All posts by Tim Anderson

Asus has announced the Transformer Prime, a quad-core tablet which comes with a mobile dock. The tablet looks like this:

but it docks with a keyboard to become more like a laptop:

The dock includes a keyboard, USB port, SD card slot, and an additional battery. Asus claim a battery life of 18 hours for the tablet when docked, or 12 hours for the tablet alone.

Specs for the Transformer Prime include 32GB storage, 1GB RAM, micro HDMI port, front and rear facing cameras (the rear camera can take full 1080p HD video), light sensor and gyroscope, GPS, combined audio and mic-in jack, and of course wi-fi and Bluetooth.

The real star of the Transformer Prime though is NVIDIA’s new Tegra 3 SoC (System on a Chip).

Tegra 3 includes a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU and a 12-core GeForce GPU, compared to its predecessor the dual-core Tegra 2 with its 8 core GPU. It also supports double the amount of RAM: 2GB rather than 1GB. Anand Lal Shimpi has a great overview here.

The Transformer Prime is set to arrive in the UK in early January with a recommended price of £499 inc VAT. It will run Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

Perhaps I have spent too much time with the Windows 8 preview over the last month, but I cannot help thinking that this would make an excellent Windows 8 tablet. I like the idea of the keyboard/dock which also forms protection for the tablet screen; with Windows and Office this might be the only device I need when travelling.

gadgets, mobile, smartphones

What will it take to make Windows Phone a success?

November 8, 2011 Tim Anderson

Microsoft made a splash in New York City yesterday with a giant Windows Phone in Herald Square.

The idea I guess was to show how each “Live tile” is a window into a feature of the device, with a special emphasis on “people” – the way Windows Phone aggregates Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Windows Live and more into a single feed and tile.

This is the kind of stunt you get when a huge corporation with a lot of money to spend is trying to muscle its way into a market.

Is it enough? It does feel as if Microsoft has managed the re-launch of Windows Phone better than its first effort around a year ago – the first devices went on sale in October 2010. The operating system has been tweaked, the new devices are more imaginative, and partner support seems better. I actually saw some window displays for Windows Phone in my local small town though they were gone a few days later.

It still feels as if Microsoft is fighting an uphill battle. There is not much wrong with the phones now, but what is the killer feature that will sell it alongside Android and iPhone? Personally I like the SharePoint integration, but Microsoft is still primarily going after consumers rather than business users.

There is also the matter of the tiles. They work well, but look at the photo above: are they beautiful? Not really; and it is unfortunate in some ways that all the Windows Phones look like this.

That said, I enjoyed my few minutes with an HTC Titan; it has an exceptionally large display and a great camera but does not feel too bulky, and I can see it doing well if the marketing is right. Nokia’s Lumia 800 looks good too.

Microsoft came late into this market though, persevering with its old Windows Mobile for too long, and it is not going to be easy to catch up.

rants, Uncategorized

How not to ship a hard drive

November 5, 2011 Tim Anderson 2 Comments

I ordered a hard drive from play.com and was taken aback by the way it was shipped to me – in a flimsy padded envelope with no additional protection.

In case you are wondering how to ship a hard drive, this is the illustration from the Western Digital support site:

which adds:

Place in sturdy cardboard box. Do not use chipboard, as it is not strong enough to withstand the rigors of transit. Please make sure the corrugated carton is free from defects and is structurally sound. Note: Returning a WD hard drive in an envelope, will void the warranty.

I protested and play.com offered to take the drive back but gave me no explanation for the incorrect packaging. Surprisingly the drive checks out OK, although hidden damage is a concern.

mobile, smartphones

Something has changed for Windows Phone

November 3, 2011 Tim Anderson 3 Comments

When Windows Phone 7 launched last year, it was obvious that it could not succeed since it was all-but invisible to most people. In my local small town centre, which has several mobile phone shops, it was nowhere to be seen.

I went out to post a letter just now and was astonished to see this poster in the window of Phones4u:

I went in and discovered only a dummy of the Radar and Titan on display. I asked to see a Titan and they got one out for me to see.

The Nokia Lumia 800 was also on display, this one a working model.

The Titan has a gorgeous large screen, but while it is slightly bulky it is slim and does not feel heavy to hold. I put it alongside the Lumia; the Titan screen does look larger and better. Unfortunately I could not see the Lumia out of its clip. The Lumia does benefit from Nokia Drive (not working because no internet connection) and seems to be around £100 cheaper than the Titan. The Lumia also has the free British Airways app pre-installed.

