Ask me anything

Ask me anything

HP Slate 500

If you’ve been looking for a tablet that can be managed in your Active Directory environment just like your desktops, laptops and convertible tabs….you’re wait is over. The FedEx truck brought me an HP Slate 500 on Friday and this tablet truly is a business class tablet.

By business class, I mean this tablet will integrate just fine into an Active Directory environment.

The HP Slate 500 comes loaded with Windows 7 Professional on board a 64gb solid state hard drive, 2gb of memory, front and rear facing cameras, a 2.0 USB port, an SD card slot,Integrated 802.11b/g/n + Bluetooth 3.0, an integrated combo headphone/microphone jack, integrated microphone and integrated stereo speakers. It also comes out of the box with a leather case, battery operated stylus, and a docking station that sets the Slate upright to utilize it’s 8.9″ diagonal screen as a monitor and allows you to connect a full size keyboard and a mouse.

It appears as if HP thought this through by making the Slate 500 merely a laptop without a keyboard. In other words, I was able to plug in a flash drive, an external DVD drive, and a USB printer and the Slate 500 saw everything just fine under Windows 7. In fact, after doing all of my Windows updates, the usual procedure when booting Windows for the first time, I connected a USB DVD drive and installed Microsoft Office Pro.

If you are used to working with one of HP’s convertible tablets, the Slate 500 is a seamless move for you. Using the stylus within Microsoft’s One Note has the same response time and action as it does on any of HP’s convertibles. Of course if you want that physical keyboard offered by the convertibles, you merely place the Slate 500 in it’s docking station and use an external USB keyboard with it. Keep in mind that it docks in portrait mode instead of landscape, which is great if you’re penning a word document…but makes for a lot of scrolling if you’re working on an Excel file.

From a practical application and mobility standpoint, a Windows 7 OS running Windows applications with access to Wifi makes this a great device for roaming around inside the business walls, classrooms, or at home.  What makes this different from other tablets is it’s lack of standard 3G capability. That said, I’m sure I could tether this to my Blackberry via USB for internet access from the pool.

If you want to use Slate 500 on the go as a presentation your one hope is that the projector connects via Wifi or Bluetooth. Or you could drag the dock along with you and hope the projector you are going to use has an HDMI port (there is no VGA or DVI out on the dock or the tablet). While most newer projectors have these options, an older projector is going to leave you without a connection.

While I’m a huge fan of the Android OS and it’s versatility, there is a ton to be said for a tablet that is designed to work in a Microsoft world. Not the least of which is that the IT Department doesn’t need to learn and/or manage another OS. They love it when permissions can be controlled on all devices and troubleshooting issues doesn’t require cracking open a book.

The Slate 500 has ample space on the solid state drive and the 2gb of memory is just what Win7 needs. The forward and rear facing cameras are quite adequate and it records video and takes photos like a champ utilizing the HP Slate Camera application. HP Slate 500 Tablet – Video Test

Overall, this tablet fits nicely in the hand. The 8.9″ screen is a good size. HP is doing a wonderful thing by including a dock and a stylus in the price of the tablet. And….it’s a big AND….it runs Windows 7. Granted Win 7 isn’t designed as a touch application, but the included stylus will work just fine if you tend to fat finger buttons. Unlike a lot of other tablets, the HP Slate 500 didn’t start out as a cell phone and develop into a computer. It started out as a computer and maintains its status as a pure tablet PC.  I believe this tablet will find it’s home inside corporations, school corporations and colleges.

As I show this around to businesses and schools over the next few weeks, I will come back to update this on how it’s received in different environments.

ViewPad 7

You can almost imagine my excitement when I got an email from my ViewSonic representative that I had a ViewPad 7 on the way to show to clients. I copied the FedEx tracking number and checked on it’s ETA about every five minutes. I have to admit that I’m like a little kid at Christmas when I have new technology on the way, but this one is just a little bit different.

