Neat: Microsoft Surface Ad “The Surface Movement”

The following video was pointed out by fellow MVP Cris Hanna.

The Surface Movement

The keyboard has been the tablet’s Achilles’ heel from the get-go.

Wanting to get any serious work done on the Tega v2 tablet required us to purchase some sort of keyboard/mouse combination. The Logitech DiNovo Mini met that need for our Tega v2 tablet.

The fact that the Surface will have a keyboard built right into the unit is a “killer feature”.

Folks that are spot checking their Live Tiles for something they are waiting for can touch their way through in a few taps and swipes.

Someone that needs to focus on finishing up that report or tweaking their proposal will require an extra input method. The Surface’s built-in keyboard kit is perfect for that.

For anyone that has travelled coach, the ability to disconnect the keyboard and rest it on our lap while the tablet itself sits on the now reclined seat table in front of us is going to be a really good thing too!

The Surface and other OEM Windows 8 product offerings that are going to be available soon are, IMNSHO, going to be a game changer for that market segment.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer

Windows 8 on the Tega v2

Windows 8 with the Metro style Start Menu is right at home on the Tega v2 tablet.

We replaced the insufficient WiFi/Bluetooth card in the Tega with an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 combo card and wireless in Windows 8 just worked.

The DiNovo Mini Bluetooth keyboard is a must for those longer typing tasks like this blog post.

Swipes, Gestures, Charms, and keyboard shortcuts are need to know items.

General Consensus: Need to read the manual! :)

But, so far so good!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Logitech diNovo Mini Keyboard Is A Great Compliment To The Tegav2

We have not had a lot of time to work with the Tegav2 due to a number of factors.

Now that we are relatively caught up we had the time to get a few different Bluetooth keyboards hooked up to the Tegav2 tablet to see which one came out on top for ease of use, quality, and portability.

The diNovo Mini Keyboard has taken us by surprise as being quite the versatile little keyboard and mouse (via touch disk) combination.

The above shots are from Logitech’s product site for the diNovo Mini.

In the top shot the disk is in arrow mode meaning that the disk behaves the same way as the arrow keys on the keyboard.

The bottom shot shows the disk in mouse mode. The disk is touch sensitive in the same way as a touchpad so it is actually quite easy to mouse about the Tegav2’s screen. The disk can also be pressed to Left Click or the button at the top left of the diNovo Mini acts as both a left click (press) or right click (Fn + press) mouse button.

Note that the colour of the background lighting is different between the two modes along with the changes made in the in-disk lighting.

In the end, this little keyboard is an excellent addition to the Tegav2. Spot usage of the touch screen based keyboard is okay but having the diNovo along will make extended usage of the tablet a lot more palatable.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Favorite Sync Now In Windows Live Essentials 2011

It has been a bit of a struggle to figure out what happened to the Live Toolbar ability to sync Internet Explorer’s Favorites.

After searching around we came upon Windows Live Mesh, now called Sync, that allows is to synchronize our Favorites folder across many different systems.

With the introduction of the Tega v2 we now have_a lot_ of devices to keep shared profile data synchronized across. The Live Toolbar helped to keep things sorted out when it came to IE Favorites.

Now that we have that worked out . . . for now . . . we have some addition profile tweaks to complete such as adding SharePoint libraries to Windows 7’s Favorites list (previous blog post) on the Tega v2.

• Windows Live Essentials Download

Posted via Tega v2 entirely by touch. This will take some getting used to. A small Bluetooth keyboard is now on the To Do list for this week.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

How To Connect The Tega v2 To SBS 2008/v7

One of the requirements for a machine to connect to an SBS 2008 or SBS v7 network is a physical network connection.

A wireless connection does not come up fast enough for the various tasks that the SBS Setup Wizard needs to accomplish when preparing a device.

In the case of the Tega v2, the wireless NIC does not come up until _after_ logging into the OS. So, our first attempt to join our SBS v7 domain failed. The SBS Setup Wizard requires a connection to SBS during the setup procedures.

Since we have two USB ports on the Tega v2 we dropped in on one of our local suppliers and picked up an USB to RJ45 network adapter that has no real indication of manufacturer other than SR1600 on the driver install.

Once the driver was installed we cleaned up the bits and pieces of the previous SBS Connect attempt and re-ran the wizard from the http://connect site.

We set the tablet up for the users that may need to use it and it ran through and configured everything without a hiccup.

A few things that should be a part of any Tega v2 setup on an SBS 2008/v7 domain:

• USB to RJ45 NIC adapter for a physical connection to the network.
• USB flash drive with the required install applications.

The second is due to the fact that while the built-in wireless is okay for day to day needs it is rather slow for throughput. So, we put our needed apps on a USB flash drive and ran them from there.

This device is _neat_!

Other than a bit of a learning curve to use it without a keyboard, it will be set up to do exactly the same things that we do with our workstations and laptops.

So, essentially out of the box with the same amount of configuration that goes into any other Windows 7 device we have a fully functional system that allows us to do pretty much anything we would need to do while on the road in an amazingly small form factor.

Too kewl! :D

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

TegaTech Tega v2 Has Arrived

We have had a very busy moment so there was not really any time to have a look at the tablet other than to pull it out of the box and plug it in to allow it to charge.

The unit looks and feels really good.

Windows 7 Professional is installed on this particular unit, so once the battery was charged we fired it up, ran through the OOBE, connected it to our shop wireless, and joined our SBS v7 domain.

The whole process was relatively painless with the touch keyboard being fairly straightforward in use.

After domain joining without a keyboard use the Ease of Access button near the bottom left hand corner of the screen to enable an on screen keyboard that will allow for the needed CTRL+ALT+DLTE key strokes to unlock the tablet.

A client project beckons, so there will be some additional thoughts on our experiences with the unit soon.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

An iPad Killer From Down Under?

We are in the process of finalizing an order for a product that is just in the process of being released to the general public.

Yes, that is an iPad sized tablet running Windows 7. After a colleague dropped an iPad off at our shop for us to use for a week or so earlier this year we were not too impressed with the machine. The iPad has its purpose but that purpose did not suite us here.

The Tegatech TEGA v2 Touch Tablet was introduced to us by fellow MVP Wayne Small (his article on the TEGA v2).

With a Windows 7 operating system installed the TEGA v2 will do everything we need it to do _natively_ without any additional apps beyond Office 2010.

Running an Intel Atom N455 1.66GHz CPU with a 64GB SSD the TEGA v2 will run circles around some of the older Toshiba Tecra laptops with Pentium M series CPUs that we still use as shop systems. It should also run on par with the Intel Atom based netbooks that we use in our business that have had their spindle based drives replaced with Intel X25-M SSDs.

So, with the TEGA v2 coming with an SSD out of the box that is large enough to host the OS, Office 2010, and a few additional applications and utilities we will have ourselves a very portable and very usable little machine.

Time is Money

BTW, when it comes to deciding on the use of any new technologies we always weigh in on what it will cost us in time to figure the new tech out. With the iPad, there is a bit of a learning curve involved for those that are not part of the “iN” crowd.

That is one of the reasons that we are looking at the TEGA v2. There is no learning curve involved since we already know how to use Windows and Windows based devices.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer