itweek_labs

BlackBerry Bold - iPhone killer?

2008-08-07T14:03:28Z

Research in Motion (RIM) came into the IT Week offices today to show off its latest model, the BlackBerry Bold. It's being marketed as an "aspirational" device, so this is definitely one for the senior executives - you won't be rolling this out across your mobile workforce. As far as look and feel goes, the aluminium casing and leatherette finish on the back are designed to give it a bit of an upmarket feel and the latter makes it a lot easier to handle than other models.

It's slightly lighter than other BlackBerrys, and the picture quality of the 480x320 screen is one of the best we've seen - this is apparently achieved due to the close proximity of lens to LCD. The user interface has been simplified a great deal from the traditional BlackBerry model, giving it an appearance similar to the Apple iPhone, with easy-to-understand icons represented in neatly boxed sections. Combined with the high-quality screen, this immediately made us try to use the device as a touchscreen model ...possibly something for RIM to consider for future versions.

HSDPA capabilities are a welcome inclusion, and web browsing is speedy. Navigation is made quite simple via the central trackball that doubles as a mouse, allowing the user to pan and zoom across regular web pages, as well as those optimised for mobile devices.

The keypad has raised, slightly curved keys that make it easier to use than previous versions and miminise the risk of mistyping. Those wanting to get their hands on a Bold face a short wait - T Mobile has announced it will be offering the device to its customers from September, although pricing details are yet to be revealed.

Photos: iPhone vs HP vs Nokia

2008-07-28T14:04:25Z

This photo shows Apple's iPhone 3G alongside two other new devices, the HP iPaq 914 and Nokia's E71. As the picture demonstrates, they are all approximately the same size, although varying in weight and thickness.

All three devices represent the latest technology, supporting 3G wireless broadband, Wi-Fi, and GPS capability for navigation and other location-based services. As such, these are all high-end devices and potential rivals for RIM's BlackBerry models in the enterprise.

Of the three, the Nokia E71 is the slimmest and the lightest, while the iPaq 914 is the heaviest and thickest at 154g and 16mm. However, it also appears to have the largest battery capacity, at 1940mAh.

The Nokia E71 has already been reviewed in depth by IT Week here. To sum up: it is a very capable business messaging handset, but its keyboard is somewhat cramped compared to a BlackBerry.

The same criticism can be levelled at the iPaq 914, but I found I could enter text fairly easily. The HP device also has one feature that might please BlackBerry users; a jog dial thumbwheel on the right side of the case, similar to that seen on older BlackBerry models before RIM introduced its 'Pearl' mini trackball. It also supports touch-screen input via a stylus as well as a standard five-way navigation control, giving users more input choice than most devices.

Apple's iPhone 3G has the best display and offers the best web experience through its Safari browser, but has two drawbacks as far as I'm concerned; no keyboard and a battery that cannot be removed by the user.

As with the first iPhone, the device is very simple to use, but I found Apple's on-screen 'soft' keyboard a pain - even compared with the tiny keys on the E71 and iPaq 914 - and kept finding myself hitting the wrong letter. The iPhone could prove a hit with business users that need a decent browser - such as for web-based applications - but I can't see heavy email users or anyone whose job entails entering a lot of data being happy with it.

All three models feature some form of assisted GPS (A-GPS) to speed up the time it takes to get a fix on the user's location. While the E71 has Nokia Maps, both the iPaq 914 and the iPhone use Google Maps. The iPhone version of this application is slicker, but both have pretty much the same functionality, including the option to fix your location GPS and get directions to a specified destination. However, Nokia Maps supports turn-by-turn directions for drivers, although it costs extra to have the directions spoken aloud.

Is it still worth buying Acrobat?

2008-07-25T11:23:29Z

Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) has been almost too successful. The defining moment was perhaps when Microsoft announced a free PDF export add-on for Office 2007, a feature OpenOffice has had for years. Now that both creating and viewing PDF documents is convenient and free, what market is there for Adobe's official authoring product, Acrobat 9?

Adobe's answer is to emphasise features that go beyond simply capturing the content and layout of a document in a portable format. Acrobat 9 introduces three key features: native Flash support lets you embed multimedia content without depending on external media players; portfolios let you create sophisticated multi-document presentations; and links to Acrobat.com, a hosted document management site, offer collaboration without the pain of email attachments.

I suffered a few glitches during my review. I tried to embed an MPEG 2 video, which is meant to convert it to Flash format, but although no error was reported the import failed. It worked fine when I converted the file to H.264 using an external editor. I also got a "no response from the server" error when trying to upload a large PDF to Acrobat.com, although this worked well with smaller files. The progress bar when uploading did not work properly for me; it goes to 100 per cent almost immediately, then states "Not responding" until the upload is done.

