I've been using Microsoft's free sync utility, SyncToy, for awhile, so it is good to see it move in to 2.0 beta status. The list of improvements look quite extensive. biggest improvement is dynamic drive letter assignment, which should help anyone who is trying to use a USB drive to backup/sync file. I consider SyncToy one of my essential installs when setting up a new computer, and prepping mobile installs for my clients.

Check out the new features and download the beta here. Read the release notes at the bottom of the download page if you are a SyncToy 1.0 user. Also, be sure to visit the Microsoft Professional Photography forum and leave your feedback on the beta.

The FCC, the world's greatest place to find upcoming product non-announcements, has just posted another patent application. Apparently HTC is preparing what appears to be an EV-DO version of the HTC Shift. If this is indeed an EV-DO Shift, that means that HTC will have a Shift for everyone.

Regardless, this new device most definitely will have EV-DO, as well as WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0.

via JKKMobile, Gizmodo

Dynamism has posted a video on YouTube of some guy playing Quake II on a WiBrain B1. It seems to play really well! I was impressed with how well the gamer was able to use the D pad and the touch pad to move through the game. The ergonomics also seem quite a bit better than I was expecting with the split keyboard. Given the specifications of the system and the price (starting at $699 from Dynamism), this looks like a pretty compelling device for someone wanting a general purpose UMPC. At the beginning of the video you get a brief view of the system itself while the system boots. Worth noting - the system appears to have done a cold boot to playing Quake II in only about 45 seconds. Not too bad!

Jkkmobile posted an earlier video of the WiBrain B1 that is narrated in another language, so just watch the pretty pictures roll by. It does have a few pictures of the system in a case which looks pretty cool. That video was obviously targeted for the Korean market.

via ultramobilelife

Wow, there’s Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, and now GearCrave tells me there is Pink Friday, in support of finding a cure for breast cancer. My head is swirling trying to keep up but that doesn’t matter. I’m just glad to see some of the proceeds going to help. One of the deals TigerDirect is running should be of interest if you’re looking for an OQO Model 02. The 1.5gHz version running XP is now on sale for $1,069 or 10% off.

According to GearCrave, the details on how long the deal lasts are a bit sketchy, so if you’re interested check it out.

Ok, before anyone goes crazy, let’s consider the source here. Appletell is linking to information from LoopRumors, and that name alone should make anyone pull out their skeptic hat. But it is a Friday, it is December, and let’s take a look at the speculation shall we?

LoopRumors is reporting that Apple will unveil an Apple iTablet that will be an entirely new class of device, aimed at those who arleady have a Mac. It will have its own variant of Leopard, geared to the features of the device. Other info says it will contain a solid state drive, a mini-DVD reader (interesting), and get this: users supposedly will be able to interact with the devcie using both sides of the Tablet. Of course it would have multi-touch capability as well. LoopRumors is leaning on a January 2008 release, most likely at MacWorld.

Again, keep your skeptics hat on, some, all, or none of this may be as real or imagined as the rendering accompanying this article. But we’re hearing more and more about an Apple Tablet surfacing in January. I’d love to see it come true, especially if it is along the lines of the companinon devcie this new speculation seems to suggest. That would go well with the new iMac I just bought for my office.

Yesterday, I wrote a 5 year anniversary piece on the state of Tablet PC software. What I, and many others for that matter, would like to know is: how would you like to see the state of software improved.

Here are some idea starters:

• Andrew, from the U.K., left a comment regarding MindJet's MindManager. While the product has kept Tablet PC features as core functionality, they have only given a few minor improvements over the years. Several years ago, they added the ability ink notes for a given topic. One of my big pet peeves, however, is the missing ability to search those inked notes despite numerous requests from me to do so. It never makes it up the priority list. Andrew has other comments on how the Tablet PC features could be improved upon in MindManager.
• Custom navigation schemes tailored to a Tablet PC.
• Intelligent syncing
• Inking support in Google Gmail, Calendar, etc.
• Inking on the web: what ideas do you have there that make logical sense?
• What about scenarios for the end to end experience of living mobile?
• What about built-in TIP support in FireFox and Opera for goodness sakes. Why, after five years, do new Tablet PC users have to hunt down an add-in for something Internet Explorer supports natively. I know the reasons behind it, but surely Microsoft could add in the FireFox and Opera address line bar as field types to recognize.
• Along those lines, when can we get Adobe off their behind and support native ink? Head over there to send your feature request in to Adobe.
• What about Vista OS improvements? Where can Microsoft improvement the experience for us mobile users and those who love to use pen?

Those are just some ideas to get everyone started. I've got many, many more, but want to see what the Tablet PC community comes up with first before posting all of mine.

Interesting. Very interesting. We’re seeing quite a few devices that at first glance appear to be yet another portable media player, but on digging further seem to have quite a bit more functionality, perhaps pushing them closer to MID or UMPC land. Is the Cowon Q5W one of those devices?

I’m not sure, but for a PMP it certainly packs quite a bit of functionality. Yes, it has the features you would expect of a media player. In addtiion it is running on WinCE and you can use a stylus with the onscreen keyboard to enter text on the 5 inch touchscreen. You can also hook up with WiFi and BlueTooth.

Interesting convergence or not?

Via Crave

If you’d like to have your Outlook info from the To-Do Bar always available to you now you can. If you’re using the SideBar in Vista, that is. There is now two SideBar Gadgets available: Outlook Appointments and Outlook Tasks.

The appointment gadget shows you up to 5 of your future appointments. The task gadget shows you your tasks and is scrollable and has some customization available. You can also add a new task to the list. You can check out more info here and download the gadgets from the Windows Live Gadget Gallery.

Of course the real question for many mobile users is if they have turned off the Sidebar or not. I know many who have.

Back in September we posted about the availability and sudden unavailability of Office Mobile 6.1. Turns out info got released from Microsoft a bit too early and they pulled the info. Well, now Office Mobile 6.1 is finally available. 6.1 is an upgrade for Office Mobile 6.0 that allows you to read native Microsoft Office 2007 file formats on your mobile device. Office 2007’s fnew file format based on Open XML wasn’t readable on mobile devices (and other platforms) when 2007 rolled out.

The link takes you to the download page for the update which means you need a licensed copy on your mobile devcie to install the upgrade.

The Boy Genius Report just posted a great comparison of the Vulcan FlipStart, the OQO Model 02, and the Sony UX280P. He compares nearly all facets of each system, from design and portability to feature set and configurability. If you are trying to decide on a 4" screen device, this is a must-read.

I've used all three myself, although I've never had the opportunity to compare them directly. My favorite is the OQO, hands-down. Small Tablet PCs like the OQO are hard to find, and the active digitizer is even more rare. The biggest point in the OQO's favor for me - it just feels good in my hands. The tactile feel of the unit is just a pleasure for me. The Sony would come in second, but it felt oddly thick to me. Personal preference. The FlipStart was a non-starter for me. No touch screen, no digitizer. It's just a tiny laptop.

Skooba Design makes some really attractive bags. They just came on my radar recently when they announced a holiday special. If you sign up for their email list (and the holiday special), you'll receive at least one special deal per week. I've gotten two emails so far and both were fantastic deals to save 50% on specific products for one day only.

I haven't seen a Skooba in person yet, so this was somewhat of an impulse buy since it was such a great deal. I ordered a Skooba Skin Micro in brown corduroy with a teal lining. They have a wide selection of colors available. The cool thing is that way the flaps fold so that you can use it as either a sleeve or flip them up to become handles. That should be pretty useful for me. Even the Micro is a little big for my Fujitsu P1610, but it should be a pretty good fit. They need to make a Pico for the even smaller UMPCs.

When this arrives I'll post up my first impressions of the bag. Skooba Design makes a lot of other products in addition to this sleeve, so check them out if you're in the market.

John Hill of Allegiance Technology Partners is quite busy these days. He’s hosting an open house on Friday, December 7 from noon to 4:30pm, where he will be showcasing Motion’s C5 Tablet PC, which is something I’d love to get hands on with. So much so, that I’m going to try and clear my schedule and head up to Horsham, PA for the open house.

Of course the Motion C5 isn’t the only Tablet PC goodness, you might be able to check out at ALLTP, for as you should know Allegiance Technology Partners is a great site for picking up a Tablet PC or UMPC, espeically with the 48 hour try out period John offers. Well it looks like John just isn’t content to run things from ALLTP, so now he’s added The Tablet PC Store for your shopping convenience as well, which in addition to products will feature links to reviews from sites like GottaBeMobile.com.

Check out The Tablet PC Store and the address of Allegiance Technology Partners is below if you’re interested in the open house. I hope I’m able to see you there.

300 Welsh Road, Building 4, Suite 155
Horsham, PA 19044

One thing you gotta say about open source platforms - the hackers LOVE them! Today ASUS move more in line with the intentions of the GPL for Linux and released the source code for the operating system on the ASUS Eee. The whole source code. Openly available to all and everyone. (as a side note, can you imagine the source code for Vista being made publicly available for free?) In addition, ASUS has stated that they will be releasing and SDK for developers.

By making the full source code for all parts of the customized Xandros Linux distribution available publicly, ASUS has really created a tempting platform for the software hacking community. For only $399 you can get a nice, compact, fully featured system that you can totally customize. How cool is that? It makes me want to get an Eee just so that I can customize my OS install and recompile my kernel for the features I want. I already have Linux distros running on a couple of old laptops at home, but this would provide a glimpse into how one company decided to optimize an efficient Linux install for a small system. This would have been fascinating to me when I was taking my Operating Systems class back in college. What a teaching tool!

Of course, the hacker community hasn't been content with the hardware on the ASUS Eee any more than they've been satisfied with the software. Tnkgrl has been doing all sorts of fascinating things with hardware mods for the Eee. (Yes, I'm sure her warranty is void by now!) The best hack - adding an internal USB Bluetooth solution. How's that for a tasty mod? Arstechnica also has a great review/mod tips that covers additional "tweaks" for this platform (see page 5).

via SlashGear, InformationWeek

When Microsoft and their partners launched Tablet PC five years ago, there was a lot of hope that new user interfaces and applications would be spilling out like ink from a fountain pen. Initial excitement was high among independent software vendors ( ISV ) to be among the first of a potentially explosive new growth area. Microsoft launched a contest to spur innovation and development ( called Think In Ink ), and strongly encouraged developers to begin making their existing applications ink-aware and ink-enabled. Microsoft wanted developers to be thinking outside the box about how ink could be used. The proverbial writing was on the wall. For Tablet PC technology to really take it off, there needed to be a library of software ready to take advantage of it. For ISVs to sink labor into new and existing applications, it needed customers who were going to be buying Tablet PCs in droves. The pump was primed and ready. Five years later, though, Tablet PC software appears to have stagnated.  

Many of our readers use Tablet PCs for forms automation, annotating PDFs, etc. Those areas are where businesses really begin to see Tablet PC technology pay for itself. For those interested in getting a better handle on the whole collaborative aspect of electronic document management, be sure to checkout Bluebeam's upcoming webcast on December 4th. I'm going to attend so I can see if there is something I can do to better help my clients.

Here are the details:

Are you:

• Still struggling to manage your enterprise documents with Windows Explorer?
• Still using email as a document collaboration and workflow tool?
• Still searching for a way to control and automate your hardcopy and PDF output?

In this live web cast, Bluebeam and Synergis Software will explain the hidden costs of doing business without a document management system. You'll learn how using Adept document management with Bluebeam's PDF technology will help you:

• Find files fast
• Re-use design information efficiently
• Control revisions
• Create and manage document relationships
• Automate workflow and approvals
• Ensure greater collaboration across multiple sites
• Enable high fidelity, single or batch mode printing, plotting and PDF publishing from a central repository
• Automate hardcopy or PDF output upon file release
• Maintain a document audit trail

Register Now!