I asked the assistant what she thought of Windows Phone and she said she had not tried it. I said I had an HTC Desire (true) and she seemed slightly puzzled about why I would want a Windows Phone though she thought it would be good for work because of Office.

Still, Microsoft’s device has visibility at last, though this seems to be more because of moves by Nokia and HTC than from Microsoft itself. If it can win the support and enthusiasm of some of those influential retail assistants we may see significant growth in market share.

tips

Breaking Intel RAID: what happens to your data?

November 3, 2011 Tim Anderson 1 Comment

I am upgrading my desktop PC, wondering as I do if this is the last time. I did this four years ago; maybe four years from now cloud, mobile and virtualisation will make this unnecessary.

But I digress. My PC is creaking and I am replacing most of its innards. I use an Intel motherboard with its embedded RAID controller to mirror the data on the main 1TB drive. Since I am now getting new, faster drives, I want to break the RAID. The question though: will this delete all the data?

The puzzle here is that the Intel Matrix Storage Manager insists that when you delete a RAID volume, all its data is lost. But why should you lose data if you are breaking a mirrored (RAID 1) volume? In this configuration, each of two drives maintains identical data. In fact, Intel’s User’s Manual says:

All data on the RAID drives will be lost unless the volume that is selected is a RAID 1 volume.

The utility itself is less comforting though, and when I go to break the RAID it says data will be lost unless it is a “Recovery volume”, which is something slightly different.

Now, if you are like me you set up the RAID in the first place because you would rather not lose that data. On the other hand, my suspicion was that the data would in fact be preserved. Caution prevailed, and I made a Windows system image backup of the entire thing, which took most of a day.

Then I deleted the volume. No data was lost and Windows booted perfectly, though it did reconfigure its storage drive and ask for a restart.

The second drive also retained all the data. Windows made it offline, because according to disk manager:

The disk is offline because it has a signature collision with another disk that is online

which is fair enough.

I can confirm, then, that in my experience you can delete an Intel RAID mirror without losing the data. Still, if this is data you care about, I guess you are going to take a backup anyway before pressing Y.

comment

Hard drive shortage, price madness

November 1, 2011 Tim Anderson

Now and again in the computer industry there is a shortage of components, everyone panic buys the stock and prices shoot up.

This is happening now with hard drives. Here is what Seagate told its partners:

As has been widely reported, the severe flooding in Thailand is a tragic situation for families and businesses across the region. Currently, all Seagate facilities in Thailand are operational and our production is not constrained by either internal component supply or by our ability to assemble finished products. Rather, we are constrained by the availability of specific externally sourced components. As a result, industry demand will significantly outstrip supply at least for the December quarter and the supply disruption will continue for multiple quarters.

How long the disruption will last is hard to guess, but bearing in mind that manufacturers will be racing to restore production I doubt it will be really long-lived.

In the meantime though, buyer beware. Drives that you could once find for £50 or so in the UK are suddenly three times the price.

The best advice is to postpone that upgrade you were planning. If you cannot wait, it is still worth shopping around.

mobile, reviews

Review: Broadway 2T network TV streamer for PC and iPad or mobile device

October 20, 2011 Tim Anderson

If you feel like watching TV on your PC or mobile device, there are a host of options, including live TV on the internet, or add-on TV cards or USB devices that attach to a PC or Mac. Once you have TV playing on your computer, there are apps which will let you stream it to a mobile device such as an Apple iPhone, iPad or Android tablet.

Another option which I saw at the recent Digital Winter event in London is Elgato’s eyetv, which attaches to an iPad port, and the portable tivizen which streams TV over wi-fi.

Lots of options; but also plenty to go wrong. Most of the devices use DVB-T digital TV, which in the UK enables all the Freeview channels, but getting a good enough signal from a portable aerial is a challenge. Installing a PC card works well if you connect it to a rooftop aerial, but it does mean messing with drivers and application software; and then further hassles if you want to watch elsewhere in the house.

Broadway 2T, from pctv systems (part of Hauppauge Digital Inc) takes a more flexible and potentially hassle-free approach. This is a TV card (not HD) with internet streaming software in a wi-fi connected box. Plug-in, and you can stream TV on any device round the house, or even over the internet when you are out and about.

That is the idea anyway, and I put it to the test with a review unit. It is a box about the size of a stack of 4 CDs, with twin aerials for wi-fi connection.

On the back are a range of ports, including wired ethernet, TV aerial, inputs for analog CVBS and S-Video and audio, two USB ports and an IR blaster connection.

There is also a USB port on the front; but all the USB ports are documented as “for future use”. It would make sense if in some future version you could connect directly to a PC over USB; but why three ports will be useful in future is something of a mystery.

