PenCommander 2.1

PhatWare Corp. has announced the immediate availability of PenCommander 2.1 for Windows XP and Vista-based Tablet and Ultra Mobile PCs. The new version features an improved user interface for Visual PenCommander, a tool which provides an Integrated Development Environment (IDE)-like environment for creating and testing PenCommander scripts; significantly reduced memory footprint; and improved support for Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

PenCommander enables a pen to be used to call up commands that can control Tablet PCs and UMPCs in almost limitless ways, such as editing documents, inserting often-repeated text into documents and launching applications. Scripts are executed by writing a PenCommand name on the application’s input panel. PenCommander is recognized as the best tool for entering repetitive data, accessing frequently used applications and documents, inserting time, date and signature, and overall extending Tablet PC functionality and user’s productivity.

PenCommander 2.1 is now available at reduced price of $24.95. Registered users of previous versions of PenCommander can upgrade at no cost. The registration code for PenCommander 1.5 or later will work for PenCommander 2.1. Check out PenCommander 2.1 here at  http://www.phatware.com/pencommander.  You can download a preview copy to try …. I think you will like it. 

Need a little more information about it?  Then head over to GottaBeMobile where you can watch a great Ink Show showing you all the possibilities.

Get more from your small speakers

One of the features that I liked from my Samsung Q1 was the sound quality. The Q1 was prepared with drivers with SRS capability. Yesterday browsing the web I found that you can get the same sound quality in any UMPC or Netbook by just installing SRS Audio SandBox.

The SRS Audio Sandbox was designed recognizing audio has become more important as many people use their PC for entertainment, both at home and on the road. With SAS you can customize your audio experience based on music, movie, video or game content.

Let me tell you… the sound on my P1610 was just horrible and after installing this program I enjoyed playing music again like I did before in my old Samsung Q1. Fantastic! A Must Have!

Control your UMPC with your voice

Sure, you can do that if you use a program like tazti, a very easy to use kind of voice recognition program.

Convert your laptop in a Tablet

You can convert any laptop in a Tablet PC for less than 100 dollars and without having to void your warranty. All thanks to a new pen called "Duo" that has been released to the Korean Market today according to Aving USA. 

You don’t have a laptop? Do not worry, they have a version for LCD Monitors too!

Diving with a Tablet

If you though that you have seen everything that can be done to a Tablet PC or you can do with one of them… You are wrong! Check this video.

TabletKiosk is experimenting with Linux

Here is a video of a TabletKiosk i440D running openSuse 10.3 Linux.

I was surprised to see how well the on screen keyboard works and the presence of Xournal a replacement for Journal an application to takes notes in "Ink" that comes with TabletPC 2005 Edition OS. Even the screen rotation and the fingerprint reader work perfectly.

Are we going to see Linux as an option for this machine? That’s the question I’m leaving in the air to TabletKiosk. I hope so, even when I’m happy with Microsoft OS, competition is what’s needed to see improvements in any OS.

Tecnology and good wine

Imagine that you own a wine-bar and you have more than 12000 bottles of wine in your warehouse. What can you do to easily let your customers pick what they want drink? Monvínic is a wine-bar with a little restaurant and even a library where you can learn all you need about wines.

This company decided to use a sophisticated system with Amtek T226 TabletPCs provided by todoUMPC to help customers to pick their drinks from 3000 types of wines. All they have to do is to use the touch screen selecting the wine and the order is taken and served in few minutes.

QuikMaps

QuikMaps is apparently a new service coming soon and currently in beta. This site allows users to create maps with the ability of writing notes or drawing lines in these maps. A really good tool for Tablet PC and UMPC owners.

P1610: The latest driver is not always the best

Drivers play a very important role in the performance of any device. I often have seen people reporting that it takes up to 5 minutes and even more to boot Vista and I always though it was just exaggerations of these persons because in my Samsung Q1 with a Celeron at 900 MHz I was booting in about 2 mins. But all that changed when I got my Fujitsu P1610.

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Take Opera with you … on your USB Flash Drive

Opera USB has the same features as a normal desktop version where you can surf the web, write emails, use IRC while having your contacts, bookmarks and settings with you - anytime and everywhere. It is a pretty simple process to get going.  You just Extract the file directly onto your USB Device or Harddisk - That’s all !

- there are no unwanted effects on IE or other browsers
- existing Opera versions are not affected
- make no entries to the registry
- works with every Windows PC (company,Internetcafe, friends,..)
- leave no data on the host computer

So, what do i need for Opera@USB ?  A computer with an internet connection and a USB Flashdrive with about 15 MB space left.  Check it out; it is pretty cool!

Opera@USB : download your free version of mobile Opera:

Warner passes on some "hot" advice

It is HOT here today already and the temperature is expected to rise to the mid- 90’s.  Usually I leave my PC on and often have several mobile devices in my pocket (and car).  This is the kind of day when the humidity is high and the temp is rising that you need to give a little thought to those precious devices and Warner Crocker from GottaBeMobile has a little reminder up on how to “Keep Your Mobile Devices Cool In Hot Weather”

Heat is the enemy on many fronts for mobile devices. Just about anybody has felt the heat from a laptop or mobile phone that is running hot. But external temperatures on a hot day can make things worse. Here on the East Coast we are in our first (and very early) heat wave of the summer. Summer heat forces me to change up what I do in order to protect my devices, or at least let me play mind tricks with myself by doing so.

• Normally I will have several mobile devices stuffed in my backpack. In more moderate weather I don’t think twice about leaving the pack locked in my trunk when I’m out on errands. I also don’t think twice about leaving a GPS unit in my glove compartment. But in hot weather that all changes. I don’t leave anything in the car for more than a minute of two, and in fact I frequently don’t carry devices with me, if there’s a chance I won’t be using them.

• I change my overnight habits and don’t leave devices running overnight in order to save a bit on heat build up. Yeah, my home is air conditioned, but I think that this is giving them a little breathing room overnight.

• I’ll also shut devices down more frequently and also pull the battery for a bit when I do. Usually this happens overnight as well.

• I change up where I’m doing some of my mobile computing to avoid rooms that are hotter due to sunlight.

• Although not really a mobile solution, in my office, I’ll shut my printers down (I have two in my office) unless I need to use them.

• Even with air conditioned rooms, I keep a fan (celiing or otherwise) moving air in the rooms where I have devices turned on to keep air circulating.

So Warner is asking what precautions you take for your mobile devices during extremely hot weather.  Why not head over to GottaBeMobile and pass on your thoughts so others can share in your favorite “hot weather” tips.

Why Developers need to know about SQL Server Compact Edition (SQL CE)?

So you are a developer who works on applications that run on the desktop; or you are a project manager who has only heard of SQL Server Compact Edition… In any case, if you have hardly heard of SQL Server CE, or you are assuming that SQL Server CE runs only on portable devices, then you should read on to learn about some new powerful options available for your environment of choice.

Well, SQL Server CE in not only intended for devices who run on the Windows CE platform (Windows Mobile, Xbox 360 and many others among then) but also for PCs running XP and Vista:

WHAT? You didn’t know? Never mind, keep reading then…

While SQL Server comes in many flavors, SQL Server Express is not the smallest of them all. Yes, it’s free and it can run in your desktop if you want it… but do you really want to run a SQL Server on your desktop? Is that the smallest you can go?

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Biocert for P1610, part 2.

I recently posted about Biocert Intelligent Identity Manager,  a very good program to have installed in any Fujitsu P1610. James Childers President and CEO of ASG Global, maker of this program read our short article and left us the following comment that I would like to share here because it helps to clarity few things that probably were not too clear in my notes:

As the President and CEO of Artemis Solutions Group (ASG Global) - the owner of the BioCert trademark - I wish to thank you for your kind article about the BioCert Identity Manager. We are very proud of this program and the feedback we are getting from customers.

I must point out a few facts about our version of this software. While, yes, you are correct that our version (BioCert IDentity) and HP’s product are based upon the same original software “codebase”, there are some major differences between the versions.

Our version of the software is more full-featured and offers the additional capabilities of file or folder encryption, multiple user login, network and VPN login, multi-factor authentication capabilities and an administrative control panel which offers a finer detail of the settings available to the user.

The version from HP is a “lite” version that only supports single user login and sso for the operating system that ships with the PC. So, if a customer orders a PC with VISTA and changes the OS to XP or Vista Business, HP has to this point not been willing to give the customer the version for any other version of the operating system than was shipped with the system from the factory.

The integration of the advanced encryption capabilities is only one of the principle reasons we do not offer a “demo” of this application. If someone were to encrypt their files using a “demo” application with a 30 day time-lock on it, when the time ran out, they would lose the ability to recover any encrypted files (whether on the local device or on removable storage) stored with the demo. Additionally, we sort-of consider the limited versions being shipped by the PC manufacturers as a trial demo of our full featured version.

We are very pleased that we are able to offer the BioCert IDentity software as an upgrade from the basic HP software or for any computer that has the Authentec 1610 or 2501 integrated within. We believe for our price of $29.95 the customer is receiving a tremendous value over and above what is provided by the PC manufacturers.

Thank you again for your kind words and your informative article.

Sincerely,
James Childers
CEO
Artemis Solutions Group
ASG-Global
http://www.mybiocert.com

Thanks again James for reading my article and leave this comment. I really liked your product and I’m recommending it to all our readers.

Biocert for your P1610

I upgraded my P1610 to Vista and as result Omnipass, the program distributed by Fujitsu to manage the security with the help of the integrated Authetec fingerprint reader, was not working any more. One of my readers at todoUMPC  recommended me Biocert Intelligent Identity Manager, a program distributed with a different name and in a lite version version by HP.

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P1610 Vista Drivers List, help is needed

I have been using a Fujitsu P1610 for a few weeks and I’m not so happy with how Vista Drivers are working on it. So I wonder if others are using a different set of drivers. I compiled a list of what I’m using here. Please compare it with what you are using and point me to any newest driver.

If you are a web master please post at your site about this quest. This will help your readers and me.