Using scanner features caused Acrobat 9 to crash, which is possibly a scanner driver issue but still unpleasant. Still, these are relatively minor grumbles. Once video was successfully embedded, the built-in player worked well, and if you need to distribute multimedia documents without relying on the web the new PDF format is a great option. Acrobat.com, now in beta, is already useful; and gathering responses from PDF forms is significantly easier in version 9.

Despite these benefits, for many users who simply need to convert documents to PDF, Acrobat is not an essential purchase. Further, Burton Group analyst Guy Creese believes that the format is out-of-step with the web. "The mental model of PDF (a paper
lookalike for documents) means that Adobe is not thinking of content as recombined snippets, which is what XML is starting to allow. XML, XQuery, publishing on the fly, wikis, are all driving companies to create dynamic documents rather than snapshots of documents," he told
me.

An annoyance for Mac users: the Extended Pro version, which includes video conversion, only works on Windows.

Author: Tim Anderson

Hands on with MSI's Wind mini laptop

2008-07-25T09:57:41Z

Mini laptops have been a surprise hit over the last year or so, following the launch of the original Asus Eee PC. Other vendors have since brought out numerous models to try and emulate its success.

The latest to become available is the oddly named Wind from Micro Star International (MSI), a firm best known for its motherboards and 'bare bones' PC and server systems.

Despite the dubious name, it seems to be rather a well designed mini laptop, just slightly larger than the Asus Eee PC 900 and 901, thus making room for a keyboard that users can live with and a decent 10in screen.

It is based on Intel's 1.6GHz Atom processor and has 1GB RAM, and unlike the Eee PC it has an 80GB hard drive instead of Flash SSD storage. It also ships with Windows XP, although this is the Home edition rather than XP Professional.

While screens smaller than 12in are considered too small for business use by some experts, I found the Wind's 10in display with its 1024 x 600 resolution quite comfortable for productivity applications, and the system's keyboard is large enough for typing at a reasonable speed.

The evaluation unit I saw had Microsoft Office 2007 installed, and the Wind seemed to handle applications such as Word and Excel with little difficulty. It would thus seem to make a good mobile system for workers needing to access documents and their email while on the road.

However, the downside on all small systems like this is usually battery life. I didn't have enough time using the Wind to test this, but MSI rates it at up to three hours with the three-cell standard battery pack, and this is likely to be an optimistic figure. An optional six-cell unit will provide longer life, but this bumps up the weight from just over a kilogram to about 1.2kg.

The Wind has three USB ports, a slot for SD Card and Memory Stick Flash disks, VGA and Ethernet ports, and includes 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. It costs £329.

Google wants even more of your virtual life

2008-07-14T13:17:00Z

Should you care about Google Lively? The comparison with Linden Lab's Second Life is inevitable; but Lively is not (yet) a virtual world.

Google calls it "a 3D virtual experience", which is just about right, though you can forget high definition; this is more like being in your own cartoon.

Lively depends on a browser plug-in that is currently for Windows XP or Vista only, and lets you design virtual rooms from a catalogue of furniture. You can't create your own furniture in the current beta, but crucially you can embed YouTube videos or images from a Picasa web album, Google's answer to Flickr. You can also add hyperlinks to items of furniture. The next step is to create an avatar, jump into a room and interact with other users through chat or other expressions from laughing and waving, to kicking and punching.

If Lively has a killer feature, it is the ability to embed virtual rooms into other web pages, by copying and pasting a few lines of HTML. Now it is trivial to offer your users a virtual meeting space, or an engaging way to view a video.

Lively is not done yet. Rooms are slow to load, usability is only so-so, and important features are missing. It has potential though, especially if Google works out how to adapt it for business use. One idea is to link it with Google's other collaboration tools, so you could create a presentation in Google Docs, schedule it in Calendar, invite participants with Gmail and hold the meeting in Lively. It might just work.

That said, Google is currently pitching Lively squarely at consumers, and Linden Lab has a head start in an enterprise context. Earlier this year, I spoke to Gene Yoon, vice president of business affairs at Linden, who told me that, "You're going to see the client get integrated with high-end business collaboration tools." Another interesting development is the recent announcement by IBM and Linden Lab of successful porting of avatars between virtual worlds. It would be great to see standards-based virtual worlds, rather than the all-Google approach which seems to characterise Lively.

Author: Tim Anderson

Xerox's print tool helps roaming workers

2008-06-26T15:42:05Z

Xerox's Mobile Express Driver is a free download that helps laptop users connect and print to a variety of printers without having to install specific drivers.

