R2H Video

Here is video from youtube from a Far East TV Station demonstrating the Asus R2H. I did not understand anything that they were saying about it but it was fun to watch. They demonstrated some of the devices sold with R2H too.

Q1b vs R2H comparison pictures

Ignar, Origami Project user, has posted some pictures of the Q1b and R2H side by side.

According to him "compared to R2H, Q1 is definitely thinner, lighter and easier to hold".

UMPC car mounting solution

I found at todoUMPC -Spanish- what seems to be a home made car mounting solution made from aluminum pieces.

I'm looking for a good and cheap mounting solution where I do not have to drill any holes in my car. But so far no luck. Well, the other thing I'm looking is a good and cheap car navigation software but I have not had any luck with this one either.

Nokia BT Keyboard

JKK is reporting about a BT Keyboard released by Nokia.

This keyboard was tested in Tabletkiosk eo v7110 and i7210 and it works in both devices.

I don't know but I think that's time to see better prices in these kind of accessories, 149 dollars seem to me too much.

Asus R2H Review

OnlyUMPC has posted a detailed review of the Asus R2H.

The Good: Clean design, great bundle of hardware & software, GPS, Extended battery & Finger Print Reader

The Bad: The finger print reader keeps prompting even
if you touched it by mistake (and believe me it’s hard not to touch it,
because of it placement). Not for those who think this is going to
replace their main PC (this being Celeron M 900 MHz)

There is one thing that I find weird, He is getting only 3:26h using the extended battery with WiFi Off and BT Off. It seems to me that he should get more out of it.

Bug in IE7 when used in UMPC/TABLETPC

Right after IE7 was released many UMPC owners reported that "handwritting using the TIP and IE7" was not working. Today Microsoft has confirmed this issue.

We were able to reproduce this problem. Our initial investigation indicates that something is misconfiguring the Tablet OS by turning off support for advanced text insertion into all applications. This is completely unsupported on a Tablet PC and we're working to track down how this setting got turned off. In the meantime, I'd like to confirm that this is the entire cause of the problem you are seeing.

Please can you check this setting:

Control Panel -> Regional and Languages Options -> Languages -> Details -> Advanced -> "Extend support of advanced text services to all programs"

This checkbox should always be checked on a Tablet PC. If it's not, please try checking it, rebooting and then see if the problem in IE7 evaporates.

Thanks, Adrian.

eo v7110 details

If you want see pictures of Tabletkiosk eo v7110 check what I have prepared here.

Close up pictures that will show every angle, every detail of this machine.

Q1 enters C3 State and stay on it

The Q1 works most of the time in C3 State. This CPU Power State gives an extra 10% of Battery Life that and having a Battery that is 10% bigger explains why the Q1 has a better battery life than the eo v7110.

Now, Samsung has released a UMPC using a VIA Processor and I wonder if that unit is also entering in C3 State. If it does, when eo v7110 will get a fix for this issue? are Amtek and VIA working in this issue or current eo v7110 owners are not that important any more? 10% of Battery life is 10% and I also think that the CPU probably will work a little bit cooler.

The price of having the last cool thing in the market

It seems to me that I'm not the only one that have been looking for a SSD or what is the same a Solid State Disk - I would have it named SSHDD, disk sounds like the old DOS days. Kevin at JKK have been looking for them too and he found a good price.

Well, probably that ($548) is a damn good price for somebody like Bill Gates but I doubt that 16 Gb is going to be enough for him. And if that size is not good for uncle Bill, then it's not enough for me either.

How to section updated

I have been working in a How To section for UMPCs and yesterday I updated it with a little tutorial about how to use Virtual CD to mimic the existence of a CD or DVD ROM Drive in your device.

