Humans have short memory

I'm going to post today a fragment of an article where I have removed the Operating System name in a few places. 

[Operating System Name in here] is also a Trojan horse that enables Mr Gates and a horde of even less welcome folks to invade your privacy, exploit your computer and empty your wallet.

So why are all these idiots in computer stores drooling at the prospect? Answer: because [Operating System Name in here] is a monstrous, bloated brute that requires a state-of-the- art PC and two gigabytes of hard disk space before it will even say 'hello'. This means any consumer foolish enough to want to run [Operating System Name in here] will probably have to buy a new PC.

Does not this sounds familiar to you? is not it like the author is talking about Vista? Well, be surprised, this article was posted at The Observer, in October 21st of 2001 and it was talking about Windows XP. The same Windows XP that many are now recommending to stay with instead of installing Vista.

Have you heard of Mojave Experiment? Click in the link and check the videos in there. They are self explanatory.

More than 750 free eBooks for your Kindle

Diesel eBooks has put together a list of more than 750 eBooks in PRC format that can be downloaded from  and read it in your Kindle.

There are very good classics from Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Jule Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, etc. And all of them, like I said, already formatted to be read in your Kindle. That page is also Kindle friendly so you can access it on your Kindle and download the files using your Kindle.

SanDisk releases 30MB/s SDHC cards

This is a very good news for those looking for a fast memory card to use it with Vista Readyboost.

SanDisk is releasing 30MBps SDHC that can write 39 6MB frames at 4.5 frames per second without stopping to take a breath. These cards are 10MBps up from the former 20MBps cards offered earlier.

CrunchGear

Vista Annoyances Resolved

So far the best article I have read about Vista and its so called "issues".  The author shows with facts that we are living now with Vista the same process that we lived years ago with XP. And not only that, the author presents a series of tips to make your Vista experience a lot better.

An operating system is no ordinary piece of software - it's the platform upon which a potentially limitless combination of hardware and software operates. A lot of the 'annoyances' people often quote are actually default features deliberately designed to accommodate the broadest range of uses and users. In other words Microsoft has configured Vista to suit the 'average user' by default, however there is no such thing as an actual average user; each and every user is different. For this reason Microsoft has also provided a large number of settings and options both above and beneath the hood of Windows so that end users with the appropriate knowledge or guidance can customize Vista to better suit their particular needs. That's where this article and the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion (see below) come in. The aim is to provide you with the relevant information and guidance to help you understand how things work, point you to the tools you can use to customize the settings, and the impact those changes are likely to have.

VIA and robots

What a UMPC and a robot could have in common?

Well, you can read the answer in the above photo, a VIA processor. And if the picture does not convince you, here is a video:

Apple and Wibrain?

One of the visitors to Wibrain Kiosk at IDF was Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple.

Is Apple exploring the market to make it own UMPC?

Unboxing the Kohjinsha SX2, JKK Style

Here is a video that you don't want to miss about one of the best UMPC or mini Tablet, whatever name you prefer, in the market.

UMPC are here to stay

This is a very nice article that I found today and that I would recommend to read to anyone that still have doubts about the UMPC platform. 

Some critics seem to think that UMPC (ultra mobile PCs) are just a fad. Wrong. They're here to stay.

The author is completely right. UMPC are today stronger than ever.

Viliv S7

Chippy from UMPCPortal has found at IDF a new UMPC that will be released in the first quarter of 2009. This one has a shape of a mini Tablet PC with a 7 inches display and will use an Atom processor. I hope that it uses the dual core Atom announced yesterday by Intel. That would be nice.

Lenovo ideapad S10 Netbook - Hands-On

Lenovo releases recently a 10 inches display netbook. A machine that your can fully appreciate in this video.

The use of a latest generation Atom processor at 1.6 GHz should give this machine a really good performance.

The New Way: A Tablet PC is my office.

Are you wonder how a Tablet PC can help you in your business? Check this video:

Fully paperless! That's the way to go!

