of must haves was Art Rage. The guy had already sent me a full license to ¥ was lucky enough to be able to really run the programmer through it’s pace). My verdict. Art Rage and pen computing are a marriage made in heaven.
Next up I needed to look at handwriting. Note here that I’ve been using handwriting on an pocket pc since 1998. So I’m reasonably au fait with what it can and can’t do.

And so here lies the problem. I handwrote the first part of this post into OneNote (because that’s where I now keep a lot of the “stuff” I collect and because I can theoretically covert that text into typed text. (You can see a snip of what my handwriting looks like here. ) One of the huge advantages for me of using a computer (of most descriptions) is the ability to save information and ideas and be able to sift and sort through them later (like – I took notes at that meeting and …. this is exactly what she said and I wrote down at that time). Will I be able to sift and sort through the above stuff? I possibly have the only cove Duo tablet in town that I paid for in Yen?

So where am I going with this and what is my conscience telling me? That many of the benefits attributed to putting tablet technologies into the hands of teachers and kids are imagined or overblown. Apostasy? Probably.

The ether is full of educators who are promoting tablet PCs as the next big thing for students (well after Web 2.0 that is). Even here in Godzone we have a Digi-Ops project based on a partnership between HP and a school in Wellington who are using tablets with year five and six kids. They are all very keen to show enhanced learning outcomes! Paperless classrooms!

And so they should be! But there needs to be more work. As I hope I have proven with the first part of this post, using a pen to get writing down is cumbersome and slow (I have a whole lot of Ulearn notes to prove this further). The time spent correcting from pen before proof-reading and editting is wasted time. And yet, in review after review I see all of this waffle about speed and accuracy with the pen. Not true. I simply don’t believe it. Typing is still quicker and more accurate for anything more than a simple jotted down note. I know that Vista is promising to be light years ahead in handwriting technology, but these schools are claiming speed and accuracy now. With today’s technology.

So where does the pen become useful? As I stated before, if you can translate, Artrage is a wonderful example of a programme that is only enhanced by a pen. I have also found that I find the pen is an amazing tool in KidPix, MSPaint and in PaintShop Pro. I find the pen is useful when I annotate or edit Word documents – in Excel it is clumsy and frustrating. I enjoy using the pen to edit PowerPoint slides on screen. I can make a presentation more interactive by putting comments or ideas straight up there.

But wait, there is more to a tablet than just a pen enabled device. I like to lie around and surf the web or to take my tablet to bed and cruise through my RSS reader. The form factor makes it a great device for doing just that. The buttons and pen mean that navigating through web-pages is easy. Do kids in classrooms lie around and surf mindlessly through blog feeds. I hope not, but maybe I missed that particular Web 2.0 goodie.

During meetings, (if I’m in slate mode) the tablet sits on my knee meaning that I don’t look over my screen to the other people. This is good. However, the innacuracy of my handwriting means that I spend far more time looking down correcting my errors so I still don’t look at the people I am with. However I’ve seen lots of photos of kids clustered around tablets on the floor. Now that does look like a good thing – kids all with their own pen anle to add to a mind map … maybe that’s more like it? Next cluster meeting on the floor around my 12 inch tablet guys?

Here endeth the crisis? No, probably not. I wanna be a Tablet PC Evangelist. I really do! I have downloaded the Becta research papers to read later and I hope that I can find some more solid data (???) to support spending money on something that in my opinion has limited usage the way that it’s being presented today.

Mysterious Moving Matter

nix — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:54:53 +0000

When I was using my tablet today I noticed that the new piece of dust (mentioned in last night’s post) had slipped down to the edge of the screen. It was only visible from an angle and I only noticed it when the Portege was in portrait mode. After my meeting I turned my M400 off and put it into my bag. Then I walked out to my car and drove home.

When I arrived home I got my tablet out and set it up in notebook mode. The piece of dust was back inside the visible screen area. Now it’s about one third of the distance from the right hand side of the screen and approximately 10mm up from the edge. You can see it in the photo (and yes my family thought I was a bit crazy photographing the screen of my computer!).

This must mean that there is some sort of gap between the layers of the screen and that movement of the tablet flexes the layers sufficiently to allow the dust to move.