If you are a travelling executive, or anyone who has taken a laptop on a business trip, the chances are that at sometime you've wanted to print a document but been unable to because you didn't have network access rights, or the correct drivers.

I tried out the Mobile Express Driver on both a Windows Vista laptop and on a Windows XP desktop, neither of which were joined to the corporate Windows domain in IT Week's offices.

Once installed, the tool looks like any other print driver on your computer, and you simply select it as you would any standard printer when sending a document for output from an application.

The Mobile Express Driver then scans the network subnet your PC is connected to, and lists any printers it finds. If it does not find any, you can instead specify an IP address range to search through.

In my tests, the Mobile Express Driver quickly found about a dozen printers, allowing me to select one that I knew was close by and hit 'print'.

There are some limitations users should be aware of; the Mobile Express Driver only works with printers that support PostScript, although this should include pretty much any network or departmental printer that ships these days.

If you are using a laptop and have jumped on the Wi-Fi guest access at a site you are visiting, then the chances are that you won't find any printers. Guest access often provides users with a connection only to the internet, for obvious security reasons.

However, if you can find a live Ethernet port and plug into it, the chances are that you will be able to find a printer and use it, making the Mobile Express Driver a handy tool to have if you want to print out and leave some documents with a customer, for example.

The Xerox Mobile Express Driver can be downloaded here. The full version is about 48MB in size.

Hands-on: Asus Eee PC 901 and Acer Aspire One

2008-06-19T11:34:55Z

Following IT Week's full review of the Eee PC 900 and HP Mini-Note a couple of weeks back, I grabbed the chance to have a quick look at two new mini laptops that are currently being evaluated by colleagues on other publications at our offices.

The Asus Eee PC 901 is, as you might expect, very similar to its predecessor, but has a more polished feel and slightly more rounded styling. It actually costs less, at about £272 + VAT, but has the same 8.9in screen and is pretty much the same size and shape.

In fact, the most significant differences are that the 901 is based on a 1.6GHz version of Intel's new Atom processor and has a larger 6-cell battery. The older model had a 900MHz ULV Celeron and a 3-cell battery.

Sadly, the larger battery bumps up the weight from just under 1kg to 1.15kg - nearly a 20 percent increase. However, one of my colleagues reports that the battery life is much improved because of this, going from just over an hour and a half to several hours.

The same Intel Atom processor powers Acer's Aspire One. This is very similar in size to the Eee PC and also has an 8.9in screen, but is just a couple of centimetres wider. This extra width allows for a keyboard with slightly bigger keys that I found much easier to type on.

Like the Eee PC, the Aspire One ships in Linux or Windows versions. The Linux model has 512MB memory, a 3-cell battery and an 8GB Flash SSD for storage and costs £199 +VAT, while the Windows version has 1GB, a 6-cell battery and an 80GB hard drive and costs £299 + VAT.

The Linux-based Aspire One is lighter at just under a kilogram, while the Windows-based unit weighs about 1.26kg. With Linux, the Aspire has a battery life of just over two hours, according to another colleague who has used it at length.

Both of the models I looked at here were Linux models, and the two had quite similar user interfaces that separated the built-in functions and applications into categories such as 'work' and 'play'. Both have a built-in office suite - StarOffice 8 on the Eee PC and OpenOffice.org 2.3 on the Aspire One.

For users who just need a light, low-cost device for word processing or surfing the Web, both of these machines would seem to fit the bill, although I found the larger keyboard of the Aspire One preferable. Both are also capable of running Windows, but are only available with Windows XP Home edition.

One of my colleagues hopes to have a Windows version of the Eee PC soon, so that we can compare benchmark scores between the 901 and the 900. However, we will not be able to do the same for the Aspire, as Acer has said it wants to push the Linux version and so will not be making any Windows models available for testing.

Taking cand-Eee from babies

2008-06-18T12:49:33Z

I've finally got my hands on one of the glorious Asus mini notebooks, the snappily titled Eee PC, and so far so good - the little white chap is unlikely ever to be wrested from this grasp.

Sadly though, there is stiff competition out there. I got mine at a briefing with reseller RM and Microsoft where the two discussed how great an educational device it was. Supporting this were videos of teachers and some kids - yeah man, tha' kids! - talking about how much they all liked it too. Well, they'd better get their own, this one is staying put.

If there is one criticism to make, it is that the keyboard makes me feel a bit like Edward Spoonsforfingers - the little known sequel to Edward Scissorhands. The keys are small and close together. But, realistically, that is taking nit-picking to a high art, the keys are supposed to be small, and the Eee is pitched, well it was at Sneak's early morning briefing, as a companion device.

