“This thing called Orange doesn’t look like Apple, doesn’t have Apple color, it doesn’t taste like Apple, an Apple can have a worm, but this Orange thing can’t even tolerate a worm”.
Here we go again. Another Microsoft Hardware/Platform launch, followed by rounds of Reviews from people who has little or no interest in Microsoft, neither do they use Microsoft’s products as goto tools in their daily routine. Continue reading
The Modern (aka Metro) version of VLC Media Player has passed the Windows Store certification! VLC Media Player is a very popular media player, known for its ability to play a large number of video and audio format without needing to install additional codecs. Essentially, if you can’t play a video or audio on your PC for any reason, installing VLC media player and opening the media using it will possibly allow you to play it. Continue reading
Yes, I did it! I chose mobility above Power and Style! Those of you that follow me might know about my predicament in a post I wrote some time ago complaining to Microsoft about SurfacePRO on battery life. I was conflicted whether to get the SurfacePro or not. Believe you me, there is nothing I wouldn’t give to get SurfacePro, its got the muscle, its got the style, but the only thing it hasn’t got is the stamina; which I desperately need. In the post I complained I already have a Core i5 tablet giving me an average of 3 hours, I was not ready to get another Core i5 tablet giving me an average of 4 to 5 hours. I need the stamina, to be able to leave the power adapter for once at home!
You could have said why not get the SurfaceRT that was pushing 9hrs of use, well, just one reason, I’m not just an Internet buff trolling the net all day, I’ve got some real work to do in my daily life. I need to be able to access my office and do real work on my Tablet, and I mean real work. VPN, Office, Citrix and Proprietary apps; you know, the real deal. SurfaceRT will not cut it for me. And if SurfaceRT will not cut it, iPad and Android devices could never. I am of the opinion, you stick to the platform that most serve your need. There’s no way to get me to actively use Google’s products. I only use YouTube passively, period. Apple’s walled-garden is too limiting for me, so thank you, I’ll stay on MS campus if you don’t mind.
So, the decision is quickly made, Atom tablet it is! Current x86 Clovertrail tablets are pushing average of 9hrs of use, the only thing is the bad press they are getting. Nearly all of the reviewers were complaining about near uselessness of these tabs. Could they be right? As of this moment, I can tell you for fact, the majority CAN be wrong, and they ARE wrong!
I went to the local Mall to check out the Atom tablets available for myself. There are many of them, but the one that got me is the ASUS Vivotab Smart.
Dang! That device is small, thin and light! The ultimate mobility candidate! And it could give me 9+ hours? Well, I loved the size and its feature, but I was put off by its screen quality. It has just an IPS screen, a cheaper screen compared to others with Super-IPS screens. And what’s more it’s a bit greenish and washed out. It was the worst screen you could have!
Another thing is I could not for the life of me bring up the Charm on this thing, can’t open app bars, it seems this only Show unit was broken. Asked an attendant why the Charm is not working, he said he didn’t know why, and from his demeanor, I could see he didn’t care neither. This is exactly the reason why Microsoft needs to open motar&brick shops himself, there are just too much MS-hating shop attendants out there! Well, the geek in me did what’s right at that point in time; I reloaded Windows 8 there and then! Have you ever did a complete restore of an OS in a shopping mall?! Thanks to that single action, my opinion of the device changed. The device came back restored to its default state. Some idiots obviously were messing around with the tab, probably disabled the Windows 8 gestures in the registry, sabotaging the product. There are too many haters out there I tell you.
Well, the device is looking good now, and very responsive. WEI (windows experience index) is 3.2, that’s not bad for a device that all reviewers were dumping upon. And from what I can see, there is nothing wrong with the response. The only thing still is the white balance, still tends to the green. Tried to set the color correction to reduce green or bring up blue and red, to my dismay, you can’t do Windows color correction on this device. I was furious with Microsoft. Why in everything holy would they disable color correction in the Display Wizard?! Tweeted about this, bought the device and left the shop.
