April 2007 Archives
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April 27, 2007
Where Are My Apps?
On our recent trip, I had wanted to use the Samsung UpStage for some additional navigation, especially walking around or when it didn't make sense to have the Sony UX280P connected to a Bluetooth GPS and out in the open. So, I went to search for the navigation application, Telenav, because I couldn't find it in the download menus. It did come up, but then it didn't allow downloading of it because it said it wasn't available for my phone yet. Strange.
I later found a hard link to the application in the menus. Not too surprisingly, it was a link to download the application which isn't available for the UpStage yet. It's strange to me that Sprint would allow that to happen. A similar thing happened with the podcasting application. The Samsung site claims it's not available for this phone yet although a version that works fine is preloaded onto the handset.
A couple of games are also preloaded onto the phone as well as the basic set of built-in applications, such as the video player. I recently got a response back from an Ambassador feedback post I gave even before they'd shipped me the handset. I was concerned that the form factor would prevent many applications from either being ported to it or even being able to function. (I touched on the UpStage input issues yesterday.)
The response:
Absolutely the UpStage has the ability to play games, play music, text message and all other power vision applications that you are used to using on our handsets.
Well, where are they? Every category I click on when browsing to "get new content" seems to be empty or broken. There was even a section for "Free Gameloft Demos" but all the of the direct game links there resulted in an error saying that the game isn't yet available for my phone.
The phone shipped with five game demos: Midnight Bowling, Nightclub Empire DEMO, PAC-MAN / Ms. PAC-MAN DEMO, Tetris Demo, and World Series of Poker. I haven't found a way to download any other games, applications, or email/IM clients. Even the "What's Hot" and "What's New" application categories are empty.
Sure, there are plenty of wallpapers and ringers for download. The music store works just fine as does the Sprint TV player and Sprint Movies. (I'll be talking about some of those later.) There just isn't anything available yet. The phone has been out for a few weeks, though.
April 26, 2007
Samsung UpStage M620: Data Entry
So, the Samsung UpStage that I have through the Sprint Ambassador program is an interesting beast. It's got a tiny screen on one side where you have a normal phone keypad. On the other side, it has a large screen but only an 8-way navigation pad with no numeric keypad (8-way => up, down, left, right, left soft key, right soft key, select, and back although it also has an "end" key).
On the large screen side, we'll call this the media side, all but the select key are touch sensitive buttons. Besides the direct (and virtual) push of the four corner buttons and four directional buttons, the pad supports scroll gestures for for the directions. You can scroll one line or item, or by two lines or items. Additionally, you can cause it to start auto scrolling in the direction you've swiped. All of this is given in the tutorial that launches the first time you run the phone.
Although this functionality works OK, it has a couple of serious flaws. Frequently, the phone misses the first part of a scroll-down gesture and instead just triggers the key press for the key at the end of the swipe. This is inevitably the "end" key. Sometimes the applications asks if I'd really like to exit, saving me a huge amount of pain. Other times, I'm just left with the idle screen again. The same thing happens with the back key, too, but that's less of an issue. Overall, it means I have been trying not to use the gestures, even though they make scrolling much faster. Even so, when pressing the down arrow, being off by a little bit to either side can cause the same problem. To be fair, I haven't adjusted the sensitivity settings any to see if that can help. I'm not certain which way it's off by, if either.
As you may have guessed, you can't use the media side to have phone calls. Using the contacts or call history, though, you can trigger a call. The phone will then tell you to flip promptly. If you're phone is asleep and you need to make a phone call, you have to hit a button to wake it up and then hit the flip button to give control to the small screen side, which I call the phone side, so that you can then start to dial. This isn't particularly good for emergencies. You can't just pick up the phone and start to dial. The media side doesn't have a speaker or microphone, either, but that's fine since it saves that screen from face juice in favor of hand juice while holding the phone to your ear.
For entering text in to applications or sending text messages, you can either flip the phone over by using the left or right soft key when prompted by the application or you can choose to use a scroll type selector to choose letters and numbers one at a time. 
You can't use the physical flip key, though, as that sort of flip exits all applications. That's good for flipping to make a call and yes, it does prompt you that you will close all applications. 
There are even a couple of cases where you can only use the media side entry, such as when entering a Bluetooth PIN code for pairing. 
On the other side, sometimes It'll say "flip," but most of the time it says "save" which I haven't quite figured out the meaning of since all it does is flip back. Why is this all so inconsistent? Why ask me? Ask Sprint or Samsung. (I asked Sprint via the feedback.) Sending messages can happen entirely on the phone side and can also be triggered from the media side.
