ULTRA MOBILE PC TIPS

Less talking and more doing

2013-05-22T20:45:00.000-04:00

Excellent words used by Microsoft in it's last marketing campaign.

VPN connectivity with a Surface RT

2013-05-07T20:46:00.002-04:00

The Surface RT is not supported by some VPN Clients but that doesn't mean that you can’t use VPN in this machine. Here is a guide of how you can connect via VPN your Surface RT to your home network.

HBOGO.com works on Surface RT

2013-05-05T15:27:00.000-04:00

HBOGO.com is one of my preferred sites to catch up with all those good series from this premium channel. The site uses flash and for some reason, I believe it was a firmware update, it was not working anymore in my Surface RT. HBO still have not jumped in the boat of WinRT and we still do not have an App. So I decided today to spend sometime trying to get it back working and the good news is that I got it.

Here is what I learned. To sign in HBOGO.com this site sends you to your TV provider where you have to sign in. This process was failing for me. To troubleshoot the whole process I used Fiddler a tool to track your internet web traffic. This application is for x86 but thanks to the tools posted at xdadevelopers I was able to use it in the Surface RT. With this tool I was able to find few things, one of them is that HBO uses a cookie with the information from, in my case, Comcast to grant you access to its site. In my Surface I had Cookies disabled and I thought it was a good idea to keep it in this way. So I went to in the Internet Options from IE10 in Desktop mode and allow cookies for both sites, HBOGO and Comcast. Summarizing, after adding the involved sites to the Trusted Sites List and allowing Cookies for both sites, the HBOGO.com site allowed me to stream video in my Surface RT. And no just in Desktop mode but using IE10 Metro.

This is one of the reasons why I love WinRT, it carries a full version of the IE which allows you to enjoy sites that in other platforms, specifically iOS (translate this as iPad), are impossible to access unless you have an App for that. In another words, some or most of the Apps available for iPad are the result of this device impossibility of using the original websites which these applications substitute.

Sharing: So easy that a caveman can do it

2013-05-05T10:45:00.000-04:00

Sharing in Windows 8 is easier than in any previous Windows Operating System.

Lets say that you are navigating the web and you found a page that you want to share with your friends. All you have to do is to slide your finger from right to left in the right side of your Surface to get the right side menu.

You click on Share.

Once you do that you click on People and from there either Twitter or Facebook. Next time you are sharing a website you will see in the list of most recent picks your favorite social page listed.

After picking your social site a new slide opens where you can add a note to the link that you want to share like I did in the above picture. When you are done with your note all you do is click in the little icon on your top right below the two little people icon and that's it. Sent to Facebook.

So easy that a caveman can do it.

Virtual Router

2013-04-23T20:33:00.000-04:00

Virtual Router is a tool very simple to use that allows you to convert your PC or laptop in a virtual Router. When this is useful? Well imagine that you and your WiFi decide to pass the day camping in a place where the only Internet access is via a 3G Modem connected to your laptop. You can share your 3G connection with your wife's Surface RT using this software. Very simple.

New update for RT and PRO

2013-04-09T19:25:00.000-04:00

Microsoft released yesterday a new update for both versions of the Surface. According to some reports the update has fixed issues with WiFi Limited connectivity. The update is available using Windows Update.

The Surface Pro is a PC

2013-03-30T16:23:00.000-04:00

Finally the head of the Microsoft Surface Division says what I have been saying since the beginning. The Surface PRO is not a Tablet, it's a PC, he says. I hate to correct him a little bit but I will. Mr. Panay, what you call PC is being known as Tablet PC since long time ago. The Surface RT is in fact a Tablet according to the concept created by Nokia, Google and Jobs. The Surface PRO is a TabletPC according to the concept created by Bill Gates in 2001.

And the updates keep coming

2013-03-26T20:13:00.001-04:00

It's good to see how Microsoft keep updating individual Apps that are part of the OS such as Mail, Calendar and People. And this is something that differentiate the update process from Microsoft to the one from Apple were everything comes in the shape of firmware updates.

