VPN connectivity with a Surface RT

The Surface RT is not supported by some VPN Clients but that doesn't mean that you can’t use VPN in this machine. Here is a guide of how you can connect via VPN your Surface RT to your home network.

HBOGO.com works on Surface RT

HBOGO.com is one of my preferred sites to catch up with all those good series from this premium channel. The site uses flash and for some reason, I believe it was a firmware update, it was not working anymore in my Surface RT. HBO still have not jumped in the boat of WinRT and we still do not have an App. So I decided today to spend sometime trying to get it back working and the good news is that I got it.

Here is what I learned. To sign in HBOGO.com this site sends you to your TV provider where you have to sign in. This process was failing for me. To troubleshoot the whole process I used Fiddler a tool to track your internet web traffic. This application is for x86 but thanks to the tools posted at xdadevelopers I was able to use it in the Surface RT. With this tool I was able to find few things, one of them is that HBO uses a cookie with the information from, in my case, Comcast to grant you access to its site. In my Surface I had Cookies disabled and I thought it was a good idea to keep it in this way. So I went to in the Internet Options from IE10 in Desktop mode and allow cookies for both sites, HBOGO and Comcast. Summarizing, after adding the involved sites to the Trusted Sites List and allowing Cookies for both sites, the HBOGO.com site allowed me to stream video in my Surface RT. And no just in Desktop mode but using IE10 Metro.

This is one of the reasons why I love WinRT, it carries a full version of the IE which allows you to enjoy sites that in other platforms, specifically iOS (translate this as iPad), are impossible to access unless you have an App for that. In another words, some or most of the Apps available for iPad are the result of this device impossibility of using the original websites which these applications substitute.

Sharing: So easy that a caveman can do it

Sharing in Windows 8 is easier than in any previous Windows Operating System.

Lets say that you are navigating the web and you found a page that you want to share with your friends. All you have to do is to slide your finger from right to left in the right side of your Surface to get the right side menu.

 

You click on Share.

Once you do that you click on People and from there either Twitter or Facebook. Next time you are sharing a website you will see in the list of most recent picks your favorite social page listed.

After picking your social site a new slide opens where you can add a note to the link that you want to share like I did in the above picture. When you are done with your note all you do is click in the little icon on your top right below the two little people icon and that's it. Sent to Facebook.

So easy that a caveman can do it.

Virtual Router

Virtual Router is a tool very simple to use that allows you to convert your PC or laptop in a virtual Router. When this is useful? Well imagine that you and your WiFi decide to pass the day camping in a place where the only Internet access is via a 3G Modem connected to your laptop. You can share your 3G connection with your wife's Surface RT using this software. Very simple.

New update for RT and PRO

Microsoft released yesterday a new update for both versions of the Surface. According to some reports the update has fixed issues with WiFi Limited connectivity. The update is available using Windows Update.

The Surface Pro is a PC

Finally the head of the Microsoft Surface Division says what I have been saying since the beginning. The Surface PRO is not a Tablet, it's a PC, he says. I hate to correct him a little bit but I will. Mr. Panay, what you call PC is being known as Tablet PC since long time ago. The Surface RT is in fact a Tablet according to the concept created by Nokia, Google and Jobs. The Surface PRO is  a TabletPC according to the concept created by Bill Gates in 2001.

And the updates keep coming

It's good to see how Microsoft keep updating individual Apps that are part of the OS such as Mail, Calendar and People. And this is something that differentiate the update process from Microsoft to the one from Apple were everything comes in the shape of firmware updates.

In todays update a lot of improvements were done and more details about them can be found here.  Another good news was posted at Surface Blog. Panos Panay acknowledged the Limited Connectivity Issue in Surface RT and the lack of pressure functionality in Adobe Photoshop with Surface Pro and expressed Microsoft's commitment to fix these issues.

And nobody says anything

Google has been selling Chromebook for around two years already. Today it has been published around the Web that in all this time the amount of units sold of this device is around 500,000. The interesting thing is that Microsoft reportedly has sold the same amount of Surface RT in just few months but I do not read in any big "technology" news site that Chromebook is a fiasco.

Why the same number is so bad for Microsoft and no so for Google? Why Microsoft is constantly and furiously attacked and other companies are not so much?

Windows 8 Desktop Manager is buggy.

Windows Desktop Manager uses as much battery as Mail! And it doesn't stop even when the device is on standby. Here is what happened to me: I changed the desktop background in desktop mode and picked a picture located in my SD card. I was under the impression that when you do that the picture is copied by windows and saved somewhere else. Later on I changed the configuration of the SD card to use a folder instead a letter. So the path to my picture was not anymore the same to the eyes of Windows. Let my Surface go to Standby during the night and when I tried to turn it on in the morning I couldn't. The Battery was completely drained. When I finally could turn it on after having connected to power for around 15 minutes I found that was the Windows Desktop Manager the cause.

