You can tell HP is a huge sponsor of this event because of the number of HP devices you see around and already there are folks talking a look at the TouchSmart devices and the HP Mini-Note 2140 Netbook (or whatever we are going to call them.)

I’m finally in Vegas and have hooked up with Rob, Sierra, and Truc. We headed out for a quick bite and some planning.

Note Truc is the only one using a Window Mobile device.

Some of the big news seems to be centered around the fact that Apple will be easing or losing its Digital Rights Management (DRM) on its music, in exchange for letting the studios use variable pricing for new releases and hot songs. We’ll have to see how that occurs and in what form.

Word also is bouncing around that we’ll see unibody MacBook Pros, perhaps an announcement of an oversized iPod Touch/Tablet for the fall, updates to the Mac Mini, an update to the iWork suite of apps, and something I am looking forward to, Sling will introduce a player (that works with Slingbox) that will finally come to the iPhone/iPod Touch platform, although not right away.

Then of course there is this parody from the Onion, which for some, might just sum up a whole heck of a lot these days. Maybe Microsoft should hire these guys to do its commercials.

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

First the issue: What are we going to call Netbooks? We’ve chronicled the legal kookiness brought about by Psion Teklogix’s attempts to protect their trademark (some cash attempts to cash in). Some see this as a big deal, some as just a kerfluffle. James Kendrick says we should all just start using another name and I largely agree. Although I think this cat is well out of the bag, the horse has left the barn, the dog has long since ceased barking, or pick whatever animal metaphor you want to use to describe the fact that the term Netbook is already well entrenched.

So, here’s the opportunity. Somewhere between the Nevada desert and the Las Vegas strip we’ll see most of the mobile bloggeratti gathering beginning tomorrow at CES 2009. Many of them will be hanging out at CtrStg. Many also will be gathering for the annual Tablet PC and Touch Community Meetup, also to be held at CtrStg. So, here’s my thoughts, take them or leave them.

I’m sure we’ll all be talking about this issue with each other, vendors, OEMs, and the like in the immediate days ahead. So, as we gather on Saturday, January 10, 2009, let’s poll those in attendance and those who want to contribute to the discussion virtually, and walk away (or is that stagger away) from CES 2009 with a term we’ll all use going forward. Some may see this as nonsense. Fine. Don’t participate. But for those who will be present it gives us a shot to figure out what we are all going to code in as an ActiveWord to replace Netbook in the days, weeks, months, and years, ahead. Or at least until the next lawsuit comes along.

So, if you are not heading to Vegas and you want to participate, leave a comment here and let us know what your preference is for renaming Netbooks. We’ll take a look at them at the Meetup and see what you’re saying. If the WiFi is working we’ll try to do some polling as well. There’s no guarantee that  a community as diverse as this one is will come up with any kind of consensus, but, hey, what do we have to loose?

Loren Heiny looks to be one of those here lately. He’s using an HP Mini 1000 and has blogged up a nice post about his likes and dislikes. He says he’s got Netbook fever. Given that Rob is toting an HP Mini 1000 along with him to CES 2009 as well, I sure hope this Netbook fever thing isn’t catching. I’m juggling too many devices these days as it is. And besides, if I did get one, I’m sure my wife would quickly call it her own.

But, hey that’s not the point of this post, as I need to start shifting gears. Obviously before I headed out to Chicago I packed what I thought I’d need for the CES trip and this will be my lightest trip yet. I’ve already posted about the gear I’m taking (read it here), and later today I’ll be getting a post up about some of the software that I’ll be relying on as well.

What this post is about is how I plan to be connecting while there. I have always thought that when ever hoards of tech folk get together one of the first things that happens is that Broadband coverage of any stripe seems to head straight for the toilet. Sure, we chalk that up to the fact that so many folks trying to fill the pipes at one time leads to a crunch, and we all gripe about it. But, it strikes me as odd symbolism that gatherings that focus on, among other things, the latest and greatest in mobile technology and how we can share information quickly turn into stew pots of connectivity woes. Of course geeks love to complain, and they find a way.

