I created the app in English, Spanish, German and Dutch. It’s a free app. Income has to come from the advertisements.

More information about this app : BMI Fast Calc

Immediately download the app via iTunes Store : BMI Fast Calc download

Lot’s of fun with it!

What immediately draws the attention is the new Metro UI. A Windows Phone alike structure. Easy for touchscreens and other future features. A lot of expectations of this. I found it a bit strange to use but I think it has indeed a lot of potential.

In Windows 8 they integrated also XBOX Live. Games of XBOX Live can be played from your Windows 8.

I also noticed little changes regarding file management. Copying from multiple destinations is better organised. You have better control over all the processes. Very well done, handy.

I also noticed that Windows 8 was very responsive. Starting my old notebook was really quick. A nice surprise. They gained a lot of speed from the Plug and Play section. Smart done.

Nice feature was that I was installing a program and it notified me automatically it was dependant of .NET 3.5.1. and was trying to install it from Windows Update. This wasn’t working on my version. I think maybe because I was in a domain with WSUS. Downloading and starting manually Windows Update didn’t work either. Maybe this is not available yet. The principle of this is well done. I like it.

I installed Windows 8 on VMWare Workstation 8 because the previous VMWare didn’t support installation of Windows 8. The system requirements of Windows 8 are the same as Windows 7.

Here is a video of my installation of  Windows 8 Developer Edition on VMWare workstation 8 :

I walked from 6 july 2011 till 31 july 2011 the “Camino de Santiago” (Way of St. James). A journey of approx. 784 km from Saint Jean Pied de Port (France) to Santiago de Compostela (Spain).

Website :

Ramond’s Camino de Santiago (Dutch)
Ramond’s Camino de Santiago (English)

The modelnumber HP assigned the device is XB830PA. You can read here the information on the HP site. That the product is almost final is because I also found the accessoiries page which is : https://h10057.www1.hp.com/ecomcat/hpcatalog/specs/provisioner/05/XB830PA_link.htm

It won’t take a long time before everything comes official. We need to have a little bit patience….

The first technical preview and beta had already stole my heart. How fast Office 2010 was working. Still I wanted to inform you briefly about some problems I experienced, which all early adopters have.

You can install fffice 2010 as 64-bit version. Nice idea, I thought. Works really fast. It didn’t take long for me to discover that a lot of applications weren’t working with the 64-bit version of Office 2010 because… they still are 32 bit. It should be supported via WOW64 but it sometimes doesn’t work at all. Microsoft also states this when you are installing the 64-bit version, you can also read this in 32 or 64 bits version office 2010 .

Windows Mobile Device Center for example, the new version of ActiveSync, is behaving strange. Several people already reported that their Windows Mobile phone lost all their contacts while syncing with Office 2010 64 bit. Microsoft Phone is the utility to have for having a backup. Always nice… to have a backup nearby.

I installed the 32 bit version when I read also the Sharepoint lists are not available in 64 bit.

The final conclusion is that 2010 is a really good version. Like I started, the betas impressed me, they work really good.

Right after the publication I started to doubt. 10 hours battery is amazing. I have to admit I didn’t believe the marketing video Gizmodo. The difference would be too big in relation of the iPad. I was realizing the fact that the iPad was available on the market on the Courier not ‘yet’. Also I didn’t wanted to wait for eternity. It was a  good decision I didn’t wait. When the iPad arrived I received the message that the HP Slate but also the Microsoft Courier are cancelled and not would come on the market like they published.

People who know me well know I don’t judge on brands and flavours. I’m not a Linux hater or Windows lover. Systems and brands can be a better solution than others. I’m happy the market has this differance. Like also Apple. Nice marketing and slick design. Some tasks really well make, some other tasks I would prefer Windows or Linux solutions over Apple.

What caused that I eventually bought an Apple product? I read on an American blogsite that synchronizing with Microsoft Exchange was possible from the box. On that moment I thought that Apple for this first time also marketed on business users. I went to read more reviews to see the possibillities. I wanted to have a solution for my manuals, instructions and lesson material which I have in PDF and ePub format. I saw on YouTube.com a review of iBooks with the possibility of making bookmarks. For me, this feature alone, it was the reason to buy the iPad. You also have to imagine what it costs when you every time have to print a 500 page counting eBook, often I need to do this in color. After the printing I mark the special paragraphs and pages. A task which cost a lot of time and money for the material. Then I experienced for the first time Apple’s AppStore. Now I get what they mean about it. It’s really good. I found iAnnotate PDF. This programm, or shall I say App, does exactly what I wanted. It has even more features than iBook. You can read PDFs but you can also mark words, sentences like you do with a marker.You can bookmark and add texts and drawings. Exactly what I was looking for. And for US$ 9.95… that’s what I call a bargain!

