When I bought my Samsung tablet, the runner up was the Asus Transformer. That tablet’s main appeal was that, at the same price point, came with a cleverly designed keyboard. I convinced myself that I’d still fire up my laptop if I needed to answer a lot of emails, and got the lighter, thinner Galaxy Tab. But now, a couple of months later, I think a tablet keyboard can be a really good idea. I find myself using my tablet for a lot of things that involve text entry, ranging from note-keeping to server administration using SSH.

This is why I jumped at the opportunity when GearZap offered to send me their “Metal Keyboard for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1″. On paper, it looked like the perfect companion for my Samsung, and it’s a lot cheaper than the Transformer’s keyboard.

Docking and connecting

In essence, this is a simple bluetooth keyboard, with a ridge that’s designed to hold the tablet at the perfect angle for typing. There’s no connector inside that ridge, the connection between the two devices relies on bluetooth alone. Mechanically, this solution installs little confidence. It doesn’t really feel like you’re docking the tablet, the ridge just sort-of keeps it from toppling over.

The keyboard is also designed to clip onto your tablet as a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 case. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work reliably either. I was able to get all four corners to clip around the tablet, but found that they pop back off way to easily. If this would happen while the combination is inside your bag, the sharp plastic corners of the keyboard could end up damaging your tablet’s screen. Perhaps a strap or rubber band could fix this, but I’d be really careful.

Tactile feedback

The main reason to get a keyboard like this is the poor feel of on-screen keyboards. If you’re doing a lot of text entry, you need tactile feedback. This keyboard however manages to feel even worse than its on-screen counterpart. When you press a key, you can see all the surrounding ones sink as well. There’s so much flex that you can press keys all the way through the metal sheet that surrounds them. There’s also barely any “click” and I found that the space bar only worked half the times I pressed it. I needed to really pay attention to press it all the way to the bottom. It’s like typing in mud.

Using the keyboard

The keyboard has a built-in battery, but unlike with the Transformer, it just powers itself. There’s also no trackpad, which would have been a welcome addition. The top row has Android-specific and multimedia keys, which are convenient. But the “feature” that ruins the whole experience is the overly aggressive, non-disableable, power saving mode. It kicks in after only fifteen seconds of inactivity, and each time it does, the keyboard needs three seconds or so to reconnect to the tablet. I found that this happens very often, and it’s annoying as hell.

Conclusion

This is a product that looks nice on paper, but has so many serious design flaws that it completely fails in practice. It doesn’t connect well, type well, dock well or protect well. If you’re looking for a Galaxy Tab keyboard, I’d suggest getting a better quality product like Samsung’s own solution, or perhaps a good generic bluetooth keyboard and a stand.

Most of the current generation of computer nerds started out writing small programs in languages like BASIC. If you’re in your 30′s, chances are you started out on a Commodore C64, or one of its competitors, and fiddled around with writing small programs. Since then, computing has changed dramatically. Knowing your way around Microsoft Word makes you a “whiz kid” nowadays, and knowing how to install Windows can get you a job.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is developing a small, inexpensive computer aimed at bringing back the “hacker spirit” from the old days. Starting at a mere $25, the “Raspberry Pi” is a credit card-sized circuit board with an ARM-based SoC (system on a chip), 128 MB of RAM memory and connectors for a display, keyboard and mouse (USB). It uses an SD card as storage, and can be used with a DVI-capable monitor or a TV (composite video). The $35 “Model B” has double the RAM and a wired network port.

Don’t let the low purchase price fool you though. The video above shows an early prototype running Quake III at Full-DH resolution, and while that is not its intended use, it shows that the hardware is quite capable. The CPU is a single core one, running at a mere 700 MHz, but the graphics unit is quite potent, and with some cleverly chosen (written?) software, it should be usable as a general purpose PC.

(image shows a prototype board)

The Foundation is probably right to expect mostly selling the first 10,000 boards to developers and enthusiasts. Like many (current) geeks. I can see tons of applications for this little board. It uses only around 1 watt of power, so it’s perfect for “always-on” type applications like small (NAS?) servers. Plus it plays video really well, so it could also be used to create a Linux-based media player. The sky is the limit . Or rather, 10,000 is the limit. This thing has “EPIC WANT” written all over it, so I’d be surprised if that first batch isn’t sold out in the blink of an eye.