There is not any reason why applications such as IE, Mail, Desktop Manager and in fact any other should be kept running when the device is in Standby. I understand that it's good to have all the emails retrieved when you switch on your computer but these are processes that take just seconds to performs. No a good reason for having your battery drained in normal conditions up to 7% in less than 9 hours or totally drained like it happened to me.

The Power Management in Windows 8 has been improved but still buggy, no ready to compete against the iPad.

RT vs PRO

Here is an excellent article about why many of us, including me are happy to be using a Surface RT and we are not thinking about switching them for the PRO version officially coming in February.

The Surface PRO is just a Tablet PC! We have Tablet PCs since 2002 and they always have been a product for a very small portion of the market. Why somebody at Microsoft has decided that after more than 10 years in the market this is going to be the next Microsoft winner product? Because now for the first time is made by Microsoft?

Audacity for WinRT

Those who as been in this business of bytes long enough for sure in one time or another as used Audacity, a simple to use audio file editor. Well the good news is that it has been ported for WinRT! The Ported version can be downloaded here.

Teens think Apple is done, iPad is not longer cool

According to an study published by Forbes, teenagers believe that to own an iPad is not cool any longer. They prefer a Surface RT or a Galaxy Samsung. To me that makes since, Apple is stuck in the iPad concept and iOS has not been change with new features and new design since long time ago.

In another hand, they do not feel attractive anymore to own a device that everybody owns including their parents and grandparents!

Map Skydrive as a network drive in your Surface RT

This is a nice trick, very easy to perform. Once the mapping is performed your skydrive will be available in Windows File Explorer as just another network drive.

Jailbreak for Surface RT

Finally somebody has posted a tool to Jailbreak Surface RT, this means, to run any application for ARM that is not distributed/signed by Microsoft. Of course, right away a list of open sources of desktop applications was opened and even rumors of a Firefox version compiled for ARM.

Surface RT updated

The Surface RT got several update packages today via Windows Update. One of them was a firmware update. Unfortunately according to users suffering from the WiFi Limited Connection issue, this update did not fix it.

I installed all the packages, the process took about 5 minutes and so far I have not notice any dramatic change neither anything new.

GoToMeeting for Windows RT released

GoToMeeting has been released for Windows RT. This an important milestone for this device because it opens a big door for the Surface to be used in the enterprise market.

GoToMeeting is together with WebEx one of the most used applications in the business environment letting business to save in traveling expenses creating virtual meetings with remote presentations capabilities.

Create a recovery USB Drive to free space in your Surface RT

Microsoft has posted an interesting article explaining how you can create a recovery disk in an USB memory stick and after that remove the partition currently located in your Surface. Here is how is done:

Make sure your Surface is plugged in and connected to power.

1. Insert your external USB drive into the USB port on your Surface.
2. Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search.
   (If you're using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, and then click Search.)
3. Enter Recovery in the search box, tap or click Settings, and then tap or click Create a recovery drive.
4. Tap or click Yes in the User Account Control dialog box to allow the recovery drive tool to open.
5. When the recovery drive tool opens, make sure the box is checked next to Copy the recovery partition from the PC to the recovery drive. Then, tap or click Next.
6. Select the USB drive you would like to use for your recovery disk by tapping or clicking on it. Tap or click Next.
7. Tap or click Create. The recovery image and necessary recovery tools will be copied to your USB drive. Your Surface must stay awake during the copy process, which will take 10-15 minutes.
8. When the recovery tools are copied, do one of the following:
   If you want to keep the recovery tools on your Surface, tap or click Finish.
   -Or-
   If you want to remove the recovery tools from Surface and free up disk space, tap or click Delete the recovery partition. To confirm, tap or click Delete. This will free up approximately 3.5 GB of storage space on your Surface. When the removal is complete, tap or click Finish.
   
   Warning  If you choose to delete your recovery partition, you will need your USB recovery drive to refresh or reset your Surface in the future.
    
9. Eject and remove your USB drive. This is now your Surface recovery drive, so keep it in a safe place and do not use it to store other files or data.

More than 17700 WinRT Apps

Back in November I did an analysis of WinRT Apps Store and predicted that we should be ending this year with around 13395 Applications. Well I was wrong. But nothing can make me happier than to be wrong in this case. According to WinRT Store we should be ending the year with 17738 Apps!