Many of those ways center on having multiple methods (read-multiple carriers) available. Face it, if you rely on WiFi in a hotel suite or on a convention floor, you’re basically screwed. Since we’ll be hanging out at CtrStge a lot this year, I’m hoping they have a great set up, but as in past year’s at the BlogHaus, I imagine if wired connections exist, you’ll see folks grabbing those cables to plug in, like kids reaching for presents under a Christmas tree.

I’ll also be using Sprint’s EVDO via a wireless modem on the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet PC, which in my tests here in Chicago works very well. This is different than in past years at CES as previously I would have tethered up my Sprint Mogul or PPC 6700 and used that as a modem. Of course who knows how Sprint’s service will respond during the crunch time at CES 2009.

For emails and following feeds, I’ll be relying on AT&T’s service on the iPhone, which will be a new test for me, and as I see that AT&T seems to be trying to edge customers away from EDGE to 3G coverage, this will be interesting to see. Prior to my arrival in Chicago, there was a reported Midwest outage on AT&T’s network, and I have to say, my coverage on the iPhone has been spotty at best while I’ve been here. Actually calling it spotty is kind. There are large chunks of time, where it is just about unusable and in a large city like Chicago, I find that pretty much unacceptable.

I’ll also be using a data only T-Mobile plan on the Nokia E71. That’s a new adventure for me on that network and that service so we’ll see how it goes. So far in Chicago, I’ve had no issues with that service.

I’ll call this an expectation and not a prediction, but my experience and my gut tells me that somewhere along the way when I want to connect, any and all options will probably fail during the time there. Sure there will be periods of good connectivity on one or all of the services, and I’m sure we’ll find ways in bad connectivity situations to get our work done. That said,  broadband providers remind me of a flight steward I once encountered while flying on the Yugoslavian airline JAT. After a horrible meal, and witnessing two seats nearby literally come apart under other passengers, the steward, in responding to irked passengers simply said, “Hey, you bought the ticket, you flew this stupid airline. The problem is yours. Enjoy the rest of the flight. What else are you going to do?”

Check out CntrStg and the Facebook event for more information.

It is an interesting list, and good to see them overhauling their UI across all platforms. What would you like to see Evernote concentrate on? Personally, I’d like to see a better ink experience in their Windows version, and, ink notes visible on the Mac client. It is about time we see this all too familiar icon replaced with an actual ink note…Unfortunately, I don’t see that on their list….

Here is Evernote’s plan for 2009:

1. Sharing and Collaboration

The public notebooks functionality that we launched in 2008 was a timid, first step in our ambitious plans for making Evernote a great tool for sharing your memories and collaborating with your friends and coworkers. In 2009, we’re going to greatly expand what you can do with your memories, documents, files, photos and anything else you throw into Evernote. If you’re the social type, we’re going to grow up from being your external brain to being a telepathic-mutant-super-brain, but with good manners. Of course, you’ll always have the option to keep any or all of your info totally private.

2. More Mobile Phones

We’ll be adding new Evernote native clients for a bunch of popular mobile phones. Right now, Evernote works great with iPhone or Windows Mobile devices. All other types of phones can use our mobile web and email interface ( http://www.evernote.com/m ), which is good for reading notes, but not as slick or full-featured as the native clients. If you’re hankering for the full Evernote experience on your favorite phone, there’s a good chance that you’ll get it in 2009.

3. International Launches

It turns out that not everyone speaks English as their native language! Who knew? Well, actually we’re a pretty multilingual office, so we kinda knew. There are currently Evernote users in over 110 countries, so we’ll start rolling out versions of Evernote in multiple languages. The whole world can soon have a better brain. Today, Silicon Valley, tomorrow [makes world-shaped motions with his hands]!

4. Even Better Desktop Clients

All of our desktop clients: Web, Mac and especially Windows are coming in for a major UI and functionality overhaul. The result will be a smoother, more powerful and more consistent Evernote experience no matter what computer you use. Our web clipper ( http://s.evernote.com/webclipper ) is going to get a nice boost as well, making it even easier to capture and organize exactly what you want from the web.

