This Week At Mobile Tech Manor #36

mobile-tech-manor-large-23It’s a tribute to how much I love what I do to find another week has flown by at breakneck speed. I can’t believe it’s time for another installment in the Mobile Tech Manor column, but there you go. I’ve been playing with some gadgets, toying with some software and streamlining the way I work. Come join me for a while as I share my week with you. Who knows, maybe you’ll learn something new. I know I always do.

This week was largely getting after the writing business. An average work day here finds me writing around 1,100 words, a volume that surprises me. That means I am writing a good (pun intended) 8,000-10,000 words a week, which is probably as much as “real” writers write. Those folks that write books that people pay for are the ones I refer to as real writers. This is only the writing I do for the site, anything else is on top of that and why it’s not often enough that I get to work on the fiction projects I have ongoing.

Another thing that gets in the way of the writing stuff is playing with gear. I can’t overstate how big a geek I am when it comes to gadgets and how much I enjoy working with them. I love to pick up a new gadget and think hard about how I can best use it in either my work or my leisure life. That’s what drives the tweaking, experimenting and customizing that I do with mobile gadgets.

I did a lot of that this past week with the Viliv S5. It usually takes a little while to hit a stride with a new gadget and this week I hit that with the S5. I have rediscovered the benefits that handheld computers bring and it’s taken me back to the old Sony U days. It’s hard to fully share those benefits with others, it’s not something that can be fully understood if you don’t experience them personally.

The first step to hitting stride with a new gadget is adopting a daily routine with it. I find I grab the S5 first thing every morning and use it to check email and respondto reader comments here on the site. I do that in portrait orientation, which is my preferred way to work with the S5 in my hand as it fits very comfortably that way. I also have been reading e-books with eReader on the S5 in portrait, which is awesome.

When I have to run out during the day on short trips I’m grabbing the S5 to take with me. I carry it in the case that Viliv produces, in my front pants pocket. I used to take the iPhone alone for these types of short trips but I find the S5 adds no extra effort on my part yet ensures I have a full computer with me should I need it. This has been beneficial on a number of occasions and I’m glad I have the S5 with me. This is the primary reason I have pulled the trigger and ordered one of these of my very own. I am getting enough usage out of the Viliv to make it worth the $599 that Dynamism is charging for it.

I have customized the configuration of the S5 and it’s worth sharing with you. I installed the Windows XP Embedded theme as I like the way it looks and I’ve added my favorite wallpaper to the desktop. It’s the same theme and wallpaper I use on the big laptops and I have to admit it looks pretty darn cool to see it on the little bitty screen of the S5.

I have adopted using the uBoard on-screen keyboard full-time and do not use the Viliv included keyboard at all. I’m trying to see if there’s a way to make the uBoard keyboard more readily available to other UMPC owners, but no luck so far. I like everything about the way uBoard works and while there are other keyboards available, I prefer to use what I know works well for me.

I have just begun revisiting ritePen Pro on the S5. This program is very nice on the small screen as it allows inking anywhere on the screen, which makes it more versatile than even the Tablet PC TIP. The recognition is very accurate, too, and so far it’s working pretty well. I use the Lamy stylus when I ink, which works great as it’s a real pen. I need to try the ink macro capability of ritePen, which looks very useful, I just haven’t had time to try it yet. One of the coolest features in ritePen that I haven’t gotten around to playing with yet is the hooks it has into the note-taking app Evernote. Evernote is produced by the same folks that produce ritePen and they’ve added the ability to make full-screen markups and send the clips direct to Evernote. I can see a whole lot of things to use this for and I need to try it.

A lot of folks are asking me why I don’t just carry a netbook around with me instead of something like the S5. That’s a hard question to answer because we’re all so different in the way we work. If I know I’m going out for an extended work session remotely then I usually take the MacBook with me. It’s my main work machine and it makes sense to take it for these types of work sessions. A netbook would work for these but I already have the MacBook and it’s just as easy to carry as a netbook, just a little bit heavier.

Shorter sessions for me often just happen. I may not plan on a short work session but free time crops up while I’m running around and I find myself with time to get some work done. The S5 works well for these sessions as I have gotten in the habit of taking the portable keyboard and mouse with me. They take up almost no space nor weight in the bag so it’s not any effort to carry them with the S5 in the bag. The S5 weighs less than a pound so all three pieces of the puzzle are much easier to carry around than even the smallest netbook.

I find that if I need to get some work done quickly it’s so simple just taking them out of the bag and getting the work done. Sure I wouldn’t want to work all day on that 4.8-inch screen, but it’s easy to do for short periods. I have the gear in the bag if I need it but it’s no trouble for me to carry it around if it turns out I don’t. Plus I have the advantage of having the S5 with me so if I just want to do some handheld work or read an e-book, I can. It’s kind of the boy scout philosophy of being prepared yet doing it the lazy way rather than carrying a bigger device around that I may not need.

I’ve been comparing the Viliv S5 to my old friend the Sony U and believe it or not the S5 is better than the U in a number of ways. I’m going to write an article about that, so hold tight. I’ve also been comparing the S5 to the OQO Model 02 I evaluated in the past and the S5 is much better than the OQO. There’s no heat, it’s lighter and much faster than the Model 02 with its Via processor. OQO was ahead of its time but ran in place for too long and the competition caught up with them and then passed them by and that’s likely why the OQO folks find themselves in a world of trouble currently.

This week I’ve been enjoying “Revenge of the Damned”, the fifth book in the great Sten series by Chris Bunch and Allan Cole. This book returned me to the great story of the hero Sten and his never-ending adventures working for the Eternal Emperor. I was glad to see the folks at eReader get this and the sixth book in the series and hope they get the last two books in house soon. Amazon doesn’t have these yet so I’ve been reading them on the S5 in eReader Pro for Windows.

That’s the way my week was spent and I hope you found something to take away from the recounting of it. I know the Viliv S5 has been dominating my time this week but you know that when a gadget captures my own money it’s a real keeper. Until next week may your days be safe and enjoyable.

loading

Comments have been disabled for this post