I had been looking at the tablet market for quite some time now. Of course the iPad(2) is still the most known and popular out there, but now that Google has released their tablet-optimized Android version I felt that the time was right to plunge myself into this territory. I know that there had been quite some devices around before the Honeycomb era, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab or the Archos tablets. However, in my opinion, either the overall experience or the moderate hardware specifications of these devices left much to be desired.

This is where the Xoom comes in. This device sports a Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, doing its work on 1 Ghz. It has a 10.1 inch capacitive screen, a 5MP camera on the back and a 2 MP camera on the front. Running Android 3.0, which was partly developed on this tablet, giving you a really nice and polished experience when using it. Unlike Apple’s iOS, Honeycomb has support for Flash, which in my opinion alone is a huge advantage. Let’s face it, Flash isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and it is still the dominant technology for a lot of the interactive content you can find on the Web.

At the time of writing there aren’t that many Honeycomb optimized applications out there yet, but you can slowly see more and more appear in the Android Market. It’s true that some of the more popular apps don’t really scale well to tablet resolutions, which is especially true for games, but that doesn’t necessarily need to be a deal-breaker, since it’s only a matter of time before these apps get updated. Operating System wise I think Google did a great job here. Of course their own applications work like a charm and I’m definitely impressed with their Books application.

It speaks for itself that one of the primary functions of this device is reading. It’s a shame however that available titles on Google Books are a bit on the low side, at least here in Europe, but you do have the option to install both Amazon’s Kindle and B&N’s reader apps which work well. Alternatively you can also install one of the many PDF readers. My favorite is EZ PDF reader, which does require a small contribution, but I think it’s worth it. Addionally, checking out your news feeds is really a pleasure with the excellent Pulse news reader app. You might already be using this on your phone, but believe me, experiencing this on a tablet is a world of difference.

Another popular use for tablets, at least if you can believe the latest stats on this, is gaming. While I’m not that much of a gamer myself, it’s true that these type of devices open a whole new market. The way you play games is more akin to playing on a console than on a PC, but I actually believe it will become a subset of its own. Performance wise the Xoom tablet works really well, thanks to the Tegra processing power under the hood. 3D graphics are fluent, look great and there’s no stuttering whatsoever. If you’re into gaming, this definitely is something to consider, especially since I believe that with the plethora of Android & Tegra devices coming out we’ll be able to get some awesome looking games on these devices.

What I also like very much about the Motorola tablet is the fact that it is open. With this I mean that it is relatively simple to unlock and root the device. While many mainstream users don’t have an immediate use for a feature like this, I believe it is something that can be important if you value getting updates in the future. Let’s face it, most hardware vendors aren’t very keen on releasing new iterations of Android for their devices in a timely manner. This is of course not without reason. Porting their respective UI shells to new versions is most likely a challenging, time and resource consuming task. That is why I personally prefer the ‘vanilla’ Android devices. Buying one of these gives you a bit more certainty that updates will roll out faster. And even if the vendor abandons the device, you can always count on the many community developers creating ROMs for your tablet with the latest and greatest goodies. When getting a device which is easily rooted, you only increase your chances of finding community updates later on.

Honeycomb in general is looking good. You can tell that Google has put in a lot of effort getting their mobile OS ready for the tablet era. The general experience is smooth and enjoyable but there still are some quirks to work out. When you put the system to the test by running multiple applications at the same time, it can become a little bit laggy. Nothing to worry about, I’m just talking about a slight delay in response time when switching screens for example. It’s probably one of those things that’s coming from the fact that Android is a true multi-tasking platform and will get better as development progresses. Some applications have crashed on me, but only the ones that aren’t optimized for Honeycomb. The main operating system hasn’t failed me yet and I’m pretty confident it won’t either.

Of course it’s not all perfect. I’m sure there’s always some room for improvement, but my biggest annoyances are basically the fact that the Xoom is a bit on the heavy side, nearing 800 grams and the fact that in some cases you need to install multiple applications that basically perform the same task, but offer different content. Weight wise, this will surely get better over time and most Android tablet builders have some catching up to do with Apple on this front, but keep in mind that this is only the truly first generation of Android tablets to hit the market. On the application front I think the problem is a tad more complicated. I’m mainly referencing to the e-books apps here, but also the fact that you now have multiple application stores. Both suffer from the same issue: different applications and stores may offer both identical and unique content. This makes finding what you’re looking for difficult. Prices often vary (although for most items the difference is negligible) which can become quite confusing, especially when it’s not clear what the immediate advantage over a competitor is. This is a problem that I don’t really see being solved any time soon. These companies are trying to make money after all and if the company believes that they can get a fair market share on their own, I don’t think they’ll see any incentive for consolidation. On the other hand you might argue that it does increase competition which in many cases can be good for consumers. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. As always, time will tell.