I had expected the hassle of flipping back and forth to be a real problem. As it turns out, it's surprisingly natural and easy, even if the UI is inconsistent. That said, if you've got a game that relies on the numeric keypad for game play elements or an application that uses the numbers for important shortcuts, you'll be out of luck. The keypads on the opposite side of the active flip side are completely disabled.
Another annoyance I have is that all of the menus throughout the phone still list shortcut keys next to them. Every time I see a menu I am reminded that I have to scroll down to the nth item instead of just pressing the n-key. This causes a certain level of frustration that could have been solved be requiring, at least for built-in applications, that the number short-cut keys were removed. If they were, I'd soon forget how much faster certain navigation elements would be. It's minor, but surprisingly frustrated especially when scrolling down and accidentally hitting the end or back key and having to start all over again.
Do the benefits of this design outweigh the issues with the input? In my opinion, they might after some use. The phone is definitely very small when not in it's battery wallet. The screen is much bigger than if a full keypad were to have been on the media side. A slide-out keypad would have increased the thickness as well as adding cost and complexity. Overall, the usability has surprised me in a good way, even with the annoyances and frustrations. I just don't do the same things on it that I do on my LG VX9800 handset that has a full keyboard but that is almost exactly the same size as the UpStage in it's battery wallet. Put another way, the UpStage is basically the same size as just the top part of the VX9800 (the part without the keyboard and battery).
One final comment... why didn't Samsung give this device the Bluetooth HID profile for keyboard input?!
April 25, 2007
A Great Weekend, With a Glitch
So, this last weekend we drove up to Eugene with my Grandmother to join my mom and sister there for my aunt's birthday. This brought much of the immediate family together in a less hectic environment than our wedding celebration last year.
We drove up most of the day Friday and back most of the day Sunday, leaving only Friday evening and Saturday for visiting. This worked out well, though. We went to their shop, had a few really nice meals with them, and played a board game, Cranium, which we hadn't played before. During the day, we went out for a game of bowling, too.
Just as we'd gotten in to the second game and I was waiting in line, which was slow, the one person helping the line left it to announce something. It started with something about an Accord (wait, I can't leave my lights on) but quickly mentioned California plates, which was a give-away.
Outside I go, not knowing quite what's wrong because it had been too noisy to hear well. There, I found the right rear window smashed! A passenger had left a bag on the seat and apparently someone had just walked by, noticed it, smashed the window, grabbed it, and moved on. Nothing else was taken, including items in the front seat, glove boxes, and trunk. We were glad for that, but the bag that was stolen had contained many personal items and keys from a couple of our passengers, so that's still causing a hassle with them.
The whole even was on a security video, which may aunt is sending to me. I'll have to make a copy and edit it up for posting online here. It might be fun. ;)
Cleaning up the glass ended up taking a couple of hours, which was a significant portion of the time we were there. Luckily, that gave some time for my grandma to visit with her daughters.
We taped up some plastic for the 500 mile drive back Sunday. By Monday at 1:00 PM the window had already been fixed. On Tuesday I got to give the list of property damage and items stolen to the police. When I get the security video, I may be calling them back to add some information if there is any detail of use on it.
Some lessons and interesting tidbits learned:
- Don't have items visible in a car, regardless of where you are
- Don't assume a car alarm will attract any sort of attention; it was 30 minutes before the broken glass was reported. In that time, someone could have climbed in and taken other stuff or even the car itself.
- When making a list of stolen items, provide serial numbers, brands, and replacement value for as much as possible. Details such as color and size are important, too, but the other bits of information are more clear for identifying the lot.
- Auto insurance does not cover the contents of items stolen. That's for home owner's or renter's insurance. Keep in mind, though, that filing a claim is subject to deductibles and possible dropping of insurance because home owner's is a loss leader.
- Glass is a special case for repair and insurance. Glass isn't fixed by the dealer and our insurance had a special option for it on their call menu. Other damage that the broken glass does is different, though, but from what we can tell none of the leather was scratched and maybe only one minor nick to the paint was done that we didn't notice until later.
- The police want to know how much it costs to repair the damage done. Theft and property damage are two difference illegal items.
- Don't be scared by filing a police report. In my case, the Eugene officer was friendly and polite on the phone, even though I could tell there was a lot of noise around her making it difficult to hear me.
- Calling 911 for a theft after the fact will get you someone who will give you the local police number. Have something to write on handy so you don't tie up the line longer than needed. (In this case, I used my LG VX9800 for taking notes while talking on the UpStage.)
- After calling 911, my cell phone (the Sprint UpStage, in this case) stayed in emergency only mode and wouldn't go out with a few presses of the end key and confirmation of such an action. This made it impossible to call any other number before getting out of this mode.