Last week, I came across the video below, and it made me wonder how this smartphone holder worked. The stop-motion animation shows both metal and plastic objects clinging to the holder’s surface, so magnetism was out. I tweeted about it, Ideasbynet offered to send me a sample. It arrived today, and I think I have it figured out now.

The holder itself is made out of plastic, but the dark rectangle on the front is silicone. That patch of silicone isn’t sticky (no glue), but it offers extreme friction. And because it’s at an angle, gravity pushes your device onto it. The result is that the phone doesn’t slide off, but seems to levitate. Nifty.

My HTC Desire has a camera that extrudes slightly, so the back of the phone is not entirely flat. Because of this, the total contact area between phone and holder is smaller, but it still sticks perfectly. I can’t turn the holder upside-down, like with the iPhone 4 in the video, but I wasn’t planning to anyway.

Unfortunately, ideasbynet only sells these in quantities of 100 or more. So you’ll have to talk your boss into giving them out as promotional gifts, or at Christmas or something. Shouldn’t be too hard, given the holder’s geeky appeal, or should I say “gravitational pull”?

When I got my Galaxy Tab tablet, I thought I would mostly be using it at home. As it turns out, it’s also an ideal device to take with you. I’ve spent hours playing Wordfeud on long distance train rides, and well… everywhere else too. Like any tablet, the Samsung is basically a large piece of glass with some electronics glued to the back. Without a good cover, chances are you’ll eventually scratch the screen, and a drop from even one meter could be fatal.

But one of the downsides of not going with the absolute market leader, the iPad, is that there isn’t an abundance of protective cases available. My friends over at Mobilefun offer quite a few Galaxy Tab 10.1 accessories, including Samsung’s own Book Cover Case. They were nice enough to send me one of those to take a look at, and I’m happy to report that it’s pretty nice.

The case uses four plastic corners to snap onto the back of the tablet, and wraps around the front so the whole thing is protected. It can also be folded into a stand for watching video, or as pictured above to accommodate typing. Not quite as smart as Apple’s Smart Cover, but it does also protect the device’s back. What I like most however is the excellent material, and the remarkable build quality.

I’m glad I have a decent DSLR camera now, because otherwise it would have been impossible to show the nice, textured surface. It’s almost completely fingerprint-resistant, and it looks silky smooth. At the same time, the front and back panes are very rigid, so they probably offer excellent protection. All connectors are accessible, and it also doesn’t block the camera.

Another plus is that the case is lightweight. I estimate that with the cover on, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 weighs as much as an Asus Transformer or a Xoom without one. But because the case makes the tablet less slippery, it’s actually easier to hold. I like that it’s easy to remove the cover when you get home, but I think I’ll just leave it on. Recommended.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my first experiences with the Galaxy Tab 10.1. I noted that while its hardware is excellent, there’s a distinct shortage of tablet apps for Android. Most apps will work just fine, but they’ll make poor use of a tablet’s screen real estate.

But things are definitely improving. New apps are coming out daily. I’ve tried quite a few of them, and I thought I’d do a quick rundown of the apps I’m actually using on a daily basis.

1. Feedly

Feedly turns RSS feeds into a stunning digital magazine. You can use your own feeds (through Google Reader), or use the excellent default selection. It also interfaces with Read It Later and Bit.ly. I love the clean layout, and greatly prefer it over the Samsung-supplied Pulse reader. Highly recommended for keeping up to date with the news.

2. The Honeycomb browser

One thing I noticed while using my tablet is that there’s actually less need for apps. Many apps simply present website information in a more convenient small-screen format. With a large screen and Honeycomb’s excellent browser, there’s less of a need to do that. I’m a big fan of Wapedia on my phone, but I prefer to use the Wikipedia website on my tablet. I have a long list of bookmarks set up, and us the browser far more than on my handset.

