Can you see the Vista / With Web Based Apps You Can?

Dealing with computer operations for nearly two decades I have to admit I have seen much advancement with Microsoft. I never forget the day when I gave some advice to my brother about a major release pending for MS-DOS (version 3.0 I believe) that was going to make the world a better place. He took note and invested in Microsoft. To this day I still kick myself for not following my own advice and he relishes in the pleasure of reminding me every chance he gets. It’s interesting to think back, but in those days, I don’t recall having to deal with the amount of patches that we are faced with today. Granted, the world has changed and hackers are more prevalent than they were back then. But even if you just consider just the main service pack releases that occur – not the ones that correct a new security holes, I’m talking about the good old operating bugs. In their rush to satisfy Wall Street, software makers have lost the process of beta testing and in my opinion release products prematurely. The purpose of a beta test was to shake out the problems before it was made generally available. Now it seems when a product is GA’ed we are all expected to be their beta testers and suffer while problems are corrected. I guess this saves money in the development lifecycle but it’s at the risk of the consumer.

You are really forced to consider long and hard if you should move to the new version of the OS or your favorite desktop app before the first service pack is released. In operations, most infrastructure folks use waiting for the first service pack before upgrades are done as a general rule and it is good practice. If you can wait before upgrading then wait. It will make you life easier. I think this is a good rule for the consumer as well. Don’t get caught up in the hype of how this new version is going to change the world. It didn’t solve world hunger back in the days of MS-DOS and it won’t today. Think back to what you know. If you had the experience of moving from Windows 95 to XP, the change to your productivity was incremental. Of course there were some technology advancements in the version upgrade, but you have to weigh the benefits versus the risks of all the other problems you will run into when considering a move.

I have always approached any software or hardware upgrade in the same manner. That is - what is the impact to the end user when performing this upgrade? Seems simple enough but people often forget exactly why they are upgrading in the first place and this often leads to unforseen trouble. What will the impact to the end user by performing this upgrade is a good general basic commandment that should helps you to stay in check with your objectives, whether you’re a consumer or an IT professional. In my situation, since I am the end user in the scenario, I knew why and was willing to take the leap of faith and break the commandment that was just discussed. Here’s just a small taste on the outcome of my decision to go with MS Vista and Office 2007 instead of staying with XP:

As far as Vista:

- Microsoft Mobile Manager (which replaces ActiveSync) / Motorola Q synching incompatibility. I have lost my ability to synch contacts, appointments on the phone. Interesting… What’s the purpose of having a smart phone when you can share information with it? More interesting is the Motorola Q uses MS Mobile 5.0 – One would think that OS software made from the same vendor would be able to talk to each other… So far, TechNet and hours of web research, discussions with Verizon and Microsoft and a lot of trial and error has been unable to solve the problem. I have read on some blogs that people have solved similar problems and others have not. This one hurt a lot and I have no solution as of yet.

- Adobe 7.0 incompatibility with Vista. Need to upgrade to version 8.0 at an unplanned additional cost to me.

- There is a bug with screen paging updates within Word 2007 that causes you to loose sight of the paragraph your working on. Page up and Page down doesn’t seem to work until you use the drag bar on the right to knock it back into reality. A minor glitch – but annoying, no update available as of yet.

- There have been numerous occasions where desktop freezes up and reports that its stopped working and asks do you want to restart. I guess this is progress from the infamous blue screen of death where it just locked up on you – but its still annoying nonetheless.

- I bought a new system in hopes of quicker response time. It seems that the resource intensive Vista sucked up that hope pretty quickly. I guess Microsoft knew that was going to be the case. They added a nifty counter that comes up next to your curser to let you know something is going on. This counter seems to pop up quite a bit and I find myself waiting almost as much as I did with my old system…

- Printing to HP all in one devices is not working properly. Now I will say that I have been extremely disappointed with HP’s all-in-one drivers and scanning application and have had many problems on XP with this with no correction found from HP. So I cant blame Vista for this other than the fact it hasn’t gotten better. The funny thing about this problem is my wife’s HP notebook doesn’t seem to have any problems with printing or scanning to the HP device. Nice job testing your product HP!