Fixing WiFi limited connectivity in Surface RT

I thought that it may be useful to summarize some of the changes that have helped to some users to fix this issue. In my case I did not apply the registry changes because I have an AP with dual band 2.4 and 5GHz and both bands identified with different SSID and I'm forcing Surface to connect to 5Ghz.

In Metro, swipe your finger from the bottom of the screen up, select from the bar All Apps, locate the Command Prompt application, select it by dragging down the icon, select from the bar Run as Administrator, OK the warning message, the system will switch to Desktop mode. In the command prompt type the following commands:

• netsh int tcp set heuristics disabled
• netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
• netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled

At this point reboot your Surface RT. After reboot proceed with this commands:

• netsh interface ipv4 set address "Wi-Fi" dhcp (if this gave you an error check the name of your connection, it may not be "Wi-Fi")
• ipconfig /renew

If you still have problems apply the following registry changes:

Open Desktop -> Search -> regedit

Open regedit. Select menu Edit -> Find...

Enter "AutoUse40Mhz" -> do search.

There are 2 such entries in registry. We need to change one, located under

   "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\" branch.

  - Set "AutoUse40Mhz" to "0" (it has value "1" by default)(This limits the channel bandwidth to use 20MHz, this reduce the speed and it's the recommended setting when you are experiencing issues with  n connectivity)

  -  Set "Band" to "4" (it has value "6" by default)(for what I understand this change may force some devices to  connect g)(I would recommend to apply the first registry change, reboot and see what happens before applying this other change).

Reboot the Surface. Some users believe that these registry changes will make the Surface to connect using the g connection instead of n. That's not the case. Your Surface still be connected using the n protocol but using a slower bandwidth.

To achieve maximum output, a pure 802.11n 5 GHz network is recommended. If you have a 5GHz AP these registry changes should not be needed at all. To know what ratio are you using check the connection status to find the connection speed. If your speed is greater than 130Mbps, its 802.11N otherwise not. Some standard values for 802.11N are 150Mbps & 300Mbps. In my case, its 802.11g as speed is 54Mbps.

In your AP, WMM is required to be on for any Wi-Fi Alliance Certified N product. By default WMM is already on but many users disable it which may prevent N rates or lower throughput.

 

Useful links:

 

From< http://superuser.com/questions/381963/how-to-tell-if-my-wi-fi-is-connecting-using-802-11n>

From< http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless-N_Configuration>

From< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009>

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfwinrt-surfnetwork/wifi-issues/c593dff8-61b3-496c-b8f2-f9deb3e4b35e

Tips to free space in your Surface RT

I found this forum thread with a lot a useful tips to help Surface Owners to free some Space in their devices hard drive.

The author is promising to publish a tip to move installed programs or it's resources (music, images, Tec) to the microsd card. Something really useful if you are installing large games.

My Windows Phone saved me money

It's not a new feature but it's something that I used yesterday for the first time. A week ago I came home to find that my Multimedia PC was dead, apparently the surge protector where I had it connected was not good enough or the power supply just stop working. The repair cost was high enough to convince me to buy a Backup Battery. I did a little research online and found in Office Depot what I was looking for so I headed to my local store to buy it. Unfortunately, they did not have in stock the one I wanted and the next in line had a price tag of $47. Like 10 dollars more than the one I wanted. Then it came to my mind to do a search for a better deal scanning the barcode with my Nokia 810 with Windows Phone 8. I open an Apps called Scan, pointed the 810 to the barcode and few seconds later I had a list of three local stores selling the same Battery, one of them for just $40. The rest was just negotiation. I asked the cashier if they match the price of other local stores and when she said yes I showed to her my search results. I had to scan the barcode on front of her again to convince her that I was not lying and that did the trick.

So my Nokia 810 saved me $7.

The other trick I used this Christmas was to ask my Nokia for the Closest stores and then drive there using Nokia Maps. Both, the search and the navigation worked like a charm. And the Amolet display performed a lot better outdoor than my old Nexus One Display.

That simple

My friends at www.wintablet.info have pointed me to a video that is so beautifully done that I have to share here.

Surface RT is a hit in BestBuy

Microsoft is selling the Surface RT in BestBuy and is getting from users a very high satisfaction rate of 4.7 out of 5 possible points.

Here are some of the reviews posted there:

For all those looking at surface RT as ipad replacement. I say buy it. I have been using my ipad 3 since release and love it but needed something with keyboard and trackpad. this is perfect. I can watch live stream of cnn and do other things at the same time. Its a perfect laptop replacement for those who don't need lot of processing power. Don't wait for the surface pro. the battery life is all day. I am writing this review on my surface. I was waiting for surface pro but this has everything I need plus the extra battery life and cheaper. I would suggest to buy type cover, its worth it. also there is a way to enable flash videos on all websites. google it. Also there are not lots of apps but you don't need it. you have internet explorer to do everything.