Atom Dual Core

Intel just announced the release in September of a dual core version of the mobile processor Atom.

It looks like we'll be seeing Intel's new dual-core Atom 330 on the market sooner rather than later. The chip will launch in September accompanied by a refreshed D945GCLF2 motherboard, and is targeted at entry-level computer users, users in emerging markets, PC enthusiasts who want a basic home PC, and customized point-of-sale terminals.

Wow! That's good news. Finally Intel is taking care of performance.

Intel announces dual-core Atom, chains it to 945C chipset

Reporting from IDF

If you want to know what is going at IDF you then don't want to miss this video with our friend Steve "Chippy" and Jeff Moriarty.

Sunlight visibility

That's a question that I have been asked many times and that has been answered wonderfully at Pocketeables.net

Since many prospective UMPC buyers want to know how readable a particular device's display is outdoors and in direct sunlight, my husband and I headed to Kawaikui Beach Park in nearby Aina Haina this afternoon to find out. We stacked my HTC Shift, Willcom D4, Sony Vaio UX180P, Fujitsu U810, Kohjinsha SC3, and the Gigabyte M704 I have on loan from Direct From Japan in a travel bag, cranked up their screen brightness levels, and set them up on a picnic table. Have a closer look below.

In my own experience none of these devices compare to a Fujitsu P1620 or P1610 outdoor screen.

Tweaks2k2 24 hours Back to School Event!

When I'm not blogging here I'm working on Tweaks2k2, the registry hacking tool for Pocket PC and Smart Phones. And I know that many of you probably have given your children a Pocket PC know that they are going back to school. So I have decided to help you a little bit reducing the price of my application for 24 hours.

Tweaks2K2 24 Hours Event!

Dell Inspiron 910 Mini Note, available this Friday?

I know that many of you are waiting to see what is going to happen with this UMPC. And the main reason is because Dell is well known for having very low prices in devices with very good potential sells. 

Now we've gotten our hands on the full (internal) 910 web documentation. Along with scoping shots from every angle, we've learned that the 910 will support SSDs up to 16GB and has what looks to be very moddable internals (large Phillips-head screws hold that SSD in place). The system will go on sale in just a few days, August 22nd our source says, but we still don't know whether or not that $299 starting price is just a myth.

Leaked: Dell Inspiron 910 (Mini Note) Specs and Release Date

3 New Tablets coming from HP next month

HP announced today the release of 3 more tablet pcs according to this news published at CrunchGear.

HP today introduced three ultra-portable notebook computers, including a three-pound(1) EliteBook, the smallest and lightest HP notebook with a built-in optical drive.

The prices on these Tablets go from 1000  up to 1600 dollars.

PS: After reading the whole news again, it's not clear to me if it's just one Tablet PC and two notebooks or 3 Tablet PCs.

Speed Launch

This is a little application coming from Microsoft Office Labs. 

This is the first community prototype from Office Labs. Community prototypes are projects Microsoft employees work on in their spare time. Speed Launch's goal is to let you get to the stuff you use faster and with less frustration.

Vídeo: Introduction to Speed Launch

I have not tested it yet but according to this Spanish site, it uses 30 MB of RAM.

Know your enemy

This comment was left recently at my blog in a post where I was talking about a video showing a laptop thief in plain action:

its actually quite simple go to best buy when its busy, ask for something compact like me i asked for a mac book air, i shoped for a bit hid it under my coat mind you it was winter at the time, so i was not standing out like a sore thumb, picked something out got to the register paid for it, i walked out the alarm went off, and said oops and showed the guy my reciept with my bag and cd i bought, and walked out, went home played around with my new mac book air for a few weeks, and then sold it on ebay now $1,800 richer :D number 1 way to get away with it stay calm, the goon squad at best buy cant touch you or intercept you, all they can do is call the cops but if you notice a lot of store drones looking at you thats a good hint to GTFU and scan your suroundings for signs of the MAN on your tail.