- Even though I called with a phone that certainly sent my location to 911, they wanted to know my exact address and location. Have someone around that knows, if possible. The police line won't get your location, either, so you'll need to know. Worst case, use a GPS fix or a map to get an estimate of the street address if you're not actually near a posted address.
- The police don't come out for this sort of event. After calling and giving the location and my contact information, I was told to make a complete list of items stolen and damage done, but that there was nothing else I needed to do at that time. They would call back within a couple of days. The fact that it was an out-of-state cell phone number did not matter.
I'm sure many of you know this, but I've never experience this for myself so I wanted to record some of the details while it was still fresh in my memory.
The photo above doesn't do a great job of showing that the glass was across the entire rear of the vehicle. It must have been hit pretty hard to cause even some large chunks to end up clear on the other side.
April 24, 2007
When Gadgets Don't Work
So, as I write this with my ThinkOuside Sierra Bluetooth keyboard attached to my Sony Vaio UX280P, we're in the middle of a quick weekend trip to Eugene, OR. The drive we had yesterday was about 8 hours in the car and with a few stops, we were in transit for about 10 hours.
That's plenty of time to set up the gadgets for some road entertainment. This trip, though, was relatively light. As mentioned, I've got the UX280p and a Bluetooth keyboard. In addition, I've got my Bluetooth mouse, the Canon SD900 for a light travel point-and-shoot, my Verizon LG VX9800 "The V" handset, my Sprint Ambassador Samsung UpStage handset, a small inverter for some power, and the iGo for powering the UX280p. In addition, I've got my new, but generic, Bluetooth GPS receiver. Of course, we have our iPods, too, and MacAlly Bluewave headphones to go with them.
This is nice and all, assuming that it all just works together. You'll probably have noticed by now that one of the common themes is that most (all?) of the peripherals are Bluetooth enabled.
I definitely much prefer to have devices without wires. This is especially welcome in a car environment where wires can get in the way of safe driving. This doesn't remove the need for power wires, of course. In a car, those often end up being USB, which means more stuff connected to the computer. In my case, I had one thing charging via USB from the Sony UX USB port, one charging via a DC power port, and another charging via an AC power adapter. My Honda Accord Hybrid has two DC power ports, which is very useful, but I may have to install a third one in the front center cubby to provide that extra little bit of tidiness to the cables as well as more charging options.
In any case, during the course of our weekend trip we had many issues with many of the Bluetooth devices working well. Right from the start, I had to remove the GPS pairing and pair it again. Then Microsoft Streets & Trips kept polling all of the serial ports which would try to pair with a number of phones, a couple of which I still haven't figured out how to pair so errors would keep coming up and this process would ultimately crash Streets & Trips. I had to remove those pairing attempts before it would connect to the GPS without crashing.
It finally did get connected, but then software problems and missing features kept it from being all that useful. Turns out, its an "Essentials" version of the product, so it doesn't support GPS navigation. It will show directions from your current location if you refresh the planning, but that wasn't quite what I was looking for. It did show speed and GPS trails, though, which was fine. Ultimately, it was useful for having a map of where we were as long as we knew where we wanted to go.
Then Laurie tried to pair her new MacAlly Bluewave headphones with her Samsung M610. This proved to not work at all. Eventually, we connected it up via an adapter that converted the data port to a regular 3.5mm headphone connector that we connected to the Bluetooth adapter the headphones came with. This was clumsy, but it proved to work very well and was much more reliable and much easier to setup.
Finally, I was never able to figure out how to pair my Samsung UpStage with the Sony. No matter which way I tried to pair, the end result was always that the Sony UX never appeared as a trusted device on the Samsung and at every connect attempt there would be an error that said it wasn't authorized as the phone was in "non-pairable mode." I couldn't find anywhere online what that meant, either. I had to stick with a Bluetooth connection via my Verizon LG VX9800, which isn't officially supported. Although it's using minutes, which I used plenty on the drive up, I hope they don't catch on and charge me more.
A bit off-topic, but the data connection between Weed, CA and Yreka, CA was surprisingly good. I was able to browse with good speed as well as use GMail and Live Mail without any difficulties even though there wasn't any population in sight. When I wasn't in the front, I had the Sony UX connected to the side window with the RAM mount I got for it. That worked out very well.
On the way back, we didn't bother to use the Bluetooth GPS or the stereo headphones. All of those items were safely tucked away. The only gadget I ended up using was the UpStage to browse the web a little and see if I could buy a couple of songs while on the road. I was disappointed that the navigation application isn't available for it yet, but we didn't really need it. Of course, we didn't use any of the devices on the way back because of the hassle of using them. It's really too bad that Bluetooth is no where near as easy to use as a USB device. On the flip side, though, you really can say that USB did something right, as it was much better than serial or parallel devices and is still easier than even newer technology. USB devices can also easily be used with multiple machines and devices, which is definitely not the case with Bluetooth devices. I hope this is resolved sooner than later for Bluetooth or the next wireless technology.