More than six months ago I was asked by my clients to find an iPad alternative. They wanted something that played Adobe Flash, had a USB port, offered Bluetooth and could be controlled in an enterprise environment – preferably with Group Policy. So, I did my good deed and put the challenge out to the manufacturers.  This ViewPad 7 is the first to arrive and I anticipate a 10″ dual boot (Win7/Android) ViewPad 10 from ViewSonic in a few weeks. Samsung has a Sliding PC 7 in route and ever elusive HP Slate is still on back order…but I have confidence it will get here.

So, here is the ViewPad 7. As it’s name implies, it has a 7″ 800 x 400 screen. It’s running Android 2.2 with multi-touch, but I’m sure before I relinquish this device I will be testing to see if it will run Honeycomb. It has both a front and rear facing camera, Wifi b/g, Bluetooth 2.1, 3G + Quad-band GSM (cellular network connectivity), G-sensor, AGPS, and a Micro SD slot for up to 32GB of storage.

Out of the box the ViewPad 7 comes with a leather case, international wall charger, and a set of headphones. Take a quick tour around the outside of the ViewPad 7 and you’ll find the power button on the left side just under the left speaker. Volume controls, SIM card slot, and micro SD card slot are located on the top. The right side only has the right speaker. The bottom edge contains the headset jack, integrated microphone, reset button and a USB port.

That’s right, a USB port. I believe that was one item on the “must have” list. Flash was

Web Browsing

another item on the list and I have to tell you the Android OS handles it flawlessly. Likewise, it plays video across the internet like a champ too.

Keep in mind that all of my internet browsing and testing was done across a wifi network and not a cellular 3G network. While the ViewSonic ViewPad 7 comes with 3G capability, basically making this a large cell phone, my test model does not have a SIM card installed. Without the SIM card, you can only make emergency 911 calls. Or, you can always use Skype across the wifi….which I did and thoroughly enjoyed. Having forward and rear facing cameras is pretty sweet too.  It does a pretty good job of taking pictures and recording video.

The Android OS is so new that in the time-line of OS development you could say it is still coming into existence and beginning to display signs of future potential. It’s that signs of future potential that brings it into the enterprise. Not yet ready for native active directory control, there are ways to control this device in an AD environment. An important part of an enterprise computing device is the ability to take notes, check your calendar and receive/send emails. The ViewPad 7 running Android was able to connect to my company’s Exchange server as well as my Gmail account without any difficulties. Calendaring and email are fully functional.

If you’ve already experienced the Android OS on a cell phone, you know the Android Marketplace has thousands of apps.  While the ViewPad 7 will run each and everyone of those apps, this is more than a big cell phone…it’s a full featured portable computer.

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Of course the presentation prior to the game on how HP storage is designed to work optimally with VMware was the entire reason for getting together. However, it was the post-presentation conversations courtside that allowed everyone to dig deeper into the benefits of utilizing HP storage.

A great time was had by all and I’m sure more of these very productive meetings will take place in 2011.  Here are the pictorial highlights…

Ask me anything

UPDATE:  I slept on my response and woke up with the conclusion that I may just be living with blinders on. I did a little research this morning and discovered that there still are a blue zillion search engines.  Searchenginelist.com seems to have the most comprehensive list. Time to go searching.

Microsoft Windows 7

Most of the independent comparisons will show mixed results. In other words, will upgrading your older Windows XP PC to Windows 7 make it perform better? Well….maybe. Keep in mind these are controlled benchmark comparisons looking at CPU useage, caching, memory consumption and launch times.

Like most of you, I’ve read these comparison results and tilted my head at them like a dog listening to a strange sound. It’s not that I don’t understand them, but I figure their controlled environments have sullied their results…if that’s even possible. Quite frankly, my experience has been that Windows 7 breathes new life into old machines. I had the opportunity to put my beliefs to the test again last week when I got my hands on an older HP 2140 netbook running XP with sloth like tendencies.

