There are lots of reviews around on the HTC shift – the first video review I found was by a hilariously jubulant guy called Hugo Ortega and you can see it here if you want …  My review here is not going to cover the standard spec and features as you can get that kind of information in any number of places.

Instead, having used one of these HTC Shift things for a few weeks now, I thought I’d try and make a note of things that I have found out about it (good and bad) that haven’t generally appeared in other reviews.

You may well know that the HTC Shift has two chips – a windows mobile (like a big PDA) and a PC processor for full blown vista.  The battery is great on one and lousy on the other – you guess which   Because of this, after one week, I purchased another battery and a spare mains charger – just one of those things you need to get used to if you want to use vista on this a lot.  This cost an extra £45 is total but if you’re spending over £800 on this puppy then that might not be too great an issue.

On the subject of hardware, generally, it works just fine.  Once you’re used to exactly how to slide out and/or tilt the keyboard, its very easy – and the mouse trackpad which looks insanely small and useless is actually very functional and surprisingly sensitive to fast / slow movements of the mouse across the screen.  Having the mouse keys on the other side of the screen isn’t intuitive for me – but its okay. And the good old “delay = right click” is very useful when pointing on the touch screen.

The other piece of hardware that I though would be quite useless was the fingerprint recognition device for secure entry. But it actually works great, allowing me to password protect my account on vista and get in with a simple swipe.  There is software to also allow you (via a slightly annoying prompt if you’re not interested) to encrypt any web based username and password request.  I ignored it for a while, due to lack of trust, lol – but gave in and now love it.  Still not sure if its safer than “remember me on this computer” though.  And I’m worried I’m going to forget all my passwords!

The camera?  Well, I can’t tell you anything as there doesn’t seem to be any pre-installed software to use it on either vista or winmobile – which is a boo-boo if you ask me.

The keyboard is good – really good.  But its not as big as a full size, so you touch typers like me will find it difficult to touch type – and its not quite small enough (with my hands anyway) to comfortably hold and use both thumbs to reach all the keys.  For longer typing sessions, I suppose you could always get a fold-out bluetooth one. Oh, and some of the blue function key equivalents don’t work in winmobile but that’s not too much bother as the important ones (eg sound and brightness) do.

The only thing I’m really not that impressed with about the hardware is the battery cover.  It can be prone to come open when you are sliding the screen/keyboard into position which I find annoying.

Crash protection?!  I’ve never dropped my shift – but when I place it on my pillow even a little vigorously, it tends to disengage the disk (or whatever) to enter its “I’ve been dropped mode” and instantly powers off.  This in my view is a good feature but a little sensitive for my liking.

And finally on the hardware(ish) front is the case – its a lovely leather jobby, but I found that the fit is so snug that you have to store the device upside down as it were, otherwise you’ll inadvertently end up turning on the side slider power switch when you put it away.

Software?  Well, lets do windows mobile first, then vista.  The thing you notice straight away is that you have a cut-down version of the latest windows mobile software – akin to something called Snapvue.  You may like to go here and rectify that immediately!  NB, if you get trouble attaching the .LNK file from within a windows email package to your winmobile account, make sure the file is on your desktop, then right click it and choose send to -> mail recipient.  You won’t be able to get at it from your full outlook client, but you winmobile won’t care and will let you open it.  Thanks to the wonderful Gareth Evans in our IT Helpdesk for that little tip. 

The choice to do the snapvu thing was frankly just bonkers on HTC’s part and really restricts many simple tasks like even correcting the time!  If it weren’t for the saving grace of the liberate possibility, I’d have sent the whole device back.

Anyway, as far as windows mobile is concerned, no real surprises (though I do like HTC’s weather feature) – and, due to the screen size the whole interface is HUGE and really easy to navigate with a fat finger.  You can’t as far as I can tell, use the mouse or configure the mouse buttons to launch applications or the like.  Neither can you use the bluetooth chip or the wifi facility or (afaik) the camera in mobile.  Oh, and that goes for voice phone functionality also.  All a great shame really.

