The Origami team is conducting a UMPC usage survey. You can still participate if you don’t use a UMPC today. They want see how you might use one.

Oh, AND YOU CAN WIN 500 BUCKS. Go here, win moola, buy UMPC

http://origamiproject.com/blogs/team_blog/archive/2007/10/10/27737.aspx

Layne Heiny at UMPC Buzz has started a monster list of Reasons for Using a UMPC. She got us started with the first six. I’ve added a few more. Head on over to UMPC Buzz to read the first six and add your own.

Mine were:

7. See the World. You can actually use a UMPC on an airplane, unlike that boat anchor of laptop you carry around today.

8. Entertain Yourself. A UMPC makes one heck of a portable media player. Coincidentally, also very useful on a plane but not bad in a car as well. Continuing the media thread, all the new cool media services like Amazon Unbox or Netflix streaming work just fine. A UMPC is after all, a PC. If you have small children, this can also be a lifesaver when stuck with a long dinner wait.

9. Touch It. You can finally give your PC the finger and not feel bad the next day. Touch allows you to not have to search for the stylus when you want to play a video,  read/navigate an ebook or do some basic web surfing.

10. Speech Recognition. Again, just like it’s Tablet PC big brother, the UMPC supports speech recognition.

11. Podcasting. UMPC’s make a great portable podcasting rig. Simply plug in a USB microphone and and you’re ready to record on the go. Yes, you can even edit and upload that podcast straight from a UMPC.

12. Get Some Exercise. For jobs that keep you on your feet, a UMPC is lighter than a Tablet PC and perfect for counting inventory, checking on a patient, or reviewing that project plan while standing up. They also tend to work really well perched on the book holder of many treadmills.

13. Navigate. Add a Bluetooth, USB or Compact Flash GPS receiver and you can turn your UMPC into navigation unit that you don’t have to squint at. Some UMPC’s have available car mounts which make this incredibly easy.

14. Play Games. Lots of games will run on a UMPC. If the game meets the hardware specs of a UMPC it should run just fine.

15. Stall Surf. I’m sure this is banned in some jurisdictions but it will make others keep their hands off your UMPC. Don’t try this with a normal laptop.

16. Present. PowerPoint runs fine. Why do you carry around a 7 lb laptop just to project stuff on a screen. Save your back and go light. Plus, you’ll blow their mind when your draw in the screen during the presentation!

I know you think that all I do is abuse James Kendrick. (I’m sure he thinks that occasionally too!) But I actually do real work in the real world as well. For my work with Microsoft’s Dynamics GP ERP software they’ve made me an MVP. Obviously someone on the MVP review board goofed.

Seriously, I like playing in the mobile space with this blog but I live in the accounting and accounting software world, so I’m thrilled to get this. I’m going to go abuse a bunch of accounting types at an event tomorrow by bringing the Q1 to take notes with. It always messes with their heads when you do T-Accounts in ink.

Why is mobility important to accountants? If you’ve ever seen an old audit case used to haul around files you’ll understand why we like thin and light. Plus warehouse technology is hideously expensive often horribly behind the times. UMPC’s could make a huge a difference in this space, cheaply.

So I’ll continue to play in this space and work to crunch my numbers into smaller and smaller devices.

James Kendrick has been tearing into Vista lately here and here. I skipped whacking at the first one because I was busy at work and I didn’t want to pick on James in case he was having his meds adjusted.

You’re big boys and girls and can read, so I’ll spare you the full recap. The crux of James’s arguments are that Vista doesn’t run well on mobile devices. That we need a slimmed down Vista for mobile devices and that only Apple will get mobile devices right.

I disagree. Completely. Ok, I’m good. Anybody want a snack? Oh, why do I disagree?

Windows Runs Just Fine On My Q1
I went from an abysmal XP experience of double digit crashes a day to a MUCH better experience with Vista on an Original Q1 with 2 gigs of RAM. I can easily say that I’m more productive with Vista than with XP. Yes, I’ve tweaked settings. Big deal. I had to do that with XP too. After the tweaks I’m not getting the issues that James gets. Yes, plugging an external monitor in is less than stellar. It sucked on XP too. I’ve got an AutoIT script that fixes it for me. 5 seconds, done.

We Don’t Need a Slimmed Down Version of Vista for Mobile
Cough BS Cough

We need fewer versions of Vista but not a slimmed down version. I’d like to see one version of Vista. Just give everybody Ultimate and be done with it already. Why chop up the market? Microsoft products don’t sell when you take stuff out. Period. For every slimmed down piece James takes out, someone else won’t buy Vista because it’s missing that piece.