Guys, it was the best decision I’ve ever made. Don’t listen to idiots when it comes to your devices. Go out there and try it, or order it online and give it a spin yourself, you can always return it if it doesn’t meet your requirement. I tell you, this atom device is perfect. It withstood everything I threw at it up till now. Got the Task Manager permanently fixed on the taskbar watching CPU usage, I’ve never seen such a cool device, and literarily cool too, no heat, no fan. It’s a dream. What’s more, this thing is powered via a standard micro-usb! I don’t have to lug a bulky power adaptor around, I could just charge with the same charger as my Lumia 920! Are you kidding me?! I mean, we all have this notion in our heads, when you mention an Intel device, you automatically see a bulky power adaptor next to it. I am looking at your HP and Dell!
I loaded it with all my Play and Work software. My VPN clients and Lync MX clients worked flawlessly, no lag nothing! Loaded Office 2013 and a few work related clients, everything works! I mean everything! This is a complete opposite experience than what I was reading in reviews. How can there be so much difference in what Reviewers say and what the real life experience is? Something is wrong with this picture! I was prepared for a very slow experience, after all, this is a netbook class CPU. Nothing, no lag at all. The only lag I’ve seen on this thing is my Bluetooth mouse being jerky at times when device is heavily in use. And the most awesome of all, I am getting about 10hrs on this thing! See what Windows PowerCfg says for yourselves:
That “Since OS install” is just a fair estimation. I am definitely getting more than 10 hours on this thing. Its an eye-opener for someone that is used to meager battery life on my laptops and tablets.
So there you go. The last argument against Intel platform for mobility thrown out of the window. At the moment Intel Atom Clovertrail CPU leave ARM in the dust in terms of performance. And now that Intel can match and exceed ARM battery life, the contest is over as far as I am concerned. I don’t care what the fanboys sing. On lesson is very clear from this experience, don’t listen to Apple or Android-invested sites to tell you about a competing platform. Go out there an test for yourself. Go to GDGT and see the ridicule of it all. Where real users are giving products 9 or 10 and reviewers are giving 6 or 7. I tell you most of these fanboys have lost their credibility. I am mad that they are still being called journalists. There’s nothing journalistic about what they do. They don’t report facts, they only try to shape opinions.
When I was getting this device, my mindset was to get a less-than-average device to get me to the Intel Haswell timeframe when I hope MS will release a Haswell Surface product that combine beauty and brawn, with stamina to boot. But I can tell you I am more than satisfied with this ASUS Vivotab Smart tablet. Its my companion device now. No, I don’t play Crysis on the device, I don’t have ridiculous expectation of an Atom device like the most reviewers do. They should stop comparing apples with oranges. Atom Clovertrail was never meant to compete with Ultrabook class devices, it was meant to compete with ARM devices, and that is where it is leaving the types of iPads and Galaxy Notes and Nexus is the dust. If you’ve been holding back on getting Atom x86 tablets because of what you’ve been reading, don’t wait any longer, they are perfect Work and Play devices!
P.S: The Color correction no more available in the Display Wizard (Read-only now), adjustments is now ONLY available in Intel’s Graphic Media Accelerator Display client:
See Also:
Engadget: ASUS Vivo Tab Smart
GDGT: ASUS Vivo Tab
GDGT: ASUS Vivo Tab Smart (Sorry, no user reviews yet, I am no GDGT user.)
We knew it’s a matter of time, in fact I am surprised it took this long, but it has finally happened. Someone has found a way to circumvent the built-in Security of Surface preventing arbitral running of Desktop Apps on SurfaceRT devices. Its all about a Byte in the Kernel, and a hacker going by the handle of Clrokr (@Clrokr) has found it as below:
SeGetImageRequiredSigningLevel+0x18
LDR R3, =0x59FFA6 This is our byte, 0x19FFA6 at 0x400000 image base
LDRB R3, [R3]
CMP R3, #4
BHI loc_HighSigReq
B.W loc_LowSigReq
Here is what he said about it:
Finding the right spot
The minimum signing level determines how good an executable’s signature is on a scale like this: Unsigned(0), Authenticode(4), Microsoft(8), Windows(12). The default value on x86 machines is of course 0 because you can run anything you like on your computer. On ARM machines, it defaults to 8.