3. Wordfeud

It may not look quite as slick as some of the competing online multiplayer Scrabble apps, but Wordfeud is an excellent, lightweight word game. The bigger screen eliminates the need to zoom in, and makes playing even more fun on tablets. Highly recommended if you have too much free time. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

(The app is portrait-only, making it hard to post a screenshot here due to layout constrictions)

4. IMDB

If you’re a movie fan like me, IMDB is an essential resource. An fortunately, their tablet app is great too. I’ll admit that I like earlier versions better than the current one, but it’s still by far the best movie info app. It offers access to numerous movie trailers, image galleries and pretty much the entire IMDB database. I would love to see forum access in future versions, but for now there’s a “view on IMDB” button that allows you to get there quickly.

5. VPlayer

Of all the video players I’ve tried, VPlayer has the best use interface. It has had no problems displaying any of the files I’ve thrown at it, and it ties in with tools like UPnPlay to play files for network sources.

Runner up: BSPlayer (which doesn’t quite look as good, but has a nifty LAN mode for connecting to Windows shares)

6. Apparatus

I’m not much of a gamer, but this clever puzzle game blew my mind. The goal is to use things like wooden sticks and rope to get a little ball from A to B. You get to build complex contraptions, and when you press “play”, the whole thing falls apart very realistically. I’ve rarely seen such realistic physics in any game, and like with Wordfeud, the larger screen makes playing much more fun.

7. TweetComb

To my knowledge, there are only two Twitter clients out there that were designed from the ground up to be used on tablets. Of those two, TweetComb sports best user interface. It’s not the best Twitter client I’ve ever used, but it gets the job done. Until TweetDeck, Seesmic or some othe major player comes out with a Honeycomb app, TweetComb is king of the (relatively small) hill.

Runner up: Friend Me (if Facebook is your thing)

8. UStream

I haven’t tried the publishing end of UStream’s app, but it’s excellent for browsing other people’s streams. There’s something magical about watching a live feed from the Space Shuttle on your tablet, and that experience alone warrants a place on this list.

9. Buienradar HD

Despite being of little use to non-Dutch users, I wanted to mention the new Buienradar (“rain radar”) app. Its user interface design is all over the place, but despite the near-psychedelic colors, it does offer all the weather/rain info you need.

10. Dropbox

There’s no specific tablet version of Dropbox’s Android app, but it scales really well. But more importantly, it offers a quick and easy way to get files from and to my USB-less tablet. All the screenshots in this post were transferred from my tablet to my PC using Dropbox. I didn’t include a screenshot because the user interface is basically a file browser, but it works very well. Recommended.

For as long as I’ve been using PCs, I’ve loved Asus products. My very first motherboard was the now-famousAsus P55T2P4, I’ve got two Eee-PCs, and my laptop is also from the mythical flying horse brand. But recently, I’ve come across an issue with said laptop that’s making me question Asus’s sanity. Turns out that the webcam in my UL30A is mounted upside down.

When Google launched their new “Plus” social network, one of the most exciting new features was the group video chat function, called Hangout. I tried it with some friends, and found that I was indeed “hanging”. My webcam’s image was upside down, so I appeared to be suspended from the ceiling. I did some digging, and found that this is a common problem with Asus notebooks under Linux.

From what I gather, the issue is not that the Linux drivers for these webcams accidentally flip the image, it’s that they don’t. Apparently, their Windows counterparts rotate the image to make up for Asus’s poor design choice. Under Linux however, that fix isn’t always applied.

You might argue that the Linux drivers are at fault. But while they could be used to remedy the situation, I don’t think they should have to. In my opinion, designing a laptop so that the webcam isn’t oriented as intended by the module’s manufacturer is simply poor design. You’re creating a situation that needs fixing.

The UL30A came in a box that said “Smart laptop, smart you”. I’m starting to question the first part of that sentence. Looks like at least some of Asus’s design choices are as bad as their slogans.

A long time ago, long before wifi was invented and the World Wide Web was still merely an idea in someone’s head, a contractor built my house. Not knowing this would hinder wireless LAN reception, they used reinforced concrete, and put the cable and telephone connectors in a far corner of the structure. As a result, I now have an upstairs study that’s almost impossible to get to with wires, and where only the best wireless adapters get a decent signal.

