I have loved my Q1 from day 1. I was very pleased when Frank Garcia of Ultra Mobile PC Tips posted a link to the HID drivers for the touch screen. After my last rebuild, I’m having a bit of an issue with the drivers that is easier to show than explain. I’ll let the video do the talking.
If there is anyone else out there having this problem, I would like to know - particularly if they have a workaround.
I love flying in airplanes with personal entertainment monitors in the seats. The flight is so much more enjoyable when you can select the entertainment instead of being at the mercy of the airline’s movie de jour. The last two times I’ve had access to them, however, they have had stability issues. The first time, the system had to be rebooted about 5 times. This last time, the problem only required two reboots… but this time, I had the camera ready.
As you can see from the photo below, the client runs on Linux. From the way that all of the monitors rebooted in unison and the messages that scrolled past during boot, each monitor appears to be a simple remote console to a central server (which makes the most sense - I wouldn’t expected a full PC to be integrated into the seat). It’s pretty cool, but not quite as stable as I think it should be.
I’m just glad the computers in the cockpit run on a different system. Having to reboot at 500 miles per hour would be a bummer. :^)
I saw this kiosk at one of the many airports I’ve visited recently. I’m not ready to sign up for a Palm Store franchise as my next investment any time soon. I think I’d be more inclined to invest in something with a bit more certainty to it like maybe a shave ice hut at the South Pole or a surf shop in Arkansas.
All joking aside, I think Palm needs to revamp its product lineup before these kiosks are a good idea. Their product line is showing its age in a bad way. I went and looked at the limited hardware they were selling and two-thirds of it was non-Palm accessories like bluetooth headsets.
This article at Engadget introduces some of the coolest gadget news I’ve seen in a while. The basic gist behind the technology is that every pixel in this new display contains an optical sensor which can be used for touch recognition or document scanning. Imagine the possibilities!I’ve been attending a technical trade show for the last 3 days in Orlando, Florida. Earlier today I had the chance to get my hands on a Q1 Ultra for a few minutes. I didn’t have long, but my first impressions included the following:
My conclusion is that I would take the device if someone gave it to me, but it’s not enough for me to make the $1100 jump from my current UMPC. The 5 minutes I had with the computer wasn’t nearly enough to form a complete opinion, but this is my first take. I wish I could have spent more time with it to give it a full run-down.
As much as I would love to have a Samsung Q1 organize with keyboard, I just can’t bring myself to pay more than a hundred dollars for the combination. Since I’m cheapskate, I have struggled to find myself a good alternative case to keep my Q1 protected until very recently. At the last conference I went to, they gave away a simple zipped portfolio that works very well. Here is a picture of the portfolio:
And then with my Q1 inside (you can see how well it fits):
Now I keep my Q1 protected, it’s out of sight, and it gets quite the surprise factor when I unzip my portfolio to take notes. I imagine that you would be able to pick up something like this at Staples, Office Depot, etc. pretty cheaply.
I used to just love standing at the magazine rack browsing through some of my favorite magazines. The other day while I was walking through the grocery store, I realized that those days are long gone for me. By the nature of the things I am intersted in, print magazines don’t meet my needs because the information is outdated by the time it hits the shelf. I’m interested in the latest news, not what was cool when the magazine was being put together.
Here is a sampling of the magazines I used to enjoy and the web pages that have replaced them
Outdoor Photographer -> Fred Miranda (they need an RSS feed!)
Popular Photography -> Digital Photography Review
Popular Science -> Engadget
Mountain Bike Action -> MtbREVIEW.com
Laptop Magazine -> JK on the Run
Maximum PC -> Extreme Tech
These web pages (and more like them), have expanded my access to the information I am interested in. They do it better, cheaper, and faster than the magazines ever did. In addition, they are written by real people that I’ve grown to respect instead of some team of faceless editors. How long will it be before the dead-tree versions of news are nothing but a memory?
The other day, I had a quick sit down meeting with my manager’s manager. He’s a busy guy and we literally had 3-4 minutes to hammer something out on a web page. Most of the content we needed was already there somewhere, we just had to reformat things. As I watched him cut and paste text by going through the “Edit” menu of his browser, I thought I might just die before we finished.
I couldn’t think of a non-condescending way to tell him that he could either right-click, or (heaven forbid) use a keyboard shortcut, or even just drag and drop the text to make his life much easier. After several minutes of him fighting through this process and me holding back screams of pain, we were done. As I walked out of the room, I remembered many such instances of this episode from my days of desk-side IT help.
We’ve all been through it, but I’m open to any suggestions on how you help someone at an executive level see the light without insulting their intelligence. What do you say when, “Hey moron” just won’t do?
I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of controlling gadget lust lately. I’ve been diligently suppressing my desire for an iPhone, a new Tablet PC, and a whole host of other gadgets. Tonight however, I watched Hugo Ortega;s video review of the HTC Shift and I may have met my match. It seems to be the perfect device for me and it’s going to be hard to look at my poor Q1 the same again. It’s not fair to the Samsung, but no one ever promised fair, right?
The battery on my XV6700 has been dying really fast in the last two weeks. How fast you ask? About 10% every minute when I use the phone! I can get a bit more than 10 minutes out of a full charge. The image here was taken after about 10 minutes of PDA usage.
Since I bought it off of someone else, I figured the battery was just aging, so I ordered an OEM replacement. When that didn’t fix the problem, I decided to contact Verizon. Try to imagine getting less than stellar customer service from a wireless provider…go ahead.
Poor customer service was all I received when I called tech support. I hung up and called my local store and someone (didn’t take his name like I should have) said to bring the phone in and they would replace it. When I arrived at the store however, I was met with nearly contemptuous treatment since I did not purchase the phone directly from Verizon. I was told my only option was to spend $519 on a replacement phone.
Then yesterday, I thought I would try walking in to a different store and was finally met by people who cared about me as a customer. They agreed to test the phone and in the end got on the phone with tech support in my behalf and negotiated a replacement phone for only $50. It’s a refurbished unit, but a replacement nonetheless. If the whole situation would have started where it ended, I would be giving Verizon an A+ for customer service. As it was, I give them a solid B.