It is the end of the week and that can only mean it’s time for my favorite thing, to share my week with you once again. This is the 45th week, which is almost a year of sharing the goings on at Mobile Tech Manor (MTM) with you. Wow, that’s a lot of sharing. This week has been busy on a lot of different levels and it’s kept me from playing with the toys as much as I like to. There was a new ThinkPad in the house, a new Android phone announced that looks incredible, and I spent quality time with the Palm Pre. Come on in and let’s talk tech.
ThinkPad Launched
Lenovo launched the ThinkPad T400s this week. I’ve been using one of these 14-inch notebooks for a couple of weeks now; it’s barely bigger than my 13-inch MacBook, which is pretty small in its own right. The T400s is good to use, either at the desk or on the road. I’m getting about 5 hours of battery life out of it, which is decent for a flush-fitting standard battery.
The more I use the T400s, the more comfortable I find the keyboard is for heavy typing. It just feels right, more so than any keyboard I’ve used recently. I like the MacBook keyboard, but the ThinkPad keyboard is more comfortable to use for long periods. Every key feels like it’s placed right where I want it, which is not a common experience.
I do find I miss the large MacBook trackpad when I use the ThinkPad, though. I am constantly pushing on the ThinkPad trackpad to push a button and of course nothing happens. I can’t wait for Synaptics to start producing “clicky” trackpads for Windows notebooks, something they’ve recently announced they will do.
Bringing Sense to Android, More Pre
I was impressed with the HTC Hero announcement this week. That HTC Sense interface looks stunning, and I believe it will give both the iPhone and the Pre interfaces a run for their money. It’s not just looking like it will be easy to use; Sense is also highly user configurable, so you can make of it what you want. That is simply powerful and I can’t wait for it to appear.
I’m getting very comfortable using the Pre as my main phone. I still find the interface to be easy and intuitive and it feels even better over time. It’s a sign of a good design when you find you rarely think about the interface while using it and instead just do things with it. That’s the way it should be.
I really like how software updates are handled on the Pre. Unlike other phones, where keeping the OS and installed apps updated can be a chore, on the Pre it couldn’t be easier. You just tap the Updates icon and it tells you if the OS has an update available. It checks all the programs that I’ve installed to see if there are updates for any of those, too. One tap and I have all available updates ready to install. That’s the way it should work and makes keeping the entire Pre ecosystem up-to-date every day easy .
Secret Programs Have Me Busting To Tell You More
I often get to test new programs that are under NDA, so I can’t talk about them. This week I’ve been testing two such programs and both of them are very good so far. I can’t wait to tell you about them; hopefully I can soon.
They are both Mac programs and one is the next version of a program you are no doubt familiar with. They’ve added a lot of very nice features in this new version and I am totally impressed with it. I’ll share just as soon as I can.
The other program is a brand new one that does some very cool things. It may not be a program that everyone will need, but those who do need it really, really badly. This one breaks new ground and you’ll love it when the NDA is lifted. Sorry, that’s about all I can say without getting myself in some serious trouble. I’m not trying to tease you; I spent a lot of time this week with these programs and wanted to share that it was time well spent.
eReader for iPhone Really WAS Updated this Week
The iPhone 3.0 update broke the eReader program, which put me in a bind. I read almost solely on my phones and the iPhone version of eReader is the best. A couple of days ago I reported that I installed the updated version of eReader on the iPhone and that it worked great. Based on my report, some of you tried to update your iPhone and only found the old broken version.
The Fictionwise folks left a comment that the new version wasn’t released yet but should be soon. This really confused me as my new version was working fine. I updated the post to reflect that the new version wasn’t really available but a couple of hours later Fictionwise said they had just been notified by Apple that the update was out.
I inadvertently added to the confusion as I took a screenshot of the version page on the iPhone after I updated eReader. I published that and commenters pointed out it was the old version number. This made no sense to me until I checked later. I found the screenshot I took on the computer, intelligently named “photo.jpg,” as the iPhone does on its own. I had grabbed a screenshot I took back when the last update was made, which I had named “ereader update.jpg”. That old screenshot with the “broken” version number was the one that I put in the “erroneous” post. Duh.
It can take 2-3 days for app updates to roll out fully and it looks like I got it the day before Fictionwise was notified it was released. That’s got to be what happened, as I was happily reading e-books on the iPhone a day before. Everyone should be able to get it by the time this gets published.
E-books of the Week
The books I’ve read this week have covered some ground and kept me turning pages as fast as I could. I finished the “Medics Wild Series” by Darrell Bain that I’ve shared in past weeks. The last book of the series is “Space for Sale” and sees the zany Williard Brothers enter the space program. It’s a very entertaining book; if you liked the first three books in the series then don’t miss this one.
I also read a thriller by David Baldacci, his latest, “First Family.” This book continues the adventures of former Secret-Service-agents-turned-private-investigators, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. It’s the best one of the series to date, and is a very good story of kidnapping, murder and obsessive revenge. I highly recommend this book for thriller lovers.
Weekly Wrap-up
That’s it for this week. It was another week of phones and laptops and software testing. I hope you enjoyed sharing it with me. Until next week…
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