There is also a collection of cables: power, internal aerial, ethernet, IR blaster marked “For future use” but now enabled, and screws for wall mounting.

I have what is probably the ideal setup for Broadway 2T: a rooftop aerial connection and wired ethernet with a wi-fi access point. The internal aerial is unlikely to be much use unless you live in a area of particularly strong signal.

I connected the unit and fired up a web browser. If you browse to http://distan.tv/ the remote web site runs a script that detects the local PCTV, so it is no trouble to find on the network. I ran the setup wizard, including a channel scan and setting passwords for admin and TV access, and was rewarded with 44 channels found.

Next, I browsed to the page on iPhone, iPad and PC and was able to select a channel and watch straight away. No drivers needed; and the Flash video on a PC is replaced by an iOS-friendly H.264 stream automatically when needed.

Here it is on an iPad; PC is similar.

and on iPhone

Of course there is a full-screen view.

You can also get at all the settings from any web browser.

So far so good; but one flaw is that there is no program guide in the web view. You have to discover what is on elsewhere.

The next step was to install the PC software (Windows only) which adds features including a program guide, pause/resume and recording. This involves installing an application called TV Center from the supplied CD.

At this point the hassle-free experience disappeared. The software installed but while it detected the Broadway 2T, it could not find any channels. I also puzzled over the settings. Did my unit have an Antenna, or an Aerial system? Why was the Antenna Configuration option disabled?

The CD also installs a driver for Windows 7 media center, and I tried that too. Again, the unit was detected, but no channels found.

Eventually I discovered that you need to install a patch from the PCTV web site before the PC software or Media Center will work with Broadway 2T firmware above 2.5. After that, the TV Center application worked, but I still found it unpredictable and not much fun to use. Sometimes it opens as a transparent window, and has to be coaxed into displaying TV by twiddling with the settings.

Microsoft’s Media Center software is nicer to use, though it is really designed for use with a remote. A bonus though is that if you do not mind keeping your PC on, you can use the Media Center nicely from an Xbox 360.

The Broadway 2T has dual DVB tuners, which is meant to mean that you can record one channel while watching another, or watch different channels on different devices. This does work, but I found the unit reluctant to let go of a channel even when not actually playing, which causes errors.

I feel that the application could handle this better. For example, why not show a list of which channels are in use and give an option to turn one off? On occasion I resorted to rebooting, which you can do through the browser.

Overall the software is indifferent in quality and lacks polish.

If you want to view over the internet while out and about, you can do this by forwarding a port on your router to the Broadway 2T box. It would be best to reserve its IP address or use a static IP before doing this. The port is 80 by default, but can be changed. Remote viewing works fine provided that you have a good wi-fi connection. If you succeed in watching over 3G, beware the high data transfer as well as poor quality if the connection is weak.

The IR Blaster lets you use Broadway 2T with a set-top box such as satellite TV. Connect the output from the box to the input on the Broadway 2T, then connect the IR Blaster cable so that the Broadway 2T can control the set-top box by emulating the commands of a remote control. I did not try this feature.

Summary and verdict

I enjoyed having live TV available on any network-connected device around the house, and this combined with easy setup of the browser-based streaming is the main advantage of the Broadway 2T. Viewing TV remotely is a bonus.

The poor quality of the Windows-only software counts against the unit though, and I would have preferred a better browser-based app and to forget the PC application.

It is easy to imagine how this could be improved. Attach some USB storage, improve the server app, and there is no reason in principle why this box could not handle PVR (personal video recorder) functions as well as supporting an EPG (Electronic Program Guide), though I have no idea what PCTV has in mind for those spare ports.

Nevertheless, this is a useful device even with its current limitations.

gaming, mobile, reviews

Bridge for Apple iPad and iPhone: FunBridge upgraded, no longer free

October 18, 2011 Tim Anderson 8 Comments

GOTO Games has updated Funbridge for iOS to version 3.0, adding many features and introducing a per-game fee.

FunBridge is a Contract Bridge app in which the play is always online. You play against the computer but compare your score to that of others. In this new version the game engine seems little changed, but interaction with others is much greater, making it more like the web version.

In the earlier release, you could see your ranking and which users were in the top 10 for a tournament of 10 games, but you could not discover anything about another user beyond the username. Now there are user profiles and you can see another user’s overall ranking and, if they choose to provide it, name, age, location and About me notes.

Tournaments no longer stand alone, but are grouped into series which match you with players of similar standard. Rankings are decided after each period of a week, based on the results from short 3-game tournaments, provided you play at least 5 during the period. There are 35 series, and after each period the top 25% are promoted and the bottom 25% demoted from each.

