Way back in 2005 I reviewed an on-screen keyboard utility for the Sony U that was great. UBoard was a keyboard designed by Nostram Studios, now defunct, that made text entry on the 5-inch screen of the Sony U very easy to do.
This weekend I was working with the Viliv S5 UMPC and remembered UBoard and wondered if it was still around anywhere and if it would work on the S5. I am happy to report a resounding yes to both of those questions.
When UBoard is run it puts a QWERTY keyboard on the screen to allow text entry into any program. UBoard is translucent (configurable) and most importantly it automatically resizes to fit the width of the screen when invoked. This means it works in both landscape and portrait orientation, something the pre-installed Viliv keyboard does not do.

UBoard- image from 2005 review
The designer who produced UBoard never made a go of it and allowed the program, which is donationware, to be hosted online. Diligent searching took me back to the Sony U Yahoo Group (membership required) where I found the program. I installed it and am excited to report it works fine so far on the Viliv S5. It sits on top of any window on the screen (you can see through it) and text entry is as simple as tapping the keys. An optional key click duly gives feedback when a key is pressed. I am really enjoying using UBoard once again after all this time, and I’ll bet it will work on any Windows XP-based UMPC with a passive touchscreen.
{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/04\/20\/on-screen-keyboard-uboard-still-rocks\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_b8cdb026a61f95cc12807174a33133a5","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}