I’m not sure why HTC took away the ability to connect with your vista chip as once you’ve restored it via the liberate process above, it becomes a very useful feature.

Before “liberating” your shift as outlined from the link above, setting up comms was really easy – just popped my Vodafone sim in the slot, fed the software the name of my exchange server together with password details, and the sync just happened.   Really really good. 

Operation under windows?  Well, vista is a little annoying buy hey ho, not HTC’s fault.  I wonder whether XP would be better …  Anyway, its GREAT and its taken every application I’ve thrown at it – but so long as you only really want to run one application at a time.  Any more and you may begin to feel the difference between this and your high spec desk/lap top.

As one who never reads manuals, it took me an hour or so to figure that the only way you are going to get surfing via your mobile data sim is if you first turn off wifi.  Once done, there’s again absolutely no configuration to do and it just works – and very well too.

There is a really handy application attached to one of the external buttons that lets you adjust sound, brightness and turn on/off wifi / data card / bluetooth etc.  The other button that changes resolution actually works great too (though it worked better before I downloaded some Microsoft recommended updates – grrrr).

The screen brightness will continually reset itself to a dimmer setting than max even if you switch off auto in the application referred to above.  The only way to get around this is to change the power setting to high performance.

It also comes with another MS application called Origami Experience 2 – which is some way of bringing web feeds for weather and application launch icons together or something.  I dunno, I just took it out of the start menu straight away as it annoyed me, sorry.

On the subject of start – I always use the slider switch to put my vista into sleep as opposed to shutting down.  Otherwise, you may find yourself planning several days ahead if you need to use vista due to the bootup times.  Again, not entirely HTC’s fault.

Annoyingly, I took some patches from Microsoft and I now have mouse pointer issues and a couple of other annoyances – but that’s not HTC’s fault.

I’ve found it very easy to install additional software by connecting via wifi to a DVD drive on a local PC – not sure a novice would know what to do though and there isn’t much in the way of guidance (or do I need to read the manual?). 

Conclusion?  Great piece of kit and I believe that it increases my productivity beyond the cost of the device to my organisation – which I suppose is the only thing that counts in one sense.  I’d give it an 8/10 – recognising that some simple things addressed as outlined above would easily take that to a 9+.  Would I buy this with my own money if I hadn’t been able to get one through work?  Yes (probably) 

NB I had better explain that my situation is a little unusual in that I can’t really use a laptop because I need to be very close to any screen I’m using and laptop keyboards are either too big or the whole thing is just too heavy to make this comfortably feasible.  I was also a heavy PDA user.

Technical innovative excellence, emotionally provocative, what are google doing now – and Donald Rumsfeld.  Take your pick below …

First up, watch the amazing Johnny Lee use a £25 wii remote to make an electronic whiteboard. I’ve shown this to my bro-in-law, Alessio Bernadelli who is a physics teacher, and he’s going to be demonstrating it at the Institute of Physics. Anyway, here it is:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/245

Next up, what are you doing with your life and how are you feeling today?If you have 11 minutes and can put up with the intro from Opra, listen to this academic give his last, moving lecture…

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw

Penultimately, did you know that Google can now serarch tomorrow’s news too?

 http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/index.html

Last and most definitely least, did you catch these Donald Rumsfeld quotes of the decade?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7350000/newsid_7357300?redirect=7357322.stm&news=1&nbram=1&nbwm=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1 

Here’s an interesting thing …  We’ve had a bit of nasty flu etc going around the family this week, and the last three days have by necessity seen me taking to the captain’s position in the kitchen.  Normally, I play second fiddle and do what I’m told, as the hours I work etc mean I’m normally very much a passer-through.

But I’ve loved it and its taken me back years to when I used to do a lot of baking etc. I had also completely forgotten what a kitchen control freak I was and how my sink and worktops must remain clear and disinfected at all times, lol.

