Zune

The Orbiting O’Odua: Baby’s Nursery

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Since Kylie Emma is only three months old, she probably has no need for a system right now.*

However, Disney’s Baby Einstein series is something she seems to relish listening to. As a result, she has scored a TV and DVD player. Close...(read more)

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Presenting....Silverlight!

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WPF/E has now been christened 'Silverlight', a new technology for creating 'Rich Interactive Applications'.

Announced by Microsoft today at the NAB confab in Las Vegas, Silverlight, which is more than just Flash, will do, actually, I'll let Darryl K Taft break it down:

Silverlight is based on the .Net Framework and enables developers and designers to use their existing skills to deliver media experiences and RIAs—which Microsoft refers to as "rich interactive applications" as opposed to "rich Internet applications"—for the Web with role-specific tools: Expression Studio for designers and Visual Studio for developers.

More in his article here.

As usual, Mary Jo Foley has some thoughts, and Robert McLaws chimes in too.

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

The HP tx1000 Review

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I have been reviewing the new HP tx1000 Tablet PC.

I reviewed the HP tx1000 in three phases: as an entertainment Tablet PC, as a mobile information worker’s replacement laptop, and as a Tablet PC replacement for the Acer C100 Tablet PCs that are currently placed at client healthcare providers’ offices that are at the end of their operational life.

Unboxing and looks

In the box was the tx1000, a remote control, an additional battery, and two sets of stereo earbud-style headphones.

The sleek, black tx1000 is a very welcome departure in design from the normally utilitarian looks of Tablet PCs and notebooks, apart from the Ferrari series of notebooks from Acer.

This unit has quite a few little design elements that speak to the desirability of the unit. The touchpad, for instance, is of an entirely new design, and the most comfortable I have ever used. It also comes with an integrated fingerprint reader, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, dual microphones built into the lid, and dual headphone jacks, for the included headphones. The stylus has a lanyard for securing it to the system. Going further along with the entertainment theme, the tx1000’s stereo speakers are located on the lid, allowing the user the full benefit of the speakers even when the unit is in slate mode. A dual-layer LightScribe 8X DVD drive completes the package. An added vig is the remote control.

The system also has a plethora of I/O ports, from three (3) USB ports, Ethernet, modem, external monitor, S-Video, ExpressCard, and a 5-in-1 memory card reader.

Configuration & Performance

Configuration

The tx1000 has both 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in. In fact, it has a very nifty switch built into the system that allows you to enable/disable wireless connectivity on the fly!

This system came with a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher (why?) and Microsoft Works (again, why?). A 6-day Norton Internet Security 2006 package was also in the box (why, why, why???).

I promptly discarded the Norton, AOL, Works, and Office 2003 software, RealRhapsody.

I then installed the Logikworx Standard Desktop Suite 2007.

Performance

The tx1000 is based on the speedy dual-core AMD Turion TL-60 CPU running at 2.0 GHz and an NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 with 128MB.

This system has a Performance Index of 3.0 and more than that, feels pretty fast, for a compact Tablet PC.

Testing

Suitability to task 1: Default configuration (almost) aka Entertainment Tablet PC

As an entertainment PC, the tx1000, out-of-the box (OOB), has a range of multimedia software included, such as Muvee AutoProducer DVD edition, and Sonic Digital Media Plus.

The system just rocked. The IR remote control allowed me to make the most of it and the speakers were quite loud, even in a crowded airport. Using the headphone was another plus, as I was able to get two test subjects (John-III & Trevor) to quietly watch Callou, Bob the Builder, and other content quietly…..

Suitability to task 2: Mobile Information Worker’s Tablet PC

In this test, I tested the suitability of the tx1000 to the task of being the primary workstation of a mobile information worker, such as insurance agents, real estate agents/brokers, or a drug manufacturer’s representative.

I completely wiped the system and performed a clean install of Windows Vista Business and the Logikworx Standard Business Desktop 2007*……

Suitability to task 3: Healthcare Provider’s Tablet PC

I made the tx1000 into a dual-boot system by installing both Windows XP and Windows Vista™, since some of the target PM software required Windows XP. In the Vista™ partition, I tested the tx1000 using the two most common PM and electronic medical records (EMR) software suites among our clients in both a direct install, and running in a Windows XP Virtual machine…… (Please see notes below for information on Windows XP on the tx1000)

Conclusion

HP has a winner here.