To deal with this, I’ve been using an wireless bridge. Strategically placed for best reception, it connects to my wifi, and allows (wired) devices in my office to connect through it. This setup works pretty well, except that the first, rather low-end adapter I got turned out to have some pesky issues. The most irritating being that it lost the wifi password every time the power was disconnected, and had to subsequently be reconfigured. So when DrayTek offered to send me one of their offerings to check out, I jumped at the opportunity.

Functionality

The DrayTek VigorAP 800, like my previous Conceptronic, is an “Access Point”. This means it’s primarily meant to be connected to a wired router and set up a wifi network. But most of these Access Points can do a lot more than that. The Draytek can also be used as a “wireless bridge”, a repeater, and can even connect to several other VigorAP 800s to distribute wifi over a large area.

For me, the VigorAP 800′s best feature is that it has a built-in 4-port ethernet switch. This means I can connect my laptop, printer and two more devices, without having to add a separate switch. It supports wireless-n, has a RADIUS server, a print server, supports two separate LANs and can broadcast up to four SSIDs (VLAN). Plus, if you have a “Power over Ethernet” (PoE) setup, you can leave the power cord in the box.

Installation

The biggest problem with setting up devices like these is that you need to connect them directly to your PC, and set up a temporary LAN between the two. Fortunately, DrayTek’s user manual explains this procedure in great detail. Unlike my previous Access Point, the VigorAP can be assigned an IP address in your LAN’s range, so that once set up, you can tweak its settings from any PC without having to connect directly to it. If you like, the initial setup can even be done over wifi.

From there on in, I found the VigorAP easy to set up using the “wizard” mode. Because this is a device that can do so many things, and has tons of features, the rest of the web interface could be a little intimidating for novice users. Enthusiasts however will find everything they need, exactly where they expect it.

performance

To get an idea of the VigorAP’s performance, I used my ISP’s online speed test to measure “real world” internet speeds. I know this is by no means a scientific test, but then again this is a real home, not a laboratory. The DrayTek’s web interface would show link speeds of between 11 and 48 mbps. My network is 54 mbps, so considering the room’s “blind spot” location in the house this seemed pretty good.

Despite the fluctuations in link speed reported by the device, I found that actual internet speeds were very consistent. After moving the device around a bit I managed to get a steady 22 mbps, which is plenty for my needs. As with every DrayTek product I’ve ever used, the device did not get hot, and was completely stable throughout testing.

Conclusion

This great looking little box is a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to setting up, extending or bridging wireless connections. It’s a little more expensive than the cheapest Access Points on the market, but in return you do get an integrated 4-port switch, an excellent user interface, and lots of professional features. Recommended.

Four years ago, I wrote a short blog post about the Nokia N800 “Internet Tablet”. Like its 2005 predecessor, the N770, it was a small, expensive device that let you use the internet everywhere you went. I probably would have gotten one if the whole netbook hype hadn’t happened. But as cool as netbooks were (and sometimes still are), they’re still “small laptops”. And while I was playing with Eee-PCs, tablets were getting increasingly alluring.

There are many devices that paved the way for the ultra-slick devices that tablets are nowaday. They all contributed ideas like using a mobile OS (The N770 ran Maemo), going with a bigger screen (CrunchPad, MS TabletPC) and using touch input (iPod Touch?). The result is that tablets are starting to become more uniform products. Pretty much all the devices released in the last year have screens ranging from 7″ to 10″, are light and thin, run a “phone OS” and have a camera on both their front and back.

The first device to really tie all of these “optimum specs” together was Apple’s iPad. They’ve pretty much created and subsequently dominated the tablet market, but viable alternatives are starting to emerge. Like the Asus Transformer and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. I’ve been using the latter for little over a week now, and I love it.

Hardware

There are two versions of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. There’s an older, thicker model that you can with a Vodafone plan (10.1v), and there’s the newer, thinner 10.1. Mine is the 8.6mm “non-v”, and in terms of hardware, it’s excellent. It has the same Tegra2 CPU that all the other Android tablets have, and its screen is wonderful. Excellent image quality and snappy touch response.