April 21, 2007
Performance overview of the Sony Vaio UX280P
Well, I've successfully swapped the Vaio UX390N that was quite pricey for a 280P off eBay that was a great deal. Overall, it was about $1500 less. So, what did I lose for that change?
Specification-wise, it's got a 40GB 4200rpm disk and a 1.2GHz processor. Aside from being silver, that's about the end of the differences. I've already upgraded the Windows XP Pro to Windows Vista Business. Although I plan on upgrading the hard drive later, I though I'd do the same benchmarks as before to compare the two models.
- PCMark05: 1273
- 3DMark06: 95
- Windows Experience Index:
- Processor: 2.7
- Memory (RAM): 4.3
- Graphics: 3.5
- Gaming Graphics: 2.6
- Primary Hard Disk: 3.7
- SiSoft Sandra:
- Processor Arithmetic:
- Dhrystone ALU: 4068 MIPS
- Whetstone iSSE3: 2999 MFLOPS
- Processor Multi-Media:
- Integer x8 iSSE2: 9317 it/s
- Floating-Point x4 iSSE2: 12557 it/s
- Physical Disks: 24MBps-11MBps
- Processor Arithmetic:
- SuperPi
- 1M: 1m 13s
- 2M: 2m 9s
- 4M: TBD (the version I grabbed crashes)
Well, that's it for this time. As you'll probably have noticed, it's missing a few minor numbers and at least one number is actually faster than the result I got for the Sony UX390N.
The overall feel of the system isn't that much slower, but things do take a bit longer to launch and startup is definitely slower. However, the speed improvements certainly weren't worth the $1500 difference between the good price I got from eBay on this and the full, retail price of the Sony UX390N.
I'll be running more tests if I can figure out where to order one of the new Toshiba 100GB 1.8" drives from. They've got a large buffer and with the greater data density, they should be a bit faster, overall.
April 18, 2007
Sprint's UpStage: Now Playing
So, without even so much as a shipping announcement since a letter that stated it'd be a few weeks since they were low on stock, my Sprint UpStage arrived.
I haven't really had a chance to do anything but open it and take some pictures. It's smaller than I had expected, as you'll see in the comparison shots to the VX9800.
That said, in the battery case, the whole bulk is about the sane as the vx9800. I'll write later about features and usability. So far, though, it has actually been better than the old Samsung MM-A620, but the form factor keeps it from being perfect. It's amusing to me that the numeric part of the model is the same. ;)
Click on the picture above for a link to the Picasa Web Albums images. Doing that was more convenient than uploading a generated gallery last night while tired. Sorry! (The image below is a link, too, using the Google HTML rather than the link itself.) Anyway, enough about Picasa and Google... I must go off and play with my new Samsung UpStage M620.
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| Sprint Samsung Upstage Unpacking |
April 17, 2007
What is This "HD Radio" Thing Cropping Up Everywhere?
According to Wikipedia, HD Radio is neither a standard nor an acronym for High Definition radio, like one might expect. As it turns out, HD Radio is a brand name of the company iBiquity. It is a set of protocols being adopted by US broadcasters and regulated by the FCC for Hybrid Digital broadcast with the existing analog broadcasts in the existing AM and FM channel allocations currently being used.
The basic data rates for HD Radio put 36 Kbps out on AM bands and 96 Kbps out on FM bands. The full bandwidth is unlikely to be used anytime soon as there is no federal mandate to turn off analog broadcast radio like there is with TV. So, the RF spectrum will still be shared with analog broadcasts. Like ATSC tuning, you'll be able to tune to a normal station and the receiver will determine if digital is available or not.
Multiple audio channels are possible as well as audio encoded in 5.1 or other formats. Current subcarrier data channels may ultimately move to HD data, but receivers would have to be updated for those services.
Like ATSC but unlike satellite radio, these broadcasts will still be freely available by just owning an HD Radio. License fees are paid on both the receiver and transmitter side for thee technology by the manufacturers.
It's easy to find receivers on Amazon
Although used in the US, international standards bodies like ITU and IEC have adopted Digital Radio Mundiale for frequencies below VHF and Digital Audio Broadcasting for those VHF and above (DRM and DAB, respectively). DRM includes both shortwave and medium wave broadcasts, so SWL could be getting interesting these days...
April 13, 2007
The Canon SD900: For Video?
So, I did a short review of the SD900 a while back, but I didn't get in to the quality of the video much. Well, as it turns out, it's pretty good.
