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Scott's Column
Tablet Revisited, Domain Name & Memory Issues
February 1, 2010 (Published
Jan 25, 2010)
By Scott Lewis
This edition was supposed to go out on February 1. I wrote the piece about tablet computers because of the hype they were getting at CES. Well, a week after CES Apple issued an invitation for an event on Jan. 27. Many people expect this to be an announcement for a tablet computer. So I published this on Jan 25th to give people a chance to read it before the Apple announcement.
Enjoy!
Current Topics:
Microsoft was pushing tablets at CES.
I recently wrote about what I would
like to see in an Apple Tablet. With this much tablet talk I assume
Apple really will build a tablet. But Microsoft has had years to work
out the kinks to a tablet.
Since my article on the Apple
Tablet was somewhat anecdotal, I thought I should be more specific as
well as more generic. More generic because Microsoft really deserves a
chance to give the tablet market some traction (after all they don't
build the hardware, but have done a lot on the software side), and Apple
is going to do it sooner or later. Plus I want to cover some specifics
that each of these can (and should, but may not) do to help get a tablet
to be accepted.
Home Friendly - Any tablet platform must be reasonably
affordable that people will buy them for home use. You cannot target
this strictly toward businesses. This was Microsoft's biggest error.
They saw the tablet as a vertical market device for niche business
needs. Humbug! Granted, in the early days this was due to cost, but stripping out business
features should help... and
Moore's Law
should make this less an issue today. If the price point is reasonable a
lot of tech savvy early adopters will buy a tablet. By targeting
businesses that require more features than a home user needs they drive
up the cost so that a home user will not want to pay the premium for
features they don't use. If necessary, have a premium product for
businesses; but have a flexible, affordable version that the masses will
want to use around the house.
Don't forget... the best thing for making this home friendly is to let it be a digital picture frame in a stand in the living room. This is where it would be when charging... since it will have batteries.
Multimedia - This is a given, but I thought I would point out a couple of items. For Apple this is easy, just plug into the iTunes Store with its music, movies, TV shows, etc. I still think Apple should create a very slick DVD ripping application that would tie their DRM into the files. This would make the movie studios happy, and would allow you to watch a ripped movie on any of your authorized computers for iTunes. You can provide the software for Mac computers, since the tablet will not have an optical drive, though an option for this to work with an external USB drive would be nice. Eventually this should lead to Blu-Ray drives in Mac and as external drives to the tablet. Windows based tablets have it harder. Windows based systems are leaving it to all the third party apps to handle this. That's is a mistake. If you make it part of the "system" it will be a much more attractive package. Microsoft can try to leverage its Zune Marketplace, but they have far less content than the iTunes Store. However, the Zune Marketplace already has a subscription service (Zune Pass) that allows you to download all the music you want. They just need to expand that to a price tier that includes TV shows & movie rentals.
Easy Keyboard & Mouse Option - I am not going to spend
$1,000 (watch, Apple will charge very close to this much, but not less)
for a tablet computer that I cannot easily attach a keyboard and mouse
to. This keyboard and mouse option should also include a stand for the
slate style tablet itself. I think Bluetooth would be best here. When
you place the tablet in its stand the keyboard, mouse and tablet all
detect each other and the mouse and keyboard just work. Now you have a
respectable if slightly underpowered desktop computer. Walk off with the
slate and it works seamlessly without the keyboard. This means you must
have an on-screen keyboard when you are away from the physical keyboard.
Of course, this is where you will most likely charge your tablet, so a
docking station may be a premium option for those that want that
convenience. A docking station would have to also offer extras like an
external hard drive, DVD drive, etc.
Broadband Access - This is critical, and probably the
biggest hurdle in my opinion. It's one thing to have WiFi access when
you are at home and using the tablet in your hands while watching TV in
the living room. It is quite another when you hit the road and want to
check movie listings while parked outside the restaurant you just ate
at. This means some kind of cellular broadband access. This also means
money... in a monthly fee. I know I don't want to pay a monthly fee for
a phone (or iPhone) and pay again for a tablet. They
need to work something out where the tablet is on the same plan as your
phone. This will make it more affordable and will allow the tablet to
really take off. This could be solved with using your cell phone and its
data plan as a tether to a tablet, but this is not an elegant solution
so don't expect Apple to do it this way.
Applications - This would not be a topic if it was not
for the massive success of the Apple Store and the 100,000+ applications
it has. An Apple tablet will have to run these apps.