Maybe its subconsciously because I know its only temporary – but there is something incredibly fulfilling about feeding and looking after everyone, a tremendous sense of value and satisfaction in just keeping them all going – in a way that merely getting money into the bank account doesn’t quite achieve.  And another funny thing – I find the dishwasher a complete waste of time and nuch prefer to do it by hand …

Well, in the morning, I shall have to hand things over again – but its been great and I’ll miss it!

The thing that really gets my goat about Easter is the overwhelming gluttony caused by lavishing the kids with chocolate eggs – replacing any replica of true meaning with a nauseous chorus of “can I have …” and voluminous packaging all over the place for weeks.

Well, grumpy old man that I am, this year, I though I’d at least try to curtail things as much as I could.  You can’t ask relatives not to give eggs – well, you can but it would lead to all sorts of complications.  So, I decided to break out the Tupperware.  Each one of my children got a plastic container into which they were “asked” to place all of their (unwrapped) eggs.  The rubbish then went instantly into the bin and it was simple to tell whose chocolate was what and where it was.  Then these plastic boxes come down at certain times and the kids can eat in something nearing a controlled manner.

A small victory – but it made things just s little more (or should that be less?) sweet on Easter Sunday.

I had the privilege this week of popping over to Glamorgan Uni in order to attend one of their CELT talks.  This one was about GlamStart, a fresher game coded by Martin Lynch.  Martin is one of that rare breed of highly competent technologists who can also communicate very effectively in a public forum.  I enjoyed my play with the software and took the liberty of grabbing a few piccies for you in order to explain it further.

You can read more about Glamstart at http://glamlife.glam.ac.uk/gettingstarted/1367/glamstart 

After logging in, you are greeted by your Dean (or in my case a random Dean speaking to you via a video:

 You then get to create your online persona including character, job and accommodation:

This then puts you into your room – where you can interact with all of your facilities including tv, computer, pda (for lecture times etc) and of course, bed!  The video links on the side are unlocked as you progress and find things in the game:

You can move your mouse around whichever room you are in and click – at which the character will walk over to that position / item. The “map” button takes you to the map of the campus that you can use to enter different areas:

Of course, I went straight to the LRC or Learning Resource Centre for a nose around …

Once inside, you can go venture into different rooms and interact with different characters via embedded videos and faq’s:

But don’t forget to keep an eye on the time and check out your PDA for the next lecture that you may need to rush off to !

At the end of each hard day, you may choose to watch some TV

… before receiving notification of your outcome for that day :-

I think that there are 10 days in all with rewards that translate in to free printing vouchers.  All in all VERY NEAT – well done all!

I discussed next steps with Martin and how making it a living environment (possibly akin to secondlife) might be an idea – and combining it with the MLE to bring people into it and so on and so on.  And the whole “community” element of that for distance learners, part-timers, pre-enrollers … oh the mind boggles!

But for what it is now, I think its another great way of finding out about the University for people who don’t like to look at linear text intensive web pages – and at the end of the day, that’s exactly what it is – information and communication in an alternative format with embedded incentives.

(Hey Mike, just imagine what WE could do with a bunch of coders available to get on with this sort of stuff … !)

Top effort Glam!

You’ve probably heard people speking about the activity of different parts of the brain and why using a slide show in the background to a speaker helps engage the whole brain etc etc etc.  And you maybe though “whatever…”  But the concept took on a slightly new dimension at the recent TED conference a couple of weeks ago.

Take 18 minutes to watch this astonishing talk from Harvard-trained brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor. 

By the way, as I think I’ve said a few times before, take some time to look around the www.ted.com website – there are some things to listen to there that could seriously change your perspective!

My turn in tonight – and, little ladies put to bed, this means I can actually write a semi-timely, blog entry!  Brief tho’ cos I have to go and make a bacon butty!

