Microsoft

I’m assuming that this announcement was made very deliberately and that multitouch is a lock. I’m trusting that the Vista wounds are fresh and that they’ll avoid making declarations that they can’t deliver on.

Frankly, the thing that excites me most about this announcement is that OS X will most likely follow suit (or preempt).

Images from Engadget.

Update: Bought a Sidewinder this weekend and it is wonderful! I find myself actually using thumb buttons for once. Also, the mouse is wide and comfortable. It’s nice to see that the container for the weights and alternative feet holds the cord really well. The cord holding feature was clearly not just an afterthought - the holder has a substantial amount of additional heft beyond the mouse weights.

I’m looking forward to the new Microsoft Sidewinder mouse. Not just for gaming, but because of the optimal placement of the thumb buttons. Most mice put the thumb buttons ‘out of the way’, forcing you to reach to press them. The Sidewinder thumb buttons are positioned at your thumb’s resting position, similar to how the left and right buttons are positioned under your fingers.

GotFrag, Official Page.

I’m also looking forward to the competition this represents for logitech. I’m a huge fan of the logitech mice (I own several, including the mx510, the vx nano, and the mx revolution), but I’d love to see even more innovation.

So. As I noted earlier, the Nokia N800 can’t communicate with the Cingular/Samsung Blackjack because the N800 doesn’t support Bluetooth PAN and the Blackjack doesn’t support Bluetooth DUN. Meanwhile, my Vista laptop also can’t connect to the Blackjack because it doesn’t recognize the Blackjack’s PAN implementation.

Steve just launched UMPCPortal, combining his work from CarryPad.com and the great community site OrigamiPortal that he recently acquired. It’s now a one-stop-shop for UMPC specs and news.

I helped him out a little with the UMPC Comparison section (an upgrade to his already awesome UMPC product info database), so check that out during your visit - and bookmark it! I expect it will be really useful during next week’s CeBit as the UMPC news rolls in. For an example of the great treatment and extensive descriptions his portal gives to individual UMPCs, check out this page about the Samsung Q2.

You can read more about the launch here.

There. I said it.

Before broadcasting this to the world, I wanted to wait until I had a solution to the problem or a commitment from Nokia or Microsoft to fix this, but I came up empty on all 3 counts. This post on the InternetTabletTalk forums describes the situation in detail, but here’s a brief primer:

• Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU 3 (and higher), SmartPhone Edition no longer has Bluetooth DUN functionality. The Cingular BlackJack has this version of WM and presumably all of the newer SmartPhones are in that boat as well.
• The Nokia 770 and N800 Internet Tablets currently only support Bluetooth DUN as a way to share a phone’s internet connection.
• Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU 3 supports an alternative method for connection sharing: PAN.
• There are scripts available for the 770 that force it to share internet connections over PAN. It’s pretty hairy to get those scripts running, but it works.
• Those scripts sort of work on the n800, but Opera can’t use the resulting connection for some reason.

Nokia hasn’t announced any plans, yet, to officially support PAN. You can make your voice heard on the matter here.
Microsoft hasn’t announced any plans, yet, to put DUN support back in. You can make your voice heard on the matter here.

I’ve always been a pretty big fan of TopDesk, especially when they brought a flip3d-like window chooser to Windows XP.

ThoughtFix just created a video of Dexpot, though, and I think I might be ready to convert! Dexpot has window choosers like TopDesk, but it also has a virtual desktop system built in!

Very interesting!

Bunnie (one of the original XBox hackers) has something planned for the Zune. Could be linux, but I have a feeling there is more to it than that.

Alex King pointed out UltraExplorer yesterday. I like it! It’s a replacement for Windows Explorer that incorporates functionality from other apps (like the MacOS X Finder) and has a tabbed interface so you can keep all your explorer windows together. Very cool. Just make sure you change the default view to ‘details’!!! (Tools-Options-ListView-General-DefaultView)

I’m sure it will be LifeHacker’s Download of the Day very soon.