I remember thinking when this model first came out that it was a pretty neat netbook. As with all technology there have been great improvements in processor speed, on board memory, and hard drive options in the netbook class of computers since the release of the 2140. And, quite frankly, the 2140 running Windows XP now in my hands runs like a tired horse in the mud compared to an HP 2102 running Windows 7.

HP Netbook Running Windows 7

This is a pretty stock machine with the original 1 GB of memory and 160 GB hard drive. If I recall correctly you could get these with either Windows XP Home or a couple of flavors of Windows Vista. Given that Vista was just a fat OS, I can only imagine how much slower it would run with that floating that on top of DOS. On the other hand, upgrading the OS is precisely where I went to see if I could get more speed out of this 2140. As previously mentioned, I have had nothing but good luck with Windows 7 since its release and truly believe it is everything Vista was touted to be…only thinner.

I dug out the USB DVD drive, hooked it up to the netbook, and inserted the Windows 7 Pro installation disk. Of course I did not click the upgrade button. I tried going down the upgrade path once before and after it was all said and done the final installed OS looked like Windows 7, but retained all the slow reflexes of Windows XP.

Once I reformatted the hard drive, the Windows 7 installation went off without a hitch. I’m still amazed and how quickly it installs compared to operating systems of the past. Literally fifteen minutes after I plugged the DVD drive into the netbook, I had a fully functional copy of Windows 7 up and running.

The slow part of this upgrade was getting all of the applications back on the machine. Since this was someone’s personal computer it had all kinds of fun stuff to be reinstalled, which brings about the inevitable hunt for serial numbers, original installation disks, and the subsequent downloads of application updates.  This took a couple of hours.

Now for the vindication of my beliefs. Netbooks have never been touted as being big performers in the realm of video playback, but this little guy performed like a champ under Windows 7. I ran WMV files in Windows Media Player as well as a full movie in iTunes. Not a hiccup anywhere along the way.  I then launched Gimp and did some photo editing on some very large files. The real time previews were working great and everything jumped right up and ran full speed.

I’m the first to admit that XP was a great OS and was speedy for its day. However, I think it got slower over the years with all of the security and service pack updates. This very well may happen to Windows 7 over time as well. But for now, if you want to speed up your older PC without necessarily upgrading the internal hardware, Windows 7 gets my vote for the first place to start.

You’ve been a good friend XP, but it’s time to move on.

Once safely out of the technology graveyard below my house, I ripped open a couple of packets of alcohol free screen cleaning wipes and buffed that ball to a high shine. Yes, I could see myself in it..but that wasn’t the objective.  The ultimate goal was to get this ball to aid in the performance of my clairvoyance of which I have no skill whatsoever.  In this particular case, I was looking for the answer to the question “What technology trends will be hot for 2011?”  If you knew the extent of the old technology in my basement you’d know this is not easy for me without the aid of a transparent sphere.

I gazed into the ball and asked the aforementioned question. Nothing happened. I took a sip of coffee and asked again. Same results. The third time I asked and waved my hands over the ball like I’ve seen countless fortune tellers do in movies.  I accidentally nudged the ball, it rolled across the table, and hit the return key on my netbook.  Ahhh, the message I was looking for…the ball was telling me to do my research online.

So, utilizing the vast resources of the inter-google and my own daily experiences of working with K-12 CIOs, technology directors, and technology coordinators, I’ve come up with my top 5 trends for K-12 technology in 2011.

