Category: Mobile Computing

Toshiba AT1S0 7″ Android tablet

At the moment, the tablet computer is being seen as a device to replace regular laptop and notebook computers as the commonly-used portable computing device. But I see the tablet and laptop being able to work complimentary to each other.

For example, I would see the laptop or notebook as being used for long-term intense work such as content creation whereas the tablet can be used for “at-a-glance” reading and browsing. The devices that are able to assume both functions, whether as a detachable-keyboard “hybrid” or a convertible with a “swivel-screen” or “slide-out screen” can provide a bridge between these functions.

Windows 8 “Modern UI” start screen – optimised for touchscreens

This has been augmented by Windows 8 being able to facilitate the “best of both worlds” for content creation when used with a convertible or touch-enabled computer. Here, the “Modern” user-interface can become a dashboard and some of the applications optimised for this interface set themselves up to allow you to read or browse. Whereas you may be able to run a Desktop application which adjusts itself for content creation with the regular keyboard and mouse as the control tools.

The tablets that are run using Android, iOS and Windows RT perform their complementary tasks very well and work the part for ad-hoc viewing.

What kind of tablet?

For example, the 7” units like the Apple iPad Mini, the Google Nexus 7 and the Toshiba AT1S0 are good for bring-it-out-at-the-moment applications where you keep the unit in your handbag or coat pocket. Here you could provide a link to Websites that you need to show others or keep reference material like PDF-printed manuals or online Bibles on these devices.

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet – fit for business

Conversely, the 10” units like the Apple iPad, the Acer Iconia A500 Series or the ASUS Transformer Prime are good for reading, viewing and surfing in the couch although the small Windows 8 convertible and hybrids could satisfy the same game. You could even view photos and video material comfortable and personally on these devices. In some cases, most of these tablets have a way of showing the pictures held on our camera’s or camcorder’s SD card either through an integrated card slot, a third-party “On The Go” cable and SD card reader or, in the case of an Apple iPad, an SD card adaptor.

If you are thinking of one device, I would place the convertibles as being suitable for this purpose. A detachable-keyboard “hybrid” computer can work well when you want the benefits of a lightweight tablet but want to be able to have a keyboard that you don’t have to bring along with you. On the other hand, it is worth looking at the “convertibles” which have the screen able to be arranged as if a tablet yet they become a regular laptop computer.

It would be hard to think of a screen of 12” or lager as being suitable for touch-based computing on a tablet computer but the convertibles and detachable-keyboard hybrids of this size would also come in to their own when you use the keyboard. Conversely, the 10”-11” computers may be awkward with content creation when you use the keyboard yet the are a natural for touch-based “browsing”.

Here, you would have to place weight on what you are wanting to use this computer for and choose the size of screen you want. As well, it is worth getting as much RAM and secondary-storage capacity as you can afford when you buy these computers so you can multitask easily and have room for the programs and data you take along with you.

Any of you who have watched MasterChef The Professionals lately may have seen some TV ads running for the HP Envy x2 detachable-keyboard hybrid notebook.

This unit is a basic Intel-driven Windows 8 notebook that converts to a tablet by you separating it from the keyboard. It is pitched as something you could use primarily as a tablet yet use the keyboard to do text entry.

Very shortly, I will be receiving one of these units for review as the first of the Windows 8 touch-enabled computing devices of this year and who knows what it will be like as a computer for its application.

Article

BMW’s Car Hotspot LTE means Bavarian Motor WiFi

BMW promeut une mini borne Wi-Fi connectée en 4G dans ses voitures | 01net.com (France – French language)

My Comments

The concept of the in-vehicle Wi-Fi network has been examined as an infotainment option by both the vehicle manufacturers and the aftermarket infotainment scene, with system like Chrysler’s AutoNET being used as examples of this application.

But BMW have put up an LTE 4G MiFi router as an accessory for their newer vehicles that are sold in Europe. Here, this unit docks in to the centre console of the vehicle and uses direct connection to the vehicle’s power supply and aerial. The aerial is used for the LTE signals so as to provide that improved performance.

As I have always said, this could yield a lot for the connected vehicle. For example, the fact that devices like the Chrysler AutoNET and the BMW router integrating with the vehicle could allow for access to Internet resources by the infotainment system. This could lead to always-updated maps or business directories accessible through the navigation function or access to podcasts and Internet radio from the car audio system.

A question that still needs to be raised as far as in-vehicle Internet is concerned is interlinking with the home network when the vehicle is at home or in the scope of a trusted network like a friend’s or workplace’s network. This could lead to thinks like syncing or sharing of media between the vehicle (equipped with a hard drive) and these networks or large-scale map or feature updates occurring overnight at a cheaper service cost via the home network.

