Veronica Gonzalez

To Do

vimcat — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:10:24 +0000

I’m always looking for ways to improve my productivity. I read articles about the Getting Things Done (GTD) system, ways to optimize Outlook (used at work) and manage my ever growing list of personal projects. Since I love using Gmail as my primary email application, I was thrilled when I read a post about Remember The Milk (RTM) and Gmail Integration on JKOnTheRun (one of my favorite tech blogs). The Firefox (only) extension add the ability to integrate tasks with Gmail and Google Calendar–my preferred personal calendar. RTM is free to use and upgrading to a Pro account (only $25/year) gives you access to sync utilities for iPhone, iPod Touch and Windows Mobile. They’ve also integrated with Twitter and Jott. Jott is a voicemail service that allows you create to do lists and reminders, create blog posts, by calling a phone number! I’ve signed up for the Jott Beta service and I’ll let you know how it goes.

RTM is a self-funded, labor of love. If you love it, too, consider upgrading, I did.

Asus Eee PC 8GB Quick Impression

vimcat — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 22:55:16 +0000

My co-worker brought in his 8GB Asus Eee PC today. It’s a lot heavier (~2lbs) than I was expecting for its size and the screen is still too small for me! If it covered the whole display area (~8.9″), then the size would be ideal. This means I won’t be buying an OQO model 02 anytime soon with its display at only 5″, although the weight is just right at 1lb. with standard battery. The ultra-portable laptops, that I know of, that fit the bill would be the Fujitsu P1610, Sony Vaio, and the Flybook. Unfortunately, the rest of the specs do not meet my requirements.

The picture on the right is the Asus Eee PC in front of a 24″ iMac, with a Nokia N800 and the Cingular 8525 in front of it.

Gaming 3.0

vimcat — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:38:35 +0000

I’m really amazed at the innovative games that are being created today. There are two games that have caught my attention that allow a user to interact with the physics engine of the games to solve puzzles. The first one is for the PS3, that will be out sometime next year, called Little Big Planet. It’s a single or multiplayer platform game which may even involve the new Playstation Eye which would allow users to add objects to the game world. Watch the presentation with commentary from the game creators. The second game is Crayon Physics Deluxe for the Tablet PC. Watch the video to see how a user would draw objects into the game to solve the puzzle. It really is quite amazing and I can’t wait for its release.

TodoUMPC OQO Review

vimcat — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:46:59 +0000

CTitanic of TodoUMPC posted a wonderful Spanish video review of the OQO E2 (European version.) Every time I watch the OQO 02 reviews I start wanting one but end up not wanting one after they talk about battery life. According to CTitanic, the standard battery only lasts 1.5 hours, while the extended battery lasts 4 hours. I wonder what OQO is going to announce in London next week? I’m hoping for a 7″ OQO with dual touch and active digitizer display, and great batter life… oh, and if you’re listening, OQO, please fix the fan noise. Thank you!

p.s. It was fun listening to all the technical jargon in Spanish. I really didn’t know the term for mouse was a literal translation for mouse (ratón) … funny.

Happy Holidays!

vimcat — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:00:38 +0000

May your life be filled with peace, happiness, love and prosperity.

OLPC Give One, Get One

vimcat — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:03:07 +0000

Through ~~11/26/2007~~ 12/31/2007, you can donate an XO laptop to a child in a developing nation and get one for yourself for $399. [EDIT] This offer has been so popular that they say they’re raking in $2 million dollars/day!

So forget the Kindle [EDIT] (amazingly it’s sold out on Amazon!), and get yourself an XO. It runs a version of Linux, called Sugar OS and can browse the web, read electronic books, paint, learn python, and all sorts of fun stuff. Plus, you get to deduct $199 (cost of laptop donated) from your taxes next year and get that warm fuzzy feeling of having donated to charity and having helped educate the poor. Get your OLPC today!.

Amazon Kindle

vimcat — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 03:46:00 +0000

[EDIT] A new electronic book reader called the Amazon Kindle has been announced. It’s a black and white “electronic-paper” display that is supposed to look and read like paper, in high resolution and no glare. It comes with a wireless, EVDO Sprint service that Amazon pays for so you can download books, magazines and blogs. You can also browse the internet and send emails, although emails you send with attachments will cost, $0.10/email. Blogs, magazines and newspapers will have a monthly subscription price. The device itself costs, $399.

I love to read. My home is cluttered with books. I like the feel, smell and beauty of books. I also love gadgets. I would be tempted to buy this gadget if it had a color screen, Tablet PC functionality so I could actually write notes in it, like I do on my Tablet PC. Oh, wait a minute, I could just download the books to my Tablet PC! I’ve tried reading books on both my Nokia n800 and my Treo 755p, and my Tablet PC. It’s just not the same. I love the sensory experience of reading real books. It would be nice to get rid of the clutter, though, and store all my books on the Kindle instead of bookshelves would be nice.