Let’s do some complaining… I have the first iPad model which came out, the 16GB WiFi. 16 GB is not really available for the user. It’s 14.02 GB… I expected this but I wanted to mention it anyways. Then the label Apple uses a lot… HD. Nothing on the iPad is HD. The resolution is 1024×768 while specifications of the HD format states that widescreen has a resolution of 1280×720. The screen is beautiful, no doubt about this, but technical it’s not HD.

Back to the features.

Because the iPad is not yet available in The Netherlands I experienced some little issues when registering my iPad. When I entered my information the websites responded the iPad was not for sale in my region. Funny thing was that I was registering with my iPad. I found a link on google which explains how to solve this. The next issue came. My credit card was not an American which it didn’t accept, also here is google your friend. People in the Netherlands who will buy the iPad in July (hehehe) will not have this problem. But to be honest this all didn’t stall me more than 5 minutes. After that I could look around in the AppStore.

I want to come back to the standard apps.

Like mentioned before your data can be easily synchronised with an Exchange server. In my case it’s a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. It works well, all my calendar, e-mail and contacts are nicely synced.

Calendar:

The colors you can assign to your appointments can not be syncronised, all items have the blue color. The overview looks great.

Contacts:

If you have photos with your contacts in Outlook will be synchronised. Also notes which you have entered under your contacts in outlook are synchronised.

I will not discuss the other standard programs because other sites done that already lots of time.

Look here my Top 10 iPad apps.

LogMeIn Ignition:

Some people do know LogMeIn for the PC. You can remote control your PC. Provide help or assistance via internet. With LogMeIn Ignition for the iPad you can controle all your LogMeIn computers. Really handy and the app cost US$ 29.95.

The music part is well organised. I used my Bose InEar headphone and the sound was good.

I’m happy with the features of the iPad. Apple has done a good job. The AppStore did even more than I expected. Really good implemented. These little software developers listen really well to their customers.

UPDATE…

I experienced some problems when synchronising via iTunes. A PC in a Windows 2008 domain is not really iTunes friend.

I found that the roving profiles, different folder permissions, SMB2 and several other little things I had to fine tune some settings before it worked stable. Now it’s fine… EQ32NM5KA4YB

Since a while I use a Sony Ericsson X1 Xperia smartphone. This mobile runs Windows Mobile. There are custommade ROMs available and one of the best, made by a Dutchman, is the Christian Rom.

What can you do with a phone with this ROM? I want to summarize what I use, it’s a long list but not everything what is possible.

Above you see the list of programs. From left to right:

• Adobe Reader LE - Windows Mobile version to be able to view PDF
• Afbeeldingen en video’s – dutch for Pictures and videos
• Audio-booster – this program will give a deeper sound if a headphone is connected
• FBTV – I don’t use it, it’s a TV guide
• Midomi – a program you can sing a song which the program tries to recognize and if so it will give you the name of the song and singer/group (internet necessary)
• NOS Mobiel – mobile app for dutch NOS (internet necessary)
• Nos Teletekst – mobile app so you can see the dutch teletext services of NOS (internet necessary)
• SPB Screenshot – can be used to make screenshots, I made all these you see with this program
• Streaming Media -for Windows Media streaming
• Uitzending gemist – mobile app to see missed programs from public broadcasting (internet necessary)
• Windows Media - mediaplayer ofMicrosoft
• Youtube – nice Youtube application
• You see the folders Internet, Multimedia, Office Mobile 2010, spelletjes, tools en utilities which contain a lot of programs and some games
• ActiveSync is used for synchronize your data with an Exchange server or computer
• Alarmen is Dutch for Alarms
• Bing makes it possible you can search via the Bing searchengine
• Comm manager you can enable or disable connections
• Contacten, dutch for Contacts
• E-mail
• Extern bureaublad is the Remote Desktop client for Windows Mobile, dutch version
• Facebook is, you’ll never guess it, to see and change facebook activities (extra installed)
• Google maps, now included Street view!