Vista indexing process killing Battery Life

I found a note from one of the i7210 owners at Origami Project that I think that deserves all our attention:

I've been struggling with poor battery life running Vista on my eo i7210. I've been averaging about 1:40 which is pitiful. Well, yesterday I made a change and have been getting closer to 2:30 (the advertised battery life) under Vista. I found that the indexing service was constantly running and reving up the CPU and memory. By disabling the service I am finding the unit runs cooler and longer on battery. Of course this means that I am not able to use Vista's built in search feature, but that's okay because I'm not a big fan of it anyway.

The indexing process in XP has been all time a CPU Performance killer and I always have it disabled. I have not check it yet in my eo v7110 with Vista but probably this user is right, Indexing could be a bad idea.

Intel Video Demo

John at Ultranauts has posted about a Video demo that shows a few applications designed to change our "lite style".



It seems to me that Microsoft Origami Project is coming soon with a few more surprises.

Flash Memory Based HDD

Akihabara has published pictures of new IDE and SATA HDD made by a company called INNODISK.

Wow! I really like this concept. Soon you are going to see me, no just upgrading the HDD i my eo, but opening the HDD to upgrade that one too with bigger CF cards! Well... if the price of these babies goes down.

RollUp Keyboard

I remember me posting news about a Roll Up Keyboard about a year ago and asking myself: do this really work?

I found today this one at PC4USA for just 18 dollars but like a year ago I still ask myself the same question. What do you think?

Ultranauts version 2.0

Many of the pages opened during Microsoft Origami initial teasing campaign have disappeared, only the true believers in these new devices still here.

Ultranauts.com was one of those first pages opened and today still alive and even have got a new makeover.

I have been invited to write as freelancer in their new site. But this does not mean that I'm abandoning UMPCBuzz or this blog, this only means that I got another job! So, if you did not get enough from me here, now you know where else you can find me.

More reports about Tabletkiosk Road Show

Jeffrey Graebner has posted his own report about Tablet Kiosk Road Show at Bigbeaks UMPC Blog.

New product for eo v7110

Jeff has posted at Origami Project forum some pictures of a new product coming soon to Tabletkiosk for eo v7110: It's a stand.

This is what Jeff says about this stand:

They [Tabletkiok] showed ... a folding stand for the eo v7110, similar to the one that comes pre-attached to the Q1 and the Intel models from TabletKiosk. This stand uses a thumb screw to attach to the back of the v7110 using the previously-mysterious threaded hole on the back.

Explaining more

In my review about the Q1 I wrote:

Samsung's screen is so sensitive that your handwriting looks like the one of a 80 year old man with Alzheimer.

And I have been asked to explain more about this point. To do that have I have prepared two screen shots:

And this second is from my Q1 where I have marked those part where you can see clearly that lines do not look like straight lines.

Samsung Q1 review by an Amtek T700 Owner

I was getting ready to write about Samsung Q1 and I started with a tittle of "CT's Samsung Q1 Review" but then I began to look into all the material that I was going to use in this review and I thought that in reality what I had in my hands was a comparison between these two machines. Now that I own both I think that I can give a fair opinion about them or at least I can't be accused of giving a better rate to my own device.

The Box

Let's start with the box. The Q1 box gives you the feeling of opening something really refined. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, this box was made to attract buyers. The Amtek T700 is ok but you can see that it's a lot cheaper design than Samsung's. This is a clear example of how to use the box of your products as a marketing tool.

The UMPC

One of the first I noticed when I took in my hands Samsung Q1 was how light it was: 1.7 lbs. TabletKiosk eo v7110 weight is 1.9 lbs. If you don't own yet a UMPC you wont understand yet what big difference makes these 0.2 lbs when you are holding one of these devices in your hand for a long period of time.

The exterior design of Samsung Q1 is very attractive but to be honest I do not like how easy it get dirt with fingertips stamped everywhere. This is something that happens too in black color eo v7110s but not in the latest i7200 series from TabletKiosk and it's not that noticeable in white color v7110s like the one I own.

There are 6 features of Samsung Q1 that I like most:

1- The integrated VGA Port. No because I use it too much but because I think that it's good to have it in case you want to show something in a bigger screen. This is definitely a good point for enterprise users.