My wife has been using it for video lately. She's had lots of good things to say about it. In general, the overall quality, usefulness, and convenience of the feature has surprised us and we've largely stopped carrying around our older Sony miniDV video camera.
She is exceedingly impressed that on such a little device with video as a secondary feature that it should work so well. Low light conditions aren't a huge problem for it, but it has no options for dark conditions like some video cameras do. We have no complaints about the audio or video quality, but wind is definitely picked up by the little microphone.
One big think we don't like about video is that once it's going you can't change zoom and the focus doesn't appear to update, either. There is no audible alert when out of memory and it stops recording so you may not notice that you aren't recording and thus miss something By default, videos are mixed in same folder as images, which is a pain for unloading the cards. We haven't looked in to ways to change this. The camera certainly has a bunch of on device categorizing options that normally aren't that useful when swapping cards frequently.
Since the Canon SD900 is Small and light, vibration is an issue but not as much of one as we originally expected. Part of this is because it can easily be braced and we don't get tired of holding it, unlike a 2 pound DSLR with a 3 pound lens. That allows use to remain more steady than with a heavier camera. It does not have any image stabilization, though, so the best that can be done is with a tripod, which it has a mount hole for.
Laurie has found many occasions where she's been trying to take a still with it but realized that video would be much better so she just flicks the dial and shoots. This can be done without hardly even disturbing the image framing.
The video worked surprisingly well at an aquarium, which is both low light and high contrast conditions. Although, there was general trouble with it focusing through glass that the DSLRs don't experience. Interestingly, though, it could see through some of the murky waters much better than our own eyes could, which made for some fascinating views.
If you'd like to see some video the camera has taken, Laurie's podcast has a few videos that were taken using it. In particular, Episode 14 with Otters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Episode 13 with Jellyfish, also at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
April 12, 2007
Camera Phone Use on the Decline?
Or maybe just poor education on what phones can do these days?
The Photo Market Association is saying that the numbers are down. That's not entirely true, though. If 35% of families own a camera phone now, which is up from 26% a year ago. Now, 24% of families share images where a year ago 28% did. But, 24% of 35% is 8.4% yet 28% of 26% is 7.3%. That means sharing has gone up 1.1% in the population, or a growth of 15%. That's not too shabby! Don't forget the interests doing the study, though.
Why are a fewer percentage of folks sharing? My list:
- They've learned the quality is low
- They learned it's expensive
- They don't know how to share the images (stores don't teach these things)
- More cameras have cards so they don't need to share them via traditional methods
- Those families interviewed don't realize their kids actually are sharing stuff... just not with them (just check myspace)
- Consumer cameras of high megapixel have gotten cheaper so the camera in the phone is used less
- They wanted a new phone with TV or email and thus got a camera out of no choice, never having planned on using it
- And finally, yet perhaps the most obvious: the early adopter syndrome is wearing off.
Personally, I think it's quality (for me) and lack of consumer education. After all, Telus in Canada recently learned their customers didn't know the phones could access the net, even though that's basically been possible for 10 years. If consumers don't understand that basic principal of mobile technology, why would they know their phone can share images?
April 11, 2007
Beijing: In Retrospect
Well, I'm definitely late in getting out a Beijing post. It's now been about a week over six months since we were there. We were only there for a few days, though, so there really isn't all that much to it.
When we got there, we did the typical: we went shopping! Like Hong Kong, haggling is the norm in Beijing. 
We went to many of the markets, including the famous Friendship market. Apparently, it used to be the only place foreigners were allowed. These days, we can go almost anywhere.
We also went to see Tiananmen Square as well as some of the other nearby sites. Although full of formal guards, we were never bothered.
All over the city were signs and displays for the Olympic mascots. The Olympics are definitely a huge event for any city, but they seem particularly so for Beijing.
On the last day we had planned to go out to the Great Wall. Unfortunately, I got sick. 
We decided that Laurie should still go on her own. After all, we had already scheduled for a car to come to pick us up. So, she did go on her own. She had a really good time, too, even though I couldn't go with her. :o
She did find that it was nice enough that we will return again so I can see it and she can see more of it.
The hotel would give us fruit, which was great. One day we got a piece of fruit that we did not recognize. I spent the next hour searching online for it before we even cut in to it. Eventually, we determined it was a dragonfruit. Turns out that the taste is much less strong than the looks. 
It was like a weak melon in flavor, but stil tasty and quick to eat with a spoon.
. . .
Well, that concludes this series of memories on our trip around the world we took last September for our honeymoon.
I hope this didn't bore too many people, but it has helped both of us remember more of our trip.