That means that even if you sign your apps using your Authenticode certificate, the Surface or any other Windows RT device (at this moment) will not run them. This is not a user setting, but a hardcoded global value in the kernel itself. It cannot be changed permanently on devices with UEFI’s Secure Boot enabled. It can, however, be changed in memory.
Finding this byte in the kernel takes a while, there is no exported symbol for it and not even in the symbol database at MSFT. I found it using WinDbg and a machine running Windows 8 Pro, creating processes and watching how the system behaves when the signature checks happen all the way through CI.dll and back. Because Windows 8 and Windows RT are so similar, locating it in the ARM kernel was not hard…
He provided the sample exploitation code on his blog. But what does it all mean to you as user? First, this is not for the faint hearted, you must know what you are doing. Second, someone will probably write a code to automate the jailbreaking. But the question is would you run this code on your ARM device?
I personally will like to to see how SurfaceRT performs after jailbreak. Remember the version of Office on SurfaceRT is specially crafted and optimized for the RISC architecture and its small power environment. So, will you be able to run the likes of AutoCAD/Photoshop now on Surface, I doubt it, you will be frustrated possibly with the performance speed. We will be keeping an eye on developments for you and report back if anything new come up around this story.
It’s a brave world out there, once again, it has been proven that nothing is secure by default. If it is written by man, it will be broken by man, period. Now that you can jailbreak SurfaceRT, what are you going to do about it? The decision is yours and yours alone.
You can read the rest at Clrockr site: http://surfsec.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/circumventing-windows-rts-code-integrity-mechanism/
[Update]
I have been made aware of the fact that you can’t run “ANY” desktop Apps on ARM devices like the hacker’s post suggested, but even after this jailbreak, you still have to compile your standard Desktop App for ARM before it will run in a jailbroken desktop. So, with this news, we can expect Google and the likes to start compiling Chrome and other apps for Windows RT desktop. And of course all the security risks and exploits will follow. Hopefully people will not be blaming Microsoft for their misfortune then.
This week, Microsoft announced the pricing of the SurfacePro to the whole wide world, and reception of the news has been mixed to put it mildly. Its not even the price that broke the deal for me, I don’t mind the price since its work/play device. What broke it for me is the Battery Life of the device. I must confess I am seriously compromised right now in my decision for this device. What were you thinking Microsoft, 4Hrs battery life these days is just not acceptable on a Tablet device. I know it’s a Core i5 device, don’t get me wrong, I can see the need for power for some people, but seriously?
Look, I already have a Core i5 tablet that came with Windows 7, that was announced for 4Hrs battery life when I got it, but actually was pulling 2.5Hrs max in reality. Installed it with Windows 8 DP and my battery life jumped to 3hrs, now with Windows 8 RTM I am getting average of 3.5Hrs on this awesome device. So here I am waiting patiently for SurfacePro in January, and MS announced 4Hrs battery, sorry, but that is disappointing. I was expecting something that will match SurfaceRT battery life if not surpass it. Core i5 with 4Hrs battery life is almost what I have right now with my current Win7/Win8 tablet, I don’t see what’s the improvement, that extra 30 minutes doesn’t cut it for me; not for $1000 price point.
When MS announced 3-months-later for SurfacePro, I was actually hoping that they did that to get the latest and greatest CPU from Intel to capture the same battery life as SurfaceRT, as all kinks with CloverTrail would then have been ironed out etc etc. Ok, they said 3rd generation core i5 CPU, whatever that means, I don’t see its effect if it slurps the battery empty in 4hrs.
So, this is my plea to Microsoft: Please, please, make a third option for SurfacePro with CloverTrail Atom CPU! If HP and Dell could promise 9Hrs on their CloverTrail devices right now, it is a shame for Microsoft to come in the year of the Lord 2013 with a meager 4Hrs battery life device. You know, I have this Core i5 device right now, I am not doing any monster work on it, I am not doing video editing, not installing it with Photoshop or AutoCAD software even if I could. All those are on my Desktop where the power is when I need it. I have chosen this device to be my companion device, I need it to be always available when I need it, not to be looking for the next plugin socket each time. I use it lightly, that is the intention the whole time, the need to be able to run standard desktop apps and be highly mobile. That is the promise of CloverTrail, that is why we wait, so why should we end up with something in January that I can have now; that I have now?!
So, either you come with an announcement before the mid of December Microsoft, else I’ll be forced to shop at HP and Dell for my next CloverTrail device with a Pen. Thanks for listening as always Microsoft.
[Update: Corrected OakTrail to CloverTrail in the post. Sorry people, getting old here 
. Thanks Voleheart buddy!]
Your buddy,
Denny McAkins
If you love listening to YouTube videos in the background, in cases of music or podcasts, for example, then you might have noticed a short-coming in the metro version of IE10 in Windows 8 and Windows RT. If you play YouTube videos or audio from, say, Pandora, and you switch away from IE to another app, all audio stops. To listen to web audio in the background you must use IE10 on the desktop. This is very annoying for tablets, like the Surface because the desktop is hard to use with touch. Luckily, we have an elegant solution for listening to YouTube in the background without going to the desktop. Meet YouTube RT.
The biggest reason for me to recommend this YouTube app over any other is because it keeps playing the audio even if you switch away from the app. Almost all other YouTube apps fail at multitasking this way. In addition, this app embraces the metro design language and has an overall polish to it. As an added perk, you can even download YouTube video for offline viewing! There are some other neat features that I detail in the Pros/Cons section later in the post.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so there are some screenshots!
As you can see from the screenshot above, you have various download options. In addition, can add videos to your “Now Playing” playlist for a lean-back experience, change streaming quality, or exit in or out of fullscreen mode. We’ll get to that in a bit.
Here, the video keeps playing even when I switch away from the app. You can see the name of the video and the uploader when you use your hardware volume keys while in another app. Very handy.
Another cool thing this app does is it keeps playing the current video even when you browse YouTube or do a search. On the screenshot above, notice the mini playback controls while I am browsing.
Finally, here’s a screenshot of playing video in non-fullscreen mode. Here, you can view video description, related videos, rate and comment on the videos, etc. You can also click on the uploader icon and check out their latest uploads, subscribe, and other standard stuff. There are a lot more that I didn’t take a screenshot of, including the download manager.
Now, before going any further, I will let you know this is a paid app, with a free trial option. At the time of this writing, the app costs only $2.49. Note that I will take extra care when recommending a paid app for obvious reasons. I want our readers to be confident that you are paying for quality products. I always recommend trying the app before buying, and will rarely recommend apps that doesn’t offer a free trial. So go ahead and try the app before deciding if you want to buy it.
Finally, let’s summarize the pros and cons.
There you have it. You can download this app from the Windows Store! YouTube RT
Source: Windows Store
There was a lot of brouhaha about typing in Word of Office 2013 on Surface yesterday around the video you see here above. I was wondering what the noise was all about. Was Surface now really that laggy as the guy claimed or is this some kind of cheap publicity stunt from haters’ camp. I didn’t have the chance to really watch the video until just a few minutes ago, and I was amazed at what I saw. Notice in the guy’s video he mentioned that if you type on any other text app or in the email app it was normal! The whole brouhaha was based on lack of knowledge of the person who created the video as what he saw was not a failure of Surface nor that of Office 2013, but what he saw was by design. In fact this is old news!
If you don’t believe me, see the following post from Paul Thurrott as early as April was this a known design issues Office 2013 on any platform, ARM or Intel! Paul even made the following video about it:
This is a feature of Office 2013 that is called Office Animation. Because Office is now a GPU Accelerated Package, Microsoft can afford to offload most of the Screen intensive rendering to the GPU, in fact, they get proficient in GPU usage that they could afford to add screen animations like the one you saw in the video called Text Flow smoothing. The text kind-of flow on the screen. You will notice this effect a lot in Excel too and other Office 2013 applications. Of course for someone that works a lot with Office, these animations can be a hindrance than a nicety as we’ve seen, that is why the same Paul Thurrott proposed turning off the Office Animation completely in this post. This was posted as of July this year!
