Finally, Microsoft announces their "official" tablet... took long enough!

How about this! If you look at my last post on this blog before this one, you will see that it was about the rumors of the possible Microsoft "Courier" tablet. It's been what seems like forever (and in the electronics industry it pretty much is), but Microsoft finally came up with their own tablet!

Since I really no longer use this blog for posting, you can check out my personal opinion at my new blog VirtuallyGeeky.com

Microsoft Courier Tablet Device

Unfortunately, as of right now, this device could still be a myth, but there are some references that say Microsoft admitted to this device and in fact it will be out later in 2010.  I’m not going to hold my breath, only because the device seems too good to be true.  If you haven’t seen the articles that describe this device in some detail, even with videos, then I recommend you take a look!!  It seems to be the only device so far that would be able to truly give Apple’s iPad a run for it’s money.

Engadget ran a recent article on March 5th, 2010, that shows two videos of this device.  It also shows

While the iPad seems great…

If you watch the videos and see the Apple hype on the iPad, it looks like a pretty incredible device.  Couple that with inexpensive wireless internet that is NOT locked into a contract, and it seems like it is the perfect device to compete with a Netbook… but it’s not (in my opinion).

Here’s Why:

Um, no Flash support – Are you KIDDING ME??  Steve Jobs touts the iPad as having “a better web experience than your laptop”… and yet, there is no flash support (as seen in his live keynote when he opens “The Wall Street Journal’s” web site and you see the lego block in the middle where there *should* be Flash), and being that Steve Jobs “hates” Flash and says it is the only thing that causes Mac’s to crash, you can bet that you will never see Flash support on the iPad (or the iPhone for that matter).  Heck, I could see Steve trying to banish it from Mac computers and laptops at some point.

 Walled Garden – What do I mean by a walled garden?  Well, I mean

Let the public shaming begin! Opera Mini for the iPhone

My Opera - When do you think Opera Mini will be available on the iPhone?:

"Status update: Opera Mini for iPhone was officially submitted to the Apple iPhone App store on March 23, 12:25 UTC."

Personally, I can't see Apple actually approving this web browser app for the iPhone... they will site duplication of functionality with their built-in Safari web browser as the reason. That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it. ;-)

Of course, my prediction and lack of faith in Apple to do the right thing is sad. But, they have proven time and time again that they are NOT fair in their application approval process for the iPhone... take Google Voice as an example... there was even an investigation about it... yet, still no Google Voice app for my iPhone.

If you haven't read about or watched the video for Opera Mini for the iPhone, then you HAVE to go here to watch the speed of this new browser!

And don't even get me started on the lack of Flash support on the iPhone... that's just stupid silly.

Use Gmail to Generate Unlimited E-mail Addresses

Use Gmail Generate Unlimited E-mail Addresses:

"Gmail has an interesting quirk where you can add a plus sign (+) after your Gmail address, and it'll still get to your inbox. It's called plus-addressing, and it essentially gives you an unlimited number of e-mail addresses to play with. Here's how it works: say your address is pinkyrocks@gmail.com, and you want to automatically label all work e-mails. Add a plus sign and a phrase to make it pinkyrocks+work@gmail.com and set up a filter to label it work (to access your filters go to Settings-->Filters and create a filter for messages addressed to pinkyrocks+work@gmail.com. Then add the label work).

More real world examples:

Find out who is spamming you: Be sure to use plus-addressing for every form you fill out online and give each site a different plus address.

Tablets, Tablets everywhere

I can't even believe that I have a blog that I specifically started for tablets, and yet with ALL of the tablet talk and devices coming out, I have not posted on ANY of it!!

There look to be some game changers on the horizon, with the Apple iPad, some yet to be fully announced Android OS tablet devices, and the HP Slate running a full Windows 7 OS... then there is the Microsoft Courier that looked to be only a rumor, but is now looking like it may be released this YEAR!

I have been having a ton of trouble with my "BlogPress" app on my iPhone, where it can not seem to post to my blogs. Since I am not at a PC when I am not working these days, it is hard to find the time to post anything with any real substance. I hope to start posting more regularly though, so look for more from this site! ;-)

I even forgot to mention about Windows Phone Series! See... I'm slackin'.

Where's my Movie Data?? - Media Management

I know it's been a while since I posted on here, but I have been busy checking out and learning all kinds of things. My biggest time suck lately has been a combination of Windows 7 (Win7) with its Windows Media Center (WMC), Windows Home Server (WHS), and XBOX 360 as a media "extender" of sorts. There are lots of pieces to Win7 and WHS that I have been spending time learning, but I'm going to mainly focus on media content for this post. Future posts will discuss the other, more geeky, features and functions of these two operating systems.

As you may have read in a previous post of mine, I purchased a Roku and have loved that device for playing back Netflix content. However, Netflix's library for instant play is pretty limited, so I wanted something more. I was able to talk my wife into letting me get a 2nd XBOX 360 to place in the living room (the 1st one is in the family room) as a replacement for the DVD player, Roku and then even adds gaming. She bought into it because it let her get the current DVD player for her bedroom and my daughter get the Roku (the other biggest user besides me) for her bedroom.