Look at this:

Its the University of Melbourn’e Learning Lab.  Mike went to a conference this week where its creator was speaking.  Very relevant to us as we are discussing how we might bring together library, IT and student services in one location on the Caerleon Campus and how that might look …

My comment was that, while it is truly gorgeous for what it is – and I’d love to teach/learn in it.  However, calling it a “model. for new approaches” is a bit like saying that Porsche is a model for new motor cars. Very costly to buy/run, and you can’t fit many people in it – you really have to know what you are doing to use its potential fully and forget it if you have a wheelchair.  Fair play though, that’s only a comment on the University’s news site – and it looks the business!

Met with the Head of RISE, an EU funded learning network hosted by the University.  The ORA of the meeting was as follows:  Outcome- to come up with ways that we could help each-other be more effective; Reason- to because RISE success is in the interests of the University and external learners; Actions- to talk through each-others activities in order to spot areas of possible further interaction….

Incremental Change discussions – or rather, how we deal with this many tentacled octopus and ensure that systems are in place that allow appropriate agility within the curriculum, yet maintain standards and quality control throughout all of our systems.

Wrote an article on request by the VC for a new electronic journal and signed the order for a new Timetabling system (now the work REALLY starts).

Got briefly involved with an FOI issue and another self-declaration CRB case.

Somebody I admire is going to Read “Good to Great” by Jim Collins.  If you’re in a position of being able to – and want to – make your organisation better, please please read it too (or listen to Jim read it on the unabridged audio CDs). 

Finally, can you decipher this?

11 was 1 race horse, 22 was 12.  1111 race, 22112

and

YYUR, YYUB, ICUR YY4ME

In club, we had a Strine translation quiz (translate Aussie slang into English) – fun, check out: http://www.strine.org.uk/Dict.html .  Such classics as:

Airpsly Fair-billis: Exceptionally good or pleasing (“Aw heddan Airpsly Fair-billis toime lar snoite”)
An archer mean: Strine expression of agreement and solidarity (“Thet blokes a dairm lunatic!” “Air! An archer mean”)
Baked Necks: Popular Strine breakfast dish, as are Emma Necks, Scremblex, and Fright Chops
Egg Nishner: Electro-mechanical device used for cooling & purifying air
To Gorf: To leave suddenly (“He to gorf like a rocket!”)
X (plural of eggs)
and, of course: Split nair dyke (bad pain in the head)

Childish yes, but I liked ‘em.  Now, where’s that bacon butty … might even throw in some X!

Yes, yes, yes – it is pathetic … you get to the stage when you have so much to say that you can’t find the time to write it – and that only delays it!  The only solution is just post, so here: Went to see a building that was designed by the same architects and built by the same builders as we’re having.  I just wasn’t expecting so much exposed untreated concrete and services open to the eye.   

It transpires that a lot of people actually like it.  As do I in context.  For example, the Seattle public library (pictured in October posts) and places like the National Museum of Wales – fantastic examples of all sorts of masonry – but I just don’t get the whole unfinished “European look”.

Since the last post, there’s been a whole heap of very interesting things happening ranging from examining how we deal with incremental change and discussing how we engage with the SPA (Supporting Professionalism in Administration), to an interesting trip to London to present our wares to one of our partners.  The latter was particularly beneficial as it not only revealed to me that we have a real product to offer to a much wider community – but it allowed the opportunity to work with some staff with whom I’ve not worked before – and I think we found a strength there that we can capitalise on internally as well as externally!  Apologies if that’s a bit cryptic – but it all centres around the development of high specification interactive learning materials and the provision of hosting services for a comprehensive learning and communication environment…

I also Chaired another Information Strategy Panel meeting (ISP) – a very interesting committee (well, I would say that wouldn’t I!) that is currently looking at such things as… electronic meeting papers, CRM, timetabling system, KPIs, HR system, web working group, email policy, FOI/DP policies and more! Yea, we’re doing the stuff of a big University with the staff of a smaller one!The Project Management Board for our new City Centre Campus concentrated mainly on issues surrounding the legal agreement for the land and managing the (49 page) risk register – really gripping stuff (I kid you not!). Met with the Wales representative of the Higher Education Academy to discuss updates on some interesting projects and proposals - and I had the privilege of taking part in the interviews for the position of Director of our new CELT (Centre for Excellence in learning and teaching) – success, we actually had a choice of some great candidates! 