I'm not saying that whoever wrote this is for real a thief but judging by the spelling this could be the case. The main reason I'm posting it now in the main page is to show our readers how these guys work. Every store should train employees in the same way Casinos do. A simple one hour training showing all these little tricks could save them thousands of dollars. Sometimes a video surveillance system is not enough.

ULTRA MOBILE PC TIPS: How to steal a laptop

1 million UMPC from Dell may be coming soon

A little note published today at Blocks and Files says that Dell is about to release 1 million UMPC to the market. 

According to a source Dell has a soon-to-be launched ultra-mobile notebook computer which will use STEC solid state drives (SSD)

The news is talking about the Dell E Netbook, a device that was not released this week like many tech specialist were expecting - including me.

Tell editors what you want to read

There is one gadget that I use more than my cell phone and believe it or not sometimes even more than my lovely P1610, this gadget is my Kindle. Today I read that there are more than 150000 books converted by Amazon and editors to eBook. And the best news, they have created a way to tell editors what you want to read in your Kindle if it not available yet in the Kindle Store.

Everun Note performance... too good to be true

Steve, from UMPC Portal has received today a Benchmark of the newest Everun Note. The benchmark came from Raon Digital and here is what Steve says about it:

Raon have sent over some early marketing material for the Everun Note and theres a whole lot of interesting information in it. The most interesting is a set of Crystal Mark test results that are showing stunning processing performances figures that are way faster than anything on the UMPC and netbook market. It blows the 1.3Ghz Core-based Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium out of the water and netbooks are going to look extremely slow beside it!

Ok, I have been collecting benchmarks scores in all UMPCs here and that score in that benchmark is just too good to be true. If that score is real we have the first UMPC/Netbook with a performance hard to reach even in the best Laptops available in the market. We have a champion, a Gold Medal. Sorry Raon Digital, I know that your guys read my posts and I have to be clear, being a fact that this benchmark comes from you, the makers of that machine I can't post this score in my table until I see a confirmation from somebody else. The number is unrealistically good. 

The Raon Digital's Everun Note is the first UMPC/Netbook using an AMD Dual Core processor. AMD has been used by this company before and the performance was not too good in those machines. Another point was heat, these machines ran a little bit "hot" so this opens another question, would be able to fry bacons in the Everun Note using this AMD Dual Core processor? What's the battery life in this machine?

Again... Raon Digital, I hope that you reply back with more data because this screen shot has opened a Pandora Box.

New Netbook from Raon Digital

Raon Digital, the maker of the Everun and Vega UMPCs will release soon a new UMPC, this time it's a Netbook called Everun Note, according to news published today at Aving USA.

Weighing 742g, the EVERUN NOTE features a 7-inch LCD screen with 1,024*600 resolution, 1.3M webcam, Bluetooth connectivity, and electronic dictionary function. Running on Windows XP Home Edition, it can has various storage space ranging from 12GB SSD to 80GB HDD.

This UMPC will use an AMD Turion 64x2 Dual Core 1.2GHz, 1MB L2 Cache and an ATI Graphic card with 32 Mb of DDR2 Memory. This will be the first Netbook using a Dual Core processor but AMD so still we don't have any numbers to compare the performance of this device with the others of it's kind in the market.

TEO 3 is free

I don't know how I have missed this news about one of the best Tablet PC Applications I have ever tested.

Tablet Enhancements for Outlook 3 has recently been changed for a commercial application to a free for all software program that adds much needed tablet PC support to Microsoft Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Outlook 2007. It runs on a wide variety of hardware including Tablet PCs, UMPCs (Ultra Mobile PCs) or an Origami device running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition or Windows Vista.

Via ghacks

iHangMan for UMPCs and Tablet PCs now Freeware

A short note to say that I have decided to unlock iHangman  and release it as freeware.