Apple can easily solve this by allowing their tablet to run iPhone apps.
Of course they need to allow more than one app to run at a time, and
they need to run in a "window" (not full screen). A Microsoft tablet
just needs to run any windows application. Microsoft should create a
new development tool that allows easier development of
the widgets that run under the Vista Sidebar. Windows 7 runs these
applets without the actual sidebar running. I have tried to create some
of these applications and the learning curve is a little steep. You want
to create a development tool that makes is very easy for the casual
programmer (or even just a power user) to write an applet that can run
well on the tablet. The casual programmer may not want to run a copy of
Visual Studio to do development. Microsoft should make a version of its
Expression Blend tool that specifically builds applets that run on
Windows 7 (Win 7 will be the OS of choice for a non-Apple tablet). Since
Apple is heavily relying on games in its app store to push its tablet
(just wait, you'll see) Microsoft needs to help game developers get
simple games into those widgets to run on a tablet device. While they
are at it Microsoft should make it easier to produce apps for the Zune
HD... and let those apps run on a tablet as well. Microsoft should
provide this development kit for free. Apple charges
$99. That income level is ridiculous when compared to providing the tool
for free which will have people building apps for your devices. If you
build it... they will come. They need to make it super easy for people
to build the apps.
A Real Computer - With the proliferation of Netbooks,
people want real computers... even when they are cheap. A slate style
tablet computer can fetch a bit of a premium (of course Apple's will
fetch a lot of a premium), but it will only sell if it is also a real
computer. It does not have to be a powerhouse, but it should run all the
basics including an office applications, e-mail, etc. It must run
graphics software. Think about this for a moment. You take your Tablet
computer with you on vacation because you can check flight schedules,
hotels, car rentals, etc. You can also use it as a GPS device (with the
GPS antenna as an extra cost option... Tom Tom and Garmin will be all
over this), and you can upload photos to it from your camera and do
basic editing and send those photos out to friends and family easily
through the broadband connection.
Stylus Support - Along with running regular
applications the tablet will need to run graphic software for photo
editing... i.e, Photoshop. The best way to do this is
with support for a stylus, preferably a pressure sensitive stylus. Image
graphic artists drawing right on the screen. This could be a premium
priced option, and graphic types will eat it up. Don't let it get too
expensive, but I can see many artists using a tablet for sketching
rather than sketching on paper and scanning it into a computer for
manipulation in Photoshop.
E-Reader - I almost want to leave this out. You could
make a laptop an e-reader. You just need a decent application to display
the text of a book, magazine, newspaper, etc. However, the industry is
changing, and content is changing. You need to make reading periodical
publications as well as books a priority on any slate style tablet
device. I think the hardest part will be the screen. The current
e-readers use a totally different technology than laptops, or even the
iPhone. I think it will come down to how comfortable the user is reading
for a couple of hours at a time on a slate style computer, vs. the
current crop of e-readers. Of course once you do make it easy to read
periodicals you need to leverage the broadband access above for
subscriptions to those periodical. I am sure Apple is getting this
subscription eco-system set before it releases the hardware. Microsoft
should be doing the same... but they are not. This lack of forethought
on Microsoft's part will be a major hurdle to overcome.
That's it. These are not crazy ideas, but they all need to be there to
make this device work. Sure, you can add all the business stuff that
companies want... at an extra cost. But if you want this to take off
you have to target the gadget nerds of the world... the
ones that stood in line for an iPhone. Those people do not want a
business laptop with a swivel monitor. They want a simple device that
they can use on the go... and put it in place on their desk at home and
continue using it without thinking about it.
If you, er.. if Apple builds it they will come. Just remember, only Apple is allowed to
charge over $1,000 for this device.
NOTE: I wrote all this during CES week. Shortly after CES Apple announced an event on Jan 27. Pretty much everyone expects there to be a tablet shown at this event. Will it be on sale later that day like new iPods are, or will this be an announcement to wet people's appetite for what is coming this summer? We will all find out on Jan 27. See you there.
Domain Name with Dynamic IP Address
This story starts with needing to get a new wireless router. The
short story (on the router) is that we got the kids a second XBox 360
for the upstairs game room that we have been making more kid friendly
since I sold my pool table. I had one open port on my Linksys Wireless
Router. Unfortunately it was not working. I would move other devices
into that port and they would stop working. Since I needed all four
ports (1st XBox 360, Desktop PC which shares media files, File & Print
server & 2nd XBox 360) I picked up a Belkin Gigabit Wireless Router with
a USB port for adding network storage.