You can also play in old-style Daily Tournaments, which are now more frequent than before with a new one every two hours, but these are not grouped into series. You can also play practice hands. The Daily Tournaments and practice hands are scored with IMPs (International Match Points), whereas the Series Tournaments are scored with pairs-style percentages; if you score just slightly more then others, you get 100%, and even a good score can get you 0% if everyone else made an overtrick.

The other big change to mention is that play is no longer free, though you get an introductory 100 games.

Games cost from 3p each falling to 1.75p if you purchase 1000 at a time. FunBridge will give you 5 games free if you reveal your birthday and another 5 for your city. Is your birthday worth more than 15p?

This makes FunBridge expensive compared to most iOS games. It is a different model to the web version, where you pay €9.90 per month (a bit less if you subscribe for a year) for unlimited games. That would buy around 400 games on the iOS version so you win or lose depending how often you play.

The game itself truly is a lot of fun, though I have found a few frustrations. The play is generally good, though eccentric occasionally. The bidding can be perplexing, especially as the bidding conventions are not described in detail, so you have to guess exactly which variant the computer is supposed to be playing. There is help for the meaning of simple bids, but this does not always match the selected convention and cannot be trusted.

Still, everyone is in the same situation so it is fair!

Hands seem to be tilted towards interesting deals; I have never seen a 10-card suit in one hand in regular bridge but I have in FunBridge.

Gameplay can be annoyingly slow even on a good connection; though perhaps when everyone has played all their free games this will improve!

A fun game; but with the new subscription model I wonder if we will see some alternatives at lower cost. It would also be good to see a version for Android and other mobile operating systems.

laptops, tablets

If the laptop had been invented after the tablet …

October 17, 2011 Tim Anderson 1 Comment

I attended a press briefing for a new kind of portable computing device which its inventors are calling a “laptop” and have been trying out a review sample.

Unlike today’s one-piece slate form factor, the laptop has a hinged top which when open forms the screen. The lower piece, called the keyboard, has physical buttons representing the letters of the alphabet, numbers, and other useful inputs, more or less matching the on-screen input panel we are used to.

The makers claim that a keyboard is faster to use than an input panel, but I am not convinced. One of the problems is that you are either looking at the screen, or the keyboard, and it takes a lot of practice to type without looking at the keyboard and missing what is appearing on the screen.

The real benefit is that without an input panel, there is more space on the screen for the application. Still, bearing in mind that the input panel disappears when not in use, this is not really such a big deal.

The downside of the laptop is that the two-piece design makes it bulkier and potentially more delicate than a conventional tablet. I also found that while it works fine on a desk, in a constrained space such as in an aeroplane seat the hinge design is awkward to use, and on several occasions I gave in to the frustration and used my normal tablet instead.

If you are standing up, the laptop is horrible to use, whereas a tablet works fine: you can hold it in one hand and control it with the other.

Laptops will be more expensive than tablets because of the more complex design, though we were shown a cheaper variant that has a passive screen which does not respond to touch.

This is odd to use; at first you find yourself constantly stabbing at the screen by mistake, but eventually you can train yourself to do everything with the keyboard. Just make sure you do not ever switch back to a tablet, otherwise when you come back to the laptop you will find yourself stabbing the screen again!

In order to mitigate the lack of touch control on these low-end devices, the designers have added an on-screen pointer which you can think of as a virtual finger. A small area in the centre of the keyboard is touch-sensitive, and moving your finger there moves the on-screen “finger”. You can then tap or click a button to simulate a finger tap.

It is a clever idea, though operating at one remove from the screen itself takes some getting used to. In the end though, it feels like a step backwards and for most users the extra cost of the normal touch screen is well worth it.

My view: for certain specialist tasks the laptop may catch on, but I cannot see it succeeding in the mass market.

Inspired by Ten failings that will check the tablet’s rise

reviews

Review: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5

October 16, 2011 Tim Anderson

Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a voice dictation system for Windows, and there is a similar but not identical version available for the Mac. I have been trying version 11.5 in its Premium edition.

Voice recognition is interesting on several levels. Dictation can be quicker than typing, avoids repetitive strain injury, and for some users may be the only practical way to input text and control a computer.

Voice control is also a computing aspiration. In science fiction novels and films from 40 or 50 years ago, the characters use voice to interact with computers like Asimov’s Multivac or Kubrick’s HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey as a matter of course. It has proved a difficult problem though, and even the best voice recognition systems are frustrating to work with, since mistakes are frequent and corrections difficult.

