Ok, maybe not the coolest game ever, but it is pretty fun.
This is one of those addictive flash gizmo games that is perfect for playing on the Tablet PC. I think the GBM Guys must do an InkShow on this.
Check out Line Rider
via Waxy.org
Grand Central, a new ‘find me anywhere’ phone service just launched in beta. 
The basic concept is that you get to pick a ‘main’ phone number (many area codes available), and it stays with you for life.
Then, via the web interface, you can enter home, work, mobile, VoIP, and any other numbers you have, and when someone calls the main number, it will route them to any of your numbers based on rules you select. It will also prompt the caller for their name, and based on that you can take the call or send them to voicemail (heh heh). I’ve used several similar services in the past,and Grand central seems much more feature packed. This is a MUST have service for any mobile professional.
Free service includes 100 inbound minutes a month, but during beta everything is free.
GigaOM has more details , and better yet, just go sign up for a free beta account and play with it for yourself – get a number soon, while there are still plenty easy-to-remember ones to choose from!
Update- Their support is AWESOME. I received email response from 2 feedback notes I sent within minutes. The second was a bug I (thought I) found, and the support guy and engineering were emailing back and forth in near real time as they fixed the problem and updated me. Turned out not to be a ‘bug’, but a just a minor usability issue, I’m sure they’ll fix soon. Either way, VERY Cool to get that kind of support!!(is this Customer Service 2.0??)
I just installed Vista on a shiny new Toshiba M400 Tablet straight out of the box (I booted to XP once just to make sure the hardware was ok). One of the items I have not seen addressed, and that I was concerned about was whether or not the internal Verizon WWAN EVDO card on the M400-S4032 would work under Vista.
I’m happy to report that using the XP driver for the Novatel Card, available from Toshiba here works just fine. I have not used EVDO much yet (just 5 minutes to verify it works), but Vista does recognize the device using this driver, and makes a connection just fine. One less Vista worry 🙂
[Update 9/24/06] – A few additional items, and answers to questions:
Other Vista Resources for the Toshiba M400:
I had the pleasure of a brief layover in the Phoenix Sky Harbor (PHX) on my way home from Seattle / Redmond (more on that trip soon) yesterday. While I was standing in the SouthWest airlines cattle callboarding line, I brought my X41 Tablet PC out of hibernate mode and started fumbling around for my EVDO card. While I was doing this XP found some local access points, and I decided to take a look.
I fully expected to see the normal airport fare – a paid access point from TMobile, AT&T or Boingo, a few locked networks for who knows what, some security enabled airline clubs, and of course several honeypots claiming free access – what they will really do is sniff your traffic, and steal your identity. (NOTE: NEVER connect to a peer to peer network if you are not 100% sure what it is. I constantly see these now in airports, hotels, and other public places – very dangerous).
I was surprised to see an open network named Sky-Harbor (the name of the airport), so I decided to connect. Instead of being brought to a “Please enter Credit Card’ page, I was brought straight to my home page! Perfect! I was able to sync with Exchange, grab my RSS feeds, and be on my way before the boarding line even moved. I travel A LOT, and this was only the second time I’ve bumped into a free WiFi point sponsored by the airport itself. All other things being equal, I will now make sure to fly through Phoenix when I have the opportunity instead of another connection airport with $12.95 WiFi.
I did a quick search this morning, and found a great list on TravelPost.com that covers 164 US airports and their WiFi availability. This page is a must bookmark for all Tablet (and I guess laptop too 🙂 ) travelers who like staying connected.
Of the top 20 US airports, only 5 have free access (Las Vegas, Phoenix, Orlando,Philadelphia, JFK – Jet Blue Terminal). But quite a few of the smaller airports do have free access. Way to go small airports, maybe the larger ones will get a clue soon!
I just got word that the new Logitech Wireless DJ Music System is now available. Retail price is $249.99 direct.
This seems like a great way to stream your digital music collection through your house. It works by installing their Streampoint software on your PC, plugging in the base station, and then connecting a wireless remote station to your stereo. You can then access any song, album or playlist on your PC via the graphical remote and stream it from the PC to your stereo. Logitech also claims that the system will work with Internet radio and podcasts, but does not list comparable providers yet.