- Several blogs and tech notes on the web state incompatibilities with many preexisting business applications. You’ll find better research on the web about this than I can post here. Be careful and plan your upgrade, and do your diligence.

As far as Toshiba Portégé M400:

- The docking station needs work to be able to leverage the Tablet more constructively. I’m not sure it’s any better with the other vendors so do your homework. Toshiba also for some strange reason omitted a speaker output jack on the dock. Everything else gets plugged into the dock with the exception of this line which has to plug in the front of the notebook. Really weird…

- Speaking of sound, the M400 speaker system is pretty basic to say the least. I guess you can call it stereo… My crystal radio I built when I was a boy had about the same fidelity as this tablet does. I’m not one for needing amazing sound on my notebook – but generally decent sound would be good. Plan on using that stereo plug a lot and get yourself some speakers of your likely. Personally I am a huge fan of Creative’s equipment (http://www.creative.com) - they have some really great gear.

- I love the Tablet hand writing feature with MS OneNote. With the faster processor and 2 Gigs of memory – it rocks. No screen jitter or slow response whatsoever, even with a full complement of other resources running. If you were not considering a tablet PC (versus a notebook) you may want to reconsider. If for personal use I find it useful for colleting thoughts and maintaining lists.

- The battery life is pretty good all things considered. Do yourself a favor though and buy and extra one as a part of your initial purchase. I through in two extra power supplies for convenience sake. Once stays in the briefcase at all times so I never forget it when I’m late for the airport.

Web Based Hosting / ASP Models
During my decision process to move to Vista, one factor that greatly helped to ease the incompatibilities and glitches that are inherent with a newly released OS was the use of web based applications. As a small business owner and a consultant, I made a conscious decision to move some of my administrative tasks off of the desktop and into an Application Service Provider (ASP) model as much as possible. What this means is that as long as my browser is working okay you can access critical business applications (such as Quickbooks for bookkeeping and product called Xpresssoft for Time and Attendance). Should I have purchased the stand alone versions of these software packages, I am certain my experience with upgrading to Vista would have been much more difficult. This is a good direction for any size business to consider. Hosting services have become quite practical these days. They save a lot of headaches anywhere from lessoning the impact on the desktop, to staffing issues to disaster recovery by paying someone else to worry about. And its not just for businesses either. From a consumer’s prospective there are a number of on line services for storage, bookkeeping, phone services, backup and the likes that can offload the software that you need to reload. Consider the point that the more you embrace a hosting service, the easier your next computer upgrade will be. You won’t be able to get rid of everything off of your desktop (as this is dictated by your available bandwidth), however, if you set that as your strategy and work towards it, you may be better off in the long run, both financially and technically.

I’ll be happy to share other points about the Tablet or any other points discussed in these posts for that matter. Please feel free to drop a comment in the blog or drop me a note. Good luck!

Microsoft OneNote - Is it the death of the pen and yellow notepad?

Although like most things that come from Microsoft, there always seems to be room for improvement, I needed to comment on Microsoft OneNote. Although OneNote has been around for a few years now, the advancements in tablet computing hardware has really started to take shape. The marriage of an adequately powered tablet PC and Microsoft OneNote brings people closer to achieving what I set out to do many years ago, that is, scraping my pen and yellow notepads. You can’t appreciate a tablets capability until you experience the interface that a product like OneNote brings to the table for you.

Personally, I am still learning all its capabilities, however, my initial findings is that it now is practical to take phone notes, meeting notes and similar information that you normally write down on a piece of paper, right on the tablet. The general human interface issues that were inherent with tablet computing in previous years really have been minimized by Microsoft’s OneNote. I would expect that as more technologists experience this product, the adoption of the tablet environment will begin to integrate better for people and add yet another common human interface right next to the keyboard and mouse. That is, of course as long as the hardware manufacturers continue to refine the ergonomic technicalities of integrating tablet based computing into the mainstream of personal computing. For now, OneNote makes sense and if you haven’t investigated it’s impact to your personal or business computing environments, it may be worth some of your time to take a look.