Another user expressed:

I like this way more than I thought I would. So much that I gave away my android tablet after using this for a while. The keyboard and touchpad are unobtrusive but there when you need them and the keyboard has cursor keys!. The gui is actually very well thought out for a touchpad once you get used to it. performance is just fine and battery life is about a day of use. When you need it, it has desktop mode, which is Windows. Full usb is great. I've got a 64G sd card in and almost as much storage as my desktop. Not so good: The email app is primitive. Full-screen IE is usable but needs history view. Could use voice-to-text in most places like on phone. Wish it had full-size hdmi port. Wish I could run full-screen apps in background when they're hidden.

Audible - Audiobooks and more

Audible, one of the most popular and literally eBook readers has been released in Windows RT Store.

Surface RT in the stores near to you

It's a fact. Microsoft started selling the Surface in Staples, BestBuy and other retailers around USA. This is without any doubt a good news for those like me that think that we are in the presence of a product with a lot of potential.

This move makes MS more competitive against the more than 10000 locations where Apple sells the iPad. Microsoft was selling the Surface online and in just 32 stores according to all the reports and info available at Microsoft's own site.

Surface RT software update

Microsoft has released today few patches for WinRT and some specifically for the Surface RT, specifically to "reduce" the amount of different scenarios where some users received a "limited" connectivity message according to post published in this MS forum.

I never suffered from the connectivity issue so I can't report anything about this fix but some users in the above mentioned forum are expressing that the fix did not help them. Being a professional in the Tech Support field I can understand both sides, the owners frustrations and Microsoft's because when you are on front of an issue reported by some users and that's not affecting other users is very hard to find the cause of it and then the fix.

Fake or real

Recently I have seen a wave of TV and Radio stations talking about how to buy fake followers for Twitter and Facebook. The problem is that they have gone after Obama, and all celebrities that they can remember checking their followers statuses and accusing the account holders of buying fake followers. Be careful. I used the same tool to check my Twitter account and this is what I found.

I'm not a big Twitter or Facebook fan. I use them to post, something that happens automatically, any new comment that I publish at my blog. I never have tweaked in any way the amount of followers I have. I just do not care about it. And the results say that 15% of my followers are either inactive or fake. So. How did they get there? The inactive I can comprehend, but 4% fake, where they came from? I think that they are spammers that create them wishing that some of my followers click on their accounts to investigate and this way Spam them or something. So if 30% of a big celebrity are fake do not jump into the wrong conclusion. You may end being sued.

Surface RT coming to other stores

Comparing is in our human nature. One of the most popular topics about Surface around the web is predicting the amount of sales and compare that to Apple's iPad sales. Well, that's not a fair comparison. IPad is being sold in Apple's Stores around the world (395), Walmart (8970) and BestBuy (1150) for a total of more than 10500 stores. There are other companies selling the iPad but I'll just ignore them, with these 3 we have enough for our comparison.

Do you know how many stores Microsoft has around the World? 32. 31 in USA and 1 in Canada. Now you can see why is really unfair to compare Apple's sales against Microsoft's Sales at this point on time.

Lets do an easy and quick calculation, imagine that all these stores only sell one unit per day, after a month the whole total between all of them will end with 325965 iPad against 992 Surface RT!

Lets keep playing and guessing. If the rumors around the web are right and Microsoft will end these two months selling 500000 units, and that the experiment that I read where somebody checked for one day one of the Microsoft Store and did not see anyone coming out with a Surface is real. That means, that knowing that at 1 per day rate all the MS stores could have sold only around 2000 units, we can say that almost the whole 500000 have been sold by the online Store, this means around 8000 units per day!

That's why the rumor of Microsoft starting selling the Surface RT in other retail and online stores is that important.

We are talking about the potential of selling 1000 units per day in the retails stores of other companies to 10000 per day in their online Stores. Imagine BestBuy and Walmart online Stores selling per day the same as MS, 8000*3= 24000*31= 744000 units per month! And if the retails stores of Walmart and BestBuy just sell 1 unit every two days we are talking about 150000 unit's more per month (counting that Microsoft is thinking about selling the Surface in these two big companies).

After seeing all these numbers I believe that with this move Microsoft can sell easily around a million of units per month. Which is a decent number.

