Technology for everyone
review
iPad stand production update
0The SLS stand iPad stands are still in production. But fear not, the first run will be available shortly. This first run is a trial run of 80 stands, 40 clear and 40 smoke colored to test the market. To make sure you are among the first to receive a SLS Stand iPad stand hit up the link below and check back regularly for availability. http://bit.ly/aRIGfE
Dell Mini 10v has arrived! ( for me anyway)
02 years ago
I received my Dell mini 10v by FedEx on Friday and quickly began the changing. I installed Windows 7 and all the drivers I could from dell. I charged the battery up and updated the bios. It’s curious that there were two bios upgrades already.
I then watched an episode of Royal Pains on Hulu, to assess the video behavior and was not unpleased. The video was as good as my Toshiba, as long as I buffered a bit, and played full screen.
One thing I don’t like is that when it goes to sleep, the SD card doesn’t wakeup.
I am typing this on my Mini 10v and find the keyboard is a bit small but larger than the mini9. I like the function key utility that allows what would be a Fn+ stoke to just be the key. Making volume adjustments a one key affair.
I bought mine with the 16gb SSD and the six cell battery for all day life.
Stay tuned for upadates as I continue to explore the uses of a netbook.
To Hulu or Tv.com, that is the question
03 years ago
tv.com, the new kid on the block of online video delivery is certainly trying to be big as reported by ars technica. Unfortunately CBS is bringing along the old style tv annoyance’s. Too many ads on the page and ads that block the view. If they hope to make this work CBS need to understand that the users of online video want it easy to find, easy to start and minimal distractions from the show. Hulu.com has gotten the message. I have bookmarks to the shows I follow and the que for shows I want to follow but don’t go to the show URL all the time. Hulu also has a way to see all the shows with full video in a easy to understand page.
CBS did make sure the catalog of tv.com was full, just not full of video. Of the three shows I am interested in, Kolchak, the Night Stalker (revisiting the past), Lost and Smallville, none of these had any full length video. The one other show I was hoping to get older video of, NCIS, only had the current season and of those the one I started to watch, was missing several minutes from the beginning. I know this because I have a Netflix account and the current season of NCIS is available there.
In the end it will be you, the patron, that will decide which site will win out.
Blackjack II, an update
03 years ago
Steven writes “it’s been a few months – are you still happy with your BJII?
And a couple of other things I’m looking for, before I buy one, maybe you know – flash (as you mentioned), a good Twitter client, and is there a connector for it’s calendar to Google Calendar?” as a comment.
Well Steven, I am still happy with it. AT&T upgraded our area to 3G so the data is much faster. Skype finally fixed the window mobile version, although the voice quality is still poor, likely due to the data speeds as my PC client is fine. The bluetooth updates to WM6.1 allow me to listen to music and audible books via my headset.
Sadly flash is still missing unless you purchase Opera Mobile. Microsoft is hinting at licensing it for windows mobile but it is not yet available. There is a sync tool between Google calendar and outlook, but not for windows mobile directly, hopefully in the future since the Blackberry has one. You can view your calendar via the web though.
I have not found a twitter client for windows mobile yet, I have started using ping.fm and emailing my updates so that I can update several services at one time. The browser on the BJ II allows you to read and post fairly easy, just not auto update to watch. You would have to turn on messaging to get push updates.
For video posting the camera works great, the little mirror helps you to point the camera at you if you are the subject and the quality is good, for a phone camera. I use qik.com for broadcasting, if I could find someting better than another test to broadcast. The delays I talk about in my test shots are only visable to me while I shoot. After it is on the site there is no delay or pausing.
I use my phone as part of a whole. I did try to use my aging palm Zire 72 as part also but the calander would get multiple entries with the sync going to the phone and outlook. Now I make Google calander the master and sync to outlook. I send email and test messages as reminders, from Google. I have nevefr liked the calendar on windows mobile, I was spoiled by Palm and Agendus. There is an Agendus for windows mobile, it was not stable the last time I tried it.
I plan on replacing the palm component of my gear with a Dell mini 9, when I can get hte money together to do it.
Over all I still think the phone was a good purchase.
My pad, your pad, iPad
0My iPad showed up Saturday about 1pm, after an anxious wait. It was glorious, it looked just like the one Leo opened on TWIT.tv, no surprise there. I proceeded to open it up, sync the apps and some content and start testing.
It came fully charged and powered right up. When first connected it to the hub for syncing it caused an error in iTunes that I first thought was due to using my iPod cable. Later on I found that it would sync fine using the cable for my 30gb iPod.
My next problem was the no charging message by the battery. When watching the unpacking video
by Andy Ihnatko he asserted that the iPad would charge, slowly, while connected to the computer and quickly while connected to the 10 watt adapter provided. Apple has now provided guidance to confirm that while connected to a normal usb port the iPad will only charge while asleep.
I connected to my WPA2 encrypted network with ease and proceeded to test apps. I showed my wife the bright screen, slick way the screen was accessed and rotated, and went on to set up dropbox and box.net for shared content access.
Setting up the email client was simple, allowing me to get and send email from my gmail account. Testing the Netflix app was a breeze and worked better than the media center app. I signed into my Netflix account and chose an episode of Murder She Wrote to view. It started right up and when the iPad was rotated it expanded to fill the screen.
Then I pulled up the map and the pinch showed it’s value, zooming in and out, rotating the map orientation. That is so slick. Google Earth is another beautiful app showing satellite images of the earth along with other information about the areas you zoom in to see.
I found that I had not put the ibook app on and needed to sync my contacts from gmail, so back to the pc. When I opened ibook I found a free book installed, Winnie the Pooh. Adding The adventures of Sherlock Holmes from the Gutenberg project was simple and took only a minute to complete.
My first day experience was great and I would recommend this for anyone who wants to access web content, ebooks, music, video, and audio books.
I did not make my own unboxing video. Andy’s video referenced above is just too complete. I will bring more reviews as I proceed to use Keynote, the VGA adapter and test my connectify hotspot software with my AT&T data plan.