HangMan is one of older Paper Games known. According to Wikipedia Hangman is a paper and pencil guessing game for two players. One player thinks of a word and the other tries to guess it by suggesting letters.

This is a version of the game prepared for UMPCs and Tablet PCs where the computer thinks the word and it's our task to guess it. The game comes with 3 lists of words, the main list of around 1000 words, the list of Capitals of Countries and the List of Countries names. You can create your own list of words in a TXT file adding one word per row, this feature makes the games virtually new every time that you add a new list of words to be used by the program. This game is a perfect tool to practice your handwriting with the Tablet PC recognizer. You can also use it as a learning tool to teach your kids new words making the learning process a big fun.

Tweaks2k2.com - iHangMan for UMPCs and Tablet PCs

NBC using "ink" at the Olympics

The above picture shows NBC using "ink" during a swimming competition in the Olympic Games! Cool Effect!

Linux, kill it or save it.

It's more profitable to kill Linux than to save it. And I'm going to prove you that. I posted two news about Linux at todoUMPC. The first one was quoting my friend Daniel's article "Why Mobile Linux is Doomed" and another one about Ubuntu Mobile published at Linux Planet. This last one was asking for help to make Ubuntu fully work in a Q1 Celeron UMPC. Guess what happened, the negative article about Linux is breaking traffic records while the positive one asking to work for a full version of Linux has been completely ignored.

We, bloggers, are some sort of entertainers,  we need traffic in our sites. What is the fun of having a blog if nobody reads it? Did you get my point? So, now do you understand why I said that is more profitable to kill Linux than to save it.

And that's part of the problem with Linux. There is a lot of people defending it but just a few working on it.

Kohjinsha SX3KP06MA / SX3WP06MA video review!

Today the Kohjinsha SX series has been released to the market and already some video reviews started to appear in the web. Here is one of them.

The SX series is the first UMPC that includes a DVD Drive.

Intel Video driver for P1610

Fujitsu's Laptops, UMPCs and Tablet PCs are one of the best in the market, no questions about it, but at the same time Fujitsu's Drivers Support is the worse I have seen in a long time. To give you an idea, the Intel video driver for the P1610 listed at Fujitsu web site is from early 2007 and the latest Intel Driver for the 945GM is from June 2008. But wait a minute. That latest driver from Intel does not work well in Fujitsu's P series. It causes a processor overload every time you turn on the unit or when you rotate the screen. That overload cost you around a minute of your time waiting for getting control of your tablet.

 

Anyway... I found yesterday that there is a newer video driver at Fujitsu Siemens support web site if you look under P1620. The version number is 7.14.10.1329. I installed and I find it working a little better than the latest one listed under the P1610 which is version 7.14.10.1147.

 

Oh... I updated the list of drivers installed on my P1610, in case anyone wants to compare.

ThoughtFix: Why Mobile Linux is Doomed

Our friend Daniel from ThoughtFix has published a very good article about Linux and why he think that it's doomed. And that made me remember and old Greek saying "Split and you will win". Too many flavors that the only thing they do is to get newbies confused.

It's a shame. I will miss the excitement of mobile Linux systems. I hope some company is strong (or wealthy) enough to provide developers with the tools, distribution channels, and incentives to provide a rich application directory for their devices. Failing that, mobile Linux is doomed.

"Multi-Touch" Hologram

The author of this article is right. I'm afraid that what you are about to see in this video is far from being "multi-touch" but I'm sure about one thing, it's awesome.

Here is the latest. Alright, alright, it is not really "multi-touch", because you really don't touch anything. The system just senses where the presenters hands are and allow him to interact. Multiple people could be doing this too.

Lenovo Netbook

Lenovo is about to release a Netbook according to news published today at AVING USA.

Adopting a 10-inch screen with 1,024*600(WSVGA) resolution and LED backlight, the IdeaPad S10 can be equipped with either 512MB memory and 80GB HDD or 1GB memory and 160GB HDD. Supporting 1.3M built-in camera and two USB ports, it comes with three different colors including black, red and white.

