Laptop upgrades are not difficult to complete yourself, and there are three key upgrades that you can easily accomplish to make your laptop run faster.  These will also give your laptop a higher resale value when you decide to replace it.

One of the most simple laptop upgrades to complete yourself is to upgrade your operating system. If you are running Windows XP or Windows Media Center, upgrading to Windows Vista is a good idea.  You will be able to take advantage of the many features of Windows Vista, as well as enhance the speed of your system.  An upgrade to Windows Vista for the Home Basic edition is under $100 and is worth it to enhance the efficiency of your system. (More…)

At CES Microsoft announced the upgrade to the TouchPack for UMPCs.  It’s now called Origami Experience and runs on Vista and represents a pretty nice upgrade over the original.  I like that it uses the Windows Media Player 11 controls on the bottom (a version of them is also used in Vista for the new photo appliction).  The rest of the application somewhat resembles Windows Media Center.  I guess I’m a sucker for a consistent UI.

The purpose of Origami Experience™ is to deliver a great device-like media interface on your UMPC. It also allows you to quickly access other applications on your UMPC such as Windows Switcher, Mobility Center, Wireless Connectivity and all your installed programs.

You’ll notice the User Interface (UI) is arranged with Music, Videos, Pictures and Programs. Since the launch of the first UMPC devices we’ve learned that people love using their UMPCs for web browsing and media playback. Fortunately the web browsing experience is pretty good on these already, in part thanks to IE 7. We felt to really create a great media experience though we should write an interface that has been completely designed from the UMPC and touch displays. As you can see in the screenshot above, all of the buttons are easily targeted with your finger.

For our media experience, we rely heavily on the Windows Media Player 11 APIs, so that provides us with support for all of the same formats that WMP 11 supports. We’ve done some other really neat things in Origami Experience™ as well. For example you can easily create a new music or video playlist right from the UI. You can also choose from 5 different photo transitions to turn your UMPC into an awesome photo frame.

Source: Team Blog : Microsoft announces Origami Experience™

I recently had to clean up my garage and get all the Christmas stuff put away. (Here in Florida, there aren’t any basements, the water table is too close to the surface, so garage maintenance is crucial). To help others out, I’ve put together a primer on how to do it efficiently using a UMPC.

1) Schedule garage cleaning in Outlook using TEO 3.0. Proudly show your spouse that you have scheduled the long delayed garage cleanup. (Time: 30 seconds)

2) Take digital photos of your garage so you know what’s in there. Import the photos into One Note and use ink to circle items and make notes about where that item will ultimately end up in the garage. Mark trash items in red. (Time: 1 hour)

3) You’ve worked hard, take a break and check your email and rss feeds (Time: 30 min.)

4) Open One Note and draw a rough schematic of your garage and, using your notes from step 2, mark where various items will end up once you are done cleaning. (Time: 1 hour)

5) Walk outside and compare your sketch to the actual garage. Make changes on the fly with the pen. (Time: 30 minutes)

6) Break for lunch. Use this time to productively listen to a Podcast  and read blogs dedicated to garage cleaning. (Time: 1 hour)

7) Use your UMPC’s browser to search for the right kind of organizing bins and tools now that you’ve decided how to organize your garage and develop a budget for these items to ensure that garage maintenance doesn’t cut into your tech budget. (Time: 1 hour)

8) Develop a mind map in Mind Manager to ensure that you’ve got a good plan and that you haven’t forgotten anything.  (Time: 1 hour)

9) Move the tasks identified in One Note and Mind Manager into Outlook so you can properly manage the project. (30 minutes)

10) Take a nap. You’ve earned it (1 hour)

11) Pay the kid next door the $50 you promised now that he’s done cleaning the garage ($20 to clean, $30 to keep his mouth shut).

That’s all there is to it. Send your spouse and the kids away for the day so you won’t be interrupted during your well deserved nap. Now you’ve got the garage clean and improved your UMPC skills at the same time. You’re welcome.

All of the folks who went to CES and blogged about the Tablet PC’s and UMPC’s there did a great job. In the flood of postings I read it’s possible I missed some things so here are my CES questions that I have yet to get answers to.

1) When will Samsung release vista drivers for the Q1?
Kevin Tofel is most of the way there but since the new Q1’s will support Vista, when will we see drivers?

2) Did anybody see or play with the ModBook (aka the “Apple Tablet) that got so much press just before CES? I don’t recall seeing anything from JKontheRun, Gottabemobile or the other sites.

3) If money were no object, which of the new tablet/umpc devices would you buy today?

That’s all I’ve got. The rest was pretty well covered.

Warner Crocker has a nice post over at Gottabemobile.com where he argues that the Holy Grail of UMPC’s is now price. If you can price a UMPC in the range of an Apple iPhone* (used generically, don’t sue me too Cisco) they’ll be flying off the shelves.

You know what, I agree. But the fact that it’s all come down to price means a few things. It means that:

A) We’re over the processing power/memory/hard drive/resources hump. A Windows Mobile device at $600 wouldn’t be flying off the shelves, but a UMPC will. People are starting to get that these are real computers and you can do real things with them. The market seems to be saying that the specs are adequate, just not for the price.

B) We’re over the form factor hump. Sliding/flipping/twisting keyboards are here for those who want them and people are willing to take a chance on handwriting for $600.

C) We’re over the 1st generation hump. There’s always a chance with new devices that manufacturers don’t have the stomach to stick it out. Look at all the Pocket PC manufacturers that have come, introduced a model and quietly left the business. Samsung is aggressively adding models. Tablet Kiosk is adding models. Everyone now has a model that will run Vista. So the move to Vista won’t kill the UMPC and it looks like MS has really invested some resources to improve the UMPC experience.

Finally, it proves once again that consumers are not rational. The Apple phone is gorgeous, but it’s not a PC. Everything I read says that it runs OSX, the same way that Pocket PC runs windows. Sort of, but not quite. But you’re telling me that an Apple phone price (subsidized no less) is the sweet spot for a 1.5 lb full pc with handwriting recognition? We are screwed up. If I’m dropping $600 on one of my children it’s going to be for a PC, not a phone!

LCDArms makes Tablet PC Arms for Desks. What I like of their holders is that is very… “universal”. Practically you could use it in any of the Tablet PC because the arms and the pieces that hold the Tablet PC can be moved around so they are not in the way of any of the ports or slots of the Tablet PC.

I have contacted them trying to find out if they have any plans to make this kind of arms for UMPCs that could be used in Cars.

Cisco registered the iPhone trademark waaaay back in 2000 and actually has a product out named the iPhone (a VOIP phone). According to the Wall Street Journal, Cisco tried to negotiate with Apple but no luck. This should be fun to watch.  John Chambers and Steve Jobs could should just mud wrestle for the name. The video would be at the top of YouTube and God knows they’ll be slinging enough mud over this anyway.

Perhaps that’s why Microsoft keeps giving their products ridiculously stupid names. Origami would have been a lot a fun but no one’s gonna sue you over UMPC!

The iPhone is announced. The phone and the interface are truly works of art. Like the Movado museum watch I own that sits in drawer because without any numbers I can’t tell whether it’s 4pm or 5pm and I’m always late or early.

Truly the phone is gorgeous, but now that folks have the post Steve Jobs hangover, the iPhone doesn’t looks so good in the morning.

Others have said it better that I can so read:

Paul Kedrosky (best line is in the comments: “It will appeal to those who like the Fisher-Price interface simplicity of the Mac”)

Microsoft Watch and Scoble.

What does this have to do with UMPC’s? Well, there’s apparently no Mac tablet, all the tablet like hints were for the phone. And lets face it, the best selling phones migrate from the enterprise to the home. Like the PC, the enterprise can afford them first and they buy enough to drive down prices. The enterprise demands features. It’s mobile users, like tablet and UMPC adopters who made EVDO and now HSDPA a hit. Oh wait, you can’t get that on an iPhone. It’s the enterprise who forced the wedding of phone and email into one device. Can you get push email on an iPhone? Blackberry users sure care.

I can do more than enough things with my Blackjack to make it a fabulous companion to the Q1. But I’m more pissed a Apple for overshadowing all the great UMPC things going on at CES for a phone that’s too much like a Ferrari. By the time you can afford one, you’ll be to old to want one. I’d much rather take my $599 an put it down on a Medion or a OQO 2.