Is Twitter Down or Up or What?

Given that Twitter has become more and more important to me and probably you, too, I think its current spate of downtime problems has become a bit of a pain for all of us. I’ve found a little Web application that works well with the iPhone/Touch, as well as PCs and Macs, and which allows me to quickly determine whether Twitter is up or down. It’s also a lot faster to use than just waiting for a Twitter client to time out. It’s called IsTwitterNotReallyDownDownJustAllF****dUpDown and it displays a text-based “happy face” or “sad face” to report Twitter status. The picture above shows what you’ll see when Twitter is up, and which is hopefully what we’ll all see most of the time!

Brightkite

Brightkite is an interesting new social media network. It has a great iPhone/Touch interface and integrates with Twitter. It is very location-centric (even integrating with the iPhone/Touch Maps application) and handles messaging, text posting, and photo uploads from a variety of devices. I’m testing it out right now and will have to see if I stick with it or not. It has definitely caught my interest, though.

Evernote Beta

Thanks to an invite from Matt Miller, I’ve been able to experiment with the new Evernote beta for the past couple of days.

Now I’ve been a user and fan of Evernote for quite a few years, and prefer it to OneNote for note taking, and information capture and storage. However, the new Evernote beta brings this product up to a whole new level and well beyond OneNote in many ways. This is because the information created and stored in Evernote is now available across multiple devices: computers, cell phones, PDAs, and even my iPod Touch. Evernote data can now be synced between the local computer application and the Web. The Web version of the data can then be accessed through another computer or mobile browser interfaces. This means that data can now be created, searched, and accessed from any where at any time from just about any device. Wow, what an experience!

So I suggest you find a friend with some available invitations to the beta or stop by the Evernote beta site and sign yourself up for an invitation.

By the way, this posting was initially created on my iPod Touch using Mobile Web Docs, and then copied and pasted via iCopy into WordPress. The Touch is now really quite a nice blogging tool!

 

Kevin Tofel has a review of the Vye S37 focusing on the inking experience with this device. I’ve used inking on my SH6 less than half a dozen times in the more than two months that I’ve owned it now. It’s pretty much a laptop replacement for me.

Dinner with Kevin Tofel

Last night I had dinner with Kevin Tofel. We had a chance to talk about Tablets and the UMPC space, as well as some very interesting discussions on life in general. I found Kevin to be extremely intelligent and articulate and the dinner was a real pleasure for me. Of course, we also showed off our gadgets to each other – Kevin his Samsung Q1 UMPC and iPhone, and I my Kohjinsha SH6. From Kevin’s posting today it looks like he’s pretty impressed with the SH6.

SH6 Status Report

Well I’ve had my Kohjinsha SH6 for over a week now and here are some more thoughts on it:

1. I’ve only found one problem with it – apparently the keyboard driver that Dynamism installed on it has a slight bug: if you hit the Caps Lock key it gets stuck in Caps Lock mode and you have to reboot to get out of it. I just sent email to Dynamism today and I’m anxious to see how they respond to this bug report.
2. It’s definitely replaced my Electrovaya SC-3000 Tablet PC; in fact, I’ve given my Tablet to my wife!
3. A bit of a surprise for me: it’s also replaced my Nokia N800. I haven’t even turned on my N800 for days now. When not being used, my SH6 sits on top of a book shelf in our living room where my N800 used to sit. The SH6 is normally in sleep mode with the screen closed over the keyboard. When I want to do something on the Web I just grab it, pull back the screen, and I’m surfing the Web in seconds. It’s just as convenient as the N800, but lots more powerful.

Working at Home

I’m using my SH6 in my home office today. It’s sharing keyboard, mouse, and monitor with my Dell Dimension PC. It’s still working out  extremely well for me. I’m actually really surprised at just how seamless the transition has been from my 1.5 GhZ Electrovaya SC-3000 Tablet PC to the 600 MhZ Kohjinsha SH6. In just about any work activity I perform the SH6 seems to be just about as fast as the Electrovaya ever was. Only rarely do I encounter moments when it seems slower. I don’t really understand it, but I’m loving it!