It may require something of a traveling roadshow if a worker is to get the most out of it - a large additional memory source is almost a necessity and in my case an attachable, large keyboard would be a bonus, but otherwise it is a great bridging device and one sure to draw envious stares on the train. There are other great features to. In the words of one of the kids on the video, "Once I get my work done I can play games on it".

Son, you'll go far in business with that attitude, welcome to the world.

Author: David Neal

The iPhone: When a web site being down creates more excitement than one being up

2008-06-09T15:55:23Z

So, today is D-Day, or i-Day, the day that Apple is due, or at the very least, expected to make a number of significant announcements.

The internet, well, tech blogs, and some of the bigger news sites are full of predictions as to what Steve Jobs will announce in his MacWorld keynote later today, but one thing is for sure, whatever it is, it is currently being splashed onto the Apple store web sites across the world.

All the sites are currently down – with just over an hour to go to the speech starts, and predictably this has added some 'excito-fuel' to the bloggers engines. Will we see a new 3G iPhone launched? Will it come in a range of colours? Will it be bigger? Or smaller? Cheaper? Or more expensive?

Who knows. Not many people, apart from everyone at Apple, and all the code monkeys currently uploading pics, stats and prices to the sites all across the world.

Surely someone out there has a window onto their offices, and a set of binoculars? Go on, climb on a ladder and get the skinny..

The wait is too hard to bear.

Photos: Asus and HP mini-laptops

2008-05-25T17:19:32Z

This photo shows the Asus Eee PC 900 next to HP’s 2133 Mini-Note PC, two miniature laptops that are approximately the same size and both of which cost less than £500.

As should be apparent from the picture, HP’s model is slightly wider, which enables it to have larger keys and thus makes for easier typing. The Mini-Note is also more polished, with a brushed aluminium case, while the Asus feels rather plasticky by comparison.

However, the Asus has the advantage of weighing under a kilogram, while the Windows version of HP’s pint-sized portable weighs almost half again as much at 1.46kg.

There are other notable differences; the Eee PC has Windows XP installed (although the Home edition rather than Professional), and with 1GB memory, it feels as responsive as any other Windows XP system. The HP Mini-Note ships with Vista Business Edition, and despite its having 2GB of memory, Vista is a severe drag on its performance.

Asus also ships the Eee PC with 12GB of Flash solid state disk (SSD), while the HP model has a more conventional 120GB hard drive. Both have an 8.9in screen, but the Eee PC has a native resolution of 1024 x 600, while HP’s is a step up at 1280 x 768.

In early tests, the HP Mini-Note appeared to have a longer lasting battery than the Eee PC, but a full report will appear in a future issue of IT Week.

NIC failure scuppers 'Anywhere Access'

2008-04-29T13:25:27Z

Personal file backup can be a pain – so much so that some people can’t be bothered - “It’ll be alright – that disk is brand spanking new,” is an oft heard phrase. It’s precisely in these situations that the disk somehow 'knows' that it’s the only storage that lays between you and a big argument with the rest of the family.

Having bought a ‘Western Digital (WD) Anywhere Access’ hard disk with the proceeds of a pub quiz win, I set it up attached to a switch next to my works PC. The Anywhere Access disk allows users to access the disk remotely as if it were a local device using a remote access package from Mionet, who WD has partnered with. I backed up a fair amount of important work data, but then decided that it would be better attached to my home PC. After many attempts to do this – and failing – I decided to attach it to the Labs network. At this point, the network interface card (NIC) failed.

What to do – take it back? It did have a lot of important data on it - so - better to try and recycle the disk inside - a Western Digital Caviar 500GB model. Eventually I decided to mount it in one of Netgear’s Storage Central Devices. It was easy to slot in - fire up the Netgear software, carve the disk up into chunks and then start backing up all those important work and personal files.

It was easy to mirror data to the device, and then password-protect it the whole shebang. Transferring files to it, using either LogMeIn Pro or RealVNC’s remote access software was also easy.

Photo: HP’s sat-nav smartphone

2008-04-27T10:56:08Z

This photo shows the HP iPaq 614 Business Navigator alongside a standard-sized PDA and a smartphone, showing how it fits somewhere between the two in size.

In fact, the iPaq 614 is almost exactly the same size as a Palm Treo, although it has a numeric keypad instead of the Palm’s qwerty keyboard. Like the Treo, it has a touch-screen as well.

The Business Navigator part of the device’s name refers to the act that this iPaq has built-in GPS capability and uses Google Maps to show your location and give directions to a destination when travelling.

This means that the device pulls down the map data as needed, instead of storing it on a memory card, and so you need a live data connection to use the navigation feature.