April 10, 2007
Alternate Inputs: Windows Vista Handwriting and Speech Recognition
I've been using Windows Vista as my primary OS lately. Between express upgrades and new machines, I've got it on all of my machines except my work machine. Through some articles recently, I was made aware of the fact that the speech recognition is vastly superior to previous versions. In addition, have the Sony Vaio UX micro PC has given me the chance to try out the handwriting recognition features.
In theory, both of these should be faster than typing and especially thumb typing on the UX. Are they, though? And can they actually work in the situations where one would need or want to use them? I will answer these questions from my point of viewing using both a Sony Vaio UX280P as well as a Dell XPS M1210.
For handwriting recognition, there are two ways to go about it. The first is the obvious way: use the Tablet PC Input Panel. It brings up a nice yellow writing area that expands as you write. You can use script or block writing. As you write text is instantly recognized.You can click on individual words to correct them. The input gets "chunky", though, as the processor is being tasked with reading your writing. Although it works well, I've found it to be as much on exercise in writing single line proper script as anything.The recognizer starts when the pen is lifted so keeping the pen down helps performance. Corrections are easy but I don't know if it actually gets better as I correct it more and more.
Handwriting recognition can be used anywhere you can write in a stable way. Bumps and vibrations will (and do) make it very difficult to use. Since it also requires (apparently) a good bit of performance, you can't use it by well with big CPU tasks running in the background, especially on a single core system like current UMPC systems.
The other way to use handwriting recognition is with Windows Journal. It can convert a whole page of writing all at once. This means you don't have to worry about the input while you write. However, it can be quite annoying since you can only do a page at a time and not a whole document. I found that with Journal I would have been better off thumb typing.
Voice recognition, on the other hand, does work really well and does learn from the mistakes it makes. However, there are some serious issues with using it. First, you must be in a quiet location. It will not work with the TV on or with people talking nearby. This is often more challenging than you might think at first. This is one of the main reasons I have not been able to use it much just yet. The next problem is that everyone around you can hear what you are dictating to the computer. Not only that, but if it is quiet, for may want to keep it that way or maybe it's quiet because others are asleep.
You also won't be able to listen to your iPod while dictating, among other things. So there may be even more sacrifices than you are willing to take to use the dictation feature. That said, with certain well written apps, such as navigation software, you might be able to use the control features while in the car. These well first, though, because it could also lead is some very dangerous situations.
In the end, both input methods do here their place. Speech is faster and better overall, but funding a place to use it may be difficult. Handwriting works and may be faster than thumb typing but can feel slow, can be frustrating when the ink isn't tracking well, and can be quite tiring.
A good USB or Bluetooth keyboard may end up being the "write" solution for you, but give the alternates a try. After all, they are free in Windows Vista. :)
April 6, 2007
A Recent Verizon Discovery: A Free App?
So, I was perusing the Verizon site recently trying to figure out where each line was in it's contract. My main line is up for the $100 new-every-two discount and the secondary line can upgrade in three months!. That's not what I discovered, although it is pleasant news.
I discovered that one of the applications for download, called Backup Assistant, is free if you're a "My Account" customer. That simply means that you use the online billing and, likely, have signed up for email bills. Normally, Backup Assistant costs $1.99, which is not much on it's own.
What does Backup Assistant do? Well, it allows you to backup your contacts to an online location and, should you lose your phone, restore them to another phone. Useful, but not too exciting, right? Well, it does this automatically on a schedule every day, if you want it to.
Additionally, you can go to the online Verizon site to edit contacts and add new ones, which will then be synchronized down to your phone either when you choose to or when you log out. This all works pretty well, too.
Now, the interesting thing about this is that Verizon can waive the fee that is shown when the application is downloading. Given how the BREW system works, this probably means they're actually footing the bill to QUALCOMM and, as a consequence, to the developer. In this case, the developer is FusionOne. That's a pretty good deal for them. That said, it's not really any different than Verizon paying any particular vendor for a service that they offer on their network, either free of charge or for a fee. It's just that, in this case, it's a normal BREW application download that's being treated differently based on something else the user has done.
I'll be watching my bill for the charge, though, in case the system has some kinks in it. ;)
April 5, 2007
Clarifying Wireless Speeds: "GSM" vs "CDMA"
First, though, it might be good to clarify what I mean by "GSM" and "CDMA" as underlying technologies are confusing the issue since just about every new low-level wireless cellular protocol is based on a form of Code Division Multiple Access rather than Time Division Multiple Access. That's another topic completely, though. For the purposes of this article, a "GSM" carrier is simply someone like AT&T or T-Mobile in the US and a "CDMA" carrier is simple someone like Verizon, Sprint, or Alltel.