When I switched the routers I got a new IP Address from my ISP. This
impacts my web site which I run from my house using a service to update
the IP Address that is assigned to my domain name. I could not connect
to my own web site from within my house. I was concerned I did not setup
the port forwarding correctly (something you need to do to direct
traffic from the outside to a specific machine, in this case I forwarded
port 80, the port for web sites, to my server to handle that traffic).
There was some mention online that there is a special feature that
allows/prevents accessing your own machine through the port forwarding.
I waited until I got to work to try and access it from there.
Alas, I could not access my domain from work. I had e-mailed my new IP
Address to myself at work and I tried that... and it worked. This means
the translation between my domain name (www.ScottLewisOnline.com) and my
new IP Address (66.25.92.110) was not working. I pinged my domain name
and it showed the old IP Address.
Once back home I started trouble shooting it. I logged onto the FreeDNS
web site (http://freedns.afraid.org/). They showed another IP Address
all together. I use a small utility to update FreeDNS when my IP Address
changes. I ran that and it said it updated, but clearly it did not. I
tried to manually change it on their site, but it was still not taking
it correctly.
I did notice that they said my site was "broken." On FreeDNS this means
that the hosting service is not using FreeDNS's nameservers. This gets a
little over my head. I initially deleted my domain from FreeDNS. Then I
logged onto GoDaddy and entered my current IP Address. After a short
while (maybe an hour, I was writing some of this and did not keep close
track of time) I was able to get my correct address when I pinged my
domian name. Strangely I got nothing but timeouts. I tried accessing my
favorites page through the domain name and it worked. Then I remembered
that the Belkin router had some option for allowing pings. I did not
turn that on, so that expains why I saw the proper translation to my IP
Address but got no actual response to the ping.
With all this I logged back onto GoDaddy and looked at the domain name
maintenance screen. Sure enough there was a place to enter nameservers.
Back to FreeDNS and I added my domain name back and it said I would have
to wait until the nightly check to see if the nameservers was setup
correctly. I placed all four of FreeDNS's nameservers into the four
slots that GoDaddy provides.
The next day I logged back on the FreeDNS web site and looked around for
the test to see if my site was broken. I found it and it truddled along
for about 30 seconds and then told me all was good. I assume that the
next time my IP Address changes the utility I am using to update FreeDNS
will work. I may have to wait another year and a half... but at least it
is free.
About the same time I was trying to setup an XBox 360 with wired
Ethernet, my desktop started going crazy. I forget what I was doing, but
I received a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death). When the computer reboot it
complained about my anti-virus software. I have seen issues like this
before, so I thought I would just uninstall and reinstall the anti-virus
software.
This is were things get crazy. The uninstall went fine. However I saw a
lot of crap in the Control Panel applet that lists programs to
uninstall. I figured this would be a good time to do some clean up. I
ran Windows Defender and ran the Software Explorer tool. This shows what
is starting up in the background and allows you to disable them. I
disabled a few items (including all the software having to do with my TV
Tuner card (I don't use it anymore, and the cable jack on the splitter
in the attic was replaced by the new TV in the game room).
After blocking the apps from starting when the computer starts I reboot
the computer. I got a BSOD while it was booting, and it started
rebooting. When I did get it up and running I tried to reinstall the
anti-virus software. It did a BSOD trying to install the anti-virus
application. I tried again to install the Anti-virus software and it
failed. I tried downloading the latest version of the anti-virus
software and installed it. Again it failed. Out of desperation I
downloaded Avast (a free anti-virus software I have heard good things
about). Unfortunately it failed to install as well.
Time to get serious. I went back to the Uninstall Software applet and
started removing as much junk as I could. I eventually had it all
cleaned up and reboot. But I could still not install anti-virus
software.
I started backing up my computer. I did a manual drag and drop operation
for some of my bigger stuff (33 GB of music and such). In the morning it
was still running so I set it to backup some other stuff.
When I got home I split my time between getting the XBox 360 hooked up
with a HDMI cable that arrived in the mail. I ordered a 25 ft. cable to
run behind the wall from the XBox to the wall mounted TV. With that all
working and the Ethernet setup I watched some of The Incredible Hulk
with my son in High Definition.
