April 30th, 2007

Southwest Airlines looking at in-flight WiFi

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 5:28 am

Categories: Gadgetry, Hardware, Mobility, Productivity

Tags: Southwest Airlines Co., Wi-Fi, Marc Orchant

According to a story in the Denver Post, Southwesy Airlines is seriously considering a pilot program (sorry, couldn't resist) to test WiFi connectivity on its flights. I fly SWA all the time - I broke the 100 flights in 12 months threshold this year which means my wife can join me for free anytime I fly for the next year. Having WiFi on the plane would be a great win, especially with my WiFi-enabled Nokia devices (N800 and N93) which both work very nicely with a Bluetooth keyboard on the snack tray.

H/T to Andy on Working Anywhere for the link. 

April 29th, 2007

Is there any "wow" left in the Tablet PC?

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 7:49 am

Categories: Gadgetry, Hardware, Mobility, Productivity, Tablet PCs, Vista, Windows

Tags: PC, IM, Tablet PC, Tablet, Marc Orchant

Rob Bushway at GottaBeMobile.com wrote a thoughtful piece the other day pondering where the "wow" has gone in the Tablet PC segment. It's a well-balanced look at what he sees as a mature product segment lacking in significant new innovations that are likely to drive large numbers of new adopters to the platform. I've been using Tablet PCs for about as long as Rob – I first got my hands on the original Toshiba entry into the space (the Portege 3500) back in 2003 and I remember the "wow" experience it delivered.

James Kendrick of jkOnTheRun and my occasional podcast partner wrote an equally thoughtful rebuttal piece yesterday invoking the apparently imminent entry from Dell into the space as a sign of health and continuing validation for the Tablet PC. And, in classic blogosphere fashion, Rob has responded with a second post that moves the conversation forward, saying (in part):

I believe James overestimates the impact of Dell coming out with a Tablet PC. Sure, it will impact the enterprise in a positive way and make inroads to markets where IT shops are purely Dell. It will bring awareness to a platform we all feel is superior. This will happen in the same way that Lenovo positively impacted the market. However, when Lenovo entered the Tablet PC area, it wasn't earth shattering with every Tom, Dick, and Harry coming in to Starbucks sporting a Tablet PC. What I did see was more drug reps carrying an X41 and that is a good thing for sure. If the Dell Tablet PC rumors come true and they come out with a unit that closely models the D420, my point has been validated about a lack of innovation and design. I welcome Dell to the table with open arms, but can they please come to the table with something yummy to eat rather than a repeat of last night's hamburger?

I totally agree with James that Tablet PCs today are just as powerful as their counterparts, and that is a good thing. They should be. At this point in the game, we shouldn't expect less. But that is not the innovation I'm talking about. Those are things that put the tablet on par with other notebooks. Where are the features that help set it apart? Are they pushing the envelope design wise? Are they designing for the pen user or just sticking a Wacom digitizer on a screen, making it a single spindle machine and calling it a tablet? Where are the mobility enhancements we've come to expect in Vista? Where are the software design innovations from ISVs?

All good questions and, to me, signs of a maturity plateau. To me, the recent emphasis on expanding the market space by including both Tablet and touchscreen technologies into a single area of focus at Microsoft is a good sign of refactoring the development and marketing mindset to move onwards and upwards from the current plateau. The Asus R2H UMPC that I've been evaluating (well, attempting to evaluate anyway) has a lot of promise. It combines a touch screen implementation of the Tablet PC with a camera, GPS, and connectivity options in what could be a very useful alternative to carrying a full(er) sized Tablet PC around. But the Vista issues are profound, the device gets really hot, and the battery life is hardly sufficient to make this a long meeting device much less an all-day-on-the-go choice.

I've been very outspoken here on the blog and in public conversations at the many events I've been traveling to recently that increasingly powerful mobile devices are one of the trends that are contributing to a "perfect storm of change" headed toward the world of work. Tablet PC occupies the large end of that product continuum. UMPCs are in the middle – smaller and more easily toted around but currently compromised by usability, power, bulk, and heat issues. The smaller, lighter Nokia N800 I've been using is a unique form factor in the handheld mobile device segment with its Linux underpinnings, internet and media focus, and its design disposition towards accessing, rather than carrying data. And then there are the increasingly capable mobile handsets coming from the telephony side of the space from manufacturers like Palm, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and HDC (among others).

There is innovation taking place in terms of the variety of devices mobile knowledge workers can choose from to remain engaged and productive in a variety of non-office settings. But the innovations are, as Rob argues in his posts, mostly adding features and frills to established product designs, not "wow" factor ideas. Incremental improvements, in other words, rather than groundbreaking innovations.

