Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Windows SideShow in a bag

  This is very, very cool, and I want one now . Imagine, as Kevin puts it, seeing e-mails, contact info or RSS feeds without removing your device from the bag. Simply awesome. The only thing that concerns me is that the Eleksen Wearable Display Module will apparently "offer a gigabyte of memory". Personally, I would rather something that communicated over WiFi and/or Bluetooth with Vista's Away Mode . Posted Jan 17 2007, 09:18 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Productivity, Tablet PC, Vista, Microsoft

• Blackberry 8700g, T-Mobile Dash and a leak in my system

  In July, I switched from my beloved Audiovox SMT5600 to a Blackberry 8700g. Part of the reason for the switch is that I wanted EDGE and I wanted a keyboard, but I wasn't happy with the phones out at the time on either GSM network here. I bought my slightly-used 8700 off a friend for a very reasonable price. I haven't written much about it here because I really didn't expect to be using it very long - but overall, my experience with that device has been very positive. The Blackberry just works, and as anyone who has ever used a Blackberry in the past knows, RIM has really nailed the one-handed clickwheel operation (something I've heard many complaints about with the Motorola Q). The other thing I learned is that I really like having a QWERTY keyboard. The 8700g is a bit clunky for my tastes, but it's a nice device and I can't imagine going back to a standard keypad. I've also tried the "split" keys on the Pearl recently and thought that was even worse than a standard keypad - though I assume... Posted Oct 23 2006, 05:30 PM by Tim with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Productivity, Blogging

• Addicted to EVDO

  If you listen to Mobile Tech Roundup , you'll know I picked up EVDO a few weeks back. (And if you don't listen to MoTR, well, why aren't you?). I am addicted to EVDO. It might not sound like such a big deal, but it's incredible when you no longer have to think about having a high-speed connection. It's a life-changing event the first time you sit in the doctor's office and you're online. Suddenly, the wait isn't such a big deal. I take the bus instead of the subway now because it's no longer "lost time" - I can sit there the entire time checking e-mail, etc. As much as I hate the idea of carrier lock-in with my laptop, it's making me think long and hard about a lot of the notebooks released recently with embedded WWAN support. The ThinkPad T60 and X60 are both available with embedded EVDO receivers (there is a slight bulge though). If the new ThinkPad tablet has EVDO, I might be willing to overlook the lower resolution screen. Of course, an always-on EVDO connection is a great complement... Posted Apr 10 2006, 04:36 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Rants, Gadgets, Productivity, Tablet PC

• OneNote 12 improvements for the Tablet PC

  OneNote is an amazing application on any computer, but it especially shines on the Tablet PC. The Ink experience within OneNote has improved considerably since the first beta was released in Office 2003. Most recently, SP1 added a number of changes including customizable pens, the scratch-out gesture, and real eraser support. OneNote “12” promises even more dramatic improvements in this space. Chris Pratley discussed some of those changes recently, including the hidden UI while inking, the lasso tool, support for pasting Ink, and a page that automatically expands as necessary. Even in its early beta state, the overall experience definitely feels more natural than it has in the past. When combined with other new features like embedded documents, these improvements are really making a killer Tablet PC application even better. Posted Feb 27 2006, 03:14 PM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Productivity, Tablet PC

• (Mobile) Productivity Tool of the Week: SBSH's Facade Home Screen plug-in

  I've been using Facade on my Audiovox SMT5600 for awhile now and I'm absolutely loving it. Facade is a tab based Home screen plug-in allowing you to view your upcoming appointments and tasks directly on your Smartphone Home screen along with application shortcuts launcher tool, assuring you will never miss any upcoming event! The only real solution that will help you follow your agenda! Facade is one of the few Home Screen plug-ins I've really found useful. It's simple and clean and fits an amazing amount of information on the home screen with the tabbed interface. Facade is currently in beta and available for download for free. P.S. - SBSH also sells Papyrus which many seem to love. I haven't looked much at it as I already use DeveloperOne Power Tasks and Power Calendar which are both excellent. Posted Feb 25 2006, 05:12 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Productivity