Yesterday when I made the call to Toshiba Tech Support the technician suggested that to have this issue I must be working in a dusty environment. I will admit that I hate housework but need to make the point that there is no dust trapped inside any of the other equipment that we have here. I could (almost but not quite) be described as anal with regard to the care that I take over my electronic equipment. I am forever brushing out keyboards and cleaning screens. I have an eighteen month old pocket pc here (with a carefully applied screen protector) and have had no issues with dust inside its layers.

Anyway, I am going to map the path of the dust over the next day or so and then take the unit into a service centre. It could be interesting!

Tablet @ Work – 10 Weeks In

nix — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:52:54 +0000

The Toshiba Portege M400 tablet is one cool computer and I really enjoy using it. It’s reasonably light and I really like the small form factor.

However, (and there is always a but) there are a couple of fairly serious issues that affect my enjoyment of the computer.

The fan runs almost continuously. It’s not usually loud (except if you are in a silent room) but it is always there and something that I am always aware of. I use Notebook Hardware Control to keep an eye on the temperature and most of the time the CPU hovers around the 33-37 degrees celcius. That’s cooler than I am.
I get random pieces of dust and fluff inside the screen. Sounds crazy? This was a major issue with the Portege M200 and you would consider that it would be fixed three years after the M200 was released. I got a piece of dust inside the layers of the screen just ten days after getting my tablet. That machine was replaced under warranty. Since then I have had a stray hair appear (it disappeared after a few weeks) and tonight there was a piece of dust inside the screen layers. It too disappeared after I moved the tablet from my knee to the table in front of me. It annoys me that this happens. I don’t like to have a non-pristine screen.
I also have a problem with random blue screening. It’s happened probably five times over the last month. Not often but still enough to be a bit of a concern. The message that I get is the old “IRQ less or not equal to error“. In my experience this is an issue with a piece of hardware. With a notebook you don’t usually install extra hardware cards so it must be a problem with a built in component or perhaps with the memory chips. The event logs aren’t any help in tracking down the error so I’ll have to have a think.

Thankfully that’s all bad stuff (I think). Now the good stuff.

The pen makes drawing and digital image editting really fun. ArtRage is absolutely fantanstic anyway; the pen puts it into the sublime category. It’s easy to edit photos or digital images in Paintshop Pro or even humble old MS Paint. Unfortunately even amazing tools aren’t going to turn me into an artist.

I have become evry comfortable with the small keyboard (except for the fact that it has a single Ctrl key – I have mapped the Insert key to Ctrl so that when I’m using the tablet in keyboard mode I can use the Firefox shortcut Ctrl +/- to enlarge or reduce the text size). Using the pen is great. The handwriting recognition is excellent; after several years of using a Pocket PC it’s a real treat to have my scrawl recognised.

I’m using all my usual programmes but I have found a couple of exciting new additions.

I am seriously in love with OneNote 12. Although its a beta programme it rocks. I’m a great collector of information, ideas and scraps of stuff from all over the place. OneNote is a terrific place to store it all and be able to sort and sift later. I have set up note flags that correspond with my Outlook categories so that I can think through my own productivity system.

Speaking of Outlook (and I’m holding onto Office 2003 as this is my working machine), the tablet community introduced me to the best ever addon: Tablet Enhancements for Outlook (TEO) version 3. This little gem allows you to ink in contacts, tasks and appointments. The latest version also has a fabulous integration with Windows Journal. there is also a research feature which takes you straight to the Wikipedia. Everyone knows about how much I love the Wikipedia. You can take audio notes and the whole fandango synchronises with the Pocket PC. Which only makes Pocket Informant even more useful.

I also love the snipping tool (available through the MS Experience Pack and the Enhancement Pack) and the Send to OneNote tool (available in the Education Pack and and the Enhancement Pack). The Websearch Power Tool is great when I am surfing in tablet mode.

I’m playing with the screen real estate a little. I’ve (possibly temporarily) dumped the Quick Launch Bar for RocketBar. I’ve got it on the right hand side of my screen and on auto-hide. Very useful and it looks very sexy.

What else? There’s a lot more but in the interests of actually retaining some readers I’d better finish this missive now!

Linkeracy – 19th August 2006

nix — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:06:59 +0000

Samurize to soup up your desktop – Aero Glass for those who have older computers?

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On getting noticed:

Once upon a time there was an island named Blogosphere, and at the very center of that island stood a great castle built of stone, and spreading out from that castle for miles in every direction was a vast settlement of peasants who lived in shacks fashioned of tin and cardboard and straw.