This, to me, feels like a temporary lull in the storm. Where the next "wow" will come from is unclear. It might be the impact the iPhone has on the market – not so much in terms of actual units shipped but in the larger design trends sense. The first generation device, as it's been reported, is far too closed for my liking and I don't really need a third phone and telco contract in my life. I simply will not put up with a phone that won't even allow me to change batteries, much less add software. And I've bought way too many first-generation devices from Apple to make that mistake on something with a two-year commitment to a carrier I'm not currently engaged with (I use both Sprint and T-Mobile personally and Verizon through my company).

Maybe Apple will get a sub-notebook or iTablet built using some of the good stuff they're doing with the iPhone and that will be the next "wow". Maybe it will come completely out of left field. Looking at the recent slate of mobile offerings from Sony, OQO, and Vulcan as well as the current options in the UMPC space, I see a lot of fiddling with form factor but not so much "wow". The same thing goes for the Tablet PC space itself. I continue to be impressed by the Lenovo X60t I'm evaluating but it is more the case that this is the best example of a convertible Tablet PC I've had the good fortune to use than that it provides anything dramatically different from the previous units I've used.

Well, with one exception. I'm currently using the X60t model featuring the dual-mode display that provides both the standard Tablet PC active digitizer experience as well as touchscreen functionality. And it's very nicely implemented. When I feel like poking at the screen with my fingers, the device works great for tasks like reading ebooks and digital magazines, watching video. and listening to music and podcasts. When I'm ready to mind map, review and respond to e-mail, edit a document, or other fine-grained control activities, I use the stylus. The Lenovo senses the tip of th stylus and suspends the touch screen to avoid any issues with multiple points of input, palm recognition as I'm leaning my hand on the screen to write, or other anomalies that can crop up in a purely passive, touchscreen device. It's excellent execution and a pleasure to use.

But that's not what Rob and James are debating. They're talking about "wow". And right now, I'm more inclined to agree with Rob that we're in a bit of a lull. 

April 27th, 2007

Getting Things Done - Southwest style

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 8:39 pm

Categories: Events, Productivity

Tags: Seminar, Marc Orchant

Today I attended the GTD Roadmap seminar in Scottsdal, AZ. This is the second time I've been to the Roadmap, a concentrated one-day dive into David Allen's system for stress-free productivity which long-time readers know I am a passionate advocate of. While at Web 2.0 Expo a couple of weeks back, I got into a discussion about GTD with my buddy Steve Borsch, author of the excellent Connecting the Dots blog, and I convinced him that attending a live seminar might be just the ticket to help him really "get" what GTD is all about.

I think Steve got quite a bit out of the event and we had a very lively conversation during the breaks with a number of the seminar attendees. I introduced Steve to iGTD which is currently my GTD application of choice on the MacBook (and about which I will blog at greater length soon). We both used the application to complete some of the exercises David took us through during the seminar, an approach I highly enjoyed as I have used the seminar workbook in the past (this is my third GTD seminar since I first became acquainted with Allen's work in 2001). 

While the content was pretty much the same as in the seminar I attended a year ago, there was significantly more interaction with the audience and a number of regular participants in the GTD Forums from the Phoenix area were in attendance which made for some interesting first face-to-face meetings during and after the event.

Every time I'm exposed to this material, I take away a different perspective on the implications and impact GTD can have on my work and my life. There are, as Allen often says, many layers to be peeled from this particular onion. As I've been juggling an interesting mix of devices and attempting to develop a "unified field theory" to keep all my devices in sync, I came to this event with a different perspective than I have in the past and, as a result, came away from the experience with a new set of perceptions and ideas about how to get a better level of control over my commitments.

I have the good fortune to have gotten to know David Allen rather well over the years. He and I record a podcast, GTD Tech, from time to time, which is made available to subscribers to the GTD Connect service his company offers. We've had some engaging conversations about developments in technology that impact the practice of Getting Things Done and I'm cooking up a new topic - Getting Things Done with Web 2.0 tools for us to discuss in our next installment.

If you have the opportunity to attend one of the Roadmap seminars, I can't recommend it highly enough. It's a immersion into a system that, unlike many personal productivity methods, does not promote any particular tools or technology. In my experience, I've known GTD'ers who operate at "black belt productivity" levels using nothing more than a legal pad or stack of 3" x 5" index cards (otherwise known as a Hipster PDA) and others who have attained the same level of proficiency with a plethora of gadgets and software. And, like the martial arts which Allen uses as a constant metaphor in his presentation, attaining black belt is really just the end of the beginning of really mastering the art. 

