Stock car racing, Windows 8 and Surface Pro…together…this is not your dad’s Windows

Last week, the Great American Race-the Daytona 500-ran. Danica Patrick was the first woman to take the pole position and she finished 8th. Quite an achievement for any rookie and new team, regardless of who or what they are. It also signaled the start of the 2013 NASCAR racing season. Every year, teams try to eek out every bit of power, gain some kind of aero advantage (all but impossible with the ‘Gen 6’ race car) or, at least, gain as much information about how well a car performs on track.  This year, Toyota Racing Development contracted with Microsoft to develop a mobile, touch enabled application that will allow them to gather and analyze all types of data on car performance-data that can easily be updated by the driver with out the need for them to get out of the car (during testing or practice) as well as other team members.

Microsoft’s solution involves Microsoft Surface Pro tablets and a custom developed application running in the RT environment.

The Trackside app, as it is called, along with the Surface Pro tablet allows the team to capture performance data, via the touchscreen, and share it with the crew in real time.  Techs can then make more efficient use of time and fine-tune the car for better on track performance.

The Surface Pro was chosen mainly for its construction: its casing is durable and the Pro provides enough processing power to handle what ever is thrown at it.

This is a pretty good use for the tablet and Windows 8.  The ease of use that the RT side provides, along with the Surface Pro’s form factor, combine for a very powerful solution. It is nice to see this product being used in a real world (albeit an unusual one) situation and one in which most of the users are not computer people, but car people-racers.

Go here to read more about this and watch a short video about the application.

More Raspberry Pi goodness

I have a few loose tidbits to pass on, nothing earth shattering…

First, if you like the game Minecraft, there is now a free version for the Pi.  This version is, naturally, a stripped down version of the game. It’s purpose is to help teach programming through gaming. You can read more and download the game here.

Overstock retailer, Big Lots, carries all kinds of oddities but it also carries an assortment of mice, cables, blank DVD’s, cheap dongles and other computing related goods. One thing I was surprised to see was a very small USB WiFi adaptor…802.11n too.  Priced at ten bucks, it is the cheapest WiFi adaptor I’ve seen yet. It works well too. My Pi had no problem seeing the adaptor and putting it to good use.

The other cheap retailer, Five Below, carries many similar items, including a similar Bluetooth adaptor. I have not yet tried this and do not know if RasPi supports it directly, but, since it is Linux based, I’m sure there’s a driver for them.

There is an on-line magazine devoted to the Pi. It covers a wide range of topics from programming to interfacing with other hardware. You can check out the MagPi here.

If you really want to go old school for some gaming, the Pi is a cool Atari 2600 emulator. Go here to read about making a 2600 console (OK, just downloading) out of the Pi.  Since the Pi is pretty small, you could get one of those really bad Plug and Play games that look like an Atari 2600, gut it an put a Pi in there.

So, there you have it, a few tidbits I thought I’d share.  More to come…

Above the Surface: Asus VivoTab Smart Windows 8 Tablet

I’ve been wanting a Windows tablet for years. I even bought two Fujitsu Windows NT (the Stylistic 1200) tablets off eBay a few years back, but could never get them working. Turns out, they used all proprietary parts that I needed-and could have gotten, but did not want to pay the price.  When the iPad came out, I thought it would satiate my desire for the ever elusive Windows tablet. For awhile, it did.

The iPad was a godsend, to be sure. But, it’s shortcomings-and there are many-got to be more than I wanted to deal with and with each release of iOS, the first gen iPad really began to show its age.

My Kindle Fire became my workhorse slate, so to speak, but, it too, was lacking in so many areas.

When Microsoft showed of the Surface, however, I knew that my ideal table would come from Microsoft. Indeed, the folks from Redmond did a nice job with the Surface. It looks great, feels nice to hold and is just nice to look at. Windows 8 RT looks and works great on this thing.  Windows 8 Pro is even better, though I did notice a bit of warmth to the body of the device, which means it could run a bit warm. There is one huge drawback to Surface: price.  At $499 and $799, they are two to four hundred dollars too expensive. I could have purchased the 64gb Pro, but, at nearly a grand for the device and keyboard cover, I just couldn’t do that for a tablet. I don’t know, mentally, I think these things should not be more than $500, no matter what’s under the hood. I could settle for the RT, but that defeats the purpose of the WINDOWS tablet.  What to do?