Fortunately, the iPaq 614 supports 3G with HSDPA where this is available, and also has Wi-Fi capability for speedier web browsing when near an access point. It also supports Bluetooth for hands-free calls. A full review of the HP iPaq 614 Business Navigator will appear in a future issue of IT Week.

Photos: The HTC Shift from Orange

2008-03-21T16:29:01Z

I took this photo to give readers some idea of just how small the HTC Shift really is. No, that isn’t a giant comedy mug next to the unit, but an average sized one such as most people have in their kitchen.

The unit weighs just 800g and has a 7in touch screen, specifications comparable to an ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) such as those from OQO or Samsung. But the Shift is better thought of as an ultra-petite laptop; it has a full qwerty keyboard, and the screen slides back and tilts into a configuration just like a typical laptop when opened up, as you can see. It even has a mini touchpad, the dark square to the right of the screen.

The Shift is actually two devices in one. Turn on the power, and it boots Windows Vista. However, it has a second environment called SnapVue that can be activated at any time by pressing a button next to the screen.

This allows access to email, calendar and contact information - even when the main unit is shut down - and also lets users send text messages via the Orange network. The second photo shows the main SnapVue screen (apologies for the slightly blurry quality of the image). The beauty of this is that you can quickly check your email without waiting for Vista to boot up, and this also saves on battery power.

My first impression is that the Shift really struggles to handle Windows Vista, although I found the display a pleasant surprise and easy to read for such a small sized panel. The keyboard is also too small to type at any speed, and the battery is unlikely to last for more than a couple of hours.

Nevertheless, the Shift is much easier to carry around than a full-size corporate laptop, and could quite easily fit into a briefcase without weighing down an executive’s carrying arm. With Wi-Fi and 3D wireless built-in, users can stay connected from virtually anywhere.

Microsoft Office 2007 is bundled with the unit, so those who absolutely must have access to Office applications (including Outlook) while travelling should find the Shift worth evaluating. A full review of this system will appear in a future edition of IT Week.

Photo: Maxdata's tiny laptop

2008-02-13T15:17:15Z

This photo shows just how small Maxdata's Belinea s.book 1 ultraportable is when compared with a standard-sized laptop.

However, while the s.book 1 is small, I found it perfectly capable of running standard applications under Windows XP, and its keyboard is just big enough to type on at a reasonable speed.

The 7in screen is what lets it down, though, especially as this has been squashed up to make way for a detachable Bluetooth handset, used for making VoIP calls when the laptop is connected to the internet. At a native resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, the screen feels cramped in use. The VoIP handset itself is designed to be used with Skype, which ships pre-installed with the system.

The s.book 1 is based on a 1.2GHz VIA C7M processor with 1GB memory and an 80GB hard drive. With a price tag of £419 including VAT, it is also inexpensive for such a small system, although still about twice the price of the Linux-based Asus eee PC, which is comparable in size. A full review of the s.book 1 will appear in a future issue of IT Week.

Aerosystems ThunderPack jet pack or Kawasaki KH500 triple – you decide

2008-02-05T08:32:08Z

Fancy a journey with a difference? Why not shell out $100,000 for a 75 second trip into the wild blue yonder, courtesy of Thunderbolt Aerosystems ThunderPack Revision-2, Generation-2 (R1G2). This hydrogen peroxide-powered jet pack looks like tons of fun, but I suspect it could easily ruin your day.

At one time or another, I've tried most forms of personal transport – and the only piece of hardware which might compare, from a bygone age admittedly, is one of the scariest motorbikes on two wheels bar none - the Kawasaki KH500 triple. This was a two-stroke, 'three pot' screamer, with a power band the width of a spider's thigh, and handling which required a fair amount of fresh underwear each day.

If you’re working flexibly to avoid the journey into central London and you're in range, then maybe you might consider using the jet pack. Top speed is 75 mph, but there’s only enough fuel for 75 seconds, and no, I don’t know if you’d require a license from the DVLA or the CAA. Since the hardware is a client device and Dan Robinson is the client section editor - i'll leave him to test this piece of hardware.

Those wondering about potential refuelling problems, have a valid point. Going into a chemist to buy hydrogen peroxide nowadays, tends to have shop assistants fingering the emergency alarm quicker than you could say, "bleached hair". What would happen if you asked for hydrogen peroxide of greater than 70 per cent purity at the local chemist? I'll leave that one to your imagination.

OK, for a trained specialist, the jet pack is probably safer than driving down the M25. Me - i'll stick with the KH500 - once described by Bike Magazine's testers as -'Thanatoid' (translation – ‘resembling death’).