The Vistas of expansion in a Personal Computing Environment

As a technologist, I have come to realize over the years that upgrading one’s personal computing environment is a bitter sweet process. Having to recently go through a replacement of my notebook computer, I couldn’t help but to provide some highlights of the event. With the thousands of computers sold on the market today, I am certainly not a pioneer here, but there are a few observations that I thought were worth posting on the blog that centers around the infamous computer upgrade.

In keeping with the theme of the blog, I’m not going to compare Product A to Product B (although I will comment on a few disappointing challenges and lack of features that I ran across). What I will do is discuss the sociological aspect of the event. I know, this sounds deep but it's really not. So - follow the links below to get the story. The sections can stand on their own if you want to go to a specific point, but I would recommend reviewing all of them since it tells the whole story.

Since all of us must go through this seemingly undesirable process at one point in our lives, I thought it was a worthy blog topic. Actually, according to my estimates the average person has to deal with this undesirable process at least 11 times in their lifetime. That is of course if you don’t count any of the upgrades for your wife, kids or other relatives that were smart enough to pawn it off on you.

For me, buying new technology is like being a kid again. It starts by imagining how wonderful it will be to finally got your first bike and be able to race around with the rest of your friends only; to find that you need to build your skill level a bit before you can keep up with them . As with anything, you need to stop and think - is owning the new toy (or in my case latest technology gadget) as good as the anticipation of owning it). Will I gain the productivity advancements that they claim comes with the purchase? I can’t help but to think about this especially when it comes to Microsoft Vista.

I’ll admit that the marketing campaigns that must have cost the Microsoft millions to produce probably had an effect on me. If they didn’t I most likely would have stayed with XP a bit longer before I made the jump. However, being the technologist that I am, my curiously got the best of me.

Making that decision, I was well aware of what I would be up against. After all, I have already been through 50% of my life expectancy of upgrades. I was ready for the excitement of getting a fresh new technology and all the rewards that are claimed to come with it. On the other side, having to give up a comfort level that was established over much time with my current system (even though it did have its problems) was concerning. Although, I’m not one to coin corny phrases, this is an obvious lead into one; there are always two sides of the coin. In this case the reality of upgrading one’s personal computing environment especially with a new operating system often dulls the anticipation a bit.

Outline
Taking the jump into new computing territory takes a little planning. Other than the obvious configuration bits and bytes that you need to decide on (See Guidelines for selecting the right Tablet PC); one other consideration that is often overlooked is evaluating your current personal computing environment. That is, understanding what you clearly are trying to achieve by buying a new computer or moving to a newer technology like Vista (See Identifying your commuting environment). In my case, it started out simple. My laptop was about 5 years old and was starting to run into more and more configuration problems that was effecting my work. Since I was staying with a portable, my choice was a Toshiba tablet based system using Windows Vista and Office 2007 (See Can you see the Vista?). For some strange reason I have been curiously patient in buying a tablet PC. This was odd since for many years now I have felt very strongly about the major benefits that tablet based systems can bring. The Tablet PC’s evolution has been slow, but significant developments have helped to bring its computing capabilities more mainstream (See The evolution of tablet computing). With this, it seemed to be the right time for my needs to make the move. More importantly, this supported one of my personal goals that I have had for quite some time of trying to achieve a paperless environment. I’m not sure if I am entirely there yet, but I am certainly closer than I have ever been (See Microsoft OneNote - Is it the death of the pen and yellow notepad?). Tablet computing still has it challenges today and the manufacturers may need to rethink the way they are delivering these systems to the market. More importantly, they need to take a closer look at how people can effectively use them, something I call "the personal integration factor" (See The Personal Integration Factor).