Anyway, videos:  My old boss is a chap whom I admire greatly – really.  I have had the privilege of learning lots from all my old bosses over the years – sometimes how to do things – and sometimes how NOT to do things.  But somebody sent me a Youtube link (that I simply dare not put here because of its less than respectful title!) showing him playing the guitar and singing in a band with some other members of the department – including my mate with big hair.  All I dare say in a public forum is “wow!”.

Here’s a link I can  put here – amusing approach to office productivity (found while doing some research for the Stress Alleviation Working Group I chair!) :

NOT for the faint hearted  

Okay, the non-work update would include the fitness thing …  Its going well – I’m trying to work up slowly and sensibly.  My taxi driver observed the other day that he had no need to loose weight as he grew older because most “old people” seemed to stay thin easily.  I suggested that maybe they didn’t become thin as they grew older –but possibly the people who were very large didn’t often get to become very old.  Sobering for us both.   Anyway, I’m up to 5 x 30min runs per week at 5.50am (yea, it is baaad!) – target is 6 x 45min runs.  This week sees it going up to 40 mins and a decrease in speed.  Why the latter?  Well, I smelled ammonia in the shower this week – which apparently means one of two things. Either I should not have had that cup of tea before going to bed, or else, I am running at a speed that is burning muscle as well as fat.  Burning fat is about increasing time not intensity (given the 65% max heart rate rule – see earlier post). 

Oh, meant to say, if you want something good to follow for reducing body fat and improving your overall figure – including food advice, get Bill Philips book “Body for Life” – follow it religiously for 12 weeks and you’ll love it!

See: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Body-Life-Mental-Physical-Strength/dp/0007149670  though there are always loads cheaper on eBay …

I did this quite a few years ago now – a bit American and it takes a while to find the UK version of the foods he refers to but well worth while (avoid the blatant adverts for his own products like protein powder.)  Though if you do want the latter, go to www.wehyconsortium.com – much much cheaper – get the unflavoured and just add a drop of fruit cordial or milkshake syrup – gives a large chicken breast’s worth of protein for about 10p.   He makes the good point that if you don’t combine resistance training (weights) with diet and exercise then you’ll just move from being a large bell shaped thing to being a small bell shaped thing …

Yes, sounds mad – but I used to be in to this when I used to go to the gym!  Until about 2.5 years ago, I was lifting 110kg for 5×5 reps on the bench.   Then I pulled my shoulder and thought I could work through it – d’oh!  Haven’t been in the gym since really but intend to get back to it at some point.

Being a fan of the non sequitur, let me say I also installed Vista on my home PC last weekend – not only installed, but upgraded from XP – against everyone’s advice!  But I’m delighted to say that it went really well (though the install plus download of 500MB of patches took some 5 hours!).  No real probs to report and I love the graphics plus the fact that I can alt-tab to the desktop.  Not so happy with Office 2007 though – I find it very unintuitive to use and have yet to discover a real personal benefit over 2003.

Another lack of disappointment – I’d also been told that the Bourne Ultimatum wasn’t that good – but having waited for ages unsuccessfully for Tesco DVD rental (via Lovefilm) to send me a copy, I borrowed it from a friend – only to receive one from Tesco the next day J.  Anyway, I thought it was fab – it was the only film I can ever remember being tempted to watch a second time (resisted).  However, I can’t make out whether it picked up where the last one left off – or whether it picked up way before the last one left off …

Birthdays:  My son Aaron was 9 but already, his class mates appear to be having a competition to organise the most wild Birthday parties – speed boats around the bay, dry slope skiing, quad biking – what on earth will they be doing when they are 19?!  Well, I think a de-escalation is needed here so we had a party in the Hall where I’d organised some activities and invited a bloke who owns too many reptiles, tarantulas, scorpions, 12 ft long snakes and similar disgusting things.  It was the best – and it only cost £60 all in!  However, now he wants a leopard gecko – but there’s no way I’m into getting a weekly supply of crickets to feed it – ick!

