Presentations: Diane George showed off her new mobile scanner, the Flip-Pal 100C. It is battery powered (3 AA's) and does not need a computer to operate. The scanning surface is about 4" x 6"; it can be moved around a large picture—including a framed picture—and will stitch the image together. It can upload wirelessly to a computer. It's a hot item for genealogy buffs because of its portability. The light weight and ease of scanning without a computer make it easy to use in a variety of settings. The list price is $149.95.
Chuck showed/played a Jawbone Jambox from AT&T, a little black box that amplifies sound from a mobile phone. He really likes the retractable cord on the Music Bullet sound amplifier for his phone.
Chuck's new terabyte HP laptop has Windows 7, causing many adventures in re-learning. Notepad, under Accessories, strips all codes and formatting out of a document. Right clicking or Shift+Click will open additional Notepad windows. Diane mentioned a program called Notepad ++ that has tabbed windows. Chuck demonstrated several features in WordPerfect, especially Reveal Codes.
David Graham got an Ice Cream Sandwich (operating system) phone. That's Android operating system a version up from Honeycomb. Ice Cream Sandwich multitasks and allows closure of selected applications. It was designed to be the interface for unified communications.
After the Break: Chuck used a document camera to show some of the things he's been doing with his Android smartphone, which holds a lot more data than his old Palm device. It offers multiple desktops. Menu choices are all available at the top, no diving through menus.
Chuck showed GoRequest, a feature of the AccessHayward community issue reporting application. He showed the quality of the video and several free apps. He likes ColorNote for making lists. He wonders if the GPS function will put Thomas Brothers out of business. The QuickOffice suite wasn't free but it was worth his $39 for the functionality. Tom Smith asked about the using the keyboard if you have large fingers. That led to the discussion of the many Android keyboard apps. Chuck, who also has large fingers, has no problem with the keyboard on his phone, especially in landscape mode.
Chuck also showed off a 511 Flashlight that operates via capacitors, not batteries. It recharges in 90 seconds. While it costs $129, there are no more battery costs and it is very bright.
Jan Fagerholm showed off the new HDMI to VGA converter. The document camera and the tablet need to be detected by the projector as it starts up. He demonstrated an Android tablet and then a multi-touch Windows tablet. The Atom processor barely supports Windows, hence the development of ultrabooks. The EasyBits graphical interface is more compatible with the tablet environment than a written list is. The menu-based Windows system works better with the addition of a bluetooth keyboard.