In the tx1000, HP has a Tablet PC with an impressive feature list and at a price point that is easily palatable to most users, small businesses, and enterprises. It is compact, powerful, relatively-inexpensive, and durable enough to be used daily.

Apart from the relatively short orientation for the passive display, I found it to be a very capable machine. In fact, compared to our reference Toshiba Tecra M7, which cost over $1,000 USD more than the tx1000 in a virtually similar configuration, the tx1000 more than held its own.

It is in this vein that we are awarding it the SmallBizVista.com Preferred award, and making it the recommended Tablet PC for all our customers.

In closing, I would like to thank HP, and AMD for the opportunity to I got to review this desirable unit. My only negative feeling about is the fact that the tx1000 has to go back. Sob, sob……

The full SmallBizVista.com tx1000 review is here.

*The Logikworx Standard Business Desktop 2007 consists of Microsoft Office 2007 Professional, Microsoft Office OneNote, Microsoft Windows Defender, Microsoft Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft Expression Web Designer, Paint.NET, Spybot Search & Destroy, v1.4, ahead Nero v7.8, Microsoft Tablet PC PowerToys, and InterVideo WinDVD v8.

The HP tx1000 is a Windows Vista-only system and is available with either the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows Vista ONLY.

My installation of Windows XP was for demonstration purposes ONLY.

Windows XP is an unsupported configuration for the HP tx1000.

If you downgrade to Windows XP, you will do so at your own risk, and your system may either cease to function, or lose functionality.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) will NOT support you or your system in this configuration.

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

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© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Vista no threat to OS X Leopard

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Says Apple's CFO.

So?

Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? That the company whose product has 90% of the market shouldn't feel threatened by an upstart?

If, with 3% or so of the computing market, this idiot feels the need to reassure us about his forthcoming product's prospects, what does that say about the loops at 1 Infinite Loop?

Dude, this ain't the iPod market.

Holla' when your market share gets to 3%.

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Microsoft calls out Blue

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In this post in The Hive, member Waggler comments on IBM's underhanded, yet increasingly vocal opposition to Microsoft's Open Office XML document specification.

IBM's moves in this regard make the cowardly lion in Alice in Wonderland seem most fierce.

How insidious is this wink-wink, FUD-FUD campaign?

However, the following is my reply to the post.

(Edited to allow language not allowed in The Hive.)

Why should we blame IBM?

The culprit here is Microsoft.

Yes, Microsoft!

Listen, you do not go to a gunfight with a Taser®.

Where has Microsoft been all this time?

Even now, the letter and the problem, does not seem to be addressed at the highest levels. I know those guys are, by all indications, very important to the Office dev/mktg team and Microsoft, but to everyone else outside their locus of authority, just who the fuck are they?

For this, you need Bill Gates. You need Steve Ballmer. Heck, I’ll even take Margo Day (Have you listened to that woman speak? After a speech from her, you just want to get out there and move a whole lotta Microsoft stuff!)

You need someone to take a Martin Taylor-like position and slam those donkeys at IBM.

I think Microsoft’s counter attack has to come from the very highest levels; with the executive at Microsoft taking the fight to the leaders of those countries that are trying to lead their cattle people down that path.

It was this sort of belated lukewarm response that allowed the open source tossers the opportunity to gain a foothold in the EU and LDCs because those same asswipes could point to the lack of a fierce response from Microsoft as either arrogance, or worse, indifference.

Every time I come across those same arguments, I kick them down by asking, when was the last time the head of technology assessment for the country looked at source code or expressed a wish to do so. However, the inclusion of such source code as been sold to those fools as a way of equalizing technology. Go figure!

Moreover, the counterattack has to be swift, sufficiently sarcastic, loud, coherent, consistent, and long-lasting.

It is one thing to stand and attack with Apple, since the charisma delta between St Steven Paul 1 and Bill G. is pretty wide to the general public, though not to us in the industry.

It is another thing entirely to lose a PR battle to that invisible, creepy Palmisano.

Are you fuckin' kiddin’me?

That guy is so bland, even CPAs don’t want to hang with him.

So, Microsoft, MSFT has been doing well, please keep it that way and get the VITOs out.

And in full force!

My blog post about IBM’s deceptively named ‘Open Client’ is here.

Notes:

  • LDC: Less-developed country, the PC name for 3rd World country.
  • VITO: Very Important Top Officer
  • Martin Taylor: Where is this dude?

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Jobs: No DRM is good.

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Is it now, Stevie?

When did you get religion, SJ?

For years, you had the option of licensing your DRM to others in order to create seamlessly-interoperable storefronts.