Articles

How do you plan a working holiday?

My Comments

Toshiba Satellite L730 full-function ultraportable

A very difficult issue for most people who run small businesses is to be able to balance work and life. The article referred primarily to whenever you are on holiday but it can encompass business trips as well as other situations where you may not be able to have your hands “on deck” such as when you or a family member falls ill or there is a major event such as a birth or death in your family.

Here, you have to use the IT and communications technology available to you to satisfy this requirement.

Managing email, messaging and voicemail

This may involve the use of email, messaging and voicemail systems as a “store and forward” communications tools that help you separate the “wheat from the chaff”. This is compared to a common practice where people use text messaging, email or social-network messaging to seek instant replies and instant action.

Filtering messages

With email, you could “skim” the Inbox’s List view so you can look for messages from particular people, check on those messages and reply to them. Well-bread email interfaces also allow you to set up message filters or contact groups  so you can see only those messages that matter. You could also use contact groups on your mobile phone so you set distinct ring tones for those contacts you need to hear from.

The “sent from smartphone” tagline

The tagline used with most mobile-phone email clients which says “Sent from my smartphone”, “Sent from my iPhone” or something similar can have benefits and disadvantages. In some cases, removing it may convey a professional look of staying at your desk and slaving over your work but having it there may let one know that you are _away_ from your desk. This may say “Don’t expect me to reply instantly” or “Expect a short reply rather than the long one”.

You do not always have to be contacted

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet – fit for business

The late 1980s has brought in to general business the culture of the 24-hour / day, 365-day / year working lifestyle. This has been facilitated with technologies like mobile phones, emails and text messaging. Here, you end up with people having the mobile phone always on hand or fielding work calls even when they are meant to be relaxing.

Convey the “contact me only if urgent” requirement

When you are on holiday, you may have to communicate a “contact me only if urgent” requirement to whom you deal with at work, which is an issue that may be difficult for anyone with a managerial or executive role. This may be through the use of “out-of-office” auto-reply emails or voicemails.

Being ready to delegate

You may also have to be ready to delegate your role on a temporary basis. Doctors have made an art of achieving this by having the clinics or hospitals they work with engage a “locum” doctor when they aren’t able to work at the clinic or hospital.

It may also involve underscoring the role of, empowering and preparing the “duty” or “acting” managers in the business’s decision flow. These situations may include regularly briefing the staff who will assume these roles when you are not there to preparing information documents like manuals or “crib sheets” for the staff.

Establishing the “portable office”

Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook – suits air travel very well

A lightweight portable computer device like a tablet, netbook or ultraportable could be used as a tool to “keep tabs on everything” with work. Here, you could use it to check or reply to email or keep an eye on key figures provided by your business’s management-information system.

These devices can work alongside remote-access technologies like remote-desktop tools (LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, etc), cloud-storage services (Dropbox, etc) or cloud-assisted local NAS storage (WD MyBook Live) to provide remote access to your work data. Some of the consumer-focused cloud-storage services are starting to offer a small-business variant of these services which will provide a secure operating environment that suits most business needs.

Here, you can then use this connectivity in response to an event at the office. Similarly, if the management-information system allows for email, SMS or app-driven notifications in response to key events, you can then use this feature to avoid the need to look at the “dashboard” of the management-information system regularly.

Conclusion

Once you know what technological resources you have at your business and have these resources set up properly, you can then use them to reclaim a healthy work-life balance.

Introduction

Previously, I had written an article about the HP OfficeJet 150 as being the first mobile battery-operated multifunction printer that could also scan and copy when it was launched in May. Prior to that, if you wanted a device that did this, you may have bought the Canon BJC-80 alongside a scanning-head accessory for that printer. Then you had to swap the printhead and the scanning head every time you wanted to scan a document.

There are some workflows where you have to prepare and print a document like a quote, then this document has to be signed or annotated before it is emailed back to the office. This work may have to be done while you are on the road and it wouldn’t be feasible to do this on the road in a simplified manner before the arrival of this machine.

As well, this unit’s scanner would allow you to file documents electronically on your laptop or to a USB memory key or SD memory card. It also can become an “on-the-road” convenience document copier.

I have now been given the chance to review this printer and assess it as a mobile computing accessory for those of you who work on the road.

Prices

Printer

Recommended Retail Price: AUD$449

Optional Extras:

Car power adaptor (Purchase from HP store): USD$79.99

Inks and Toners

The printer itself

The HP OfficeJet 150, like the previously-reviewed Canon PIXMA mobile printer is the size of a small “shoebox-style” cassette recorder. It is able to run from AC power using the supplied power adaptor or from internal rechargeable batteries. As well, one can also purchase from HP the “OfficeJet Mobile Car Adaptor” so you can run the printer off your vehicle’s 12V cigar-lighter socket, something I would consider very useful for those of you whose office is your truck or van.