2- The Integrated Ethernet Port. Believe it or not, still moments when you need to hook a portable PC to a LAN.

3- The Power Meter integrated in the main battery. This is a must have when you have more than one battery and you are getting old like me and have problems trying to remember if you charged what and when.

4- SRS Feature. The speakers in Samsung Q1 works a lot but a lot better than the single speaker of eo V7110. But it's not just the speaker. The software and Sound drivers used in Samsung Q1 are 1000 times better than VIA Sound Drivers and software. I have not been able yet to configure my eo to get rid of a annoying noise at the beginning of any sound. The SRS in Samsung Q1 work very well and I was surprised to see the stereo effect coming from two speakers that close located.

5- Two stereo microphones integrated with the unit. That's something that I do not use too much but for some people, to dictate a document will be a lot easier than to write it in this kind of machine. In another hand, there are situations where to speak a command is a lot easier than to tap in the screen few times.

6- Heat dissipation. Samsung's Q1 has the fan located in the top right corner and blowing the hot air from inside and away from the User .

The TabletKiosk eo V7110 has it in the left Upper side blowing the hot air right into user's left hand. And believe me that air get very hot in some occasions up to the point that it's uncomfortable to hold the eo with the hand on that way. The Q1 works a lot cooler than the eo v7110.

These 6 points would make eo v7110 a perfect machine!

Now, what I do not like.

Samsung Q1 screen is too sensitive. I'm not saying that eo v7110 is better because it's hard to get anything done there using just your fingers. But I really think that something in between those two displays would be perfect. And if I have to go with one of them I'll stay with eo V7110 screen. Samsung's screen is so sensitive that your handwriting looks like the one of a 80 year old man with Alzheimer. A good illustration of what I'm saying is this ink note posted at JkonTheRun -I opted here to use James' note as an example to show that it's not an issue that I'm having alone.

Compare that note with the above written in my eo and you will notice the difference in the lines.

The absence of a joystick mouse in Q1 kills me. In my eo v7110 I can hover on top of objects to get the hidden extra information like tips, links, etc and that is almost impossible when you are using the Q1. You have to click on top of the object to move the mouse and that sometimes ends kicking you to do something that you don't want or to a place where you do not want to be. The other thing that I don't like is the way used to implement the Tab and Hold or right click in Q1. In my eo I get that animated circle and then the contextual menu; in Q1 you just get the menu like in your PC when you do the right click.

These two issues - the absence of mouse and the high sensitive screen - make the experience of writing documents not that pleasant as in a TabletKiosk eo v7110. At least for me.

Performance

Before we start comparing numbers lets say few words about these two machines. When a machine is designed the engineering team have a specific goal to reach and everything on that machine is put in there to help in that mission. If you want a machine for multimedia you are going to want two speakers, good microphones, a processor good enough to handle any video player and a video chip good enough for this same task. If you want a machine to handle a inventory control in a warehouse, there you don't need two speakers, you don't need a microphone and you do not need neither a very powerful processor or a good video card. Do you follow me? Because this is the case we have with Samsung Q1 and TabletKiosk eo v7110.

The Samsungs Q1 that I have uses a Intel Celeron Processor running at 900 Mzh. The TabletKiosk eo v7110 uses a VIA C7 processor running at 1 GHz. Q1 use a 915 GMS Intel-GMA900 chip with 128 MB of Shared Memory while the eo V7110 uses the VN800 from VIA with only 64 MB of Shared memory. 128 vs 64 of Shared Memory partially explains why Q1 is a lot better playing all kind of movie formats.

Now lets start comparing numbers.

My first test was the video Benchmark using 3DMark 2001:

• Q1=2979 at 800x480x32
• eo v7110=915 at 800x480x32
• eo i7210=3486 at 800x600x16

The Q1 can compete in this department with the TabletKiosk eo i7210 but the v7110 is not an adversary for these two UMPCs with Intel Processors and Video chips. While the 3D mark test was a very pleasant experience in Q1, in the eo, it skipped some tests because the video card did not support them.