Enter Asus.

Asus just introduced a full-blown Windows 8 tablet for $499.  So, for the price of the Microsoft Surface RT, I could get a full on Windows 8 device.  Sweet. Open up the checkbook already!

So, I got my Asus VivoTab Smart tablet from Best Buy. Now, before I go on, I have to say that the buying experience was less than stellar, but not as bad as when I bought my son and wife their laptops from the same store.  First, the sales guy did not know anything about the tablet. He tried to tell me it was RT and, when I challenged him, he did go look it up.  So, then he had to figure out if they had them in stock. The web site said they did, which is why I went out of my way to go to this particular store.  Anyway, while waiting, I was bombarded with questions about Comcast! I told the lady that was talking to me about them that I was very displeased with them and if I have a viable alternative for internet access, I’d drop Comcast in a heartbeat.

Back to the tablet.

So, upon getting the device home to live internet connectivity, I proceeded to set it up. That was not difficult or time consuming, though I did have a hiccup with ACTIVATION. Really, Microsoft, this BS has to stop. Your products will always be pirated, get over it. All your activation silliness does is piss off your customers, it does not stop the piracy.   The problem? Well, as it turns out, if the date and time on your device are not correct, your activation will not work.  Once I realized that the date was a year out, I fixed it and tried to activate again. It worked.

Setting up my user account to be the same as my other Windows 8 computers allows me to sync my Windows 8 style apps across my devices. This involves creating a new user and using your Windows Live ID mail box.  Now, I have most of the same apps across all three of my Windows 8 devices.

OK, OK, how about the tablet?

This thing is nice. It is 10 inches wide and in 16:9 format, which means movies will play nicely on the device.  The screen is very nice, but not quite as nice as the Surface or a current gen iPad, though it still looks REALLY nice.  Audio is weak, but I don’t expect booming sound from a tablet, but the volume level could be a bit better. The heft of the device, for me, is just right. The quality of the casing is not quite as nice at the Surface or an iPad, but better than most tablets.  I think I like the rubbery feeling on my Kindle Fire a tad more. The case is plastic and feels like it. However, it does not look ‘cheap’ like some tend to look.

The speed of the device is a bit better than I expected. Running a dual core Atom from Intel, the machine is fairly snappy and I found web page rendering and video playback to quick and smooth. I’ve not yet played many games, and the only graphical game I’ve play, so far, is something Jetpack Joyride, a 2D side scrolling action game in the style of the old Commander Keen or Duke Nukem. The game played just fine.

Because I want to use this as a mobile work machine, I bought a 32gb SD card to increase storage to a more reasonable size.  Nearly 100gb (with 24 gb taken for OS stuff) should be enough for my needs.  I also needed a keyboard.  Interestingly enough, the RT version of the device includes the cool snappy add keyboard, similar to Surface, but the VivoTab Smart does not. In fact, the only connectors it has is the single micro-USB connector and the SD card slot.  I did buy a Logitech K400r keyboard with integrated touch pad, but it is USB (wireless, with USB adaptor) but cannot find a full size female USB to micro male USB cable. After a couple of days hunting for such a thing, I caved and purchased an iHome ‘tablet’ keyboard with Bluetooth. The VivoTab has Bluetooth built in, so this works nicely. Not as elegant as Surface, but it cost under $50 so I’m still way ahead.

Oh, it does have a micro-HDMI connector as well. How could I forget that?  It’s another $35 cable. That is still on the store shelf.

Unlike my Kindle or old iPad, the tablet has two cameras: a forward facing camera for things like Skype and a rear facing, 8 mega pixel camera. The rear camera takes nice photos and pretty good HD video.

Battery life excellent, on par with my iPad: about 10 hours of battery life. They advertise 9.5 hours, but I got about ten out of it.

The thing that really amazes me with this tablet is that it is a full Windows 8 computer.  I can run pretty much anything I already have, including Visual Studio. It feels nice, is good looking, will work all day before needing to be charged and pretty fast for a mobile device. It is $499 and is available at Best Buy, online and from Asus.