The Tab doesn’t have a USB port or and SD card slot. There’s an Apple-style all-in-one connector on the bottom. You can get an adapter from Samsung that plugs in there if you really need to plug in your USB stick. Instead, I use an app called “AndSMB” to simply copy files onto the tablet from Samba shares. Besides, “uPnPlay” lets me watch movies without copying them at all. Right from my server.

Weight is an important factor in how you use your tablet. You can hold the Samsung with one hand. You wouldn’t want to watch an entire movie like that, but it works for things like text input. The back is glossy plastic, and it does get a little slippery sometimes. The plastic back allows the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to be one of the lightest tablets out there, notably lighter and thinner than the Acer Iconia for instance.

Honeycomb

But no matter how small, light and sexy a device is, it’s useless without good software. And after playing with my Tab for a week it’s very clear that Honeycomb (Android 3.x) is still in its infancy. It works, but it doesn’t always make good use of the large screen. The browser crashed on me a couple of times, but admittedly with very complex websites.

The real downside to getting an Android tablet right now is that there aren’t many true “tablet apps”. Besides the excellent Gmail app that comes with Android, I found a good Twitter client (TweetComb), a nifty Facebook app (Friend Me), a remarkable feed reader (Feedly) and a couple of games. Most other apps run fine, but they simply stretch to fit the screen, resulting in unnaturally long lines of text and other awkward usability issues.

This situation is almost certain to resolve itself over the coming months. Given Android’s quick rise to dominance in the mobile OS market, developers are very likely to get on board. Existing apps will be updated, or get special “HD” versions, and new developers will try to get part of the Honeycomb app market. And meanwhile, I’m pretty sure Google’s hard at work on the next version of Android too.

Conclusion

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 (non-v) is the current champion of Android tablets. It’s thinner and lighter than the iPad 2 and its screen is excellent. For the moment, it’s held back by its software platform. But that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad device. If you’re into Android, I’d recommend the Samsung over the iPad. If you’re not, I’d encourage you to tryi both before making up your mind.

When the first wave of netbook computers appeared, I got myself an Asus Eee-PC 901. I loved it, and used it to play around with various flavors of Linux, even Chrome OS. But since then, I’ve been forced to buy a full-size laptop computer, and I handed the 901 down to my daughter. At first I installed Ubuntu, but the 4 GB SSD in the Asus turned out to be too small for that to really work out. So I decided to try Joli OS instead. And I think it’s great. Especially for kids.

Joli OS is an operating system developed by French company Jolicloud. I think it’s based on Ubuntu, but it greatly simplifies the user interface. The Desktop looks very much that on an iPad, with big app icons, and very little else. The apps are mostly cloud services, which open in a Chrome browser. Joli OS comes with an “app store” of sorts to add more apps, and syncs your sessions with the could, so you can use it seamlessly on several devices.

My daughter turned eight this month, and she’s been using her netbook al lot more since I installed Joli OS. She has her own Gmail address and a Twitter account, and she loves watching music videos on YouTube. All of these services come standard with a Joli install. They’re available as big, recognizable icons on the home screen, and since all windows open in “maximized” mode, there’s no confusion about which window is active. It’s all just really, really easy. Ruby doesn’t really seem to mind that there’s no Tux Paint.

If you have young children, and you’ve also got an older laptop or netbook lying around somewhere, give Joli a try. It’s helping my kids become more web-savvy, which I think is a good thing.

The latest version of Ubuntu, released two months ago, replaced the Gnome desktop interface for a new one called Unity. In terms of simplicity and speed, I quite like Unity, but I found that operating it through VNC was horribly slow. Often, I’d be unsure whether VNC was still connected. Screen updates would sometimes take minutes. Today, I found a workaround that makes VNC usable again for me.

I use the UltraVNC client on Windows to connect to my Ubuntu server. Like many other clients, it offers extensive control over the connection. I found that changing the the “format and encoding” setting from “auto” to something else greatly improved the update speed. “Tight” seems to work especially well”, but “ultra” is quite workable too. It’s probably worth experimenting with to see what gets you the best results.

This is how the connection settings screen looks in UltraVNC. Chances are your VNC client has something to this effect. If it does, and VNC connections to Unity are unbearably slow for you, try changing the encoding setting. It made VNC usable for me again.