On some levels this only makes sense to me. If you’re using a stand alone GPS in your car you have to think about where it is going to ride and the installation. Of course there are a number of mounting solutions out there just for that purpose. But a Chinese company has come up with a multi-funciton GPS (music, games, photoviewer) that is a part of the rearview mirror. Here’s why this makes sense, at least to me. First, the positioning is right where I’d love to be looking in my vehicles. Second, it is one less think for me to manuever around in the car when I’m trying to set down a cup of coffee.

Via RedFerret Journal

Two more sites to hit up for more HP HDX Dragon fun Windows-Now.com and GeeksToGo.com! Head on over and begin the fun!

Bill Gates is moving on from his job as Chief Software Architect at Microsoft soon. Of course that means Tablet PCs will lose one of their biggest advocates. So, who is going to step up and carry that banner going forward? Goodness knows the platform needs a strong vocal advocate. I’m asking that question after reading a post from Loren Heiny that links to yet another story about Bill Gates’ talking Tablet PCs and education on the stump.

Here’s an excerpt:

“….I’ve got one last thing to show, and I previewed this earlier, and that’s related to the student Tablet. To me this is an important milestone, and Microsoft has been investing in this for a long time. We see lots of ways that we’re going to drive this into the mainstream. In fact, my own daughter goes to a school where she uses a Tablet PC, and it’s phenomenal to see how comfortable she is, how she learns better. She tries out her knowledge, she communicates with her teacher in a new way. It is completely digital. The Internet is there, the ability to create things is there.”

As Loren says it is more than heartening to read comments like that from Bill, but it sure makes one wonder who is going to be pushing that case from here on out.

You read that headline right. Apparently the GigaByte M528 MID is now available for pre-order but at a price of $1131 US? I’m confused. Sounds like the folks at GigaByte are too as that price dropped quickly from the original pre-order price they came out with of $1450 US.  Interesting that mate Hugo Ortega’s company Tegatech is offering the pre-order. (Tegatech is an Australian company so the prices listed here are US). So, Hugo give us the inside skinny here. What’s up with that pricing? That’s quite a price premium for being the first out of the chute for a class of devices that supposed to cost, er… um… well… not that much. UMPCPortal thinks the price drop from $1450 to $1131 is a bit more acceptable. From where I’m sitting if MIDs don’t come in under $600 they are dead before they start.

But hang on. Is this a MID or a UMPC? TegaTech lists it as a UMPC. Most of the world has been calling it a MID up until now. Do I sense some confusion reigning? You betcha.

So here are the questions for GBM readers. What’s the price you’re willing to pay for a UMPC these days? What’s the price you’re willing to pay for a MID?

UPDATE: Chippy’s been doing some math and I’m not sure the conversions make sense or they are just wishful thinking, but he’s now estimating that price in US dollars at about $750. I’m guessing this is far from over, but hey, this still has to come down a bit from $750 before I’d think about this.

via UMPCPortal

Recently I posted some tips to get more out of Vista on your Tablet PC.  In that post I mentioned a few tweaks for the Tablet Input Panel (TIP) that I find useful:

• Insert text by pointing at insert.  In the tools menu at the top of the TIP select Options.  On the Settings tab select "Pointing to the Insert Button inserts the text"
• Open the TIP by pointing at it.  Also in the tools menu at the top of the TIP select Options, then the Opening tab.  Select "Point to the Input Panel icon or tab to open the Input Panel.
• Get the input panel tab out of your way when in laptop mode - still on the opening tab clear the "Show the Input Panel tab when the pen is out of range" checkbox.  Note - don't do this on a touch screen!

There is a lot more you can tweak in the TIP options.  In this post I will go into more detail about how you modify the TIP options and a closer look at some other useful options.

First here is how you get into the TIP options.

Open the TIP and click the drop down next to the Tools menu and select options.
 

In the options dialogue there are a number of interesting options.  Lets go through the interface tab by tab.

First up on the Settings tab you will find the option that lets you insert text when you point to the Insert button as described above.

You can also change which side of the TIP the Insert button appears on.  Personally I prefer it on the right, which is the default.  If you prefer you can move it over to the Left.

One setting on this tab that I strongly recommend you do not alter is the Autocomplete option.  Just like the description says this "Suggests matches in Input Panel when possible, such as email addresses, URLs, file names and other previous entries".  I first blogged about this feature during the Vista beta back in April 2006 and it rocks.  It is on by default.  Keep it.

On the Opening tab you can configure the TIP to open when you point at the icon and prevent the TIP icon from appearing when the pen is out of range as described above.  In addition to this can:

• Choose to show the TIP icon in the taskbar ala Windows XP Tablet Edition.
• Turn off the slide out animation for performance
• Choose which side of the screen the TIP tab appears on (though you can also drag the tab from one side of the screen to the other without ever going into the options)

On the Writing Pad tab there are some more useful options.  One of my favourite tricks - especially on a small screen tablet or UMPC - is to reduce the ink thickness.  Thinner ink takes up less room on the line which allows you to fit more words on each line of the TIP. This makes ink entry much more efficient.

You can also choose to insert the text automatically when you pause writing and tweak how close you get to the edge of the line before a new line appears in the Writing Pad.

Similar options exist on the Character Pad tab.  You can also drop the thickness of the ink and choose to insert ink when you pause for the Character Pad.