Amazon will have to make this gadget ~~more appealing~~ available with a color display, and in other color choices (black) than just white for that $399 price. The device will have to be beautiful to look at, feel nice to hold, allow me to annotate with a pen, and display text and especially images, in full color, and do a whole lot more to replace my real books. After watching the introductory video on Amazon, and seeing the Kindle at different angles, it’s actually not bad looking and a lot thinner than the pictures on various news sites made it appear, I just wish it was in black or even better, red like the Treo 650 or the Crimson Treo 755P (which I own–and bought because it was in Crimson even though I always wanted a Treo long before that). Amazon, why not let us download an iTunes like software application to our existing mobile devices instead? Then we can consume e-books and magazines on our terms and you can still make lots of money from the subscriptions, without having to pay for a wireless access on proprietary hardware. How about creating an accessory that would allow us to copy and paste from the Kindle to our PCs via the USB port on the Kindle? So if for example, we’re doing research and writing a paper/blogging on our PCs we can highlight text and send it to the PCs clipboard somehow? That would be very useful… hmm maybe by the time I can afford to splurge on one, it will come in black and have a color display. Or better yet, the price would have come down $200 just like the iPhone did after a little over a couple of months.

Home Theater

vimcat — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:30:22 +0000

I’ve started to become dissatisfied with my 42″ Plasma I bought a few years ago. It only has one HDMI input and when I connect my PC to it, it doesn’t look very good. In today’s Gizmodo feed I found a post about the ten points to think about when considering a home theater projector. Having a dedicated home theater room has been a dream for me, and it looks like it’s starting to become a lot more affordable than it used to be.

Wibrain

vimcat — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:39:36 +0000

Could this be the gaming UMPC I’ve been looking for?

Their website specs reveal a “VIA C7M ULV 1.2 GHz + VX700(3D support)” processor. What kind of games will it be able to run?

The Perfect Ultra-Portable for Me

vimcat — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:26:55 +0000

[EDIT] — I’ve fallen in love with Macs all over again. The first PC I ever bought was a Mac. I switched to PCs because the games I wanted to play were not available on Macs–with Parallels, that’s a thing of the past. I’m now using a 24″ iMac at work and I absolutely love it. I’m also drooling over the new Leopard enhancements I saw in the guided tour. That said, I’m hoping that an Apple Tablet will be announced at Macworld in January. I will sell my Fujitsu T2010 once I get my hands on a Mac Tablet. I think it could be a reality–especially if Apple uses something like the DuoSense by N-Trig.

Where is my perfect ~~UMPC~~ Ultra-Portable computer? I’ve been reading about UMPCs for months now and I’ve yet to find the perfect one. I visit various UMPC and mobile device blogs nearly everyday hoping that today will be the day I find my one true do-it-all device. Sadly, that day has yet to come. [Edit] I’ve come to realize that devices at or under 7″ are too small for me. So, if 8.9″ screens don’t qualify as UMPCs then I’m now looking for the perfect Ultra-Portable.

There have been very many temptations. The first one I held at the Sony store was one of the Sony UX series (there’s so many now) over a year and a half ago. I was so amazed at how such a small device could run Windows XP. The form factor wasn’t for me. It felt heavy in my hands and frankly, I didn’t care for such tiny text on that tiny screen.

The Samsung Q1 didn’t impress me much either when I saw it at Fry’s. The truth is, I need to have a built-in keyboard. I mentioned that in a post I wrote on Howard Forums regarding the upcoming Nokia Touch. I love my Palm Treo 755p. I love the qwerty keys and I love the easy to use interface. I love that I can touch the screen to launch whatever application I want without having to deal with hardware buttons.

I bought the Nokia N800. I thought it would do everything I wanted it to do, but it really doesn’t. I can’t play games on it. I can’t take good ink notes with it. It can’t do PIM apps well and it’s not powerful enough to display You Tube and handle complex Flash and Ajax type sites. I’m keeping it as a GPS unit and to check Gmail when I’m out and about and am not carrying the Fuji. Sadly, the Fuji doesn’t fullfill my UMPC needs. I really wanted a 1lb., 10″ screen or smaller tablet pc–and I thought the Fujitsu U810 would fill the bill but the reports I’ve read about the inking vectoring issues are very disappointing. Also since I want to do some modern gaming, I’d need a UMPC with integrated graphics that at least match those of the Fujitsu T2010.

I hope 2008 will bring in more powerful UMPCs with better integrated graphics and great battery life like the Raon Digitial EverRun. The OQO Model 02 is out of the picture because of its poor battery life, heat issues, and loud fan noise

Here’s my wish list for my dream machine:

1lb. or lighter
10-8.9″ screen
dual touch and active digitizer like the TableKiosk i440D
convertible tablet pc (like the Fujitsu u810) — I would be willing to do a slate if it came with a kickstand like the N800.
maximize screen real estate (no bevel, flush screen with the necessary space for hardware buttons, like the T2010)
customizable hardware buttons (like the Raon Digital Vega or EverRun)
minimum 1.2ghz ULV processor, with at least a 128mb (64mbs with RAM supplement?) equivalent integrated (or not) 3D graphics card with T&L that supports DX9*
minimum 2gb ram, expandable to 4gb
hybrid 6gb+ SSD for the OS and applications, and a regular 60gb+ HD for content
minimum 5hrs of battery life standard, longer with an extended battery
4 USB 2.0 slots
CF and SD slot
Bluetooth 2.0
Atheros WiFi and WiMax compatible
SIM card slot with HSDPA
Biometric Finger Print Reader
VESA mounting slots

What will I use this dream UMPC for?

Taking notes in class and at work meetings.
- will run Office 2007 and One Note 2007
Keep track of my finances with Quicken 2005
Website Development
Design work with PhotoShop, Fireworks, etc./Drawing Journal
Play Games (Sims 2)
Chat with friends via VOIP or SIM card.
Tether via BT or USB for data or use the HSDPA data
Tether to GPS unit and use it as a navigation system and log location data
Use location data to add to pictures taken and dowloaded from my digital camera