To complete my tests I ran one of the best benchmarks you can find and the only one designed for VIA processors: COSBI Open Source Mark.

• Q1 = 493.3
• eo v7110 = 364

The Q1 performs around 30% better than Tabletkiosk eo v7110.

is this a noticeable difference in real life applications? No unless you are playing videos. I have been working in my eo in all Office applications, in Visual Studio 2005, part of this review has been written in this device, I have even installed Vista, and I find the performance of eo to be enough to handle all these tasks.

will the Q1 perform better in all these applications? Probably Yes.

Conclusion

So, is the Q1 better? No. There is not such thing as the best UMPC. The Q1 is good in many things but I find the button layout, the screen sensitive and the joystick mouse more important features for me than all those present in the Q1. I use for long period of time my eo holding it with my two hands -PSP style - something that I can't do with my Q1.

There are many things that each company could learn from each other, that's for sure.

The Q1 is the best multimedia UMPC while eo V7110 is a perfect working machine. The eo v7110 have a lot bigger selection of 2.5" HDDs that can be installed on it and they are a lot cheaper than the 1.8" used in Samsung's Q1. And it's a lot easier to replace the HDD in an eo than in a Q1. This probably will make the eo the option number 1 for any IT Manager in charge of any large Production Company.

The Samsung Q1 and the eo V7100 are two completely different machines targeting two different market share.

AgoPC's guide

AgoPC is selling the Amtek T700 a.k.a TabletKiosk v7110. Today I found that they have started to post guides about how to do what you need to do in these devices. The first guide is about using your phone as a modem to connect to internet. The guide is a pdf format and can be downloaded it here.

Show people how to use it and they will buy it. Very Smart.

TabletKiosk Roadshow, Anaheim

One of the users of GottabeMobile Forum has posted 52 pictures of the TabletKiosk Roadshow event in Anaheim here. Guys this is something that you should see with your own eyes. These pictures show new products coming soon for eo v7110 and i7210s. Like the mounting bracket. I reported about this new item in TabletKiosk store a few weeks ago but I could not see how this bracket was going to be used in a eo v7110. Well these two pictures have the answer.

is not this cool? This confirm what I have been saying, eo v7110 is a perfect "working" machine, it's not designed for multimedia.

Another product that I find interesting is the new stylus.

I do not if I will carry the stylus in the way shown in the above picture but the fact is that I do not use the stylus from eo v7110 and neither the one that came with Samsung Q1. They are too small and too uncomfortable to use. This stylus looks more like a real pen and will be a lot easier and comfortable to use. A real must have for any UMPC owner.

What else I can say? I was glad to see in those pictures personalities from the Pocket PC World like Chris de Herrera. And I'm very sad with TabletKiosk decision to cancel the Fort Lauderdale event.

The latest version of AVS Now CD

I just received this email from Samsung.

Frank,

I am sending a new AV Station Now Restore Cd:

It is the latest revision BA46-04965A14

The following shows what have been changed to the Rev. 1.2 (BA46-04965A12) of AVS Now Restore CD for Q1.

- In order to support 1GB memory, MIO (Multimedia Instant On) Partition Size was changed to 2.5GB and Page File Size was set to 256 MB.

- Updated to resolve DMB related issues [Note: DMB stands for Digital Multimedia Broadcasting.]

- DMB Korean Market only

As you can see... there is a newer version. I wonder how Samsung is going to prepare an update for all users of the AVS Now partition Software.

The Walletino

Believe or not, manufacturers are thinking seriously about conquest women hearts using the Walletino. Check the pictures of this concept UMPC posted at Ultramobilelife.com

I have to hide this post from my daughter!

6 Hours of Battery Life in your Q1

The first reports of what the battery life for the Samsung Q1 Extended Battery have appeared at Origami Project Forum.