If you see GSM carrier phones you'll often see them as having "GPRS" or "EDGE" or "HSDPA" and, likewise, on a CDMA carrier you may see such things as "1x" or "EVDO" or "EVDO Rev A" or the likes. More likely, though, you'll have to look for the underlying technologies because they'll be listed as "High Speed Broadband Access" or "3G data capable" or something more mundane.
However, before even any of those technologies, all GSM and CDMA phones could do data calls, back when it was simply just GSM data and CDMA data. On the CDMA side, this was listed often as IS-95A or IS-95B access. IS-95A would give a single 14.4 Kbps link while IS-95B could give multiple 14.4 Kbps links for up to 64 Kbps. Back when ISDN was still the fastest way to the net for consumers, this wasn't too bad -- especially since it was wireless. This was similar on the GSM side, but worked on 9600 bps slices of bandwidth and was called a "CSD" connection, simple standing for circuit switched data (using the same paths that your voice would follow). You could get this in 28.8 Kbps and 43.2 Kbps forms, too.
I would like to clarify the numbers before I go on. In all of these cases (old and new) the bandwidth numbers were always the maximum potential of the protocol. This like like saying your Ethernet connection is 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps or your WiFi connection is 54 Mbps. It is unlikely over those transports you'd ever get the full rates. This is no different over a cellular wireless connection and, in fact, is magnified as you get farther away from a particular tower and can often vary by the number of people connected (much like a shared DSL connection) as voice tends to always take priority over data traffic.
1xRTT came out on the CDMA side, often called simply "1x" and it offered rates of up to 144 Kbps. This was a full ten times improvement but was never really considered 3G for some reason. On the GSM side, various flavors of GPRS started becoming available with speeds of 60 Kbps and 80 Kbps. This was not quite as big of a leap over CSD and was definitely not referred to as 3G but was a welcome improvement in speed. It was enhanced to speeds of 177 Kbps to 236 Kbps in a form called EGPRS which is commonly called EDGE. This ranged from slightly faster than 1xRTT to not quite twice the speed of 1xRTT, depending on your carrier and equipment.
Surprisingly not long after either of these, we started seeing speeds that were often called true 3G speeds. The first of this was with 1xEV-DO, normally referred to as just EVDO or in some circles as DO (standing for 1x Evolution, Data Only or sometimes Data Optimized, as opposed to the now defunct 1xEV-DV standard for "Data and Voice"). In it's first form, it offered rates of up to 2.4 Mbps on the downlink, but had only a mere 153 Kbps available for uploading data. In the second form, currently being rolled out, the download was increased to 3.1 Mbps and the upload boosted all the way to 1.8 Mbps. The first form is now commonly called EVDO Rev 0 while the second form is EVDO Rev A.
Not to be left behind, the powers that be for the GSM carriers introduced HSDPA. HSDPA, for High Speed Downlink Packet Access, offers a range of speeds from 1.8 Mbps through 14.4 Mbps. The speed one can get varies depending on ones equipment and carrier. European carriers tend to have 1.8 Mbps or 3.6 Mbps deployed while Australia has a full 14.4 Mbps deployed. Since these speeds range from decent to pretty fast compared networks that were around when deployed, some of these are being called 3.5G networks much like the slower ones were initially called 2.5G networks. How you can have half a generation escapes me, but it doesn't matter. Current uplink speeds are 384 Kbps but will be increased to 1.8 Mbps as higher speed "HSUPA" (U for uplink) equipment is rolled out.
Most of the networks that do HSDPA started with GSM and became known as "UMTS" or "WCDMA" networks, which is why the terminology is getting confused. HSDPA is based on the older WCDMA standards (for Wide CDMA).
So, what does all of this mean? Quite simply:
- IS-95A is the loose equivalent of CSD
- 1xRTT is loosely equivalent to EDGE
- 1xEVDO (in it's Rev 0, Rev A, Rev B forms) is loosely equivalent to HSDPA (in it's Category 1 through 10 forms)
What's coming up? It depends on who you ask and how the names will change over time. I won't name anything since it's far too early to tell. Various companies have been testing true mobile speeds in the 300-5 Gbps range, though.
Disclaimer: My main reference for this, other than my memory, was Wikipedia. I didn't see anything on Wikipedia that would lead me to believe the information was incorrect. I don't know the "GSM" side as well as the "CDMA" side. Each technology will have a different performance characteristic based on environmental conditions (usage, weather, distance from tower, etc.) that can make one or the other perform better in the typical usage scenario. I am not comparing technologies to see which is better, just to see which are loosely equivalent to the consumer in a typical US market.