April 26th, 2007

iotum Talk-Now and Jajah hook up

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 8:02 am

Categories: CES, Gadgetry, Hardware, Mobility, Productivity, Software

Tags:

This is one of those natural alliances that make you nod your head at the "right-ness" of the connection. Too often, I read about companies announcing "strategic alliances" that are neither terribly strategic nor actually an alliance in the sense of a meeting of equals generating a sum that is greater than it's parts. iotum's Talk-Now is the kind of application service I wish was available for my Treo 700p or Nokia N93. Sadly, it remains an exclusive tool for Blackberry users (at least for now).

Talk-Now, which I first saw at CES in a hallway demo (and I do mean hallway - see the accompanying photo of founder Alec Saunders' demo kit arrayed on the floor of one of the Las Vegas Convention Center's hallways). It's a terrific start to unraveling the presence puzzle – leveraging mobile devices' ability to display both time and location information. In essence, Talk-Now lets you inform people on your buddy list when you're available for a call and when you're not. And Talk-Now lets you know when someone you need to call makes themselves available.

Add Jajah to the mix and you have the ability to make those calls at extremely low per-minute prices when you know the other party is available to talk.

Like I said… natural. 

April 24th, 2007

A fine ergo solution for laptop users

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 1:54 pm

Categories: Gadgetry, Mobility, Productivity

Tags:

For the past couple of weeks, I've experienced a significant reduction in the weariness and stiffness I normally associate with spending many hours working on my laptop when seated at a desk. This relief has come thanks to a new aluminum desktop stand I've been using made by LapWorks, the same people who make the Laptop Desk I wrote about some time ago. Like the laptop desk, the new portable aluminum desktop stand solves two problems that plague those of us who use notebook PCs – heat and ergonomics.

Where the laptop desk is designed as a portable solution that can also be used on a desk, the new aluminum stand is a solution dedicated to working at your desk. It is portable and easily packed into a computer bag for shuttling between home and office or even when traveling. But unlike the Laptop Desk, which is constructed from high density plastics designed to shield your lap from the heat and "tippiness" issues inherent in balancing a notebook PC on your lap, the aluminum stand focuses on ergonomics first and foremost.

The aluminum stand provides six angles of tilt to provide a range of options for both direct typing and for elevating the notebook screen to eye level when used in conjunction with a separate keyboard and mouse. The base incorporates a 360-degree turntable which make swiveling the notebook easy. At my desk, I find the second level of inclination perfect for allowing me to keep my hands and wrists in a much more natural and comfortable position. As you can see from the product photo, the stand also provides cutouts to assist with cable routing.

I've experimented with the separate keyboard and mouse arrangement but frankly I am quite fond of the keyboards on both the MacBook and the Lenovo ThinkPad X60t Tablet PC and prefer them to the desktop keyboard I currently have on hand. The flexibility is very nice though as switching configurations takes seconds.

While ergonomic benefits are the primary benefit you'll get from using this stand, the cooling effect of the stand should not go unremarked. Both of my notebooks run considerably cooler on this stand and the heat reduction is nearly as good as what I achieve with a cooling plate with USB-powered fans. The big win, ergonomics notwithstanding, is that I don't have to put up with the drone of the fans in the cooling plate. And, as bot the MacBook and Lenovo X60t tend to get rather warm after a few hours of use, the heat reduction is most welcome.

According to the product page:

Aluminum dissipates heat quickly, keeping your laptop cooler. A thermal study conducted for LapWorks by the California Polytechnic University at Pomona concluded that the Aluminum Desktop Stand reduces heat build-up by up to 23% by virtue of its heat-absorbing aluminum as well as the incline which allows heat to escape. As an example, a laptop placed on the Aluminum Desktop Stand on the steep, 37° incline that raises the screen by 6 inches ran 27 degrees cooler (88 compared to 115 degrees at maximum temperature) than the same laptop set flat on a desk.

Through the end of May, the aluminum desktop stand is on sale for $59.95, a $10.00 savings on the standard price. The stand comes with a nice neoprene bag for transport which can be used as a mouse pad in your hotel room or other location as well. If you find yourself hunching over your notebook PC when working at your desk (or kitchen table), this might be just the ticket to take a lot of strain off your neck and shoulders. 

April 24th, 2007

Hand-me-down tech: where old gadgets go

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 5:31 am

Categories: Gadgetry, Hardware

Tags:

Where do all of your old gadgets go when a new BSO (bright shiny object) arrives? It's an interesting question addressed by Andy on his VoIP Watch blog today. Like Andy (and Om Malik who he cites in his article) and a frighteningly high percentage of the people I tend to hang out with, acquiring new gadgets is an addictive behavior I've accepted and embraced. I see cool gear and I want it. So I get it. And yesterday's gotta-have-it device (or software – I don't discriminate) ends up… where?