So there you have it, somebody using a known design feature to bash Surface. What mostly disturbed me is that the guy is a Microsoft MVP, which means he is supposed to know above average this kind of things. Going to public to tarnish a product without performing a standard industry agreed steps like calling for support, visiting the forum or twitterverse for advise. It was later discovered that he failed to download the Updates for Surface that would have alleviated this issues. What he did is sensationalism. The fact that he waited more than a minute to run Mail app is ridiculous, I don’t see the effect he was talking about, neither are a lot of people. So, Mr. MVP, you’d better invest more time to know about the stuff you profess and stop making a fool of yourself.
[Addendum: I personally will not advice turning off Office Animation especially on mobile devices like Surface until Microsoft takes a stand on this issue. The reason I said this is because it is not clear if the Registry hack that Paul proposses turned off GPU acceleration which will load screen rendering back on the CPU, and will subsequently severely impact battery life! So, wait till MS tune this screen animation thing, don’t turn it off.]
You can say what you want about Microsoft’s vision with Windows 8, but some companies are taking serious notice of this platform and buying into it. And so we welcome one of the first Business Apps in the Store (yes there are others!), and the most expensive at that. You can try out this app, but to own it, you’ll have to shell out a cool 500 greenbacks. This app is either a big joke, or it is a serious contender for the Topmost business app. I say this because Pariscribe is for me at this moment a completely unknown company, but seeing they’re doing it big in the Medical world, I will not be surprised if this is the real deal. Judging by the name chosen for this App, I think they are banking of lots of Microsoft Surface usage with this app, and we know that iPad is already making in-road into Medical business, it is our hope that Surface will kill this ingress dead on its track. I have taken a look at vendor’s site, I think they are really serious about this app and their business. This seems to be a the real thing.
The App is 12Mb big, for a Metro, and non-game app, that tells you, it comes packed with features. And looking at the App details in the Store, it is definitely big. This is an app to manage Clinical Practice, everything a Medical establishment needs to manage patients data, including BI knowledgebase. I am not a medical professional, so I’ll ask you to take a listen to Pariscribe’s description of their own app:
Encounters List with CPP
Communicative Patient ScreenDescription
The Pariscribe EMR Slate transforms the clinical documentation process. Fully integrated with the Pariscribe Practice Management system, this Window 8 version of Pariscribe clinical documentation leverages all the advantages the Pariscribe application and touch screen tablet devices can offer.
Download this app and register for access to a demo environment to experience its features!Features
Single-gesture navigation
Patient List, Patient Summary, Allergy, Add Appointment, Billing, Family History, Family History Details, Problems, Progress Note, Risk Factor, Vital Sign, Prescription, Drug Interactions, Reminders
Multiple data input methods to suit clinician preference.
Full adjacent view of historical clinical data during documentation
Extensive library of customer forms and templates
Well, you can download the app and give a spin, if only to see its features. But to really use it, you will need to create an account on the Vendor’s site. Curious? Download the app via the Source below.
Source: Windows Store
Microsoft started its ads carpet-bombing yesterday by releasing a slew of covert graffiti Ads for its Surface devices. One of the Ads is shown above (borrowed from The Verge), and immediately I saw it a few things jumps to mind, and I have searched the Net and discovered almost everybody missed the subtle messages hidden in this picture above.
First let me start on the background. Why did Microsoft choose an old and dilapidated building to paint this Graffiti, they could have chosen a bridge or a nicer background, right? The house is standing next to a White-washed building. All this denotes the Old Windows Infrastructure, old and beaten of course. This Old building is Surfacing something new (pun intended). The white-washed building is the walled garden called Apple platform competing with this old platform.
Now, see those four lamps above the Graffiti? Five of them are burning (One is behind the board) and one is not burning. That denotes the release cycles of Windows 8, the fifth lamp is not burning because Windows/Surface is almost done. All the lamps burning will signify in this case that Windows and Surface fully ready.