I wrote this because I was getting confused over a few, such as EDGE and where it ranked in the big picture. Perhaps I was the only one, though, so if this wasn't useful to you, sorry! ;)
April 4, 2007
Sony Vaio VGN-UX390N Performance
So, as I've mentioned previously, I thought I'd post up a bunch of performance numbers of the Vaio UX390N. This is particularly timely since I've basically decided not to keep it because of the price premium for the solid state disk. Although it's nice that it's so quiet some of the time, the fan tends to turn on anyway.
So, with any more delay, here are the various performance numbers:
- 3DMark06: 133
- PCMark05: 1045
- SuperPi:
- 1M: 57 seconds
- 2M: 2m 19s
- 4M: 4m 16s
- Windows Vista Scores:
- Processor: 2.9
- Memory: 4.3
- Graphics: 2.0
- Gaming Graphics: 2.6
- Primary Hard Disk: 5.2
- SiSoft Scores:
- Processor Arithmetic:
- Dhrystone ALU: 4549 MIPS
- Whetstone iSSE2: 3343 MFLOPS
- Processor Multi-Media:
- Integer x8 iSSE2: 10410 it/s
- Floating-Point: 14175 it/s
- Physical Disks:
- Drive Index: 49 MB/s (and relatively flat)
- Random Access Time: 1ms
- Memory Bandwidth:
- RAM Bandwidth Int Buff'd iSSE2: 1624 MB/s
- RAM Bandwidth Float Buff'd iSSE2: 1644 MB/s
- Processor Arithmetic:
Well, there it is. The results aren't great until you remember that it can fit in your pocket (should you be wearing cargo pants). The disk scores are pretty good, though.
Also, keep in mind all of these were run under Windows Vista Business. I couldn't install 3DMark03 so I skipped to 3DMark06, which uses more hardware features than the GMA950 supports, I think.
Responsiveness and general browsing performance is great. With the low screen resolution, the GMA950 doesn't have to drive as many pixels as a higher resolution screen such as a full WUXGA (1920x1200).
However, you won't be playing many 3D games that require decent frame rates. I've tried a couple and it just doesn't work all that well, unfortunately. Maybe a future version of the Vaio UX will have a future version of the GMA950 that can actually do good 3D graphics. Or, and perhaps more likely, AMD will embed great ATI graphics in a multi-core low power mobile chip by have a couple of general purpose CPU cores alongside a GPU core all in a single package.
April 3, 2007
The Sony UX390N vs The Sony UX280P
So, as you know (you being the one reader out there left after all these UX posts), I've been using a UX390N for a little over a week. At the time of purchase, I was familiar with the UX180P, the UX380N, and the UX390N. Naturally, the UX180P was old and old had half a meg of RAM, so it wasn't a choice. The UX380N, though, is basically the same as the 390 other than the 40GB physical hard drive compared to the 32GB flash disk in the 390, for a $500 premium and theoretically better battery life.
However, I became aware of the UX280P recently when Sony had refurbished units for $1,129 that I missed out on. What would one get for $900-1400 les money? Turns out, not much is different. You get 133MHz less on the processor, a mere 10%. You get only a physical 40GB hard disk. It also comes with Windows XP Pro instead of Vista Business, but if you'd purchased before March 15 (refurbs went on sale March 16) you would have qualified for an express upgrade. Compared to the UX390N it has a silver body. That's all. Well, besides the fact they aren't in retail channels.
Actual selling prices on eBay range from a rare $1000 to the more common $1500 to an occasional $1800. I found one for a little over $1100.
So, I'll probably be swapping for the 280P and upgrading to an 80 or 100GB drive in it. To make up for lost battery life, I'll get the large battery. That'll still leave me with over $1000 left. That'll take the "sting" of the 10% loss in processor speed. ;)
(NOTE: Neither image is of the US model variant. Do you know why?)
April 2, 2007
Upgraded to Vista, Wallpaper won't Change?
So, I upgraded my Dell XPS M1210 to Vista last week. The whole process took about 8-9 hours; a whole lot longer than it took on our Dell XPS 710 quad core machine. The results were great, though. Just about everything works perfectly.
One little glitch, though, was that I couldn't change the wallpaper! I could change the color of the background, but whenever I would try to change the wallpaper it just wouldn't do anything. No errors, no dialogs, no action. Nothing.
So, a quick web search resulted in a page that talks about problems changing the background in XP after certain spyware has been removed. Well, before the upgrade I had run Windows Defender to remove some spyware that had gotten on to my system somehow (odd, since I've mostly just been using the Sony UX390N).
I followed the instructions, which boil down to removing the "wallpaper" key found at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System. After removing it, the problem went away instantly. The key was actually set to an empty string, too. At least the location of the key hasn't changed from XP to Vista. ;)
(NOTE: Yes, I know this post is backdated. But it didn't seem worthy of a full front page post. Sorry for the awkward dating. It was actually posted the morning of April 3, 2007.)