Nicholas Carr looks at the hierarchy of the blogosphere. The A-Listers bite back.

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You just have to look at this great piece of Flash: Animator vs Animation

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is this a JAP (Just Another Photoshop)? Via jkOnTheRun

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And from my I-want-it-no-I-need-it-now-well-its-probably-not-available-in-NZ tags: the iGo PowerXtender Battery Operated Charger.

TabletWiki

nix — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 20:05:50 +0000

TabletWiki for us tableteers. Or those of you contemplating the move to tablet and touch technologies – the Tablet, the UMPC (Origami) and Windows Media Centre PCs. Set up by MVP WNewquay of Tablet PC – thoughts and ideas.

via Warner Crocker

Getting the Jobs Done

nix — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 03:33:33 +0000

Some of the places that I work in are Windows places and some of the places that I work in are Apple. Some of the people that I work with are Windows people and some are Apple people. I get a bit of flack from the Apple people about my decision to mostly use the Windows platform.
I used to be a Commodore 64 user. In 1992 my Dad gave me a 286 computer to play with. Quite quickly, I managed to upgrade through the 386 years and onto a 486. I vividly remember upgrading my 486SX23 from 4MB ram to 8MB. I put in a Soundblaster 16 and a double speed CDrom drive. I had a CGA video card and a brand spanking new 14inch monitor. My children were very excited to be able ‘play’ with Encarta and to be able to watch movies and listen to audio. They used to love a piece from AA Milne about Pooh (Bear) and the Living Books software – ‘Just Grandma and Me’ and Athur’s Teacher Troubles’!

After a few years of upgrading desktop machines I moved into the world of laptops. Last year I got a 15 inch Apple Powerbook so that I could support teachers who were using Apples. The Powerbook is a beautiful machine. It runs Tiger (OSX) and has a range of good software on it. It’s a light machine and it’s damn sexy to look at.

But it’s not my machine of choice. I’m a PC user from way back. I’m not dogmatic about using the PC, it’s just what I am used to using and what I am most comfortable using. For me it’s about getting the job done. I’m not able to get the work that I do as comfortably on the Mac. If I had ‘grown up’ using a Mac it might be quite different.
So when I was in the market for a new laptop a couple of months ago, I took a look at the new MacBooks. They are very nice machines with some cool features. Bootcamp and Parallels desktop could have given me the best of both worlds, PC and Mac.

In the end I decided to stay inside the PC world a bit longer. I’d been thinking about pen computing and how a tablet pc might be an interesting computer. I was really interested in the convertable tablet and decided that it was time to go to the smaller form factor offered by the Toshiba M400. And if Apple had a tablet on offer? I would have been interested. Maybe next time?
I was interested to see what Apple’s Steve Jobs had to say at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). He talked about some of the exciting new features of Leopard (the next version of OSX) due out sometime early next year. Then he rubbished MS Windows and accused the developers of Vista of stealing everything except his last billion dollars. Apple even made one of their funny little commercials about the conference.

Does Microsoft do this? Do either of these companies need to do this? People use the technologies that they want (and can afford) to accomplish the tasks that they need to accomplish.
Frankly I am tired of the one-eyed illogical ranting of the Mac fan-boys. Macs, Pcs, Linux boxen, iPods, Palms, Smartphones, PocketPCs, iPhones, Zen and Zunes … who cares? It’s about getting your stuff done in a way that you are comfortable with.

Links:

Steve Jobs at WWDC

Lifehacker puts Vista and Leopard side by side

Paul Thurrot’s take on Jobs’ keynote

iPhone – Smoke and Mirrors?

Google Maps Mashup – NZ!

nix — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:24:29 +0000

Google Maps Mania (a blog devoted to all things Google Maps) has a post about some New Zealand Google Map Mashups (What is a mashup?)

One of the mashups is a street map index at Mayo. I entered “Summerland Dr” and was immediately taken to my own street in Waitakere City. I tried to be tricky and put in “Rimu Dr” which is in Wairoa, Hawkes Bay and … it found my parents’ place. Roadwatch has a speed camera index and Tagzania (not specifically NZ) is trying to tag the whole planet.

Google Maps – just type in New Zealand!
Wikipedia links:
Googlemaps
Mashup
Tags

All of the necessary information to be able to do this is freely available on the web. Google are happy to share the API so that we end users can have a play and create our own Google Map Mashup. It could be an interesting project if someone had some spare time.