Stay away from the Desktop

I was reading today some comments posted in our Spanish Site for Windows Tablets and in one of them the author was saying that what's killing Windows RT is the Desktop. Later on I found this other article where you can read the following statement:

What aggravates me the most with the Surface RT is the Windows 7-style desktop layout inside - it’s a fallacy, ignore it - this isn’t Windows 7 or Windows 8. Even calling it “Desktop” is a lie. 

As soon as anyone set eyes on this, they do everything in their power to stay inside it, thinking they’re home. This isn’t home, it’s a husk filled with a lackluster Office Suite and Internet Explorer - and that’s it.

The whole article is good but these few words nailed the whole secret behind those that say to love the new Surface RT. I use the Desktop only when I'm using OneNote or when I'm researching the registry or using some hidden Windows configuration tool called using the wonderful modern UI search feature located in the right menu bar. One search for everything located always in the same place. Nothing is easier neither simpler.

When you are using WinRT the Desktop is not your friend. That's only a shell needed to launch Office and the full version of IE. Stay in the Modern UI from where you can do everything, call and use everything.

Trackpad Setting

Microsoft has released an application to configure the Surface's Trackpad, here is the link.

Still, it's the best

My previous posts have been written trying to show why I think that Microsoft's effort should be directed to fix current issues with the Surface RT instead of rushing to release the PRO thinking about it as the money maker. The money maker is the one on this video:

The high risk behind the Surface PRO

TabletPC have been in the market close to 10 years and it has been extremely popular with just a small portion of the market. I have been using them and I love them but when Apple released the iPad showed the world why TabletPC never gained in popularity. TabletPC were heavy, they were most of the time slow and the battery life on them never passed the 4 hours barrier. The iPad in another hand were not heavy, software run fast and the battery life was more than 10 hours.

Now, let's check the Surface PRO, it's not that heavy, but UMPC were not and they were not a lot more popular than TabletPCs, we do not have any elements to judge the speed of it but we can say that it uses an i5 processor which have not impressed me personally at all, you will find applications like iTunes taking a long time to load and do anything. And the battery life is between 4 to 5 hours. Sorry, but nothing classifies closer than this to a TabletPC. The Surface PRO is a TabletPC.

Now, the question that I have in my mind this whole time is, what the heck is making MS believe that they will be able to retake the old concept and make it popular this time?

Why being a TabletPC fan I selected the RT over the PRO? Because of the processor, the RT performance and the battery life.

The ARM processor runs virtually cool, there is not any need for a fan or extra heat dissipation. I wonder how this issue was resolved in the Surface PRO but I can tell you one thing, the Surface PRO will never run cooler than the RT. That's for sure. And if a fan was needed then there will be some noise. We can speculate about how optimized is the OS in the Surface PRO to make it faster but again, there is not any way to make it faster than what you see in the RT version which has been cleaned all that's possible removing most of the drivers and other things that never will be used in the RT. In the PRO version so far they said to have included Windows 8 PRO. The same thing they said about the differences between Office RT and Office Full version to be included also in the PRO. So definitely I do not expect to see a better performance in the PRO version. A Battery Life of 4 to 5 hours is virtually half of a working day. Tell your employer that you are going be working half of your working day. Get it? That means that you will be forced to carry a charger, or an extra batteries or load the Surface PRO with an extended battery if that's possible in the PRO version. Any of this solutions means an extra thing to carry and an extra weight.

So why PRO? Just to be able to run any Windows Application? The amount of applications for RT is growing daily and soon you will find replacement for those Windows programs that you are currently using and missing. For the rest a very simple approach. Keep a PC in your home always running and use it as application server. When you need to run iTunes, for example, you connect via Remote Desktop and run it there. I have been using this method with my iPad for more than a year and now with my Surface RT and it works very well.

So what's the selling point of Surface PRO? At least for me none. So if MS did not convinced me who will be convinced?

Apple has shifted the market showing users other ways that work better for the majority of the users. Sticking to old concepts will not in anyway help Microsoft to compete against Apple.

Microsoft, I'm hanging my boxing gloves

Microsoft, I’m hanging my boxing gloves

Something in this company is extremely wrong and you do not have to be an expert to notice it. The scariest thing is that those with the power to do something do nothing. It’s like they are blind.

A month ago Microsoft released the Surface RT to the world, according to the company the reason to start selling its own Tablet was the lack of quality of the Tablets and other devices that the hardware partners were selling loaded with Windows. If you want something well done you have to do it yourself.