I am willing to see a install template for Vista that is optimized for mobile. Give people the choice of what to leave in and what to leave out along with what settings to optimize. Windows Mobile has never lived up to it’s potential because it can’t do everything full blown Windows can do. A slimmed down Vista for Mobile would end up in the same trap. As to the suggestion to put the OS in ROM, this has cause all kinds of grief for Windows Mobile, why would Vista in ROM be better? You’d piss people off because they can’t change the OS.

Hell Will Freeze Over To Cool The Batteries When Apple Rules Mobile
Steve Jobs owns a string of laser hair removal centers. After a MacBook take the hair off your lap, you need the rest removed to look normal. Apple is behind in heat dissipation design. Apple is using commodity hardware. Apple is subject to the laws of physics. Ergo, Apple won’t be solving any battery life issues any time soon.

I like and respect James and I appreciate his perspective and opinion. But he’s starting to sound cranky. Somebody at Gottabemoble send James a splotch to squeeze will ya!

Amazon launched an MP3 download service today. That’s right, MP3 as in no DRM. As in no iTunes store required. Oh and there’s no extra fee to take out the DRM. It looks like tracks are $0.99 each.

Amazon has now fired a shot across Apple’s bow. If Amazon Unbox wasn’t enough warning, Amazon is now going after Apple’s digital core.

Want proof? The free download to test your Amazon MP3 downloader is Energy by The Apples In Stereo. Does anyone really believe that this is a coincidence?

The beauty for me is that I don’t have to use the pig known as iTunes. I love the player agnostic part of this. This is a nice feature for my windows centric setup.

As for video I’ve had really good results viewing new pilots on Amazon Unbox. The process has worked well on both my UMPC and my media center TV. A 10′ interface for the TV would be nice but the UMPC was just fine.

Now I can stuff my UMPC and Smartphone with media. who needs to get work done!

I’m an edge user of mobile devices. I use feature the average user doesn’t know exists. I try to keep that in mind when looking at new devices but I’m still astounded at manufacturers who throw in a half implemented feature. While playing with my mom’s new iPhone, I got a bit of the techno lust. It’s a beautiful gadget and much of it is really intuitive. So I started thinking about whether I could live with the limitations (no 3g, no tethering, etc.). So I took her phone and tried stuff. Stuff that my Blackjack does well and stuff that it does poorly but acceptably, to see how the iPhone compares.

I learned that despite it’s rounded corners, the iPhone still has some rough edges. There’s an iPhone bug when used with Microsoft’s address book. The office phone number refused to sync. I know how many folks use MS address book? Well, my mom for one, she’s moving from paper and Outlooks seems like overkill.

No native Bluetooth support for music. Bluetooth headsets work great for the phone functions but you can’t listen to music with either a mono or a stereo headset. (I tried both). There’s a workaround, but the music keeps playing through the phone’s speaker so why bother. Also there are reports that iPod add-ons like iMuffs will work but should we really have to pay extra for stereo Bluetooth?

Yes I’m picking on Apple a little bit but EVERY phone manufacturer seems to have some feature that is poorly implemented. “Converged Device” doesn’t mean shove it all in the same case and don’t worry if things don’t work together. I’m still not sure why this so hard. Ask a few of us what we would like to see in a device. For example, There are tons of requests for mono music playback via Bluetooth. Why? Not quality, accessibility. Sometimes you just want a little unobtrusive background music. But no one seems to get that. Not HP, not Samsung, not Apple.

The best comparison I have is that the iPhone is like Lindsay Lohan. It’s beautiful. It’s talented and yet it may never live up to all of it’s potential. Perhaps as it matures, we’ll see that it can move beyond it’s current issues to be something really special, not just the attractive thing of the moment.

I know what you’re thinking: Speak-n-Spell 2.0! Unfortunately, that’s not the case. What we’ve got here is the soon-to-be DOA StudentMate, a UMPC-like device that doesn’t really pass the test. Sure, it has a touchscreen and weighs less than 2 pounds. But that’s where things begin to go downhill…

“It has 128MB of memory, no HDD, but the memory is expandable by both SD cards and USB. As far as software goes it has a web browser, word processor, spread sheet software, contact list, a clock and calendar. For students there is also a calculator, typing tutor, home work helper, student summary list, and a mail client.”

Cool. A homework helper and a typing tutor? How very Mavis Bacon of the device to include some old-school keyboarding instruction. We could go on, but you can read more tragic “My1stUMPC” news over at Slashgear.