It would take the equivalent of four to five hours to charge the printer’s battery from empty to fully charged, which means that it could be ready to go after you wake up if you charge it overnight.

User Interface and Walk-up functions

The touchscreen control panel used as the printer’s control surface

The HP OfficeJet 150 uses a small LCD touchscreen user interface for managing setup and walk-up functions. I find that this screen may be seen as being too small especially when you use the dialog boxes associated with the various operations. As well, I would rather that HP do implement the OLED technology for this printer’s display rather than the common LCD display.

It can even work as a personal copier

The copy / scan mechanism is a sheet-fed system similar to the typical fax machine and requires you to have the document with the text facing downwards and the top of the document towards the back of the machine.

The OfficeJet 150 was able to print out an image from my Canon PowerShot GIX camera properly and smoothly using the PictBridge setup. This is good if you want a “quick print” of one or more images that you just took with your digital camera.

You can also print from and scan to SDHC memory cards or USB memory keys using the control panel. The SD card slot is very difficult to find but is located on the bottom of left edge of the printer, up the back while the USB socket for this kind of printing is located on the back, close to the USB host socket which you use to connect this printer to the computer.

The advantage of this is that you could scan all those receipts that are in your van’s glove box or those signed documents on that clipboard to a memory key or SD card, then transfer them out to your main computer when you get back to your office. Similarly, you could turn out the preview images from your digital camera to show your customer, again without needing to bring out your laptop.

Computer functions

The HP OfficeJet 150 can connects to a computer via USB or Bluetooth but it cannot use the Bluetooth option for anything beyond printing. Of course, this printer can work with regular computer based on Windows or MacOS X operating environments.

It can also print from an Android device if you load that device with Printshare. Other than that, there is very little support for mobile operating environments.

The software installation experience was very quick although I downloaded the software from the HP site rather than using the supplied CD. This is so I can be sure I am running the latest drivers for this printer. It is infact also going to be the method one will have to use when loading the software on to any of the newer ultraportable computers that aren’t equipped with an optical drive.

Useability

During initial setup, the printheads didn’t move to loading position instantly. Instead I had to turn the printer off and on to cause this to happen. As for installing the ink cartridges, you placed them in to their respective holders then closed the lids on these holders to cause them to be in the correct position. This didn’t require much force.

When you scan or copy receipts, dockets and till-rolls, you will need to have the receipt in the middle of the scanning head and manually push the receipt in to the machine as you start the scan or copy process. You will need to “ignore” the dialogs that come up on the touchscreen about the document not being loaded properly by tapping “Ignore”. This is a task that I find that most users are likely to do as part of organising their expense receipts for tax or reimbursement purposes such as those fuel receipts that pile up in the glove box; or managing those payment-terminal or cash-register journal reports as part of your accounting and tax needs.

The SDHC card slot is located on the left side of the printer, on the bottom edge and towards the back

One thing that confused me initially was the location of the SD card slot that is used for “print-from-card” and “scan-to-card” applications. It was initially hard to locate this until I looked up the supplied product documentation which mentioned that the slot was just about on the bottom edge of the printer’s left had side.

This SD card slot would present itself as an extra disk drive in Windows or MacOS X. It is a bonus if you use an ultraportable computer like the Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook that doesn’t have an SD card slot. You also then benefit from an extra memory card slot which can come in handy for jobs like “upsizing” a MicroSD card by moving data to a larger-capacity card.

Printing speed and quality

The HP OfficeJet 150 had turned out clear crisp text at the typical inkjet printing speed when it was printing regular documents. This didn’t matter if it was connected via USB or Bluetooth. The scanning and copying speed was also very similar to what you would expect for most of the smaller fax machines.

I have done the usual colour-photo printing test using the supplied cartridges rather than the photo cartridges. This is because most of us may find it harder to locate the photo cartridge at most stationers or won’t be bothered to buy and install that photo cartridge every time we want to print a photo. I assessed it against the previously-reviewed Canon PiXMA iP-100 mobile printer and noticed it yielded colours that were more saturated yet the image lost out on the contrast. As well this printer also yielded a relatively darker output of the same images compared to the Canon.