Top 5 Trends for K-12 Tech in 2010

1. Everyone will be getting thinner. We’ve already seen this happening to some degree. A good number of K-12 server rooms are already experiencing fewer physical servers thanks to VMware. 2011 will see more virtualization projects on the datacenter side, but those who have already virtualized the datacenter will take the next logical step to VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure).  All of the advantages of central control make sense in the K-12 space. Not only can IT get a better grasp on what is being served to the end user, they also reap the financial rewards of longer life from their current assets by turning those thick desktops and laptops into thin clients. Sure, those schools that have a use it or lose it budget will go out and buy thin PCs, but those working on the very lean side will prolong the life of those thick clients by putting them on a diet.
2. More mobile devices will move into the classroom. I personally have seen thousands of mobile Apple devices move into the classroom in 2010.  2011 will just see more of it, but Apple will have some tough competition.  Almost every manufacturer has plans to release a slate device in 2011. Most of the delays in releasing in 2010 were because they were watching Apple test the market and revise its own product. The new slates in 2011 will come in 10” and 7” sizes, will run Windows 7 and/or Android, will be more easily managed in Active Directory, be less expensive than what’s already on the market and have all of those things that the iPad has been lacking but rumored to be developing such as USB ports, Video out, and the ability to run Flash. Somebody owes Apple a Thank You letter.
3. The forecast calls for clouds. The push is on by many states to move K-12 standards tests to the Web. The reason is simple…it puts the test results immediately in a state database for faster reporting. In 2010 we’ve also seen schools move faster to adopting online services from Google, Microsoft and HP. Check out Google Apps, Microsoft Live@Edu and HP SchoolCloud. None of this is new, but the options and degree of maturity is growing by leaps and bounds. Once you’ve learned to walk in the cloud, you’ll discover huge efficiencies and savings. We may also see schools move their entire network operation center to the cloud, but I don’t think that will be as quickly adopted as applications and testing simply because of control factors.  The only thing I know for sure, and yes I have been labeled as paranoid, is you better have an answer to the question of what do we do when we lose our pipe to the cloud.
4. Things will get a little greener. We’ve already seen CRTs replaced with flat panel monitors. Now, the flat panels are becoming more energy efficient with LED technology. All of that equipment and power to run your interactive white board is now packaged inside an interactive 3D projector. Full functioning desktop computers now fit in the palm of your hand and can attach to those new flat panel monitors.  Let’s face it, everything is getting smaller and requires less power to run. In addition, we all know that the reason to virtualize anything is for better control, but the welcome side affect is less power consumption. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see a “let’s treat the environment right” push in 2011. What I do see is a “how do we reduce our electric bill” push in 2011.
5. Outsourcing of technical services. All these new tools, new apps for the tools, new ways to maneuver through the web will demand more help in setting up virtual environments, wireless networks and deploying devices. In addition, smaller and cheaper hardware will more than likely equate to more students getting their hands on technology which sadly corresponds to more technology is likely in need of repair. It is very likely that internal IT departments will be called upon to manage systems and advise on technology direction and less likely that they will be required to design, integrate, and repair.

So, there it is. The results of my crystal ball inspired venture to the depths of my technology graveyard. After all these years, I still find technology to be exciting and rewarding. I’m looking forward to 2011 and all that it brings.

Happy New Year!

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Now that I have picked WordPress, I will slowly transferr posts from the old site and other sites back to this original site. Thanks for your patience and the years of loyalty.

Welcome to my new old home.

HP Slate 500

If you recall, It was originally unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at CES in January of this year…then HP went quiet on the slate’s existence. As a matter of fact, there were all kinds of speculation about the slate being discontinued or being replaced with something else.  Frankly, I think they put it on a slow burning back burner while they waited to see how the iPad did in the market.

The Slate 500 headed my way is sporting Windows 7 Professional, 2GB of RAM, a 64GB HD and an 8.9-inch display. It comes with a 3-megapixel camera and an integrated VGA Webcam.

I see plenty of benefits for a device like this in an active directory environment….or shall I say enterprise. Being able to manage these through Group Policy and natively run Windows apps is a big plus over the Android or Apple OS.

Truly the proof is in the pudding….er….slate. I’ll let you know when it shows up.

To find out more about the HP Slate, visit HP.com.