jkOnTheRun

CorePlayer Mobile adds support for Flash files

If you carry digital media files on your Windows Mobile or Palm handheld, there's a pretty good chance that you either have or have looked at CorePlayer Mobile at some point. You'll want to take another look, or a first look, because the long-time media player just added support for Adobe Flash. That doesn't mean you can view Flash-based vids in your mobile browser, but you can view .FLV files in the newest CorePlayer version, which is 1.2.4. It's $24.95 for a WinMo or Palm OS license, but most folks I know feel that it's well worth the purchase price. You can view the entire changelog right here; I see that all supported Symbian devices get a YouTube Browser with this version as well.

(via Palm Infocenter)

Coffee break- working in the sun

I just hung up from a conference call with Kevin and one other person that was pretty cool.  Firstly, I was sitting outside the local coffee shop in the bright sun with just an umbrella providing a bit of shade.  Secondly, the conference call was conducted flawlessly with my BlackBerry and Bluetooth headset that worked very well.  And thirdly, I was using the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 to keep up with the topics discussed and while the screen was dim due to the bright sun it was still usable  It's nice to work in the sun.  :)  I should mention that we have something very cool coming up right after the Dragon contest ends next week.  Very cool indeed.  :)

The cheap, sub-notebook class gets sub-classed... and more expensive

I'm swamped today but happened to catch a little news in Google Reader after lunch. Is it just me or are the laptop companies trying to kill the newest sub-notebook market before it really hits critical mass? Don't get me wrong: I love what was started by the OLPC and the Asus EEE PC. It just appears to me that folks are trying to cash in on it by maximizing profits in the early stages. Here's what I've seen:

• The OLPC was planned to be around $100 or so and turned into a $200 machine. 100% increase.
• The Eee PC 701 was looking to be a $200 machine and quickly turned into a $400 purchase. Again, a 100% increase.
• The 901 Eee PC offers a little more storage, slightly bigger display and higher resolution. $549 is the pre-order price on a device that shouldn't require massive retooling from a build standpoint. Yet, the new features will cost you almost 40% more than the old model.
• HP's Mini is a nice machine that might have a wee bit more power than these competitors and it certainly has a beautiful screen and more usable keyboard. Based on the price, "you won't even need to consider this purchase". It starts at $499 and the highest-end XP model is just over $800. Who's dropping $800 without blinking? Even at the mid-range, you're looking at $600 or so... still not a "whim purchase".
• The MSI Wind is forthcoming as well: $610 is the pre-order price.

Each of these devices offers different feature sets, sizes and weights to be sure. It almost seems to me that folks are trying to create sub-classes of the sub-notebook class though. I also see prices trending up, not down. There's cheap and functional and there's expensive and faster. What happened to the $200 and $300 machines? Are the components truly driving the prices up or is the profit margins that are increasing?

Remote sharing extended to the max

Kevin and I have chats a lot, we discuss a lot of things and this morning was no different than most.  Kevin wanted to show me something he was working with on his Mac so we started an iChat session and he then shared his desktop with me.  The remote desktop sharing in iChat works really well and we spent a good half hour with him showing me what he was doing with me following everything by watching his Mac.  I was on my MacBook Pro watching him whiz the mouse around when a diabolical idea hit me.  I logged into my MBP from the Lenovo U110 using LogMeIn and it was surreal how I was manipulating Kevin's Mac in Philly using the IdeaPad in Houston that was actually controlling my Mac here.  It's enough to make my head explode.  :)

How to use a USB keyboard with a Nokia Internet Tablet

I always travel with a folding Bluetooth keyboard, but I know that there's a few smaller-sized USB keyboards out on the market as well. I don't use one with my mobile devices because my current solution works and I never thought to use one with a Nokia N800 or N810 Internet Tablet. Amazingly, it can be done, so if you've got an OS2008 device and a USB travel keyboard, you might want to pick up an inexpensive Female-Female USB adapter; I found one on-line for under $3. You'll also need to install the free USB Control application on your Nokia and then make sure you define the right keyboard layout in the Control Panel of your Internet Tablet. There's a video of all the "how-to magic" at the Internet Tablet School if you need the visuals. Great way to make use of an old USB keyboard, especially with the keyboard-less Nokia N800!