10 inches display is too big to consider this device a UMPC.

VIA responds

Like I said, I contacted VIA asking for an explanation And I going to post here the entire test of two emails I received:

Ctitanic,
I sent this email to JKK and Steve at UMPC portal and I saw you are looking for a response also on your article :)
Highlights... Jkk is using at 901 in his video, we compared a 1000H, we did ours running both on battery in auto-mode... (read the full email for full comparison details :)
If you have other questions let me know.
Cheers,
Tim

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Timothy J. Brown
Date: Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 4:21 PM
Subject: VIA responds...
To: jkkmobile@

Hi Jkk and Steve,
I saw the numerous comments on your sites... and other sites... about the recent video we released comparing VIA Nano and Intel Atom HD video performance.
I'm the guy in the video and I thought maybe I could send you a response as opposed to try and go around commenting everywhere and maybe address some of the questions people may have had.
First off I'd like to say... Wow! We had no idea how popular or inciting this video was going to be.... and I'd like to say we certainly weren't trying to tell people how to watch video, or on what type of device to watch video on, or in what resolution.  Also its great to see people so passionate about their mini-notes and the Asus EeePC! The relatively new mini-note category is important to VIA so we're really surprised and very impressed by the passionate interest.
In fact recently we had just done a round of independent 3rd party benchmarking tests which were really positive for the VIA Nano and we wanted to find a way for people who don't read benchmarks or visit those kinds of site a way to visually see the performance difference between our CPU and our competitors CPU. Its very difficult to isolate CPU performance on products as you know although some independent 3rd party benchmark reviews can be found here:
Intel Atom vs.VIA Nano -HardOCP
Low-end grudge match: Nano vs. Atom -ars technica
So video performance is a "visual" way to show off our performance. We chose a 1080p HD video to really stress the compared CPUs and we chose a VIA OpenBook prototype to plop a VIA Nano 1.3HGz processor into because its the closest thing we have to a comparable product at the moment that we are allowed to talk about (although that will change soon!). The prototype we used nicely demoed our pin for pin upgrade compatibility for our processors but is in no way was it optimized to run the VIA Nano processor the way our customers products will be when they are launched. So our customers VIA Nano based products in fact should have even better performance.
Presently of course we have no way to do an exact apples for apples comparison (and to satisfy everyone I don't think there ever will be since so many other platform factors come into play) but we thought we'd take another mini-note using our competitors highest CPU sku (Intel Atom 1.6GHz) and play them side by side so people could see the difference for themselves. In this case, because we had one on hand, we used the Asus EeePC 1000H. Both machines in the test ran with 1GHz of ram, and both use 2.5" SATA hard drives.
We purposely chose one of our lower sku VIA Nano 1.3GHz processor's to compare against Intel's highest sku to not only show its great performance but to help simplify people's questions about power consumption. Power consumption is something experts seldom agree on and your average consumer has very little idea about in terms of what it means to them in terms of overall power consumption or battery life, or their power bill.  I would be very willing to discuss in an interview with you this subject if you thought people would be interested in how VIA approaches these issues. We're very convinced that our Nano power consumption is more than competitive to the Atom and we'd love to go into the lengthy discussion about how we see that.
I saw some 901 test result videos added to your sites which use SSD drive and I believe also a Celeron CPU, it looks like the results may have been different. For this reason we tried to show in the graphics in the video and the title of our video that we were comparing CPUs. In fact this whole video controversy highlights the platform differences between VIA and Intel... on another day I would also love to do an interview with you regarding that very subject!
We chose a 1080p HD video as I mentioned to stress the CPUs, but in fact depending on other factors such a bit rate for example, performance results can widely vary for HD videos. So the best we could do is have both machines run the same video. Yes 720p videos can be played by different CPUs, its just not the video we chose for our comparison, which people can download and run for themselves here:
I think a lot of the comments you can see people talking about how to properly tune your 1000H so it can play HD video. Our thinking process was... lets do this while running on batteries. The beauty of these mini-note product category is their mobility and most of us internally at VIA were thinking.. If I'm in a place where I could be plugged in (maybe at home) I'll probably watch 1080p HD video on a different device... like my HD TV. So to be fair in as much of a like for like comparison we ran both devices on batteries in "auto mode" that way the processors have the option to scale up their performance to meet the task if they need to. I don't know why but the Atom didn't when we ran our video.
As to the video style... the music, the use of quotes from Intel. Well we did intend for the video to be a little dramatic and set a " product for product challenge" type of tone and we did want to show our philosophy about our product. For VIA the VIA Nano is a very important product, our confidence in our product and marketing approach certainly needs to reflect that. Sadly we don't have a 300 million dollar marketing budget or control over our customer/partners to drive our product into the hearts and minds of consumers. So this is one of the approaches we are taking.
I don't know Paul Otellini personally so I can only get Intel's philosophy on their products from the public face they put on it. So to show our different corporate philosophies to both companies products I took those Intel quotes used in our video from a July 15th CNET article: "Intel CEO on Atom chip shortage, flash problems" -
Intel predicts its shortages will end around the same time VIA Nano based products hit the market so I think its relevant for VIA to show this kind of performance video now so consumers can make better educated when products are readily available. I realize some Atom based products are available now of course.
...In the end what really matters is the consumer experience on devices and we're getting really close to a point where people will be able experience VIA Nano based devices of all sorts and see for themselves. In the meantime I'm open for dialogue and speaking to the community, as well as educating about our products.
Thanks for the opportunity to respond.
Tim Brown
International Marketing Manager
VIA Technologies, Inc.
www.via.com.tw

