Surface Contest

You can win 1 of 4 prices it you win the contest announced at Surface Blog.

Are you geeking out with Surface? Tweet us your unique Surface scenario with #geekoutsurface from November 18 & 20 for your chance to win* 1 of 4 Surface prize packs – there will be bonus points for pictures and videos . Watch for a post on the @Surface Twitter account at 10:00 am PT on November 18, 2013 that will kick this off – we’ll then begin taking your responses until 11:59 pm PT on November 20, 2013.

Huge update released today for Surface 2

A huge update was released today for Surface RT, Surface 2 and Surface PRO. The Surface PRO 2 was left behind this time. One point that impressed me was the more than 100 MBs of this patch on the Surface 2 and the amount of drivers changes coming from NVIDIA. A sign to Microsoft that clearly ask to increase the quality control in the software coming from this company.

Surface RT only: Battery issue when updating from Windows RT 8.1 Preview

If you updated Surface RT from Windows RT 8.1 Preview to Windows RT 8.1, you may notice a decrease in battery life. During the update, the wireless adapter power policy isn’t migrated. Instead, the power policy is set to a default value that consumes more power both during use and in the connected standby state.

To restore the wireless adapter power policy to the correct settings, open an administrator command prompt:
 Step 1: Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search.
(If you're using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, and then click Search.)
Step 2: In the search box, enter command prompt.
Step 3: Touch and hold (or right-click) Command Promptto bring up the context menu. Tap or click Run as administrator.
Step 4: On the User Account Control dialog box, tap or click Yes.
Step 5: At the Administrator: Command Prompt, enter the following:
powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT 19cbb8fa-5279-450e-9fac-8a3d5fedd0c1 12bbebe6-58d6-4636-95bb-3217ef867c1a 3
Step 6: Then enter
powercfg -setactive scheme_current

Mocha VNC

Finally a VNC application for Windows RT: Mocha VNC. This application allows you to connect remotely no just to any PC but also to any Mac.

I tested in a Surface 2 and it works very well using TightVNC as VNC server.

RT 8.0 Recovery DVD

According to Microsoft's investigation, 1 every 1000 users that applied the Windows RT 8.1 upgrade failed. Thanks God I'm within the other 999 users. And I think that it wasn't luck but my paranoia of keeping my RT updated with the latest released patches.

Anyway, if you are one of the unlucky ones here is the link to the RT recovery DVD released by MS.

WinRT 8.1 is here, my first impressions

After a 6 hours update, one of the longest updates I have done in my 18 years of IT career, I'm using now WinRT 8.1 in my Surface RT. Very quick sometimes, very slow other times, 8.1 is a complete different experience than Windows 8. The experience is overall positive but not without a learning curve because of the changes in some applications such as Mail and IE. This last one is version 11 and instead of using a top and bottom bars now it uses the bottom bar for all it's needs. IE11 open pages quicker but some, specially a google's do not render correctly.

Mail is now a totally different application. Nothing to do with it's first version. Now we have a new interface and a lot more options, and the most important, a better performance.

On of the new features that I love is the way IE opens when you click in a link inserted in an incoming email. To show Apple's fan a real multitasking.

Most of the old Apps have now a new Interface and there are some new ones like Reading List. This App is a must have and use, let's say you found an article online that you want to read but you don't have time. You open the right charm, pick Share and then Reading List.

 

 

 

Then you click Add...

 

The article is saved in your Reading List and synchronized between all devices where you are using your account.

 

Once you have read it you can delete it.

 

 

Very simple but useful application!

Finally a decent Benchmark tool

The famous 3DMark has now a version for Windows RT where we can compare the results against other platforms such as iOS and Android.

Unfortunately I still don't have the score for the Surface 2 but using this same tool we can get an idea of how other devices already using the Tegra 4 are scoring.

The average score for the Surface RT is 3205, judging the score from the above table, the Surface 2 should be performing from 3.5 to 4 times faster. I hope that I'm right in this comparison.

Two videos demostrating what can be done in a Surface RT

I don't know how may times I have discussed online and with my friends about how unfair the so called "specialized press" has been in reference to the Surface RT. But videos are more robust in explaining and proving that the reality is far from what you read in the web. Here are two videos from a Surface RT owner showing real life scenarios of him using his RT.



In the second half of the second video you will see why talking or pointing to the impossibility of running the so called "legacy applications" in a Surface is the highest level of none sense that I have ever seen. I'm running legacy applications from my RT a lot better than any hack or shell or port that anyone including MS can come out with!

The new Surface

Today Microsoft has announced the new Surface. Both, the PRO and the now just Surface have been refreshed obtaining more battery life and performance. The PRO is getting a docking station that converts this machine in a workstation. The cover keyboard has been also redesigned now with backlit and more touch points, a lot more, up to the point that now you can use gestures on it. Both machines have been updated with Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 RT. The price in both 2 versions is a little bit lower than the initial price from last year release.



The whole event can be seen here

Moving your libraries to removable drive

I have tested two methods to move the libraries to the MicroSD card in a Surface RT and so far this is the only method where everything works as supposed after the trick. The method is long but believe me, it's well explained and it's not too complex at all. Summarizing, it's based in the idea of using a Virtual Drive. By using a Virtual Drive you are getting the possibility of indexes the folders included in the libraries and that's the main ingredient to have features like Photos, Videos and Music, working properly.