On the Gestures tab you can select which gestures are supported in the TIP.  By default they all are, so you will probably only need to change this if you find you are triggering gestures unintentionally.

On the Advance tab you can change the settings for Password Security.  I recommend keeping the default - which will automatically show the on screen keyboard whenever you click into a password box.

There is one other critical thing to know - there is a very important button back on the Settings tab that I have not mentioned yet.

There is a "get-out-of-jail-free" button that will reset all the TIP options back to defaults.  This means that you should feel free to experiment with these settings because you can always get back to where you started if you mess things up.

Now this is what multi-touch is really for. Missile Command!

Via Gizmodo

The good folks at Waterfield Designs, who make some of the most awesome sleeves on the market, sent me one of their new sleeves - especially built for the HP HDX Dragon we are giving away. Give it a look - the thing is amazing! Look for a review on this sleeve in the coming week or so.

Here's the product page for the Waterfield Designs sleeve case for the HP HDX Dragon

With all the contests and give-a-ways flying around these days it is easy to forget some of the exciting opportunites to save some money. We posted about this a week or so ago, and it is certainly worth repeating. If you’re interested in Motion Computing’s F5 Tablet PC you can save a whopping $1000 simply by attending a webinar that they are hosting on Tuesday, May 20th at 1pm CST. Find out more at this link or sign up at this link. Rob keeps asking me for the evaluation F5 that I’m checking out, but I have to say, I’m liking using this slate Tablet PC very, very much. It has a good Inking experience (check out this InkShow) and works great for note taking. I even have become very appreciative of the handle.

Thanks to John Hill of Allegiance Technology Partners for the reminder.

I had the opportunity this morning to sit down and chat with Dennis Moore, CEO of OQO, about keeping a company agile, his schedule, his team, the Model 02, Vista Lite, Tablet PC, touch, and the new ultra-portable entrants from Asus and HP. Keep up to date with what Dennis is doing by subscribing to his blog.

The following is the transcript of our conversation. Enjoy!

Rob Bushway says:

Thanks for joining me for this chat, Dennis!

dbmoore says:

My pleasure -- thanks for inviting me.

I'm doing an IM interview with Dennis Moore, CEO of OQO in about 30 minutes.

If you have some particular questions you'd like for me to ask - post them up in the comments. I'll do my best to ask them. Better act quick, though. My interview starts in 30 minutes.

The transcript of the interview will be posted in its entirety right here on GBM.

This weekend, I posted up a sample webcam recording using Lenovo's IdeaPad U110 and its' included recording software Easy Capture. My experience was pretty bad. James Kendrick's experience using Easy Capture was the same. However, he also did sample recording using ArcSoft Webcam Companion, and the experience was much better. In fact, it was really good.

My recommendation to Lenovo: don't ship software that operates this bad. A lot of consumers will just use the included software, notice the bad experience, and then give up as a result. Look at including ArcSoft Webcam Companion, instead.

Windows Connected is up to the plate, launching their 7 day contest for the HP HDX Dragon. Head over and be prepared to get creative.

It looks like it would have been a good weekend to spend with the First Family of Tablet PCs. Loren Heiny has been blogging quite a bit about multi-touch lately. Not only that, he deciced to do a little experimenting using a computer, a USB camera and a box. The result? He’s created his own little multi-touch box that the entire family had a blast playing around with. Check it out here and some of Loren’s other multi-touch posts here, here, and here.

I’m a fan of the Eye-Fi SD Card for digital cameras. (Here’s a GBM Shortcut on the original Eye-Fi Card.) The original allows you to upload your pictures from your camera to your computer or to Flickr. Now the makers of Eye-Fi card have expanded their products with two other models.

The Explore ($129) will allow you to do your uploading accessing hotspots (roughly 10,000) around the US via the WayPort service. You won’t have to jump through the terms and conditions rigamarole at each hotspot. This looks like a service test rollout here because the Wayport service they will be using is only good for 1 year. They are looking to extend this and/or add other services. My guess is if this takes off, you’ll eventually be paying for the service. You can also Geotag your photos with the Explore.

The Share ($99) is essentially the same as the original Eye-Fi card allowing you to upload photos to Flickr and your computer

The Home $79) is only for the user who wants to upload photos to their computer.

The Eye-Fi has become something I use frequently and I think the Explore offers some interesting features. That said, there is still plenty of room for adding features to this down the road in my opinion.

We are testing a new comment system called Disqus. This new comment system will allow for threaded discussions, and help cut down on the amount of comment spam we get. In addition, readers can create a profile and have their avatar show up next to their comments.

All old comments previously entered will still show up, and the old form for entering comments will also be displayed (for parallel testing) for the next couple of days. Please begin using the Disqus system so we can test it out and prove its worth.

Let us know what you think.

UPDATE: I've already found one big problem - disqus returns url parameters when comments are added, something dasBlog doesn't like. I have a support ticket it at disqus and on the dasBlog support forum to see if anything can be done to fix it. If it isn't fixed by tonight, I'll turn disqus off until the problem is fixed. Besides that one bug, I'm really liking disqus. I like that it allows you to edit your comments - very cool!

UPDATE 2: I've turned the disqus system off until I can get a fix on the dasblog side to not error out when url parameters are passed or to get disqus to customize the return variables to accept #disqus_thread instead of url vars. Looking promising though. I like the system a lot. Disqus support is slow to respond at this point in their support desk area.