Penultimately, I hate low energy light bulbs.  Of course I think its sensible to avoid needless wasting of valuable energy resources but is it just me – or is anyone else annoyed at having to wait for about 3 minutes before you can see your clothes in the morning – and when you can, they seem to have a green tinge?  Am I just buying the wrong make or what? (hmmm, maybe my clothes actually are all a shade of green …)

That last bit is in there especially for Paul Folan, our incredible University Secretary.  A man who has a brain the size of a planet (like Marvin the Paranoid Android) and who could write emails for Wales!  But he thinks I’m a pathological optimist so there Paul – how d’ya like dem apples?

And more for you Paul – the Samsung Q1 Ultra …  Perfect evidence as to why one should NEVER let your marketing manager and product manager be on holiday at the same time – something like this might make happen.  I’m sorry guys but I am so incredibly gutted with this piece of “tech-noway-logy”.  I can’t even be bothered to spend the time writing why I’m so disappointed (partly cos its late admittedly) – but my vote is for the HTC Shift.  If you’d like to see a very good (yet oh so bad!) review of the latter, go here: http://media.libsyn.com/media/gottabemobile/The_HTC_Shift_Hugo_Ortega_GBM.wmv

You gotta love Hugo Ortega!

It wasn’t – but one of my New Year resolutions should have been to write more frequent and shorter blog entries.  However, as it wasn’t a NY resolution, maybe there’s some chance I’ll keep to it, lol.

Anyway, some work highlights from this new year so far include the following…  After the writing of a student criminal convictions (self declaration + CRB) policy, I attended my first panel meeting with a student who had been involved in a very difficult life tragedy resulting in a custodial sentence that will never be regarded as spent for the career the person wanted to pursue.  This however does not preclude enrolment on a course – but the outlook for professional progression was bleak.  Very difficult and emotionally fraught case but the Dean who I was with on the Panel is just such a sound and experienced chap!

The routine round of committee meetings (including Management Board) have been busy but perhaps not as much as usual, largely due to the Christmas period – though Academic Board was riveting for wider environmental issues and a couple of interesting facts I had not realised about our School Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committees (not least of which is that I am a member!) …

An interesting meeting about various issues surrounding Distance Learning within the University raised more questions for me than it answered – but it is the beginning of a process; and a similar meeting with RISE colleagues placed within IT working on pan-Wales learning environments was similar in its outcomes – though I have some ideas on linking this work with the recommendations of the recent Webb review of FE in Wales…

As part of the ongoing City Centre Campus work (please don’t think that because I don’t mention it that it isn’t still taking up a lot of time!), I Chaired a meeting of the Learning Environment Group to look at minimum specifications of teaching rooms to feed into Learning and Teaching Committee.

One more draft of the Under 18s / vulnerable adults paper and its now ready for submission to the next Management Board – thanks Lawrence.

Administrative meetings including a session with the external consultant who is leading us through the KPI (key performance indicators) case study method – we’re one of the six institutions in the UK who are developing Governor centred KPIs as part of a national initiative … more to follow (wow, I finally find a benefit from reading all those Kaplan books, lol).

Then, a meeting with our simply excellent Director of Quality Assurance and Enhancement (Brent Stephens) to look at how we can improve processes to streamline/avoid so many curriculum changes coming through the system late in the year – very worthwhile.

Finance, Deans Forum and and trying to tackle Wide format printing (I get all the fun!) completes the list of Admin related meetings.

Finally, we had a day last Friday with senior managers and the Leadership Foundation looking at the future – this was so much more positive (in terms of the people mix) than it would have been even a year ago.  We have some great people here – and the more their sails become set towards the same wind, the faster and further we will go!

Its a great time to be working here.