• Productivity Tool of the Week: SharpKeys remaps your keys

  Vasanth finds a solution to one of my biggest complaints with my M200. I absolutely despise the location of the Windows key, and even the tilda is in awkward place. I'll probably just swap those two. I was googling for possible solutions like remapping the Alt key in my Tecra M4 to the Windows key. I found SharpKeys . It is a nice app which lets you map any key to another one. The application changes the registry to enable this mapping. This means I need not have it running all the time. There is also no delay because of this. I wonder if this also works in Vista. I'll give it a shot when I get home tonight. Posted Oct 07 2005, 09:13 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Productivity, Tablet PC

• Location-sensitive to-do lists

  Wow... Place Mail provides location-sensitive to-do lists for GPS cellphones (via Ernest ). Engadget says Pam Ludford, the Ph.D. candidate behind this, isn't looking to market it. She's either lying, or stupid. How awesome is this? Imagine the possibilities for those of us doing GTD! Posted Jun 13 2005, 07:39 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Music, Productivity

• Tablet PC Experience Pack

  Scoble just mentioned that the Tablet PC Experience Pack has been released. These are basically updated versions of PowerToys and applications you may have already had. Energy Blue is a theme that most of you probably already had. It looks like they've added a (pen-friendly) WMP skin to the mix. . Ink Art is an updated version (1.3) of the product once known as ArtRage. Ink Crossword is an updated (and much slicker) version of the NY Times Crossword PowerToy. Ink Desktop looks like it might be useful, I have to play with it a bit more. As you might expect, it allows you to write on the screen. (I wonder if it's is based on OrangeGuava ). I haven't played with Media Transfer yet, but I will update the post again when I've had a chance to do so over the next couple of days. As expected, the highly-anticipated Snipping Tool 2.0 is great. All in all, it looks like they've done a great job with this: a compilation of must-have stuff to really get the most out of the Tablet PC experience, all... Posted Apr 04 2005, 06:11 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Productivity, Tablet PC

• Two weeks with the Audiovox SMT5600 (and some pictures)

  After two weeks, I can happily say the love affair with my smartphone continues. Basically, I have almost all the functionality of a Pocket PC in the same form factor as my previous phone. I have had a bit of trouble getting ActiveSync over Bluetooth working, but I'm going to wait until I repave my home machine and get a Ghost image. Some software I'm using now: Power Tasks. I make heavy use of Tasks, and the built-in Tasks viewer is a little weak. I tried out two replacements: Oxios ToDo List and Power Tasks. Both are immense improvements over the default application (the fonts alone - being able to actually see the task!). I've decided to stick with Power Tasks for now, because I really like the grouping of tasks by category. This allows me to easily see my @Errands task list... Pocket Streets. Enough said. I now have a full map of NYC with me wherever I go. I'm a little disappointed that there's no smartphone version of Vindigo or Zagat-To-Go. I would definitely buy those to have up... Posted Feb 21 2005, 09:15 PM by Tim with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Productivity

• When OneNote becomes ThreeNote

  As is probably pretty obvious, I'm a huge, huge fan and advocate of OneNote. The promise of OneNote is a good one: I used to have many half-filled notepads in addition to notes in different places on my computer. Now, with OneNote, all of my notes are captured in a single place. Information is easily available to me, which means I can work much faster and be confident that I am making the most informed decisions for my clients. — Darrin Bishop, Senior Technical Specialist Sounds great, right? The only problem is that I use OneNote on three different machines on two different networks - my home desktop, my Tablet PC, and my work PC. As a result, I not have the digital equivalent of a bunch of half-filled notebooks. Those of you who do GTD know the virtues of reducing the number of inputs.... I've tried a number of things to help this as I'll discuss below, but the common problem with all of these solutions seems is that everything is file-based. OneNote .ONE files, however, are a single... Posted Feb 14 2005, 12:32 AM by Tim with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Productivity, Tablet PC