Back view with stick-like battery, USB host socket for memory keys and digital cameras and USB computer socket to connect to a laptop computer

It is also worth noting that the photo printing tasks tended to ask more of the printer’s battery life. Of course, the battery life that is rated in pages for these printers assumes that you turn the printer on for the task at hand, complete the task then turn it off before packing it away.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

A limitation that I have noticed is that the HP OfficeJet 150 can have trouble printing an A4 photo when connected via Bluetooth. Here, it could “cut off” the printout very early and cause the host computer to resend the image for printing.

As for receipt / till-roll scanning, the printer could have a second guide from the right in order to simplify this process or the scanner’s feed system can be optimised on the left or right to keep thermal-printed receipts from drifting while scanning or copying. Similarly there could be a “copy and scan” mode which scans a document to an SD card or USB memory key while copying it, which can come in handy when you have to turn out a customer copy while creating an electronic file copy of that work order.

HP and other could move towards a 4-cartridge ink system for these mobile printers so that they are less costly to run when it comes to ink cartridges. This is a system that is commonly used with most regular-sized inkjet printers and has been considered more cost-effective due to the need only to replace only the empty cartridges.

This printer could be able to support Wi-Fi printing through the use of an optional Wi-Fi connectivity kit. Here this could work via an existing Wi-Fi network or use Wi-Fi Direct for standalone mobile printing. This option would make it work with mobile operating environments like Apple’s iOS with its AirPrint function; as well as the ePrint Home & Biz apps available for iOS and Android.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

I would recommend that people who are needing to print, copy and / or scan hardcopy documents but want to avoid carrying many different accessories for each task buy the HP OfficeJet 150 mobile printer.

As well I would recommend that those of us who use this printer as part of working out of the back of a vehicle like a van; or work from a small powerboat purchase the optional car adaptor. Here, you can charge the printer’s battery up while under way or avoid the worry about compromising battery life while printing or scanning near the vehicle.

Articles – From the horse’s mouth

Pioneer upgrades SMA wireless speaker systems with vTuner Internet radio

Firmware Download Site

My Comments

I have previously written an article about the Pioneer XW-SMA series of Wi-Fi-capable wireless speakers which can play music from your mobile device or laptop using either AirPlay or DLNA technologies. These can work as their own access points if you don’t have access to a Wi-Fi segment that can work across many devices like a home network.

But Pioneer has extended the functionality of all of these speakers by integrating vTuner internet radio functionality. You can add this functionality on to these speakers by performing a firmware upgrade.

Here, you have to download the latest firmware file from Pioneer’s Web site and upload it to the speaker via its management Web page that you discover through the Bonjour device list in Safari or the Network option in Windows Explorer. Here you have an option to open the device Webpage for each of the devices.

But how do you select the Internet-radio stations where the speakers don’t have a display? Here, you have to install the Pioneer ControlApp program on your iOS or Android mobile device and select the stations using that app. This is in a similar manner to what Sony are doing for their wireless speakers where they use a remote-control app on a mobile-computing device to control the speakers.

Of course, you would need to have the speaker connected to a network that has access to the Internet without the need for a login page when you want to listen to Internet radio. For best results on the road with a wireless-broadband connection, I would recommend using a “Mi-Fi” device.

Toshiba Tecra R950 business laptop

Very often, I notice people who are buying a computer, tablet or similar device purchase the device based on the price without thinking of the issue of the unit’s secondary-storage capacity.

But in most situations, the cheaper variants of these devices have lesser storage capacity. This may not be an issue if the device is serving as a secondary computing device and you are likely to either use a auxiliary storage devices like external hard disks, removable SD cards or cloud-hosted / network-hosted storage with the device regularly. What can happen as you use that iPad or laptop is that the main storage capacity fills up and it feels as though there is a noose around your neck as there is less storage capacity on your device for you to store programs or data. In some situations, the device doesn’t perform as well as it should.

You also think of having to frequently purge your system of data that may be “put away” but is to be on hand for use at a later time. In some cases, this activity may cause you to dump data that you may later regret dumping.

Toshiba AT300 10″ Android tablet computer

But you can avoid this with new computing devices especially those you expect to use as your main computing devices if you buy or specify as much storage capacity as you can afford. For example, I encouraged someone who was in the market for an iPad to think of the higher-capacity models because people tend to have them full of photos, music, email and apps very quickly.

In most cases, your device’s storage capacity can be a key bargaining point when choosing that device. For example, you may have something of AUD$100-200 between one storage class and another more capacious storage class for a tablet or a laptop. Some dealers may also try to offer the variant with more capacity for the same price as the model that you are after and have budgeted on.

There is also a reality that as time passes on, the cost of data storage does reduce for a particular capacity due to Moore’s Law.

So if I buy or specify a computing device for someone, especially if the device is expected to be a main or sole computing device, I would make sure that there is as much hard disk, SSD or other storage space as you can afford.