Now, think about what would be the battery life of a Samsung Q1b with this battery. 10 hours? 12 hours? So we are close to the one day mark of total mobility! Of course, your UMPC is not going to be that lite and it wont look too sexy any more. That's the price to pay.

And this is the Samsung Q1 Extended Battery with 6 cells I believe. Remember that UNIFIRM was working in an Extended Battery with 9 Cells.

Samsung Q1 Extended Battery Picture (Courtesy of Carrypad.com)

Quanta UMPC

Today the head lines are about the new Quanta/Yahoo/Intel UMPC. I do not find this UMPC too ugly but would not think about buying one of those, like I have said 5 inches are not for me and 4 inches only in a Pocket PC.

Vista running in a Q1 - video

While I was trying to understand what was going on with AVS Now in my Q1, Kevin Tofel was shooting a new film starring Sammy a.k.a Samsung Q1: Vista in a Q1.

This new movie together with JKK's video about Vista running in a i7210 gives a complete idea of what to expect next January when Vista is finally released.

are you tired of using Google?

Sometimes you need some fun while you are looking for information to post in this site so I found the perfect solution for this issue at Ms. Dewey's site.

Warning: this site could be very addictive. Once you use it for the first time you won't go back to Google or what ever search engine are you using at this moment.

AVS Now Solution

The last Friday I received my Q1 and after have it turned on one time to be sure that everything was working I upgraded it's RAM to 1 GB. After this upgrade the AVS Now partition did not work anymore.

This issue was known to me and I also knew that the solution to it was to enter in the boot menu pressing F8 and deleting the hibernation file. But for my surprise that solution did not work for me. Talking with Kevin Tofel from jkontherun he advised me to do a full restore of AVS Partition using the option for a full restore after having formatted the Hard Drive. He had the same issue and that was the only solution that worked in his case.

Well, that did not work for me either. At that point we started to compare what was different between his machine and mine and we found that in my case the AVS Now Partition had a size of around 1.5 Gb while his partition was around 2.4 Gb. That clarified why my AVS Now was not working: my partition was not big enough to hold the new hibernation file. I spent around a day or two looking for a way to resize that partition but without any luck. At this point I thought that only one thing could be different between Kevin's Q1 and mine: The AVS Now Restoration CD. And I was right, my CD is version BA46-0496511 while his is version BA46-04965A12.

He made an image of his CD (around 400 MB compressed) and uploaded it for me in a ftp site, from that image I created a new CD and restored the AVS Now. That fixed the problem!

I want to add that Yesterday I contacted Samsung's Tech support and they did not have a clue of was going on. But they were very "friendly"and promised me to look into this problem and to contact me with a solution Today. And They did it. When I was in the middle of downloading the 400 MB file I received and email from Samsung asking me for my Q1 Serial No to send me a new CD.

Of course, I have sent Samsung all this information.

Conclusion: The AVS Now partition will not work after a RAM upgrade from 512 to 1Gb. This issue can be fixed entering in the boot Menu pressing F8 right after turning on the AVS Now, and deleting the hibernation file. This solution will work only if the AVS Now has a size of 2502 MBs. If your Partition is not that big you have to restore the AVS Now partition using a CD Version BA46-04965A12. You have to select the option of Restoring after a Hard Drive Format. This option will destroy all your Hard Drive information, that means that you will have to restore the XP partition and reinstall the drivers CD too.

Universal Battery Bank works with Q1

I ordered a few month ago a Universal Battery Bank for my eo. Well I'm happy to report that this Battery Bank works perfectly with Samsung Q1 and it has a tip for this device. And this one is a lot cheaper than the one sold by Samsung.

CD/DVD related freewares

I'm always looking around good freewares and that's how I found this page where are listed a lot of programs that allows you to create ISO files from your DVD/CDs that you can use in your UMPC. They have also some burners. Good stuff.

TEO is looking for a new home

This is a sad news for me to write about it.