Did you, Steveski?

The coming flap over the closed DRM in your iPods in the EU has you sweating, eh, Stevorino?

What, the 20 iTMS songs bought for iPod sold, which has held steady did not make you do it, Steven.

This is not for the consumer, you smug-faced hypocrite, it is to protect your iPod sales, S.

Have you forgotten, Stephan, that you are on record as saying that iTMS is just there to facilitate more iPod sales and not the reverse.

Shake yourself, and get offa the "high road", dude!

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Thank you for innovating with Zune, Microsoft.

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I don’t give Microsoft enough credit for design and innovation!

I am sorry, Guys.

Case in point: Zune.

Yes, Zune.

A little backgrounder.

When Apple created the iPod, everyone was asleep at the wheel.

Microsoft was approaching the CE space from where they generally do that from, the platform side, with Xbox and Media Center PCs.

As we all now know, the iPod became the cultural phenomenon it is today and Microsoft had to do something since Apple was not only getting face time with consumers, but was on the way to extending the iPod brand in a way that would have severely marginalized the Media Center PCs and extenders, and by proxy, Microsoft.

As usual, Microsoft did what they were best at, and created a product. Microsoft delivered a platform, Plays-for-Sure (hereafter known as P4S) for those yum-yums to build on, in order to compete with Apple. A universal media format for both audio and video, windows media, encoders, DRM, compatibility built into every Windows-based computer system, a marketing program for devices, a media player with embedded links to the music stores operated by P4S, etc, etc.

What did they do with it?

NADA.

These idiots totally abdicated their collective gifts and ceded the portable media player (PMC) throne to the loops at 1, Infinite Loop, in Cupertino. For goodness sakes, the only company that tried to do anything sorta innovative and different with their offerings was Real Networks. Real Networks! And you know how I feel about their crapware! (Will this post get me a snottogram from them…Hmmmmmm?)

Where do I start?

Hardware. Frankly, the P4S hardware sucked.

  • Naming was horrible. For all of them, the only device that had a, ahem, hip name, was the holistic-sounding Creative Zen and the funky iRiver Clix. You had the YEPP, and so on. Even iRiver, suffered from the perception that the company name was an imitation of iPod.
  • Design. Don’t get me started about design! They all sucked
  • Extensibility. What extensibility? The device manufacturers all bought into the Apple and CE trap of non-improvable systems.

Software. “Build it, and they will come.” Well, Not this time, for they stayed away!

  • P4S Vision. The only thing the device manufacturers did was stay within the bounds of their license for Plays-for-Sure.
  • Music store interoperability. None whatsoever. There wasn’t any adherence to interoperability at all. They all had their little fiefdoms and the only one beating the unity drum was Microsoft.

Why all this old news?

I had just been reading through the list of revelations that have come out of the idiotic Iowa antitrust case, when I realized that I shared the angst the executive at Microsoft must have felt back when they wrote those memos.

BTW, doesn’t it say a lot about Jim Allchin that his memos always seem to describe the feeling of the troops on the ground, so to speak, in very plain language? To wit: the description of the crop of P4S devices as “pieces of crap”, or something to that effect. Not PC, but painfully descriptive!

As a result, Microsoft was in dire straits, and they needed to do something, and fast, else they would have handed the living room to that smug, mock-turtle-wearing philistine.

Microsoft just had to do something. And they did.

To their credit, they took the easy road and didn’t try to redefine the status quo in hardware design because of the lengthy lead-in time. Moreover, just like J Allard and the crew did with the first Xbox, they took an off-the-shelf design (small form-factor pc case) and modified it enough to suit version 1.0, while they work on getting the backend stuff worked out. For hardware, they went for the Toshiba GigaBeat. My first thoughts on the then-rumors of the GigaBeat can be found here.

For Zune, they tweaked the backend, added Live Points functionality, and also a bunch of stuff that is in the Zune we know and love today. Live Points is Microsoft’s nascent implementation of a global micropayments platform.

Also, Microsoft has already added value to Zune since its release by already making firmware improvements as needs arise. Furthermore, all P4S content can be played on Zune! That alone, totally obliterated one of the problems I thought I was going to have with Zune, since I had content from Napster and URGE on my previous PMCs, which have all been given away to unsuspecting victims.

Folks, this is a marathon, not a sprint.

In addition, Microsoft really, truly understands that the winner of this battle will control the spigot through which digital content is streamed into tomorrow’s homes.

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows