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…)

I’ll admit my bias right away: I already have an HTC PocketPC. Despite all of it’s glaring little errors, I love the little guy. The screen is too small, the processor too slow and the built-in apps are too buggy. Does the new HTC PocketPC plus Windows Mobile 6 fix all of this? Possibly… I don’t know, but I’d sure like to find out!

The fine folks over at Mobility Site have an excellent unboxing/mini-review of the sexy little “UMPCjr” up right here. It sure does make me want to pull out the ‘ole credit card and over extend myself for an HTC Advantage. What’s the verdict?

Yep. Pretty much. Last night I was desperately trying to get the quarter closed and send our 3rd quarter financial numbers up to our parent company. We’d had a wild day and while I was close, the stupid Fixed Asset Depreciation schedule just wouldn’t balance.

No, don’t let your eyes glaze over. I had to leave and I didn’t want to work over the weekend. My son has started skeet shooting with an eye toward competition. That’s hard to do in the city or even in the suburbs. It’s a real hike to where he shoots.

So I left work, met the family,  and while my son was blowing away doubles with his 20 gauge, I was using the pen and the Q1 to beat that stubborn Fixed Asset schedule into submission.

The gun range isn’t quite in the middle of nowhere but you can see the middle of nowhere from the benches. The Q1 is so light, I worked in the car to keep it from being carried off by mosquitos. But it’s small enough that the steering wheel didn’t get in the way. Because the Q1 is primary machine, I had everything I needed with me. Mission accomplished.

Instead of going in to the office today, I got to relax and mow my lawn. No wait…that’s not right.

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!