In todays update a lot of improvements were done and more details about them can be found here. Another good news was posted at Surface Blog. Panos Panay acknowledged the Limited Connectivity Issue in Surface RT and the lack of pressure functionality in Adobe Photoshop with Surface Pro and expressed Microsoft's commitment to fix these issues.

And nobody says anything

2013-03-25T21:13:00.000-04:00

Google has been selling Chromebook for around two years already. Today it has been published around the Web that in all this time the amount of units sold of this device is around 500,000. The interesting thing is that Microsoft reportedly has sold the same amount of Surface RT in just few months but I do not read in any big "technology" news site that Chromebook is a fiasco.

Why the same number is so bad for Microsoft and no so for Google? Why Microsoft is constantly and furiously attacked and other companies are not so much?

Windows 8 Desktop Manager is buggy.

2013-01-26T08:39:00.001-05:00

Windows Desktop Manager uses as much battery as Mail! And it doesn't stop even when the device is on standby. Here is what happened to me: I changed the desktop background in desktop mode and picked a picture located in my SD card. I was under the impression that when you do that the picture is copied by windows and saved somewhere else. Later on I changed the configuration of the SD card to use a folder instead a letter. So the path to my picture was not anymore the same to the eyes of Windows. Let my Surface go to Standby during the night and when I tried to turn it on in the morning I couldn't. The Battery was completely drained. When I finally could turn it on after having connected to power for around 15 minutes I found that was the Windows Desktop Manager the cause.

There is not any reason why applications such as IE, Mail, Desktop Manager and in fact any other should be kept running when the device is in Standby. I understand that it's good to have all the emails retrieved when you switch on your computer but these are processes that take just seconds to performs. No a good reason for having your battery drained in normal conditions up to 7% in less than 9 hours or totally drained like it happened to me.

The Power Management in Windows 8 has been improved but still buggy, no ready to compete against the iPad.

RT vs PRO

2013-01-22T20:18:00.000-05:00

Here is an excellent article about why many of us, including me are happy to be using a Surface RT and we are not thinking about switching them for the PRO version officially coming in February.

The Surface PRO is just a Tablet PC! We have Tablet PCs since 2002 and they always have been a product for a very small portion of the market. Why somebody at Microsoft has decided that after more than 10 years in the market this is going to be the next Microsoft winner product? Because now for the first time is made by Microsoft?

Audacity for WinRT

2013-01-20T13:10:00.001-05:00

Those who as been in this business of bytes long enough for sure in one time or another as used Audacity, a simple to use audio file editor. Well the good news is that it has been ported for WinRT! The Ported version can be downloaded here.

Teens think Apple is done, iPad is not longer cool

2013-01-13T11:32:00.000-05:00

According to an study published by Forbes, teenagers believe that to own an iPad is not cool any longer. They prefer a Surface RT or a Galaxy Samsung. To me that makes since, Apple is stuck in the iPad concept and iOS has not been change with new features and new design since long time ago.

In another hand, they do not feel attractive anymore to own a device that everybody owns including their parents and grandparents!

Map Skydrive as a network drive in your Surface RT

2013-01-12T18:01:00.000-05:00

This is a nice trick, very easy to perform. Once the mapping is performed your skydrive will be available in Windows File Explorer as just another network drive.

Jailbreak for Surface RT

2013-01-11T19:52:00.000-05:00

Finally somebody has posted a tool to Jailbreak Surface RT, this means, to run any application for ARM that is not distributed/signed by Microsoft. Of course, right away a list of open sources of desktop applications was opened and even rumors of a Firefox version compiled for ARM.

Surface RT updated

2013-01-08T20:07:00.000-05:00

The Surface RT got several update packages today via Windows Update. One of them was a firmware update. Unfortunately according to users suffering from the WiFi Limited Connection issue, this update did not fix it.

I installed all the packages, the process took about 5 minutes and so far I have not notice any dramatic change neither anything new.