My conclusion is that tablets are definitely on the rise. It might be a bit soon for Joe Plumber to jump on the wagon, but if you’re an early adopter or just love technology I’m sure you would not regret investing in a tablet. What device you choose in the end depends on your needs and preferences. All I can is say, give Android a chance, I’m pretty sure you won’t be disappointed. I’m not pretending to give an objective opinion here. My personal preference is and will probably always be with Android. I do believe that it has a very good chance on becoming the dominant platform and therefore a relatively safe bet. Concerning the Xoom, I’m sure it’s not for everyone. It does have its weaknesses, but offers plenty of other things to make up for them. It remains a pricey item for sure, but thanks to the openness of Android we’ll soon be seeing less expensive alternatives.

So let’s get started. Earlier this week Google and Samsung unveiled a new phone, the Nexus S, running Android 2.3, also known as Gingerbread. But how does this new device compare to the previous one? Let’s take a look…

First of all, here’s an overview of the most important specifications:

Source: Google – see their full comparison page for all the details

As you can probably see, there’s not so many differences between the two phones. Basically it has a tad larger screen, possible faster WiFi, a minor Bluetooth upgrade and a possibly better battery when looking at standby time. The hardware extras such as NFC and the gyroscope are very nice, as well as the contour & anti-fingerprint display, but to me not really deal-breakers. I’m quite disappointed about the fact that there’s not a dual-core mobile processor in there. Granted, the Hummingbird is probably better than the older Snapdragon, but my guess: nobody is really going to notice the difference.

Another weird thing with the Nexus S is the lack of an SD-slot. It’s true that the 16 GB internal memory is enough for most people, but it looses some of it’s portability in terms of migrating to a new phone later on. While the Nexus One comes with a 4 GB SD card, it is however upgradeable to 32 GB, which in my opinion makes it more attractive to our inner geeks. I won’t be going into the Tri vs Quand band discussion, mainly because the spec here has been dumbed down for this post, secondly because this mainly depends on carrier preference which is largely a US-only problem.

The most significant difference to me seems to be the Gingerbread OS. As with all Android upgrades, there’s some pretty cool things inside there such as the new and improved keyboard, a new launcher and of course the native VOIP calling. Of course there’s more improvements under the hood. But again, not really that big I think. The keyboard and launcher are already ported to Froyo, VOIP calling is possible albeit a bit tricky with external applications, and in the end it’s only a matter of time before the N1 gets some Gingerbread love too. The OTA update is most likely coming soon, and for those running custom ROMs, I’m pretty sure their developers will crunch out updates asap as well.

All in all, the Nexus S is a very nice phone, but I personally don’t see many Nexus One users jumping ship, mainly because there’s not much to jump to. As many others before me already said, it seems a nice upgrade to a Galaxy S, and I would advise those users to definitely look into this phone. The fact that you have a vanilla Android experience on Nexus phones might not appeal to everybody but for those who like to tinker with their phones this latest Samsung child surely is a great option.

Of course, being an IT person, these kind of things are like my second nature, and I had experimented with Android before on a hacked phone. At the time I purchased this phone, I actually had my eyes on the N900 from Nokia as well, but the fact that they merged their platform with Intel kind of got me scared for future updates. But I’m wandering off-topic… Back to Android!

In general, I’m pretty amazed how much this platform has matured in such a relative short time. All the basic functionalities work like a charm right out-of-the-box, which wasn’t always the case in the past if I recall correctly. The fact that it is an unlocked phone of course is a tremendous advantage, although here in Belgium, it’s illegal to lock phones like they do in the U.S. anyway. The look & feel of the software is very refreshing and blazing fast. Of course this speed is mainly thanks to the premium hardware used to make this phone (hello Snapdragon!). Most applications work great, and the fact that you’re not tied to the Android Market is a big advantage. Clearly syncing with your Google account is seamless, and even the push mail of my company using Exchange ActiveSync works great.