Head to the Digital Lifestyle for your shot at an HP Dragon

One of my favorite sites gets to kick of their day week in the sun today: the Digital Lifestyle begins their contest to give away the massive, yet mobile, HP Pavilion HDX prize package. I've read the Digital Lifestyle for several years and not just because Ian Dixon is an all-around great guy. The site is filled with information on the digital home, media center and extender technologies and even fits it some UMPC tidbits too. Check on Ian's site for the details; I don't see them yet, so I'd be checking throughout the day.

Speaking of 7-day contests, the first one should be ending today. Good luck if you entered and don't forget that we have one to give away too. There's still time to enter and win a notebook package worth over $5,000!

Samsung Q1UP gets a BIOS upgrade with... something.

Nosing around the Samsung Download center, I see there's a new BIOS version available for the Q1 Ultra Premium UMPC, both the XP and Vista versions. My device is currently running Vista but I noticed that my BIOS is version 01MI, so I've just downloaded 02MI. The under 2 MB file ran in under five minutes and then the UMPC rebooted. Bear in mind that you'll want to have your unit plugged in to an AC outlet and the battery must have at least a 30% charge or the BIOS update won't run.

I already had 2 GB of memory in the unit, so the old BIOS supports at least that much RAM. I figured the new BIOS would offer support for sharing up to 256 MB of memory with the video card since the Intel 945 chipset can handle that. On the original BIOS, only 128 MB of memory could be allocated to video. Unfortunately, when I checked in the the BIOS, I still see the same options for video memory: 64- and 128-MB, along with an Auto function which still tops out at 128 MB. At this point, I don't see any visible changes in the BIOS setup screens, so I have no idea what the new version adds. Can anyone say "release notes"? Just for kicks, I ran the Windows Experience Index rating again... same exact scores as the last time.

Update: Big word of caution. My Q1UP apparently no longer has a wireless radio inside after the BIOS upgrade. I've never seen software make hardware magically disappear. ;) I'll be working through the issue but wanted to quickly point it out. More to follow...

Update 2: Either a few reboots or changing the wireless setting in the BIOS addressed the issue. Samwise is flying around the web without wires. Whew!

Would paying to send an e-mail reduce the noise?

I was just glancing through my feeds and see an interesting post by Robert Scoble having to do with noise reduction. By that he means the increasing "noise" by the new social services like Twitter, FriendFeed and the like. Good stuff in his post and worth the read... plus it got me thinking. And I mean thinking radically. The biggest "noise-box" in my environment isn't the hottest, new social networking-Web 2.0-AJAXy-AIR tool. It's my inbox. And I suspect it is for most of you too. So here's the radical thought (that will never see the light of day, which is probably a good thing):

What if you were charged for sending an e-mail to someone? As in: micropayments to the recipient, who sets a rate to receive your note? Just like a sliding-CPM model in the web advertising world, as a recipient, you would place a value on your time or on the "impression" of that note.

Got plenty of time to have e-mail conversations? Set your CPE or Cost-Per-Email at a lowly $0.01. Backed up with e-mails or need to spend time on a project that commands more of your attention? Raise your CPE to $2.00 a pop. Off for the weekend to spend time with the family? Hey, it's going to cost you $10 to get my attention on your note during my off-time.

Yup, it's a crazy idea and certainly wouldn't work as stated in a corporate environment. But something in Robert's post resonated in me because the new noise-makers are "unlimited and free". I think way, way back when folks had to pay for each phone call they made at their house. Let me tell you... there was a lot less noise back then. Then the trend became "unlimited calling", which I fully take advantage of. It also means "unlimited noise" when you think about it. OK... no more thinking for me today. ;)

HP Mini-Note drivers for XP Professional now available

Those of you who have been waiting for HP to provide official drivers supporting Windows XP before installing it can go download them now.  HP has put them up which would indicate that XP should be an ordering option pretty soon.  In addition to the XP hardware drivers you will find various HP utilities for download on XP too.  This looks to be expecting Windows XP SP2 so plan on having the SP3 update to do after you install this.