5. Third-Party Apps

We’ve got a lot of people working on great applications using our recently-released external APIs and a couple of really spiffy ones have already launched ( http://s.evernote.com/api ). In 2009, you will see many interesting third-party releases and we’re cooking up big plans to partner with API developers and help promote and sell their work. If you’ve got a great idea for an app or feature that could work great with everyone’s external brain, make sure you let us know.

6. More Premium Features

We’re going to make it easier for you to give us money next year, with expanded and enhanced payment options. Not excited by that? We’ll also make it lot easier for you to decide to upgrade to Evernote Premium by rolling out great new premium features. Universal File Sync ( http://s.evernote.com/filesync ), our new premium feature launched earlier this month has already been a big success and more are on the way. Free users don’t have to worry about being left in the dust; much of our new functionality will continue to be available to everyone!

Although the show itself doesn’t start until Thursday, January 8th, there are alot of activities kicking off earlier in the week: CES Unveiled on Tuesday, Digital Experience on Wednesday, and of course, early breaking product news from companies wanting to get ahead of the game. Most of the team arrives on Tuesday, so we’ll begin our coverage then.

We plan on bringing you quick posts, photos, and videos from the floor, as well as our normal detail posts and videos later in the night, too. You can follow all the CES 2009 news on our homepage, this special CES 2009 page, or by subscribing to this special CES 2009 news feed.

All GottaBeMobile.com CES 2009 News is being brought to you by Lenovo, our exclusive CES 2009 Sponsor.

I’ve already begun packing my gear bag and here is what I’m taking with me:

• Lenovo X200 Touch Tablet PC - for producing all of our video, pictures, and pounding out tons of posts. Special thanks to Lenovo for sponsoring our CES coverage this year
• Nokia E71 ( and extra batteries) - for shooting quick video, quick pictures, and posting quick blog articles from the floor. They keyword there is, you got it, quick!
• Flip Mino HD - for shooting longer, better quality video
• iPhone - for keeping up with my schedule and doing other iPhone type stuff
• TomBihn Brain Bag - need something to carry all this stuff in
• Either a Canon SD600 or my Nikon DSLR - battling between traveling light and getting better still pictures
• Versipod 2 Monopod-Tripod
• Verizon USB727 Air Card
• Apple AirPort Express for spreading WiFi in our room
• A small MoleSkine Journal for taking notes during times that whipping out the Tablet PC will take too long
• An HP Mini 1000 running Windows XP - turns out we might be able to get a three-way head to head review while at CES - Samsung NC10 vs Lenovo S10 vs HP Mini 1000.

Beginning the first week of February I’m off for the first of several audition conferences where I see actors and technicians who might be hired for our 2009/10 season at Wayside Theatre. I’ll be visiting Washington DC, Memphis, and Birmingham, Alabama on this year’s trip, as well as a possible trip to New York City, if needed. I think in April I’ll be heading out to a possible MVP Summit in Seattle, Washington in April, but I’ll have to wait and see how that goes.

By the time I’m done traveling in March or April, I pretty much settle in for the rest of the year at the theatre as the schedule there doesn’t allow for much other travel. I spend a good portion of each year prepping for these trips. As I blog about new mobile tech here on the pages of GBM, I’m also looking our for what I will be using on these trips for both work and relaxation. Anything I can add to the arsenal that can improve my efficiency is always a plus.

This year the hardware I’ll be using is listed below. Thanks to Lenovo’s generous sponsorship of GBM’s CES 2009 coverage, my primary work horse will be a Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet PC. I don’t have a touch model, but as with the X61, I anticipate the X200 to handle the chores from CES quite well.

• The Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet PC
• Apple iPhone 16GB
• Nokia E71
• iPod Touch 16GB (first gen)
  
• Canon Powershot SD1000 Digital Camera
• Flip Mino HD Video Camera

When I hit the road for auditions, I’ll also be carrying the Canon Pixma i90 Printer.

I’m an unabashed ThinkPad fan, and I’m quickly becoming an iPhone fan boy as well. The Nokia E71 has been added to the kit for some video work at CES primarily, but might come in handy at auditions as well. We’ll have to see. Why both an iPhone and an iPod Touch? My wife and I love to drive on the trip to and from Chicago. It is our annual end of year catch up and our pre-planning for the next year time, and we also feel like we are more in control of our travel destiny as we head from the East Coast to the Midwest and back again during winter. (That looks especially true this year.) Anyway, I prefer to use the iPod Touch to listen to music, podcasts, and audio books on the 11 hour one way trip, rather than the iPhone. I also load the Touch up with a few movies for traveling back and forth to Vegas, although I anticipate sleeping on those flights more than anything else.