This system also uses it’s own wireless system, so you do not need to install or configure a WiFi router for use. All in all, this seems like a nice system, and a real competitor to the $1000+ Sonos wireless music system.
Just got an email from Tivo, looks like the Tivo 3 is now availableat the $800 price point I was fearing.
If you must have one, use the link below to get in their ‘preferred subscriber’ queue. (whatever that means)
Looks like an awesome box, but I think I’ll pass until the price falls some.
Letter from the Editor
I promised a “defining” moment last newsletter and that moment has arrived: The TiVo® Series3™ HD Digital Media Recorder is here!
Inside and out, no compromise was made to bring this perfect HD product to life. Not only is it TiVo, it’s also the world’s first and only DVR with THX® certification.
Are you ready to rock your home theater with the highest quality, high-definition entertainment experience possible? I’ll spill more of the exciting details below and in the Showcase video (find it in your living room on TiVo Central) so all of your questions are answered. You can also share the news with friends by sending them this youtube.com link. (How hot is the TiVo guy on the red carpet, by the way? And yes, I’m wearing exactly what I wore to the Emmy® awards. Pretend to be Joan and Melissa if you must.)
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go shopping: It’s finally time to get myself an HD television!
Series3ly yours,
Shanan
P.S. It’s a limited first run, so hurry—snag one of your own before the holiday madness! There’s been great (pent-up, is probably the word) demand for the TiVo Series3™ HD, so we want subscribers to have first dibs!
As I mentioned in my last post, I was installing Max on my X41 Tablet to check out the ink.
Some quick observations:
All in all, not a great Tablet experience, but I’m sure it will get better, and at least they have started down the Tablet PC / Ink path with the product.
I’ll need to try some other WPF apps on the X41 and see if they are all slow, or if these issues are limited to Max. My guess is the weak video power (Intel 915 chipset) on the X41 is the culprit, and most next generation WPF apps may behave this way. Not good :-(.
UPDATE: Here is a better quality video
Oh, and here is a quick screen cap I did showing some of the functionality of Max, including Ink on the Tablet PC.
There has been a lot of buzz this weekend about the new Microsoft Max (beta) product. I hadn’t paid much attention to it for a while, but decided to grab the latest version and take a look for myself. Like everyone else, my first impression is that MAX is beautiful! This thing looks great! Seeing something like this really excites me about the possibilities of future applications using Avalon Windows Presentation Framework(WPF) .NET 3.0. I guess I need to dig out that WPF book I bought a while back, and see what a person with zero artistic abilites can do with it (Warning, it probably will not be pretty!)
For those of you who are not familiar with Max, it is primarily a photo application used for cataloging and sharing photos. The most recent build has also added in a RSS reader that makes RSS feeds appear like a newspaper or magazine layout – very slick. A photo app and RSS reader do not seem like congruent features in an application to me, but I am sure Microsoft will tie all this together somehow.
There have also been some posts speculating that Max may be a NewsGator killer. While I don’t agree completely with that, I do have some thoughts:
As I write this, Max is installing on my X-41 Tablet PC, I’ll be interested to see how the ink features work. More soon.
Just read an interesting article in the Buffalo Business Journal about a South Korean professor who is using my new favorite device , The SlingBoxto stream shows from Buffalo, NY to his home in South Korea. Apparently he fell in love with American TV while in Buffalo, and convinced a colleague to install a SlingBox in their Buffalo home so he could use it once he got back to Korea.
Very cool!
Gavin Gear, a software engineer on the Tablet PC Team (SDK) has been writing some great articles on Tablet PC development, complete with code samples (C# mainly). He started off with the basics, and is now starting to move into some advanced areas.
If you are a developer who wants a crash course in Tablet PC programming (or hire / manage such developers) be sure to check out Gavin’s blog – you’ll be up and inking in no time.
Gavin also has an open invatation to answer any Tablet PC SDK questions you throw at him – very cool!
Gavin, keep up the great work!