However, naturally there are still some negative points as well. You’ve probably all heard about the problems with the phones’ touchscreen, especially multi-touch. I’ve been lucky and so far I’ve not run into these issues myself, but when you read some of the forums dedicated to Android and/or the Nexus One, it’s clear a lot of people are having headaches over this one. I have had the phone crash on me a couple of times, but nothing a reboot didn’t fix. Another negative point for me is the lack of proxy support on WiFi connections. At home this isn’t a problem, but for use in a corporate environment, this really is a must have. I was actually pretty surprised to see this not being implemented, but I have good hopes for the upcoming Android 2.2 update that this will finally be included. Last but not least, I’ve been also disappointed in the default platform alarm clock. There is no fade-in, no decent snooze and no choosing an mp3 as wake-up music. I’ve solved this using a third-party alarm, and that has worked fine most of the time (actually, it has sometimes not gone off in the morning, which obviously is a painful experience when you do wake up eventually).

All in all, I find the Nexus One, and Android in general, very pleasant. Sure there’s still room for improvement, but I’m sure the 2.2 version and future iterations will only improve the user experience. Unless Google decides to shoot itself in the foot at some point, I think they really have a chance of making this the leading platform for smart-phones and tablet devices.

The best thing about the nexus 1 is that you can dictate what you want to write. Of course this isn’t perfect, since the application still makes quite a lot of mistakes, so you need to make manual corrections here and there. However, it beats the hell out of typing everything.

Anyway, stay tuned for (hopefully) more posts.

Brian Krebs from The Washington Post has been advising the average Windows user on various things. A while ago, people started asking him if they could trust a Service Pack for the .Net framework. While you probably are well aware about .Net, what it is and what it does, many people are not. So Brian took it upon himself to test the SP and after some time gave it a go.

However, it seems now that when installing this update, Microsoft is so friendly to add their own add-on for FireFox. While it is nice to see that MS is acknowledging FF as a major player in the browser world, it is not the normal way to install add-ons. One of the great features of FF has always been it extendability, but moreover the choice what & when to extend it.

No big deal right? Let’s just go and remove this unwanted extension. Right, this would work with any other developer, but we are dealing with Microsoft, which means the ‘Uninstall’ button is disabled, and removing the add-on is only possible through some obscure registry hacks, with which you don’t only risk in breaking the good operation of your favorite browser, but also your whole OS when you don’t really know what you’re doing.

Nobody really knows how this add-on behaves, but personally I don’t like this situation at all. Like Brian says in his article, it makes you wonder what else Microsoft’s installs behind your back… Maybe calling this malware is a bit over the top, but nevertheless I’m going to tag this post with it, since such behaviour is typical for malware, and it’s not because it’s coming from MS that we should keep one eye closed.

It’s already bad enough the Redmond company does not seem to be able to create a decent browser of their own, but now they seem to have to mess up the work of others as well. I for one am not very happy with this. In fact this makes me going to avoid Microsoft software even more than before, and I hope the same for you as well… Remember, it’s for your own good .

But what is happening in the corporate environment? Well, this aren’t looking so gloomy there… InformationWeek is reporting that a staggering 83% of businesses will not upgrade to Windows 7 next year. So what is happening there?

Well of course our Redmond friends are still suffering from a big PR problem surrounding Vista. With this OS being plagued with so many problems and incompatibility, it’s only natural the corporate world is not very enthusiastic about it. While Windows 7 looks promising from an end-user point of view, IT professionals say that most of the important functionality needed for a successful deploy-scenario are still missing. One of the key ingredients here is the fact that you can’t really upgrade from XP to 7. A clean install seems necessary. Also since 7 shares the code-base of Vista, many of the compatibility problems will remain, and companies just can’t afford any major downtime in the current economical climate, at least not because of a Windows upgrade…

While XP still holds a lot of popularity, it’s death is getting very near as well. Mainstream support is ending today (Tuesday), and many businesses that won’t make the leap to 7 immediately risk of getting trapped in a no-service period spanning the duration of their waiting. Additionally, the 9 year old OS is getting out-dated, with little to no support for current hardware advances that are being sold for a couple of years now (hello!? multi-threading support?!)

Microsoft definitely needs to step it up a notch, fixing both their shattered reputation and the remaining technical issues responsible for the upgrade hold-offs.

On the security side it’s probably a bit early to tell. It’s clear that Microsoft has plenty of experience creating relative insecure browsers and hopefully they have learned from earlier mistakes. Of course you have to look at this in perspective. IE still is the one with the biggest market share, so it only makes sense that more security issues and bugs are found faster. This in turn is also the main reason the browser is targeted the most by malware authors. On the other hand, being the leading software in your field, my opinion is that security should be top priority. I’m not saying it isn’t over at Redmond, but we can all agree it doesn’t always look that way. Surely problems will arise sooner or later, whether IE8 will live up to it’s expectation here, I guess only time will tell.