That said, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the best I have used. Let me answer a few questions:

Q: Is Dragon good enough to use for real work?

A: Yes. Fire up Dragon, then Microsoft Word, start dictating, and you can write a document without too much pain. Of course there will be errors, but Dragon has an excellent correction system. In the following example, I said “The reason” but Dragon heard “Losing”. I then spoke the command “Select losing” and Dragon popped up a selection box.

Now I just have to say “Choose 1” and the error will be fixed.

It is not always so easy, and you may have to spell words like place names and specialist vocabulary, but Dragon learns and you get better at dictating, so perseverance pays.

Dragon has a sidebar which is great when you are learning the system, as it shows brief contextual help for the most commonly used commands. It does occupy significant screen space, so best used when you have a large screen or more than one display.

Q: What is the key to success with dictation?

First, use a good microphone. Some editions of Dragon come with a Plantronics Bluetooth headset, which is ideal for the task. Trying to dictate using the mic built into a laptop, or one of those cheap gaming mics, will only lead to frustration.

Second, be patient. Your first day or two with Dragon will be frustrating, but it gets better.

A quiet room also helps, but with a headset this is not so critical.

Q: Is Dragon good enough that you would use it by choice, even when you could use keyboard and mouse?

For me, not yet. I type professionally, so I am pretty fast, and I do find Dragon gets in the way. If I could reel off a few thousand words in one blast, I might use Dragon, but in practice I find I need to task-switch frequently, checking a fact, searching the web, finding a screenshot, or listening to an interview. You can do almost anything in Windows using Dragon, but using a mouse and and keyboard is much quicker. If you use Dragon just for dictation that is fine, though you do have to set Dragon to stop listening when you are performing other tasks, otherwise Dragon will do something unexpected.

Work patterns vary, and some voices are easier than others for Dragon to interpret, so this is a matter of individual preference.

Q: Do you need Dragon when Windows has its own voice recognition system?

I did a quick test. I read the following paragraph, from a guide book that happens to be close by:

Original:

This little book is not properly a “guide” but rather a collection of random notes and thoughts, and I have published it mainly as a souvenir for those who make a short journey from Wroxham with Broads Tours.

Windows 7:

This little book it is not properly A “guide” but rather a collection of London dates and courts, and I had published in mainly as a souvenir for those who make a short journey from locks on withdrawn schools.

Dragon:

This little book is not properly a “guide” but rather a collection of random notes and thoughts, and I have published it mainly as a souvenir for those who make a short journey from locks and with Broads Tours.

Not a rigorous test; but with my voice and on this particular passage Dragon is well ahead, and that accords with my general impression. I do think the Windows system is usable, but the extra cost of Dragon is worth it if you expect to use dictation frequently.

Q: Any other snags with Dragon?

Yes. Dragon hooks deeply into Windows, as it must do in order to control things like window switching and mouse movement, and I saw an impact on performance and stability. I suspect this can be improved by fine-tuning Dragon’s configuration and by keeping Windows as plain as possible. It also seems to work much better with software for which it is specifically designed, such as Microsoft Office, than with generic text input into software it does not know about, such as Windows Live Writer.

Q: What is new in version 11.5?

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 is a free upgrade from 11. The most obvious new feature from 11 is that you can use an iPhone as a remote wi-fi microphone. I tried this, which requires creating a new profile specifically for the purpose, and found it works nearly as well as with the Plantronics headset. However, the headset is a lot more convenient so I am not sure what is the benefit.

There are also new commands including “Post to Twitter” and “Post to Facebook”, and both the user interface and the voice recognition engine have been fine-tuned in this version.

Finally, version 11.5 specifically supports Windows 7 SP1 and Internet Explorer 9.

Q: Any other features worth mentioning?

The Premium edition has a transcription feature. No, this will not successfully interpret your recorded interview, though I suppose this might work in ideal circumstances. Rather, it is intended to let you dictate into a recording device for transcription later. This is an interesting way of working. It is easier to pause and restart a recorder than to interrupt a live dictation session, and Dragon can take more time over analysing a recording than when it has to keep up with your voice.

Concluding remarks

Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking gets significantly better with each new version, tipping me further towards the point where I may start using it in preference to typing. It is not only a matter of improved algorithms, but also more powerful hardware that enables Dragon to do more intensive processing. Although I am not quite ready to use it myself day to day, I think this is a brilliant product, and would not hesitate to recommend it. I also think it is inevitable that voice dictation will eventually become the norm for text input, at least in quiet environments, as the technology continues to improve.

Tim Anderson's IT Writing