I’m talking about retiring Geekblog, not from Intel (A guy can dream, can’t he?). I guess that more appropriate than “retiring” would be “moving” because I have moved the content of this site and started to add new content at a new home: www.UMPCGeek.com.
I have decided to move for a few reasons:
The first reason is because I think ultra mobile computing (not necessarily UMPC’S) is the future of computing technology. That is where my interest and passion lie and I wanted a site that reflected this.
The second reason is trivial, but important to me. It bugs me when people abuse domain extensions and Geekblog.org isn’t consistent with my desire to one day be compensated for tech writing. The .com extension at UMPCGeek may make no difference to anyone else, but will help me sleep better at night (well …).
The third reason is because my junior high English teacher said it’s always good to have three good reasons when writing a persuasive piece. :^)
So with that, I am going to bid everyone farewell here at Geekblog and invite you to update your bookmarks or feeds to keep up with my adventures in ultra mobile computing at www.UMPCGeek.com!
There was a little too much labor going on in the Jarvis household over Labor Day weekend. Project number one was painting my daughter’s room on Saturday. It took about half the day to get things looking just the way we envisioned, and I was glad that my UMPC was along for the ride. The audio quality of the Q1 is amazing, so I used it to listen to about an hour of internet radio, part of Leo Laporte’s Tech Guy radio show, and eventually music from my iTunes library. Between all of this, there was some quick web surfing when the boss (my wife…love you honey) wasn’t looking! The Q1 made the whole job more pleasant.
It’s this type of usage that makes the UMPC such a great “companion” device - but more on that later…
Wow, I thought that HP had given up on the iPaq line of PDA’s. It has disappointed me that they haven’t done any development on what I always considered to be the best PDA hardware lineup available. Today I read over on thewired that they are getting ready to release two new PocketPC phone editions. Very cool.
The 600 series phone pictured here is a candy bar style with a touch sensitive scroll wheel running Windows Mobile 6. I’d love to see one of these in person.
Here’s a little undocumented tip for you Samsung Q1 owners out there: if you hold down the menu button while rocking the volume switch, it adjusts the screen brightness. It’s a quick, easy way to adjust the backlight without using the menu (which I have found to be slower and a bit buggy).
I have loved my Q1 from day 1. I was very pleased when Frank Garcia of Ultra Mobile PC Tipsposted 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 bluestone 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 would LOVE to have the ability to place a receipt on the screen of my PDA and have it scanned in to my finance software.
- Forget a fingerprint scanner, just use the screen.
- Can you imagine the ability to scan a whole document with your laptop screen?
There are tons of questions like scanning resolution and production costs that would be interesting to have answered. Beyond that, how will we satisfy the privacy nutso’s who are afraid the government would spy on us through our cell phones? :^)
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:
It’s way lighter than the original Q1 that I own
The screen is much brighter and clearer than the first generation device
The screen runs natively at 1024 x 600 - not sure what I think about that
That silly keyboard on the sides of the screen is absolutely worthless
I’m not crazy about the extended battery although the standard battery is very light
It’s noticeably faster than my current Q1
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.
There was a little too much labor going on in the Jarvis household over Labor Day weekend. Project number one was painting my daughter’s room on Saturday. It took about half the day to get things looking just the way we envisioned, and I was glad that my UMPC was along for the ride. The audio quality of the Q1 is amazing, so I used it to listen to about an hour of internet radio, part of Leo Laporte’s Tech Guy radio show, and eventually music from my iTunes library. Between all of this, there was some quick web surfing when the boss (my wife…love you honey) wasn’t looking! The Q1 made the whole job more pleasant.
Wow, I thought that HP had given up on the iPaq line of PDA’s. It has disappointed me that they haven’t done any development on what I always considered to be the best PDA hardware lineup available. Today I read over on 
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.
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.
This article