All of this will be lugged around in the Wenger Maxxum bag, a bottomless pack that seems to hold any and everything I can throw in it.

In future On The Road 2009 posts, I’ll be sharing info about some of the accessories I use as well as the software, and I’ll also let you know how what I’m using works on doesn’t. This is a year where syncing between devices will be an essential part of my operation, so we’ll see how the cloud plays into things.

For your chance to beta test this very exciting application, all you have to do is:  

1) Read this fantasic BumpTop review by GottaBeMobile.com forum member JasonJ

2) Then, post a comment to this article with something interesting / exciting that you learned about BumpTop via JasonJ’s review and can’t wait to try out yourself once you begin using the BumpTop Beta . Be sure to include your email address in the email field so we can get an invite out to you.

The first 200 to do the above steps will get a BumpTop Beta invitation. So, are you gonna wait a year or so for Apple to put some meat to their patent or do the 3D Desktop today on your PC?

We are just now downloading the beta and will be working on an InkShow over the weekend, so stay tuned.

UPDATE: We are closing the invites on this beta. Everyone who responded will get an invite.

• Mini toolbar - Eliminate extra clicks and keep the most frequently used editing features at your fingertips.
• Live preview - Try on different editing options by scrolling over your capture and seeing what a torn edge or shadow would look like…before you commit to the change.
• auto-store export - Changing computers? Not to worry, you can take all your unsaved captures with you.
• Stamps - Categories and visual search make your favorite stamps easier than ever to find. Explore the accessories section for stamps and other ways you can customize Snagit.

The upgrade is free for 9.0 owners. Snagit is regularly priced at $49.95. Download a free 30-day trial.

TechSmith is the Exclusive Sponsor of GottaBeMobile.com InkShows

Also on our to-do list is attending CntrStg, a place where bloggers and companies are gathering together for informal presentations, good food, good swag, and great bandwidth for posting up all the content we’ll be producing. If your company is attending CES, I’d encourage you to check in to CntrStg and see how you can get in front of a bunch of bloggers who love mobile tech. Hope to see you there!

In the next couple of days, I’ll also be sharing some fantastic news concerning our CES coverage. Stay tuned…

As usual the hostess with the mostess, Lora Heiny, is putting out the word and asking folks to sign up. This year the RSVP is on Facebook. (Here’s the link.)

Each year this is a highlight of CES when users, developers, OEMs, friends, and those curious about Tablet PCs, mobile computing, touch, and all of the things we cover here get together for some good food, good talk, and a bevy of prize giveaways. Who knows what this year will bring, but in year’s past folks have walked away with some pretty amazing prizes.

Make sure you put this on your agenda and get ready for some fun. I’m telling you this is an event you don’t want to miss.

Check out some coverage and pictures of last year’s event here.

All the ‘I’m a PC’ commercials inspired some people at WIPTE 2008 this year to do a little video for themselves… Check out the ‘I’m a Tablet PC’ video from the conference.  Nice work by all involved with putting this together.

The industry is advancing and I want to make sure that the product interests represented are forward looking. Yes, I’m sure there will be plenty of Windows 7 chatter and hardware comparisons. A couple years ago we expanded the gathering to include mini-Tablet PCs more commonly known as UMPCs. Last year people interested in MIDs attended. My observation is that the common connection is an interest in natural input. Do you agree?

Following that logic, what do you think if Surface is included? What about… yep, I’ll ask (gulp) — iPhone? (Of course, Macworld may overlap, as the gathering has most recently been on the 3rd day of CES. So, it might just be like ‘08 where people are welcome to pull out their iPhones.)

And yes, then the gathering will need a new name…suggestions?

So, what do you think folks, a new name? Is it time? I notice Lora doesn’t include Netbooks. Should they be included.  The discussion is open.