• Hyves, Dutch social network (extra installed)

• Internet explorer
• Marathon (extra installed)
• Marketplace
• Messenger
• Microsoft MyPhone – synchronize all your data with je gegevens with Microsoft server, very usefull when upgrading a lot

• Microsoft Tag reader
• MSN geldzaken, dutch for MSN Money
• MSN Weer, MSN Weather in Dutch
• MusicID, like Midomi but you can’t sing yourself, detection of songs works really good (from radio, TV, etc…)

• Opera Mobile 10 – nice browser for Windows Mobile
• Panels - Xperia panels, I don’t use it
• PockeTwit – Twitter client for Windows Mobile. Really good Twitter application

• PockeTwit QuickPost – You can post quickly a tweet on Twitter
• QuickGPS, data download for calibratie GPS
• Rekenmachine, calc in Dutch
• Skype
• SMS bericht, Text messagging
• SPB Home, shell I often use, extra installed the newest version

• SPB TV, program which you can use for looking TV streams(internet necessary)
• SPB Weather, weather program, extra installed

• Telefoon, Dutch for phone
• Total Commander
• Verkenner, Dutch for Explorer
• Vodafone
• Windows Live

And last but not least : TomTom Navigator with Complete Western European Map

You can find Christian’s ROM here : http://www.christian-web.nl/index.php

(UPDATE: I see now a version is availabe : 5.120)

The most important advantage of 64 bit versus 32 bit is that you can use more than 3.5 GB in your system. If your computer at the moment is equipped with 4 GB you can only use 3.5 GB for your system and applications. With 64 bit versions either Vista or Windows 7 you can use above 4GB.

Your processor has to have 64-bit capabilities.

I have tested several versions especially with the focus on speed. Windows Vista and Windows 7 were tested in 32 and 64 bit on an AMD Turion64 X2.

My focus was looking for difference between the feeling of speed and working speed.

Editting a Full HD 1080p recording with adding 3 effect in Adobe Premire Elements 7 (32 bit version).

I did a surprising conclusion.

I had expected that Vista 64 would give a power boost, but this wasn’t true. I had Windows 7 32bit installed. The editting went without delays. The system was able to monitor the recording without sound stuttering.

Weird was this problem is known due to slow harddrives. The harddrive cannot cope with the stream. On the desktop computer I don’t have this problem due to faster harddrives, on the notebook I have. The weird part is that I was able to edit easier and faster on Windows 7 32bit than on the fast desktop pc.

I would have expected Vista 64 should perform the same or better than Windows 7 in 32bit… End conclusion is that Windows 7 is really faster with the same hardware even on 32 and 64 bit… On this ‘old’ notebook I have a preference for the 32 bit version because I can’t upgrade to more than 4GB. Also some drivers and programs cannot deal well with 64 bit yet. But it is really well compared to Vista 64.

I’m sure the next computer will be 100% certainly Windows 7, 64 bit edition…

Imagine you have to do research on an specific subject. To collect the information and have this well organised is a big challenge.

Quotepad solves this problem easy and effective.

You copy all information by using a shortcut key (default CTRL-SHIFT-Q, you can change this) and Quotepad will keep track of when and from which URL you have copied the content. Very handy.

It’s is freeware. You can download it from their own site : Quotepad.

I tested it on Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 32-bit.

The honor to be the first tip is an easy and simple program what exactly does what it promises. Most of the time these are the most fun tools.

The program is called ‘Timed Shutdown’. I was searching for a programma which could shutdown my PC at a certain moment.

Timed Shutdown gives you 4 options in the way you want to shutdown your PC :

1. Countdown (For e.g., 15 seconds, 10 minutes, 2 hours or a specific time)
2. Time
3. CPU usage for a certain time
4. If you are disconnected from internet during a specified time

I only use option 1 and 2. If you set the program your PC has to shutdown in 10 minutes, the program wilt countdown from 10 minutes till 0 and will shutdown your PC. I use this program on Windows Vista Ultimate (32bit). You can also use this program in batchfile as it supports command-line options.

You can download Timed Shutdown by clicking on the link.