GoToMeeting for Windows RT released

2013-01-04T20:26:00.002-05:00

GoToMeeting has been released for Windows RT. This an important milestone for this device because it opens a big door for the Surface to be used in the enterprise market.

GoToMeeting is together with WebEx one of the most used applications in the business environment letting business to save in traveling expenses creating virtual meetings with remote presentations capabilities.

Create a recovery USB Drive to free space in your Surface RT

2013-01-04T20:14:00.001-05:00

Microsoft has posted an interesting article explaining how you can create a recovery disk in an USB memory stick and after that remove the partition currently located in your Surface. Here is how is done:

Make sure your Surface is plugged in and connected to power.

Insert your external USB drive into the USB port on your Surface.
Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search.
(If you're using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, and then click Search.)
Enter Recovery in the search box, tap or click Settings, and then tap or click Create a recovery drive.
Tap or click Yes in the User Account Control dialog box to allow the recovery drive tool to open.
When the recovery drive tool opens, make sure the box is checked next to Copy the recovery partition from the PC to the recovery drive. Then, tap or click Next.
Select the USB drive you would like to use for your recovery disk by tapping or clicking on it. Tap or click Next.
Tap or click Create. The recovery image and necessary recovery tools will be copied to your USB drive. Your Surface must stay awake during the copy process, which will take 10-15 minutes.
When the recovery tools are copied, do one of the following:
If you want to keep the recovery tools on your Surface, tap or click Finish.
-Or-
If you want to remove the recovery tools from Surface and free up disk space, tap or click Delete the recovery partition. To confirm, tap or click Delete. This will free up approximately 3.5 GB of storage space on your Surface. When the removal is complete, tap or click Finish.

Warning If you choose to delete your recovery partition, you will need your USB recovery drive to refresh or reset your Surface in the future.
Eject and remove your USB drive. This is now your Surface recovery drive, so keep it in a safe place and do not use it to store other files or data.

More than 17700 WinRT Apps

2012-12-31T23:06:00.000-05:00

Back in November I did an analysis of WinRT Apps Store and predicted that we should be ending this year with around 13395 Applications. Well I was wrong. But nothing can make me happier than to be wrong in this case. According to WinRT Store we should be ending the year with 17738 Apps!

Fixing WiFi limited connectivity in Surface RT

2012-12-31T13:20:00.000-05:00

I thought that it may be useful to summarize some of the changes that have helped to some users to fix this issue. In my case I did not apply the registry changes because I have an AP with dual band 2.4 and 5GHz and both bands identified with different SSID and I'm forcing Surface to connect to 5Ghz.

In Metro, swipe your finger from the bottom of the screen up, select from the bar All Apps, locate the Command Prompt application, select it by dragging down the icon, select from the bar Run as Administrator, OK the warning message, the system will switch to Desktop mode. In the command prompt type the following commands:

netsh int tcp set heuristics disabled
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled

At this point reboot your Surface RT. After reboot proceed with this commands:

netsh interface ipv4 set address "Wi-Fi" dhcp (if this gave you an error check the name of your connection, it may not be "Wi-Fi")
ipconfig /renew

If you still have problems apply the following registry changes:

Open Desktop -> Search -> regedit

Open regedit. Select menu Edit -> Find...

Enter "AutoUse40Mhz" -> do search.

There are 2 such entries in registry. We need to change one, located under

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\" branch.

- Set "AutoUse40Mhz" to "0" (it has value "1" by default)(This limits the channel bandwidth to use 20MHz, this reduce the speed and it's the recommended setting when you are experiencing issues with n connectivity)

- Set "Band" to "4" (it has value "6" by default)(for what I understand this change may force some devices to connect g)(I would recommend to apply the first registry change, reboot and see what happens before applying this other change).

Reboot the Surface. Some users believe that these registry changes will make the Surface to connect using the g connection instead of n. That's not the case. Your Surface still be connected using the n protocol but using a slower bandwidth.