I opened the computer and vacuumed all the dust out of it and reset the
memory. I had seen generic hardware errors and thought maybe the memory
was flaking out or the computer was overheating due to poor air flow.
Cleaning it out and reseating the memory worked for a little while. I
was able to install the anti-virus software and ran it through its
updates. Then I installed Ad-Aware to look for spyware... just in case.
I started it and left to do other chores. I came back to a reboot
computer... a BSOD must have happened while I was away.
I tried making a detailed list of the software on the PC that I needed
and got a BSOD before I could even save the notepad file with the first
6-8 applications. Damn. When the computer came up I started running a
batch file to backup my PC. The batch file (also know as a command file)
has XCOPY commands for copying folders from my PC to the server. I use
the XCOPY command with the switched to turn off the archive bit for
files (the archive bit is turned on when a file is modified). This
allows the XCopy command to restart where it left off and not copy files
that were already backed up.
I got some things backed up, but not everything. By this time the
computer was crashing repeatedly. Now it was asking for the Windows
Vista install disc to try and repair Windows. I dug that out and let it
repair Windows. It worked for a couple of minutes but kept crashing. At
one of the reboot points I was asked if I wanted to run a memory
diagnostic. I said yes, and it told me there were hardware errors. Since
this was during a memory test I was more than ever inclined to believe
it was bad memory. I even held my hand over the rear fan to feel how hot
it might be running. It was blowing cool air out the back of the case.
So memory it must be. I was too tired and needed to get to sleep.
I was not able to backup everything. One thing I was worried about were
my bookmarks in Firefox. I had organized them drastically a couple of
months ago and never backed them up. At this point I suspect Windows is
so corrupt that it might not repair, even if I replace the memory. Plus
I had 3-4 GB of data still to backup, but that was on the D drive and
probably wouldn't be an issue if I had to wipe the C drive. But it was
nagging me anyway that I did not have a complete backup. Plus I did not
have a backup for my son's files (about 1-2 GB, but all of it is his
music and stuff for his iPod Touch).
I got up the next morning and turned the computer on. I got an error
that my anti-virus software was not working and I told it to shut it
down. At this point I only ran three applications. Notepad to edit the
backup command file, Explorer to look at the folders to see what needed
to be added to the command file... and the command file itself. Oh yea,
I quickly ran Firefox and exported my Bookmarks to an HTML file.
I got everything backed up. I logged into my sons account and created a
similar command file to backup his important (to an 11 year old) files.
I got his all backed up.
I turned the computer off and went to work.
I picked up some memory at Best Buy. Hey, it was literally on my way
home and yes... I spent about $30 more than I would have if I had
ordered it on NewEgg.
I picked up the computer and placed it on my desk. Normally I unplug
everything from the back of the computer, but I did that twice already,
so I lifted it up with all the bundled wires (I tie wrapped them) still
connected to the computer. I did unplug the power cord from the back of
the PC.
I installed the new memory and turned the PC on. It hummed, but I did
not remember hearing the beep (a single beep from the motherboard that
it thinks everything is good). There was nothing on the monitor. Damn. I
pulled the new memory out and installed one stick of the old memory (I
had two sticks of old and two sticks of new). I powered it up and the
Motherboard's screen showed on the monitor. I pulled the memory and
plugged in one stick of the new memory into that same slot. Again I get
the motherboard's boot screen. I shut it down and plug in the second
stick on new memory. Power it up and the screen is good. Huh? As I
picked up the PC the video cable falls out the back. Apparently it was
not solidly connected and teh new memory was most likely working on the
first try.
I power it down and put the panels on the PC and lower it behind my
desk. Power it up and there is nothing on the screen. What? I look
behind th PC and sure enough the act of lifting it up to lower it behind
the desk unplugged the monitor's power cord. Plug that in and all was
good. NOTE: Always check your cable connections.
The computer has been running perfectly ever since. I thought about
putting Windows 7 on it, but I like how well it is setup at the moment
that I don't think i want to mess with it just yet. After all I have two
XBox 360s that connect to it for media, and I use this computer
every day.
I am stalling on the Windows 7 install mainly because i hope to build a
better computer in the not too distant future. We'll see.
Conclusion
That's it for this month. Next month I am going to continue my DSLR Camera investigation and determine which lenses to get. I will also review my current computer environment at home... because a change is on the way.
Stay tuned.