SP3 for XP available. Got problems or did it go smoothly?

Microsoft got SP3 for Windows XP out the door a few days ago on the Microsoft Downloads site, although some folks might have seen it sooner through Windows Update. I haven't got around to the install on the one XP machine I have, but I'll be hitting it up shortly. Here's where you can find the service pack if you need it.

For those that already ran through the upgrade: did you have any issues? I'm asking because one of our readers shared a lengthy and detailed horror story with us; I'm not sharing the info just yet because I didn't ask for his or her permission. The scenario was pretty bad though... the solution will likely end up becoming a full system rebuild, which is about as bad as it can be. Anyway, share your thoughts: positive or negative. Meanwhile, I'm firing up the XP machine to give it a run through myself.

Update: my update took about an hour. No issues to report.

GoMobo: text your food order and avoid the lines

Regular readers know that my second home is WaWa... and here I'll bet you thought it was Starbucks. Nope, I hit up my local WaWa convenience store several times a week. So much so, that we're inviting one of the cashiers to our wedding this fall. Seriously! My love for the WaWa might be increasing since I've read that they're partnering with GoMobo.

With a GoMobo account, you can text message your order to a participating restaurant, where it will be waiting for you when you arrive. The service doesn't add any charges to your order, you simply pay the same price as if you ordered at the location. Unfortunately for me, the relatively new service is only being used by six local WaWa locations at the moment. I may have to do a road trip and text a coffee order to see how well this works. GottahavaWaWa!

The gnomes are coming- hide the children!

Orb arrives for jailbroken iPhone, iPod Touch: streams TV content and more

Way back when I got my iPhone, I played a bit with Orb to stream music from a Windows PC to my handset. It worked pretty well for audio streaming and was easy to access although limited to the Safari web browser. There's now a semi-official Orb application for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but of course you'll need to have your device "jailbroken" to use it. The Register found the above YouTube video showing how to install the application, but the more exciting stuff happens a few minutes in: there's a live demo of remotely accessing the television guide on a PC running Orb and choosing to watch an NBA game on TNT. The television content stream looks great, especially when the device is rotated into landscape mode.

I suspect we'll see an official Orb client, not to mention one from Sling Media, once the Apple iPhone SDK comes out of beta. For now, you jailbreakers can make do with this.

Freedom Blade cell antenna boosts your bars

I'm pretty lucky in terms of EV-DO and cellular coverage throughout the region where I work and live. Still, there are times when I'm in a building and the signal just can't get to me. Chris Leckness shows a YouTube video of the Freedom Blade Cellular Antenna booster and I was extremely impressed at the signal gain it offered him. Sitting in the middle of a brick building, he shows that he had "No Signal" for his HSDPA card on AT&T's service. A few seconds after he attached the Freedom Blade: four bars out of five as shown from my screen cap.

For around $50, this could be a must-have for folks that use cell phones for data or voice in a location where their signal gets blocked. It looks light and small enough to carry around all of the time and includes a handy little base so you stand the unit up. Sweet!

Could we soon see capacitive touch UMPCs?

My premise is a bit of a stretch, but this DigiTimes story today got me thinking. Apparently, Sintek Photronic is in the process of developing 7-inch capacitive touch screens. I realize that non-UMPC devices like in-car GPS modules are a more likely contender for a capacitive touch screen of this size, but it's always possible that some of these are destined to be the face of a UMPC.

Using a screen of this type and not including an active digitizer would certainly preclude any inking within an OS like Windows XP Tablet Edition or Vista, but with many devices in this class looking at alternative environments (read: Linux), I could see a UMPC with capacitive touch and no ink abilities. Again, this just an exercise in thinking on my part, but it makes me wonder: how many of you would give up the ability to ink if you had a UMPC with a capacitive display making for a better touch experience?