To achieve maximum output, a pure 802.11n 5 GHz network is recommended. If you have a 5GHz AP these registry changes should not be needed at all. To know what ratio are you using check the connection status to find the connection speed. If your speed is greater than 130Mbps, its 802.11N otherwise not. Some standard values for 802.11N are 150Mbps & 300Mbps. In my case, its 802.11g as speed is 54Mbps.

In your AP, WMM is required to be on for any Wi-Fi Alliance Certified N product. By default WMM is already on but many users disable it which may prevent N rates or lower throughput.

Useful links:

From< http://superuser.com/questions/381963/how-to-tell-if-my-wi-fi-is-connecting-using-802-11n>

From< http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless-N_Configuration>

From< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009>

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfwinrt-surfnetwork/wifi-issues/c593dff8-61b3-496c-b8f2-f9deb3e4b35e

Tips to free space in your Surface RT

2012-12-29T10:12:00.000-05:00

I found this forum thread with a lot a useful tips to help Surface Owners to free some Space in their devices hard drive.

The author is promising to publish a tip to move installed programs or it's resources (music, images, Tec) to the microsd card. Something really useful if you are installing large games.

My Windows Phone saved me money

2012-12-24T09:46:00.002-05:00

It's not a new feature but it's something that I used yesterday for the first time. A week ago I came home to find that my Multimedia PC was dead, apparently the surge protector where I had it connected was not good enough or the power supply just stop working. The repair cost was high enough to convince me to buy a Backup Battery. I did a little research online and found in Office Depot what I was looking for so I headed to my local store to buy it. Unfortunately, they did not have in stock the one I wanted and the next in line had a price tag of $47. Like 10 dollars more than the one I wanted. Then it came to my mind to do a search for a better deal scanning the barcode with my Nokia 810 with Windows Phone 8. I open an Apps called Scan, pointed the 810 to the barcode and few seconds later I had a list of three local stores selling the same Battery, one of them for just $40. The rest was just negotiation. I asked the cashier if they match the price of other local stores and when she said yes I showed to her my search results. I had to scan the barcode on front of her again to convince her that I was not lying and that did the trick.

So my Nokia 810 saved me $7.

The other trick I used this Christmas was to ask my Nokia for the Closest stores and then drive there using Nokia Maps. Both, the search and the navigation worked like a charm. And the Amolet display performed a lot better outdoor than my old Nexus One Display.

That simple

2012-12-22T19:06:00.000-05:00

My friends at www.wintablet.info have pointed me to a video that is so beautifully done that I have to share here.

Surface RT is a hit in BestBuy

2012-12-20T17:21:00.000-05:00

Microsoft is selling the Surface RT in BestBuy and is getting from users a very high satisfaction rate of 4.7 out of 5 possible points.

Here are some of the reviews posted there:

For all those looking at surface RT as ipad replacement. I say buy it. I have been using my ipad 3 since release and love it but needed something with keyboard and trackpad. this is perfect. I can watch live stream of cnn and do other things at the same time. Its a perfect laptop replacement for those who don't need lot of processing power. Don't wait for the surface pro. the battery life is all day. I am writing this review on my surface. I was waiting for surface pro but this has everything I need plus the extra battery life and cheaper. I would suggest to buy type cover, its worth it. also there is a way to enable flash videos on all websites. google it. Also there are not lots of apps but you don't need it. you have internet explorer to do everything.

Another user expressed:

I like this way more than I thought I would. So much that I gave away my android tablet after using this for a while. The keyboard and touchpad are unobtrusive but there when you need them and the keyboard has cursor keys!. The gui is actually very well thought out for a touchpad once you get used to it. performance is just fine and battery life is about a day of use. When you need it, it has desktop mode, which is Windows. Full usb is great. I've got a 64G sd card in and almost as much storage as my desktop. Not so good: The email app is primitive. Full-screen IE is usable but needs history view. Could use voice-to-text in most places like on phone. Wish it had full-size hdmi port. Wish I could run full-screen apps in background when they're hidden.

Audible - Audiobooks and more

2012-12-19T19:54:00.000-05:00

Audible, one of the most popular and literally eBook readers has been released in Windows RT Store.