For those that follow the life and changes of this technology world this sounded like an awakening of a huge monster that was sleeping perhaps for a very long time. This was what everybody was waiting to see. The beginning of a real competition between this company and Apple. Without competition there is not a source for innovation. Part of us were tired of seeing iPads released with the same old iOS full of restrictions and without big changes since it was released for the first time. Windows 8 and Surface RT was the change that we were hoping to see. A hardware well made with an Operating System that finally was bringing something new and different since Windows 95 was released, an OS with a new user interface capable of handling touch and mouse. Simple and easy to use.

And what did we get? A Surface RT with a hardware that you could only dream about it with a keyboard of amazing characteristics that under heavy use lasts few weeks, no reaching even a month. The first fiasco. What failed? The lack of experience of the company picked for this project? The poor quality control from a company – Microsoft- with little experience as PC manufacturer?

And if the keyboard fiasco was not enough with have hundreds of users complaining about WiFi disconnecting or connecting with limited functionality, we have little problems with the OS and some of the programs included in the Surface RT and we had to deal with a preview version of Office 2013 that generated a lot of bad press in the blogosphere from people testing it without having upgraded first to the full version.

I cannot imagine a scenario where nobody at MS did not notice the WiFi issue. Yes, I’m not suffering from this issue but I have played around with my AP and Surface RT up to a point where I got it working. SOMETHING THAT THE AVERAGE USER SHOULD NOT BE DOING. What the average user wants is something that finds an AP and connects EVERY SINGLE TIME. Like an iPad. If Microsoft did not find this issue was because they rushed this device to the market without testing it enough. And I’m talking about real life tests. No Labs tests. I do not know how many 1000s of MVPs Microsoft has, why you don’t use them for these tests, you do not trust them and NDA, then use your own employees. DO SOMETHING, THINK OUT OF THE BOX! But do not release a product in this condition if you are thinking about set an example to be followed by your hardware partners.

A Mail software without POP3 support. I do not care if this is an obsolete technology. I do not use it. But there is a lot of users using it. You were open minded to support Flash, another obsolete technology, so why exclude POP3? The Mail program has many other problems, it stops working from time to time, crashes, it does not report correctly the number of new messages in the home screen tile, etc.

I was reading yesterday an article from one of the news sites I follow where the conclusion was that the Surface was not ready for the average user and just for IT professionals and I hate to say it but I agree. I won’t recommend this device to anybody that is an average user. I have been defending this device that to me is a lot better than any Tablet in the market including the iPads. But it’s not for everybody. It’s not ready to compete against the iPad.

But wait, this is not all. This week the prices and official specs for the Surface PRO was unveiled. A battery life of about 4 hours! That’s all you read everywhere!  4 hours of battery life was what the best UMPC were getting. And the whole UMPC concept was dropped and one of the reason was that. It’s time for manufacturers to comprehend that if they do not release a Tablet with at least 8 hours of battery life is better to no release it.

Another point that scares me is that may be somebody at Microsoft is thinking that by releasing the Surface PRO as soon as possible they can generate more sales. You are wrong! With that battery life users are looking at Surface Pro like this one is just an UMPC or TabletPC and those two concepts are not working any more. They love the simplicity and mobility of Tablets. They do not want to carry a Tablet and a charger. You will get more revenue by fixing the Surface RT issues before Christmas and staying with RT than wasting your time and money with the PRO version.

Surface PRO is a TabletPC and the market will act like it has been doing it all these years with TabletPCs and UMPC. None of these two concepts were popular and have not been able to compete against Apple’s iPad.

I believe that Surface RT is a winner product. But for this to become that we need to see changes at Microsoft. The responsible for all these mistakes and bad decisions have to pay for them. I wouldn’t like to see the Surface following the path of the Zune, the UMPC and Windows Mobile.

 

TabletPC2 has published Santa's 2012 list

As usual every Christmas season TabletPC2 publishes the Santa's Gift List.

The Surface RT was included this year, something that does not surprise me even now when resent rumors are talking about MS cutting down the orders quantity for the rest of the year.

Facebook for Surface RT

Some days ago I found an user threatening Microsoft to return his Surface if Microsoft does released a Facebook Apps. I had and still have now when I'm writing this note to put in practice all my experience as Tech Support to do not explode and name that person the best I can in my "French" vocabulary. Instead that I asked a question, what's wrong with Facebook.com?

For the first time you have in a Tablet a full version of Facebook working and this user is making a big deal because "he can't access Facebook"? That person never replied back to me. I wonder why.

And Facebook is not the only request. Twitter! Where is Twitter client?!

I changed my Twitter background image a long time ago after that I bought an iPad and I never saw that beautiful background again. One more time why I would need an App if I have access to the real thing!?

The Best Tablet for Business Users

This article summarizes my thoughts about the Surface RT. It may not be perfect or bit the iPad on the black Friday sales but sooner or later it will gain the attention of business users and that will shift the market. Paul Everton is the CEO of Yapmo, a Company specialized in Software for businesses. He recently bought a Surface and his conclusion was that there is not any Tablet in the market better than Surface to cover the business users needs.

I'm going to quote here some fragments of his article that I consider important to understand why so many of us love the Surface. This is what Paul says:

Initially, I thought that the lack of apps was where the Surface would really struggle. My assumption here was only half true. When you have a tablet that has a full web browser that can load anything, the need for apps greatly diminishes. Instead I just went to my favorite "Apps" on the web and pinned them to my start page. Now I get the full experience of everything, and not some slimmed down version to make it an app.

A real file system. This might be one of the most important features. iPad's inability to share files between apps is frustrating and ridiculous. With Surface if someone sends me a word document and I want to download it to a folder and access it with 10 other programs I can do it with ease! This is another place the Surface wins hands down!  

A real browsing experience. I have become numb to mobile device browsers failing on all sorts of websites. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Surface will load every web page, no matter what (content?) it's running. A good example of this was sitting on my couch the other day watching TV. I wanted to order a pizza from Dominos (yes, I know I live in Chicago and this is a sin to like Dominos over other pizza restaurants). In the past, this site never worked on any mobile or tablet browser I have used. While I waited for my pizza I opened up Amazon EC2 and also checked the status of our server infrastructure. Finally, something that doesn't show me half the page or fails to load key functionality. 

European Wish Lists

According to Experian the most searched devices in the UK market are: iPad Mini, Nexus 7 and Surface RT in this order.

Europe always has been more Apple territory than MS, the fact that Surface is in this small list is a huge point. They also did an analysis of what type of users were the one searching and here is the chart and what they said about it:

 

 

 

What is clear here from the spider diagram above is that the Surface page (the red line) is over-indexing on the Alpha Territory, Liberal Opinions, Careers and Kids and New Homemakers groups. These are people who live in up-and-coming areas of the big cities and the desirable leafy suburbs. Compared to Microsoft’s current audience (the green line) for its main website, people interested in the Surface have more disposable income and are younger, more tech-savvy individuals. These are the same types of people that are Apple’s core audience, and so the signs are positive for Microsoft if they can make inroads into this segment of consumers and present an attractive alternative to the iPad. 

Surface RT in the top of the wish lists

Surface RT is in the top of the wish list for this Christmas according to PriceGrabber.

Microsoft will support Surface RT until 2017

According to various sources, Microsoft will support the Surface RT until April 2017. Really good news for Surface's Owners showing Microsoft commitment to this device. As many other sites already noticed, Apple stopped updating the original iPad after 2 years and one month.

Can Microsoft keep such promise? Well, 4 years is a long time when you are talking about technology. Microsoft ended with Windows XP the idea of supporting without upgrades the same OS for long period of time. Now we should be seeing a new OS every two years. So if this still in place we should see at least one more version of the OS in the life of the Surface RT. Will IT be compatible with a new version of the OS or the hardware is not going to be powerful enough to handle that OS new version? Let's hope it's.

Torturing the Surface

By now I doubt that anyone out there believe that the Surface is not a well made Tablet. But if you believe otherwise I invite you to check this video.

In this video the Surface survived more than 2 hours in a freezer.

And it survived this test...

Then it was used to cook an egg for more than one hour at 250 F.

 

 

 

 

And again, it survived this test. Unfortunately it got finally killed by a glass of wine on top of it. Even after it's dead the tortures did not end, it was used as skateboard and thrown few times against the cement floor.

 

The glass broke when it felt into it's corner. A test that almost nobody passes. 

No doubts about it, the Surface is a well made Tablet.

 

Community leaders share their expertise at Microsoft Stores

Community leaders share their expertise at Microsoft Stores!
Microsoft Stores are not only a great place to get the latest and greatest PCs, tablets, games and phones – they are also a place to learn about using technology in the real world! You can find workshops and other events at the Microsoft Store’s event calendar nearest you!
This holiday season, technical experts from the community as a part of Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional award  are joining in to host consumer education sessions!
Attend & Complete a Survey to Enter to Win a ASUS VivoTab RT!
 
Across Microsoft Stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, “MVPs” are joining the Microsoft Stores at consumer workshops to share their expertise and insight about using Microsoft products in real life. Topics for these sessions include: Meet Windows 8, the new Xbox Experience, Outlook.com, Office and more!

ATTEND AND WIN!
By attending one of these sessions and completing the attendee survey, you are entered to a sweepstakes to win one of two ASUS VivoTab RTs with Windows RT and Office Home and Student Preview RT! You can find the official rules here.