Just downloaded PhotoSynth after watching Robert’s video on the subject. PhotoSynth stitches hundreds of photos together to build a 3D representation of a place. You can move around inside that space with your mouse and zoom in on individual photos to get a really high res view. I remember seeing something like this a few years back, but it didn’t give you access to the original photos in the way this does. Very, very cool. I can’t wait till you can create your own collections. I don’t care that it takes days of cpu time.

Update: I forgot to mention that I’m running XP, not Windows Vista. I installed Vista RC2 first, but found that all the motherboard software and speedfan didn’t work correctly (for tracking the cpu and motherboard temperatures). Also, my attempt at installing World of Warcraft on Vista RC2 failed. I realize that these problems could have been overcome, probably, but I wasn’t in the mood to compromise with my brand new hardware.

On Friday, I built a new PC with parts I ordered from NewEgg.com. The components are listed at the bottom of this post. The total was well under $1500, including tax and shipping. The build procedure took more than 5 hours including the OS install - it was well worth it. My new pc is very fast and can handle all the games I tested at excellent speed with lots of beautiful graphics. Here are some thoughts:

• Second Life character animations are still choppy even with a fast CPU and Graphics card. Am I doing something wrong? I tried Second Life earlier this year and was turned off by the clunky look. I assumed it was my computer, but now that I know that’s normal, I guess I won’t be going back.
• Installing the heat sink/fan is much less stressful now than it was a few years ago. You don’t have to apply as much pressure. That’s a welcome change. When I built my AMD 2500+ based machine back then, I was afraid I was going to snap the motherboard because I had to press really hard, with a screwdriver, to get the heat sink set up.
• Battlefield 2142 is amazing.
• I haven’t tried Oblivion on this PC, yet, but I’m looking forward to it.
• World of Warcraft runs at 60 FPS with all settings on high in windowed and full screen mode.
• The case is very quiet. I installed a second 120mm fan and it’s still very quiet. The CPU and motherboard temps stay around 35-39 degrees celsius. The graphics card gets as high as 45 degrees under load.
• I bought a Logitech MX Revolution wireless mouse last night. More on that later. I love mice.
• Haven’t overclocked anything, yet.

Components:

• Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V V2.0 for AMD & Intel systems Power Supply - Retail $99.99
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6400 - Retail $220.00
• eVGA 512-P2-N573-AR Geforce 7900GTO 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail $255.99
• OCZ Gold 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2G8001GK - Retail $119.99
• LITE-ON 16X DVD±R DVD Burner W/LightScribe and 5X DVD-RAM Write Black ATAPI/E-IDE Model SHM-165H6S - Retail $35.25
• GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $146.99
• FLEXIGLOW FGMPXRBL X-Raider Pro Mouse Pad “Blue” - Retail $14.99
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording) ST3250620AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $79.99
• ARCTIC COOLING AF12025 120mm Fluid Dynamic Case Cooling Fan - Retail $5.99
• ViewSonic VA1912wb Black 19″ 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail $214.99

This is absolutely HUGE news.

Microsoft just announced that with XNA Game Studio Express (free) and Creators Club ($99/year), anyone can write games for the XBox 360 and share them with other members of the Creators Club. Later, other XBox 360 users will have access to the content, too! BAM! As someone who writes unfinished games about once a year to share with friends, I’m really excited! Even more, I’m excited to see games from established independent software developers popping up on the 360!

Let’s hope the other console manufacturers follow! I’d LOVE to see freely available independent games for the Wii!

Update: Ouch!  The procedure for game sharing is much more involved than just asking your audience to pay the fee.  From the FAQ:

Q: How exactly can I share my 360 game to other 360 users? Will my game only be available to people with the XNA “Creators Club” subscription? Will it be available to all 360 users that have an Xbox Live account?
A: There is currently no supported way to share binaries on the Xbox 360. Currently, there are four requirements that must be met in order to share a game targeting Xbox 360 which is developed with XNA Game Studio Express.