Yeah unfortunately TEO 3.0 just isn't cutting it. Put aside for a moment the fact that I feel like I wasted a year of my life developing it. I would have been alot more successful had I stuck to my original plan and spent the year working on the Sylantro software. But TEO was the product that was paying the bills so it had to come first. It's not that it isn't a good and useful product, just that I lack the ability to properly market it and support it. I wish there were more Tablet PC software companies out there because I'd love to sell it to someone who would give it a good home. (Link)

TEO was one of the first programs I installed in my eo V7110. Unfortunately I installed Office 2007 on it and TEO was not compatible with the latest version of Outlook. I think that Josh is missing this point. You wont have sales if people think that your program are not going to work with the latest version of the OS or in a future version. As a developer - and I have to confess that I'm not that good as Josh - I have survived 5 OS upgrades in the Pocket PC World and as soon as you have a new OS coming you have to jump into that ship and test your program and write about your tests to make sure that you don't lose any potential buyer because of the insecurity of thinking about compatibility issues. Unfortunately Josh is a freelancer like me, and that means that you have to be programmer and marketing manager at the same time. And marketing takes time and resources. And it's not something that I like to do. But at the same time I have found that blogging and participating in the different communities have worked as a very good marketing tool for me and I enjoy posting news, talking about technologies that I love and helping people.

Well, I hope he finds both things, a new home for TEO and a job as a consultant.

Note: I have been informed that TEO works in Vista RC1 and the latest version of Office 2007. That's a good news!

Q1 gets vertical with Vista

While I'm stuck trying to get back AVS Now, Kevin at JKonTheRun is having a big progress with Vista in his Q1! Now he got back the screen rotation.

Guys, I need somebody with AVS Now Restore DVD version BA46-04965A12. I need an image of that DVD uploaded in somewhere where I can download it. That DVD does not hold the Operating System or anything. As far as we have been able to go deeper into this problem it seems that I have an older version of this DVD and my AVS Now partition is too small. Kevin from JKonTheRun has been able to get back his AVS Now restoring the DVD but he is using the latest version of it and that one created in his Q1 a bigger partition (around 3 GB while mine is around 1.6 GB).

AVS is dead!

Would you believe that upgrading the RAM will cause a major issue in your PC? Well, believe it!Afer the RAM upgrade the AVS now did not workany more in my Q1. I have spent the whole weekend trying to make it work. And all I got is a huge headache. And the worse thing is that1 could not find any documentation. I restored the AVS partition about 3 times. I restored the whole device including the Tablet PC partition one time. And Nothing , Nada!.

There was somebody claiming about a solution but the fact is that it worked only for a few apparently those that never booted in AVS before the upgrade.

Another amazing fact is that many of current owners have the same situation but they are happy with that.

I'm very disappointed to tell the truth.I'll start contacting Samsung about this situation on Monday.

Q1 unboxing ceremony

I received a Q1 yesterday and I have spent more than 8 hours "playing" with it. I know that all of you want to see some pictures and to know what I think about. Well, here are all pictures that I took during the unboxing ceremony... and a little more because as a good geek my unboxing ceremony did not end where any normal person ends it. I ended opening it and replacing the memory card for a 1Gb card. Come on guys! Do you really think that I can live with 512 MBs!?

What do I think about it?

It's a good looking machine! Every detail, from the box up to the littlest button have been perfectly designed to attract buyers. In this point Samsung is a clear winner. If you are looking for a portable DVD player, an iPod or a communicator, here is your perfect device. If you are looking for a Car Companion PC... do not look any more, you have found it. If you are looking for a UMPC to take notes, work with Visual Studio, work with databases, Word, Excel, or any other office kind of application this machine is not for you. It can be used but the experience is not going to be as good or pleasant as in Amtek T700 or any other device with a joystick mouse and a less sensitive display.

I'll write more about this unit from Samsung and it performance in next notes.

TabletKiosk eo v7110 cases

Our reader Jeff - from France - sent us pictures of TabletKiosk eo V7110 cases and a short note with his opinion about this cases.