Specs:

Windows 8

Intel® Atom™ Z2760 Dual-core CPU @ 1.8Ghz for best performance, power efficiency and compatibility ·

10.1” IPS panel with 1366 x768 resolution for increased visual clarity ·

580g light and 9.7mm thin with colorful design ·

TranSleeve as combined cover and stand with wireless keyboard ·

9.5 hours extra-long battery life for all-day computing ·

NFC – Tap and Explore: simple interaction with other NFC enabled devices ·

Crystal clear 8MP auto-focus camera

A slice of Pi, Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi. No, not the kind you eat and I didn’t forget the ‘e’ in Pi. Raspberry Pi is the moniker given to a tiny, very tiny, ARM based computer.  The computer designed, primarily, for the UK educational market.  Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK non-profit seeking to make computing as cheap as can so they can excite young (and old) people and spur interest in computing, a noble and worthy cause.

The Lilliputian computers, which measure 85.60mm x 56mm x 21mm, start at a cost of $25(US). For $25, one gets a complete computer with an ARM11 processor, 256mb of RAM, a graphical processor capable of decoding high definition, 1080p, video. The board has composite video via an RCA style composite video jack as well as an HDMI port so you plug the board into your hi-def, ultra-tech flat panel or a decidedly low tech, standard def, CRT for old school computing.  For ten bucks more, you get twice the memory and an on-board ethernet port. No WiFi on either, but you can add a WiFi dongle using the included USB port.

I ordered the Model B, the $35 board. I also ordered a clear case and purchased a 16gb SD card for storage. I downloaded the “official” Raspi Linux distro and ‘burned’ the image to the SD card using a tool they recommended (Win32DiskImager)  There is a great guide for preparing your SD card here. However, downloading the image file (here), formatting your SD card (FAT32) and then using Win32DiskImage to burn the image to the SD card is pretty much all you need to do. The guide I mentioned above includes instructions for Mac users as well.

Since I already had a dozen USB chargers, I did not purchase one, however, they are under ten bucks and it never hurts to have one more, right?

Upon plugging in a composite monitor (a battery powered digital portable TV with composite input) and the power, I was ready to check out the computer.  For keyboard and mouse, I used a Logitech wireless keyboard with integrated touch pad that I purchased for my Asus tablet. 

To my amazement and pleasure, the computer booted up in just a few seconds. After completing a short setup sequence, the Raspberry Pi booted into a nice windowed gui.  This particular distribution of Linux comes preloaded with several web browsers, two IDE’s and two Python interpreters as well as a few other assorted utilities and applications. (No games, save for a few that were used to demonstrate Python.)

Since the little TV I was using was just horrid as a monitor, I dug up an old Playstation One monitor (you know, the ones that you could get that screwed onto the PSOne white console.) This monitor is much nicer than the TV-which was not designed to be used as a computing display device. I also tried out the HDMI connection on our 32inch Westinghouse (remember, that’s the one that has to be ‘activated’…grrr!!) set. Needless to say, this is the way to go.

What you need:

Raspberry Pi	$35
4gb (minimum) SD Card	$10 (you might get it cheaper)
USB Charger (750~1.0 amp)	$10 (I had one, so I did not buy one.)
Linux Distro (RasPi)	$0 (add $12 if you buy one with the OS installed.
SD card image writer for your OS	$0
Total for Model B	$55

The Pi, while not a speed demon, renders web pages with surprising ease and speed. It is not as fast as my Asus tablet or even my company issued iPhone 5, but it is usable and I would not get upset if it were my only means of getting on Facebook or posting to this blog.

I am quite pleased with my under $50 computer. It is a great and cheap way to introduce someone to computing or to tinker with or whatever. It is well documented and there are a ton of ideas already out in the ether. Things like cool little arcade cabinets running Mame or Nintendo emulators, dog food dispenser and Pandora radios. I’m going to use mine to expand my programming horizons and to go old school with Tiny Basic.  Learning to appreciate Linux might be in the works as well.

Resources:

• Raspberry Pi home page
• Win32DiskImager
• RBI Tiny Basic (Once I got on the net with the Pi, I installed this from the RBI site.)
• Set up your SD card
• Make: Raspberry Pi
• MagPi: Magazine for Pi users

EDIT: reposted photo of Facebook with names removed.

Windows 8 split personality confusion: what to do and what Microsoft should do

Windows 8.  Talk about split personality.  On the one hand, you have the sleek, modern and sexy ‘RT’ interface. On the other hand, you’ve got the comfortable, somewhat aging and mellow Windows Classic interface. As with everything, ones acceptance of something new depends on how easily one can adapt. For some, this has been a real problem with the RT side of Windows 8. Others, like myself, have had little to no problems adapting.