1. The individual you are planning to share the game with must be logged in to Xbox Live and have an active subscription to the XNA Creators Club
2. The receiving user must have downloaded the XNA Framework runtime environment for the Xbox 360
3. The receiving user must have XNA Game Studio Express installed on their own development PC
4. The game project, including all source and content assets, must be shared with the receiving user. The receiving user then compiles and deploys the game to their Xbox 360.

The podcast and press release are up!

Highlights of the podcast:

• Channel 9 success numbers.
• Scoble is leaving because Microsoft is on the right track again.
• He’s also leaving because he wants to take advantage of the media possibilities that Microsoft, Apple and other companies are setting up. (Vista, iPod, XBox 360, etc)
• Prediction: Next year, 50% of Vloggercon attendees will have HD cameras.
• Second Life integration with feeds, audio and video is tight.  You can carry around a waving flag with a video playing on it.
• When a story breaks on blogs, podcasts, etc, it spreads like wildfire.  PodTech can tie into that.  Existing large media companies are too slow.

First, I’ll say that I’m not treating tonight’s news about Robert joining PodTech as fact until I hear it from him.

That being said, I can see why Microsoft wouldn’t fight to keep him around if he decided to leave.

• Through his blog and his videos at Channel9, Robert has given Microsoft a single friendly face to bloggers and other technology workers/enthusiasts.
• Also, through a lot of internal changes, Robert and others have set up a large infrastructure at Microsoft of PR. Including bloggers and videobloggers with Channel9 and On10.net.
• It seems to me that the best thing Microsoft could do to emphasize the other bloggers, vloggers and podcasters would be to let Robert go off and revolutionize something else.
• The bloggers at Microsoft are currently very enthusiastic. Why not take advantage of that enthusiasm and have Robert step down while the infrastructure is in place to take up the slack. If he steps down when the bloggers and vloggers at Microsoft are less organized, it could be disastrous for Microsoft PR.

My first instinct was that this ‘news’ HAD to be false because a company with Microsoft’s resources could easily prevent Robert from leaving. But, after some consideration, I can see why they might even encourage him to try something new while their other employees are still jazzed about blogging/vlogging.

Meanwhile, why would Robert leave Microsoft and join PodTech? With a big personality with a lot of practical experience running a podcasting/vlogging network, I think it could really have a chance against the existing media companies.

So: Good luck Robert!

Update: Dave and Chris both confirm. And, now, TechCrunch confirms.

Update 2: Robert’s explanation is up.  This was a good move not just for him and PodTech but also Microsoft. It’s time for some of the other kick ass bloggers at Microsoft to take the spotlight.

I’m using Vista build 5381 from connect.microsoft.com.

It is very responsive! I don’t have Aero running, of course.

I don’t recall if I had to install the audio driver or if it found it without help, but it’s working.

When installing the digitizer, make sure to choose the b_stage driver from your D drive. A_stage doesn’t work at all. Even b_stage, though, doesn’t calibrate perfectly.

I had no trouble installing the driver for the display. I just browsed to the display settings, chose to update the driver and told the system to search the D driver for the driver. I cannot choose 800 x 480, but 800 x 600 looks really good, so I’m not unhappy. Watching video could be a problem if Vista won’t let us drop down to 800 x 480, but I’m sure a future driver will fix this problem.

Bluetooth seems to be running, but I haven’t installed a driver, specifically, and I haven’t tried to connect anything.

I have not been able to get Wifi to work, yet.

Update: If you DO install Vista on a new partition on your eo, be sure to edit the boot menu to default to XP.

A few people asked me what steps I took. Using Partition Magic 8:

• I defragged C and D.
• I converted the D restore partition to a primary NTFS partition.
• I resized the D restore partition to be slightly larger than 3 gigs and moved it to the end of the drive.
• I resized the C partion to get 20 total unused GB between C and D.
• I created a new 20 GB primary NTFS partition between C and D. I named it L (longhorn).
• I booted XP and downloaded the latest Vista beta build from connect.microsoft.com (I’m an official beta tester. No, I won’t send you the ISO.)
• I mounted the Vista ISO as my E drive using Daemon Tools.
• I ran the installation, specifying L as the target.

Update: Some drivers work, some don’t.