Now comes my favorite part, the Stop signpost and the bikes. Anyone remembers what Steve Jobs called Windows when comparing it with the Mac? He called Windows a Truck, that trucks are dependable utility vehicles to get the job done, and Macs are Sports cars that you love to ride in the weekends or when you are feeling sexy, etc etc. Now, read what is on the signpost: “Truck Restriction” it says! Is this a coincidence? I think not.
The sign is saying Truck restriction here, this is a play-ground for the young and hip, denoted by those bikes. Look at that shiny Vespa posing for you right there like a model on a sidewalk. All these denotes hip youngsters. This Ad is telling you, “Windows is truck-no-more“, it is the playground of hipsters. That is what we are getting with Windows 8 and Surface. Sorry old people, Elvis has left the building! Microsoft cannot build its future on old dilapidated OS, it needs the new generation on-board, that is the future. You either take it or leave it. That is the strong message Microsoft has been sending out with Windows 8, the bold move to remove anything recognizable in Windows is a telling sign. You either come on-board and embrace the future, or be left behind in the dust of history.
I love this new bold Microsoft. The time of mediocrity is past, the time of a new future is here. Welcome new Microsoft, hello Sexy!
Image Credit: The Verge
Microsoft went public last week with a scene fit for Hollywood movie kind of hype. Rather unusual for a company that has been deemed irrelevant by the Tech bloggers, the world that have successfully being pocketed by Apple. However everyone came away with a positive feeling about Microsoft, and it seems everyone agrees MS has something in these new Surface products lines they are introducing.
MS announced that the Surface RT will be available with General Release of Windows 8, and Surface Pro 3 months later. People found it strange that MS is releasing the Pro 3 months later. What is peculiar with this timing. Why three months? Why not two months or 5 months, why exactly 3?
The clue lies in the exact timeline that Microsoft gave. They are assured of Pro’s availability 3 months after Surface RT goes for Sale. As you all know MS is towing here a very delicate line with its Windows Partners. It is not Microsoft’s intention to usurp its OEMs market but to complement them; be a reference source for its OEM hardware wise. Microsoft is providing its OEMs leeway with the first 3 months after Windows 8 release, to give them a chance to sell their products for the Pro, or the so-called Intel platform PCs and tablets. None of the OEM is strong nor ready on the ARM platform, that is why MS could afford to release the Surface RT with Windows 8 release and not be seeing to be directly in the way. But on the Intel PC/Tablet front, this is the bread and butter for the OEMs, so they need the respite.
Therefore I hereby present you Microsoft’s timeline for the Surface Pro:
So there you have it. Say it forth, the reason Surface Pro is coming 3 months late is to cut MS OEMs a break during the holidays. Then the OEMs cannot point accusing fingers at MS during the holidays sale. Which is a wise decision by MS to pacify its partners.
[Update:2012-07-18]
Microsoft just confirmed the release of Windows 8 for the 26th of October as I have informed in this post. This makes the release of Surface Pro to be end of January like I also informed.
We are living in an ever changing world. The pace of innovation in technology has been increasing since the beginning of humanity. Today, the change is so rapid, technology we have today becomes outdated in standards in less than a year.
We are living an a very different world than we did just 10 years ago! Imagine what this word will be like 10 to 20 years from now. Corning wants to sharing its view of the future with you. Many of the things you see hear are already available today in its primitive form, including tablets, HD mirroring, and Microsoft Surface tables. So, without further ado, let’s sit back, relax, and take a sneak peek at the future.
Hello there iPAD, welcome to our world. You turned out uglier than we expected and you miss a lot attributes or shall I say appendages; and what an awful name your father gave you, I am sure you’re not proud of it, possibly you will change your own name when you mature.
a product we all expected much of, but was still-born; murdered by its own parent HP before it could see the limelight. Shame on you HP! Double shame on you HP for abandoning the TC1100 productline and letting Apple steal your thunder! Because of you iPAD will not to know its big brother and its competition in the marketplace. Now iPAD is all alone in this tablet world getting all the attention and not knowing what to do with it.