Windows 8 RT, with the standard mouse and keyboard (i.e. non-touch) is pretty easy to use.  At least, once you understand a few things first. Same for the touch side, though I think the mouse and keyboard are easier to learn whereas touch is easier to use-once you LEARN it.

So, for everyone with a mouse and keyboard, just remember: the upper left, lower left and lower right of your screen are hotspots. All the cool new stuff can be accessed via those three corners.  Click in the lower right to activate the Charms bar.  Charms are simply context sensitive icons that let you access things like search, device settings, Windows settings, etc.  Lower left activates a toggle. You can toggle between the RT start page and the most recently used application, including the Windows Classic desktop. The upper left corner does two things: hover over it to show the last application used, hover and move the mouse down to reveal a task bar showing the last few apps used.  If you grab the top of the screen by moving the mouse up to the edge and hold down the left mouse button while dragging all the way down, you close the current application.  Right clicking will expose a button bar with more options, if any, for the current application.

Of course, there are similar gestures for touch: swipe down from the top of the screen to close the application; drag from left over most of the screen to switch to the previous app; drag for a second and let go to reveal the list of previous apps used; drag just a bit from the top to reveal options for the current app.

The not-so obvious thing, however, are the gestures-be it from the mouse or your finger. It is not intuitive and this is the hard sell for Microsoft and Windows 8. Once you show someone what to do, they generally get it. However, someone just starting and not having any advance knowledge will, likely, not know what to do.  And that’s the problem.

I almost missed the little movie that shows how gestures work because, once the operating system started to do its thing on first boot, I did other stuff. It was only when the video was nearly over did I actually see any of it.

Word of mouth and knowledgeable friends and family will help, but Microsoft needs to do more. A series of commercials that, you know, actually show people using the product is a good place to start.  Maybe something on Microsoft.com.  Certainly, more than a short video on first boot.

I find myself gravitating toward the RT side. It’s easier to use, looks much, much better and, frankly, isn’t as bloated as the Windows Classic side of the house. It makes Windows Classic look sort of dated.

The dual personality is both a plus and a major negative. It’s a plus in that you can still take advantage of what ever Windows software you have, be it Office, Visual Studio or that particular game you like.  It’s a big negative because the transition between RT and Classic is jarring, even after you have used the OS for a period of time, that unexpected transition when you forget that a function is on the other side of the house.  Microsoft made it somewhat better by getting rid of Aero (the cool, glassy look introduced with Vista-and something I miss) and replacing the ‘chrome’ bits with RT like buttons (i.e. the title bar buttons for close, min and max.)  However, it still can be a jarring experience.

Of course, I have been writing about full on Windows, be it Pro or just Windows 8 (the ‘Home’ edition in previous releases.) Windows RT, which still has a desktop mode, is not as bad.  Windows RT (not to be confused with the RT interface) was designed to run on ARM processors (and Intel based chips as well) so your classic applications will not work. Nor should they. 

Windows RT is a shift in operating systems.  Yes, it requires you to buy or acquire all new software.  But, then again, if you bought an Android or iOS based device, you have to do that anyway. (And that’s a big problem that Microsoft needs to address: why is it OK for you to have to buy new apps for Android or iOS, yet it isn’t for Windows RT? Microsoft needs to point this out more.)

I’ve had an Asus VivoTab Smart tablet for awhile now.  I use it everyday. It is Windows 8. Not RT.  However, I find myself using the IE10RT, OneNote RT, the very addictive Wordament game, the RT video player and a number of RT apps.  I do go into the desktop, but not really as much as I thought. When I get into full Windows 8 development mode, of course, I will be in desktop much more, but for my daily use, an Windows RT tablet would probably do just fine.

I suspect most people, especially those who would buy an iPad, would get by just fine with an RT tablet.  The app selection is steadily getting better, RT is very robust and RT tablets are a little cheaper than the full Windows 8 tablets. Microsoft sold out of its Surface Pro tablets, yet the RT tablets – while popular – did not. While the Pro tablets are nearly twice as much, there is far more interest in them than straight RT tablets.  I think they are pricey and overkill for most, but, because of the software compatibility issue, most will believe that they need the Pro when, likely, they do not.

MIcrosoft, you need to get the word out about RT. And fast. If you want RT to succeed-and kill of classic, then you need to do better. Much better.