The Kohjinsha SH6 as Tablet

This morning I “forced myself” to use the SH6 only as a Tablet. I used it that way throughout my morning routine of checking email, reading Web sites, and reading RSS feeds. Here is a brief summary of my impressions:

• The SH6 is very light, well balanced, and easy to hold when in Tablet mode. The battery even becomes a nice handle on the bottom of the unit.
• There’s a big difference in the handwriting experience with a passive screen (like the SH6 has) and an active screen (like my Electrovaya SC-3000 Tablet has) but Vista’s improved handwriting recognition seems to more than make up for those limitations. Handwriting recognition was excellent.
• Passive screens do have some real advantages – it’s wonderful to be able to “click” on the screen using your finger; I didn’t have to use a stylus at all.
• The included stylus is a joke – it looks like it belongs with some kind of very inexpensive PDA. It’s a good thing it’s really not needed! I used my Papermate PhD multi-pen as my stylus for handwriting.
• All of the buttons located around the SH6’s screen make using it in Tablet mode a real breeze. I used my finger, mouse pointer, left and right mouse buttons, scrolling buttons (really page up and page down), D-pad (for single-line up and down) and just flew through Web pages and RSS feeds. It was such a pleasure to use it this way that this is going to be the normal mode I will now use for my morning routine.
• The SH6 never got warm where my hands were while holding it, it was just a little warm by the fan outlet vent.
• The new Vista mouse-like Touch Pointer really sucks. I turned it off shortly after going through the training session on how to use it. It seems like a good idea badly implemented.

I Ordered A Kohjinsha SH-6

Well, after trying to surprise everyone on what I ordered as a replacement for my Electrovaya Tablet instead of the Everun, the very first person commenting guessed it!

Yes, I ordered a Kohjinsha SH-6 with 100 GB drive and 2 GB of memory, and running Vista Home Premium. I may upgrade it to Vista Business as I have a copy that Microsoft gave me. We’ll have to see how it performs after I do a little Vista tuning first before I leap off into the Business version.

Chippy, over at UMPCPortal (www.umpcportal.com), actually first peeked my interest in this device. Surprisingly enough, he really panned it because of its 2 hour battery life. Well battery life seems to be one of the very most important factors that he uses for judging a UMPC, but it’s not mine. As I mentioned in my previous posting here 2 to 3 hours is fine for me. If that ever becomes a limitation, I’ll just order the upcoming extended battery or even another standard battery. It’s simply not a big deal for me.

The big pluses that this unit has for me are it’s size, memory and disk capacity, the great screen, the nice keyboard, CF and SD slots, 2 USB slots, and even it’s Ethernet port(something the Everun didn’t have). Reading Chippy’s comments and editing out the battery life complaints, the SH-6 sounded near perfect for meeting my needs. I also did further research in other blogs and the online Kohjinsha group and the more I read the more this unit seemed like the perfect device for me.

It should be arriving in a week or two and as soon as it does I’ll let everyone know if it was a good choice or if I’ve made a horrible mistake. By the way, my short list included the OQO Model 02 and the Samsung Q1U (which uses the exact same screen as the SH-6 but would have needed an add-on keyboard), but the SH-6 won out in the end.

I Cancelled My Everun Order

Yesterday I cancelled my order for an Everun device. In the many weeks I’ve had to reconsider this device I came to the conclusion that it really isn’t the optimal mobile device for me. In many ways I was caught in an iPhone-like frenzy over the many extremely cool technical features of this device, but sanity has finally returned. I’m not knocking the Everun – it’s a really cool little computer that’s just not for me.

 What do I need? I need a mobile device that’s powerful enough to replace my Electrovaya slate tablet PC, but is smaller, lighter, and with a decent keyboard. It should have LOTS of memory, preferably 2 GBs, especially if it’s going to come with Vista. (The 512MB memory of the Everun is one of my biggest objections to this unit, along with it’s tiny keyboard). It should have at least a 7 inch screen. It should have at least 60GB of disk space. I don’t need a super powerful CPU because as a computer systems architect most of my work is creating diagrams and documents. However, good multimedia capability is important as I regularly watch movies and TV episodes on my computer while traveling. Long battery life, which I used to think was very important, really isn’t. 2 to 3 hours is sufficient for my actual usage scenarios. I spend most of my time plugged into an electrical outlet.

I’ve had my Electrovaya for over two years and it’s time for it to be put out to pasture. I’m finding that inking is a minor usage factor for me, although I do sometimes use it during presentations and working meetings, and that a good keyboard is vital for my work as  a consultant. So the slate format is really not the best for me.

So I’ve ordered a different computer which should arrive at my home in a week or two. Any guesses as to which device I picked? I’ll let you all know as soon as it arrives!