And this is what Jeff says about these cases:

EO SLIP CASE :

It is big enough to fit the eo with the Extended Battery. The only and biggest problem with this case is that it does not bring any protection to eo's screen. It has the the EO logo and it's made from grey color fabric and it looks elegant.


EO PORTFOLIO CASE :

The portfolio is more rigid but there I also feel that the screen is not enough protected. They should have inserted metal or hard plastic plate in the side toward the screen to protect it. The eo with Extended Battery does not fit to well in this case . The EO portfolio is elegant and it's black with a embroidered TabletKiosk logo in green.

CONCLUSION

I am overall satisfied but it's a shame that the screen is not protected enough in both cases. But something is better than nothing. I feel that a thin metal or plastic plate inserted between the layers of fabric in the case would have done a very good job protecting the screen.

Two good news Q1 related

The first one is that my Q1 is waiting for me at home!

The Second good news and right on time is that Kevin at JKonTheRun got almost every thing working in Vista Running in his Q1. So, I'll play with my Q1 for a few days and the next thing I'm gonna do is install Vista. No in a second partition but in the main one.

What is a UMPC?

I have read a bunch of articles from the so called specialized press about UMPCs and in the majority of all cases I have been left with a bitter test in my mouth. But this is not the case with this article from Informbit.

Firt of all, Matthew David got in his hand two of current UMPCs before he settled to write his review: Samsung Q1 and TabletKiosk eo v7110. And second of all, he found the hidden sense behind these sort of PCs: Real Mobility.

First, you have to figure out what the problem really is. It lies in what we have being trying to accomplish for years: becoming mobile. We've all seen the TV commercials of people happily sitting in cafes, watching their kids at the playground, or sitting on sofa with their laptop or Tablet PC and happily communicating with the outside world. But have you really ever done this?

This article is just one of those that I would recommend to read to anyone trying to understand what is a UMPC and why not to those "PC News Writers" that a few months ago were saying that the Origami Project was going to be this year big fiasco.

Search using ink in Vista

Craig Pringle is working in a new tool that will allows Vista Users to use Vista's Search Feature using Ink!

And the best of all is that he is planning to release this tool as a freeware!

Vista Compatible

I'm glad to announce that iHangman and CTWarranty are both Vista Compatible.

If you have any idea of a database that you would like to have with ink support just let me know about it.

Q1 is close

Tomorrow is the day when I will be able to meet one of the most advertised UMPCs released in these last 6 months! The Samsung Q1

I want to thank Handango and Microsoft for organizing Handango UMPC Application Contest! To have the eo v7110 and now the Samsung Q1 will give me the opportunity to compare both devices in the daily use and write about it in here and in other pages!

i7210 Review

If you are planning to buy an UMPC and you need more information that could help you to take the final decision then you should read the i7210 review at Carrypad.

This revue no only shows in full detail this device but it compares it with other devices in the market showing the pros and cons of each one of them.

The i7210 is in my opinion one of the best UMPCs currently in the market but as you can see from that review this one did not escape either from the wave of minor issues that have been present in all Origamis that have been released at this time.

Like somebody said in that movie from the 30s: Nobody is perfect.

TabletKiosk's new website

TabletKiosk has updated their web site with a better looking and easier to use layout! Way to go TabletKiosk!

PepperPad review coming soon

Probably I'm wrong saying that a PepperPad review is coming soon. I should have said that a serie of articles are going to be published at Carrypad.com about the PepperPad. So stay tunned. For now you can check pictures taken by Steve during the unboxing ceremony.

Mugen Power Batteries

According to an email I received today from Unifirm , the makers of Mugen Power Batteries, they should be shipping the first batch of extended batteries for UMPCs this month!

Multilanguage support in Vista

In the same way it was in XP you can set your TIP to work and recognize multiple languages.

To do that just open Vista Control Panel and follow the numbers in the following two pictures:

And that's it! Listos para escribir en español!

Chess included in Vista

One nice touch from Microsoft is the inclusion in Vista of a Chess Game!