  It’s easy to enter:
1.       Attend one of the free MVP Consumer Camp workshops at a Microsoft Store.
2.       Complete and submit the attendee survey.
3.       Stay tuned for the winners announcement on December 18, 2012

All of these events are presented by Outlook.com in partnership with Microsoft MVP Award and Consumer Camp. If you have questions about this, email mstips@microsoft.com. You can find the official sweepstakes rules for session attendees here.
Follow the MVP events on Twitter @ConsumerCamp
  

Win an Asus VivoTab RT

Share you tips and win in the Microsoft Community Video Tips sweepstakes!   Everyone knows - video is BIG! The community has been using video online to share stories about your life, highlight things you care about and educate the world about technology! Today, Microsoft is celebrating all the ways people just like you share your ‘tech tips’ through video by launching the Microsoft Community Video Tips sweepstakes! There are so many exciting new products from Microsoft this holiday season – Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Office Home and Student RT preview, your favorite apps and more! Take your pick!   Enter to Win a ASUS VivoTab RT!   On December, 18th 2012, two random submissions will be selected to win an ASUS VivoTab RT with Windows RT and Office Home and Student RT Preview!   Want to improve your odds? Add more video tips for more chances to win!       Better still - There will be two additional ASUS VivoTab RTs going to random winner, exclusively for video tips that highlight the features and value of OUTLOOK.COM! There are plenty of great features you could highlight! Share how you use the sweep feature to keep a clean inbox! Highlight how you’ve connected all your email accounts into one Outlook.com account! Any real world tip you can think of, share it and enter to win!      It’s easy to enter: 1.       Post your Microsoft video tips up to YouTube (keep it concise – one tip per video) 2.       Submit your video tip links in the submission form. 3.       Stay tuned for the winners announcement on December 18, 2012     These video tips are presented by Outlook.com in partnership with Microsoft MVP Award. If you have questions about this sweepstakes, email mstips@microsoft.com. You can find the official sweepstakes rules here.   Follow these community tips on Twitter @MSVideoTips

 

mkv player for surface rt

That's it. The first player that plays almost all formats has been released in Microsoft Store: XYPlayer. That's the good news. The bad news is that it does not work, it does not play any of the video files I tested it with.

I'm familiar with the iPad version and I think that this issue will be fixed soon so keep your eyes opened for an update.

USB to Ethernet for Surface RT

Believe it or not still out there a lot of people asking for an Ethernet connection for the Surface RT. The reasons are many but ones of the most important are speed and security. For those in this situation here is an adapter that has been tested with Surface RT which drivers for WinRT has been released.

Here is the link to the Adaptor at Amazon. Here is the link for the Driver. Of course you need to download the one for Windows RT. This driver will work with any USB to Ethernet adaptor using the AX88772A chipset.

Once the device is plugged you need to open the device manager, in Desktop mode search in settings for Device Manager.

 

 

Do a right click in the listed other device chipset and pick update driver. The rest is to pick Browse my PC and locate the uncompressed files downloaded from the above mentioned link.


Note: for some reason the RT driver has been removed from the list of drivers in the Manufacturer's site. I have contacted them asking about the reasons behind that. If I get any answer back I'll post it here.

Update: the driver exist and works and the only reason is not distributed is Microsoft's nonsense.

Update 2: I have heard anything back from any of the sides involved in this situation. If anybody needs the driver please, let me know and I'll send it. 

http://www.tweaks2k2.com/binfiles/AX88772B_772A_772_WinRT_Driver_v3.16.0.1807.zip

who boots faster

Browsing YouTube I found a video that compares the boot time between the Surface and the iPad 3.

Optimizing the WiFi in your Surface RT

I never have problems with WiFi in the Surface, now, my 5Ghz band is weaker than the 2.4Ghz which is also normal but I find that it's a little bit weaker than what I think it should be considering the distance between the device and the AP.

Anyway, when I got the Surface and I connected via the 5Ghz band and I found what I just described I went and did what I usually do in all my PC, optimize the TCPIP settings. I was not expecting to find a version of TCPIP Optimizer for WinRT so I did a search in Google for TCPIP optimizing hacks and I found this page:

http://www.speedguide.net/articles/windows-7-vista-2008-tweaks-2574

Using a DOS windows with elevated privileges you can apply almost all the recommended settings there.

Taking in consideration that I did this with my Surface almost right out of the box and that I have only seen the "limited" message issue one time connecting to my phone using it as hotspot in an area with a very poor 3G reception, I'm inclined to think that may be that some of the settings mentioned in the above link may help with some of the issues described here by other users.