VIA Nano vs Intel Atom, HD playback, Part 2

Today in the morning I reported about a video playback comparison between the new Nano and the Intel Atom processors. And today I got a comment at my blog pointing me to a new tests this time ran by our friend JKK using the Eee with Atom processor and the same video used by VIA on that comparison and the results are completely different.

If we posted about the first video I think we should post about this second one too. To be fair. Now, I know JKK and I know that he is a master optimizing any device to get the best performance. I remember him cutting down the numbers of processes running on Vista up to a level that I never have seen on any of my UMPCs. That said, my guess is that VIA's Eee was not optimized at all and probably the Openbook was optimized. But I'm here speculating something that I should not do. Let's see what VIA has to say about this other video because I would like to hear an explanation. 

jkkmobile: VIA Nano vs Intel Atom, HD playback

VIA Nano-based OpenBook vs. Intel Atom-based Asus Eee PC

A few days ago I reported about a benchmark comparison between the Atom CPU and the VIA Nano where the last one was scoring higher. I have to confess that my previous experiences with VIA were far from being too good from the point of view of video performance. I had a lot of problems with my old Amtek T700 to get any kind of video playing well. Then I tested the OQO 02 where the graphics were a little bit better but still not there. But today I got this video from VIA where they put the VIA Nano under a test using a video that I know very well and that I have used in many of my tests. And the Nano passed that test without any hesitation. But that's not all. They put an Asus Eee PC with an Intel Atom processor under the same tests and check yourself the results in this video.

I have to add that I liked this video. It's aggressive but fair. In the last two years Intel has done anything but to play with consumers using their reputation as main marketing tool.  

Free Kindle e-book via Whispernet

Wow! Yes, you can read this novel that has not been published yet in your Kindle for free if you look for it and download it in your Kindle. In another words, free if you use your Kindle to get it.

Amazon and publisher Grove/Atlantic from today will be giving away a free copy of the new novel Spirit House by Christopher G Moore to Amazon Kindle customers, beginning today Kindle owners can go to the Kindle page for Spirit House and download a free copy of the e-book via Whispernet.

Via:  Blog Kindle