This Chess Game has a very nice 3D view and works fine in UMPCs!

Get use to this...

Screen shot from Vista running in an eo v7110

Spam, Spam and more spam

Two weeks ago I started to get a huge amount of spam from my Support and Registration forms at my site www.tweaks2k2.com , I was getting those spams since long time ago but I did not play attention to them because the amount was not that big. But it reached a point where I just could hold it any more so I contacted the company that I use to maintain my site and they found that my php forms were being used by spammers to send massive campaign of emails. The details of how this can be done that can be found here, it's called Email Injection.

This is a screen shot of a log created with all the attempt of sending spam using my two php forms. Initially we thought that putting one of those confirmation pictures that you see in this same blog comment section or in other pages was going to be enough to stop them but we were wrong. We had to implement few patches to our php mail function and a few filters to each field in those forms to finally kick them in the a...

Another interesting fact is that using the IP address from this log, I contacted the ISP of these guys and reported this abuse and so far I have not heard from any of these providers, like BellSouth, Concast, Earthlink, etc, etc... Those same companies making huge TV campaigns about their efforts to fight Spam with tools installed in their users machines. But the reality is that they do nothing to stop spammers.

The reason why I'm sharing this is because probably some of you have the same situation with your site being used by spammers and you don't know about it.

Hugo's UMPC Basics

Australian UMPC Evangelist Hugo Ortega has shot two videos about how to use an UMPC with what is installed out of the box. These two short videos are a good material to show when you are teaching somebody how to use these devices, they are well explained using words than even my granma would learn how to use it.

Vista Performance Score

One of the features that I like most from Vista is the Performance Score. This score will help users to find what applications and specially games will run or not in their machines. It will also help when you are buying a PC if you are looking for the strongest or faster PC in the market.

Today, Kevin at JKonTheRun has published a nice article about his experience installing Vista in his Samsung Q1. And He posted Vista Performance Score for his device.

And here is Vista Performance Score for my TabletKiosk eo v7110:

Vista's score for both machines is 1.0 based in the smaller score that is the one for the 3D graphics. But I have a different way to analyze these scores and that's calculating the Average Score. In the Samsung Q1 it's 2.6 and the eo V7110 is 2.36

No a big difference as you can see. But keep in mind that eo's score in my case is higher thanks to a HDD running at 7200 RPM while Samsung's HDD runs at 4800 RPM. One point that got my attention was the Memory score where the Q1 scored 4.5 while my eo scored 2.3 if the eo had that score the average score would have been 2.8

I can't remember now what kind of memory I installed in my eo but one thing is for sure, the one used in Kevin's Q1 is a lot faster. And also without any doubt, Samsung Q1 is a faster machine compared to a "regular" TabletKiosk eo V7110. I'm glad that I opted to install the 7200 RPM HDD that makes a big difference.

Tabletkiosk working to fully support Vista

I contacted TabletKiosk to let them know about our progress installing Vista in an eo v7110 and this is what Martin Smekal CEO of the company told me about it:

Hello Frank,

Thanks for the information and update – we’ve been watching the boards on success on running Vista on the eo platform and rest assured we intend to have the whole eo product line support Vista once it is released to the public. We’re taking note of the problem being identified and are working to have patch’s available if required when the final Vista build is released to OEM’s.

-M

Martin J. Smekal
President & CEO
TabletKiosk
386 Beech Ave, Suite 6
Torrance, CA 90501

i7210 fully naked!

I have to say that after what I have seen /read I probably won't be able to sleep well tonight. Steve at Carrypad.com has stripped down up to the bones the i7210! Please, please, do not do this at home unless you are as mad as Steve is.

Believe it or not the above picture is Steve's eo i7210. The good news is that this poor baby survived the whole adventure and Steve found that this UMPC has two stereo MIC with noise reduction; the same technology used in the Samsung Q1. Another good news is that apparently the Ethernet chip used in this UMPC supports 1Gbps and no 100 mbps as it's advertised!