Andy describes his outlet – Helene, his lovely bride-to-be who he describes as a "girl geek". I've had the pleasure of getting to know her a bit and she is, indeed, a certified member of the gadget club. In my case, the primary recipient of my well-used former BSOs is my son Jason. My wife is only selectively interested in gadgets (she loves her iMac and her digital camera and her iPod Shuffle but doesn't have any real gadget lust in her heart) and my daughter mostly follows in her mom's footsteps.

Jason, on the other hand, is his father's son and gleefully accepts his role as reaper of the bounty that is my continual stream of gadgets. He's had a variety of PDAs, smartphones, MP3 players, cameras, and other goodies land on his desk after I've moved on to the latest greatest.

Where do your old gadgets go?

April 22nd, 2007

Sunday funnies: Infinite Loop on HandBrake

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 8:49 am

Categories: Mac, Software, Utilities and Add-Ins, Windows

Tags:

 You gotta love writing like this:

The future is indeed bright for those engaging in legitimate transference of DVDs to other video formats, as well as dirty, stinking, filthy, communist pirates stealing food from the mouths of the children of movie studio executives. The same sun shines on us all.

From Infinite Loop's report on the latest release of HandBrake, an excellent open source DVD… ummm… repurposer for Mac OS, Windows, and Linux.

N.B. the icon pictured here is a serious improvement over the one included in the application. 

April 21st, 2007

Instant e-mail message form: Contactify

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 7:27 pm

Categories: Blogs, Software, Utilities and Add-Ins, Web Apps

Tags:

I just came across Contactify via Digital Inspiration. This is a very nice solution if you want to add a way for people reading your blog to be able to contact you without a lot of heavy lifting. It's also a great way to add a "contact me" link in your signature in forums, Usenet groups, and other public discussion space where you might not want to publish your actual e-mail address.

Give it a try by clicking this link. 

April 19th, 2007

Pssst... Vonage, want to buy some IP?

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 2:31 pm

Categories: Blogs, Mobility

Tags:

On VoIP Watch, my friend Andy Abramson tells an interesting story today that is both topical and illuminating in a higher altitude sort of way about the vagaries of intellectual property, patents, and litigation. According to Andy's story, it appears that US Robotics (nee 3Com) holds a patent that is extremely similar to the one Verizon is using to try to force Vonage to shut down ongoing sales operations. In theory, if I read the story correctly, Vonage could conceivably license the IP from 3Com to defend itself from Verizon. That's interesting in and of itself as this courtroom drama unfolds.

What makes this a multi-dimensional tale though, and what really piqued my interest was that both of these patents were apparently applied for and granted at about the same time back in 1996. Both address address mapping computers, VOIP phone devices, and regular phones to each other using the PSTN and the Internet using central lookup servers to match phone numbers and IP addresses.

The whole patent and trademark process is incredibly complex, confusing, and rife with problems. I'm neither a lawyer nor an expert in these technologies by any stretch of the imagination so it's beyond my ability to say whether this idea has any applicability to the Vonage-Verizon battle. If true, it would make an already emotionally charged story even more dramatic. I'm hoping some experts – either on the law or the technology – respond to Andy's call for comment and discussion.

Update: Alec Saunders weighs in on this in a post titled Stockpiling Warheads. 

April 19th, 2007

Treo 700p fixes coming (at last)

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 11:00 am

Categories: Gadgetry, Hardware, Mobility, Software

Tags:

On The Official Palm Blog, Steve Sinclair, the Treo Product Manager, announced a couple of days ago that a Maintenance Release (AKA firmware update) for the Treo 700p is in late stage testing with carriers and should be released in the very near future. This is great news for all of us who have been putting up with spotty Bluetooth, intermittent hangs, and other issues since this model was first released. Sinclair provides a clear explanation of Palm's approach to making the patch vs. MR decision to address problems that I can at once appreciate from my own industry experience and brush off with typical customer impatience at the same time. He closes with this "stake in the ground" announcement:

We're now in the carrier certification phase with the Treo 700p MR and as I type this, our best estimate of customer release will be the week of May 28th. In addition to the Bluetooth improvements I mentioned above, the 700p MR includes updates to SMS send/receive performance, MP3 playback, phone app launch speed and other areas. It's admittedly been a much longer project than expected, but we're almost there…

We're waiting…