So what about the standards side? I for one can only be happy with the fact that finally Microsoft has decided to be more standards-compliant. This is definitely a step in the right direction. But let’s take a closer look… Over at the IE blog, there’s an interesting post about backwards-compatibility. To ensure that old(er) sites work seamlessly with this new version, IE8 is getting shipped with what is called Compatibility View. This mode is there to make sure IE7 code still runs on IE8, even if it’s not really adhering to the standards. And I think here is where the problems start. If you browse down on the blog-post to the comments, you can see a lot of people are concerned about this. In essence IE8 is providing 2 new ways of rendering pages. One of course using the native IE8 mode, using the provided standards, the other one implementing sometimes strange behaviour in handling code. This is surely going to cause quite some headaches with developers.

Last but not least, I’d like to share some Microsoft marketing trick I found lining out the different loading times of IE8, Firefox and Chrome. Personally I found the video quite funny, but what scares me is that a lot of end-users will walk right into this. I’m not saying the claims made are wrong or twisted, but I do wonder if people really think speed is THAT important. Let’s be honest here, who really cares if a site takes one of half a second longer to load in your browser of choice. Differences like this are really marginal. What should matter most is the overall performance of the application, on all domains. Such a campaign proves one thing for me: Microsoft is really feeling the heat from Firefox and Chrome breathing down it’s neck. They are afraid, and they should be!

The CodeWeavers people have already put in great support for DirectX 9 in their latest version for gaming, and it seems they are planning to also include version 10. Other things include support for .Net & GDIPlus. All this should be included in their latest release, version 7.2. For the expected 8.0, they plan on revamping the Linux UI, but also the Mac version is going to get some new goodies. Further on, better support for IE7, Office and much more applications is to be expected.

While I haven’t used any of their products myself lately, I must say I’m quite impressed by their efforts. Since I use Wine myself on an almost daily basis, I can vouch for the fact that the program has definitely reached a mature state. However when using the ‘vanilla Wine’, be prepared for a lot of tweaking. This is where CodeWeavers jumps in. They have been able to provide all this tweaking for you, giving you a working product out-of-the-box.

I’m usually not so enthousiastic about commercial spin-offs of Open Source products, but this one really is worth it’s money. If you’re not willing to spend time on tweaking & troubleshooting Wine issues, or would like professional support when stumbling upon a problem, then consider this product, I’m sure you’ll love it!

According to its developers, Samba 4 is about to change all this. While it is true that there is still a long way to go, some nice things are to be expected. As previous versions required tedious configuration skills and reading through tons of manuals, version 4 should “just work”.  The DNS scheme is now being generated automatically, and the OpenLDAP back-end, if required, is being configured by Samba itself. Scripting has vastly improved, as now Python is being used as the default scripting language, however there are still bindings for other tools as well.

All good news, but there are of course a couple of disadvantages. For example, there is no real administration interface. In the past, Samba used to have a web-interface, but due to lack of support this has been removed. The door has of course been left open for the community to develop this, so I think we will see quite a few of these interfaces pop up soon enough. Another downside is that authentication for Unix clients and the print server, compared to Samba 3,  are not yet implemented. In it’s current state this would mean you’d have to run the two versions side by side.  Luckily, there seem to be plans to re-instate these features as soon as possible.

Of course there is still a lot of work to do. One of the things mentioned are domain trusts not yet implemented. This is still a bit of a set-back. However the fact that the Samba-team is working closely together with Microsoft is proving to be successful. Unfortunately, Samba 4 is not yet released to the public, but an alpha release is due soon. So for all you early-adopters out there, just a little more patience .

Where Internet Explorer uses Trident, Firefox uses Gecko, and Chrome & Safari using Webkit, this one uses all three. Of course not at the same time, but you can switch between engines on-the-fly. Claiming 3 times faster start-up time using the fastest javascript rendering engine in the world (as claimed on their site), this new piece of software is looking promising.

I think this might be a very good start-up and sure looks like such a project could have a bright future. Why installing and using three different programs, hogging your resources, while you can use one and have it all! Maybe this won’t become the mainstream browser for the big mass, but in the technical environment, things could really leap forward. For (web)-developers, this is surely a gift from heaven.