Using iPad as a Secondary Display

I am a laptop-worker. At our office I have access to additional displays, but otherwise (and mostly anyway) it's just me and my laptop. Or more precisely: me, my laptop and my iPad. I have used the iPad to read .pdf documents and other documents that I can store in my Dropbox and then open in the iPad. But yesterday I took my iPad-extension to a new level by installing the Air Display app. It's great!

How it works, is that you need the Air Display app on your iPad (costs approximately 9 euros here) and then you need the Air Display app for the PC/Mac. When using Air Display, both devices need to be on the same WiFi network and obviously the iPad app needs to be running. In Windows, the application creates an icon in the icon tray, and once the requirements of WiFi and app running on iPad are met, you can connect to the iPad (good insturctions are included in the the iPad app).

I started my journey to be an Air Display user by installing the app on my iPad, and when I then tried to get the software for my Win8-running laptop, I had a moment of disappointment. After installing the PC application, it told me it did not support Win8, and then it crashed.

Avatron however is working on a Win8-supporting version too. It is still in beta, but if you're not scared of betas (which I am not) and are willing to participate in the beta-testing, Avatron offers the beta drivers for (test) usage. So that's what I did. I asked for the beta version for Win8 and ok, the screen flashes sometimes with some operations (like e.g. changing the orientation of the iPad) and it has some issues with Office2013 (e.g. trying the slideshow in PowerPoint 2013 on iPad resulted in PP crashing, and as a little bit bigger problem, Lync 2013 started crashing when joining an online meeting).

The normal mouse moves to the iPad screen, the laptop keyboard works as well. According to Avatron, all of the Win8 gestures are not there even though it is fully touch compatible also; I mean, it is an iPad. But since I'm using a non-touch laptop, my hands are on the keyboard/touchpad so their usability on the iPad additional display is the key feature for me.

Waiting for the RTM :)

[Edit: April 25th, 2013 I just noticed that AirDisplay is not beta anymore!]

Tweak Your Photos on Windows8

In my previous review of Windows 8 I was all but complaining about the lack of a proper(ish) tool for editing images. Naturally, the solution for this, too, is an app. Or several, if you wish. There's a multitude of different photo apps in the app store, but my pick was the PhotoStudio FREE. As its name suggests, it is a free photo studio, but so far I have been rather happy with it and could encourage the creators of it to make a paid version with more stuff; at least I would buy it.

Even now, though, in addition to the basic correction tools, the PhotoStudio has a rather nice set of filters effects and frames to select from:

So, e.g. after selecting all these (a little bit too many, but all for the sake of demo) effects and such, with a little bit of additional corrections, such as color and hue manipulation

my photo got a whole new look:

Now, if I would want to create a multitude of photos with the same enhancements, this app also allows the user to save and apply action sets.

All in all, I'm quite happy with the app. The next thing on my wishlist for Win8 is a pic collage app!

Windows 8 Experience

Something happened to the Windows 7 on my personal laptop a few weeks ago. A bit paranoid, I installed a trial of F-Secure which I thought was more reliable than my free version of Avira. It declared my computer clean and all, but that's when it went completely sluggish. And didn't recover from that even after uninstalling F-Secure.

So I decided it was time to reinstall the computer, and since I had a Win8 licence available, upgrade it was. Smooth experience! Nice and easy boot to installation media on a USB thumb drive, relatively fast clean complete installation and my Win8 was up and running. Even with the complete installation, since I did not format my C drive, my Win8 remembered my crucial settings, such as sleep times etc.

Next, I installed Office 2013 on my "Red". That I had already been using on my work laptop for some time already, and I like it! It's not that different from 2010, and I haven't needed apps too much yet, but I like the sleek new look and feel and the smooth touch while typing etc. 

I also went exploring in the App store, and got e.g. Netflix and Skype (which I actually do not use yet, for I am quite suspicious and reserved about the idea of connecting my Windows (Live) account with my Skype account) and some other apps on my laptop. It was so cool for a tablet user of two years already, to have that app experience on my laptop too!

All of what I need does not come as apps, though. Chrome, Keepass, Dropbox, Skydrive Explorer version, and, well, the Skype for desktop, and such. So I installed these the old-fashioned way, and truly, it did not take anything away from the tablety feeling I was experiencing. Rather the other way round! I felt like I was able to actually get "real" software on my new bigger screen "tablet".

So ok, it still is a laptop, not a tablet. Obviously, no touch screen - but alas! the gestures work nicely with the mouse too! Actually, they work better with the mouse than e.g. on some touch screens I've tried with Win8. But I started daydreaming of a Surface (with Win8 pro to have the desktop experience too). 

Some things do have me wondering, though, in all honesty. 

• First, the Email app. It's quite cool in itself. I connected it to my gmail and my work mail and it works perfectly. But. When I want to add an attachment, I can easily access anything in Windows Explorer. So e.g. my Dropbox was readily available for the purpose. But what surprised me, was that I simply could not find a way to get stuff from my Skydrive without creating the connection to WinExplorer too! Seems to me like the Email app does not communicate with the Skydrive app. How can that be? If anyone has some insight to this, please educate me!
• Second, pictures. If I have pictures in any random folder in Windows explorer, when I open them with the default (which I could change, of course) Pictures viewer, I have no way of navigating through the other photos in the folder. Puzzling. And the other thing I miss, is the Skydrive photo gallery application that alows to modify the pics too. I didn't find that anywhere anymore! Now there's no native app for even simple photo corrections (No, I don't consider Paint as such). A big minus!
• Third, the music player. I have all my music on my D drive, shared with all users of the laptop to allow my kids access to the music too. But I found no other way of connecting my music files to the inbuilt Music player that to add the Music folder as a library in my Music library. Not too big of an issue, but sort of feels like an unnecessary workaround.

Other than that, I'm a happy Win8 user (and even those issues have been resolved in one way or the other, just not in the way I would've expected). I like the Start screen (and for those looking for the Search: simply start typing in the Start screen!) and I'm way past the original schitzophrenic feel I had when only fiddling with the preview on a virtual machine. I like the way it all wraps up, giving me the sleek and easy-going tablety feel and at the same time allowing extensive full time PC experience when needed.

As for the kids. I have three daughters in the house: 12, 11 and 9 years old. The eleven years old has been using her dad's MacBook quite a lot, the other two have mostly used Win7, and Win XP in their younger years. All three are fluent with both Android and iOS. They all have their own accounts on my laptop now too, naturally. I prepared the accounts a bit (pinned Office apps and chrome etc. in their Start screens too) when I set up their new accounts. All three tried out this new Win8 while I was still at work, they at home by themselves. Did they have trouble finding stuff? Nope. Any other usage problems? Nope. 

Their initial reaction to the Win8 Start screen, when they first saw me use it, was: "Hey, that's so cool! So do I have that kind of a Start now, too?" Yep you do. And they seem happy to use it.

Where's my Surface?

The Ancient Feel

My Galaxy Tab is only 18 months old. It should, by standards of a time already apparently long gone, still be in its prime, a perfectly modern device. But as technology in this stuff goes, it has already started to feel ancient. It's not the size of the screen, nor any sort of bulkiness of physical design. It's the touch experience, the pre-Win7-like-symptoms of the system, the UI deficiensies. It is, de facto, a first generation tablet.

The last real update the Galaxy Tab got, was the Gingerbread. I can sort of understand, that if the technology of a device is insufficient, there is no mind in pushing the newer versions of the operating systems to it. It would only result in even more user frustration, when things only get worse. In some ways, I feel like even updating to the Gingerbread was a mistake. My Tab used to be quite smooth and trustworthy - nowadays it crashes quite frequently and feels somehow tacky to use.

Not only that, but I am quite disappointed by the browsers for the device. The built-in one? I ditched it long ago. I tried Skyfire, Opera Mini, Firefox mobile and latest and currently the Dolphin browser. Dolphin is my favorite one, and so far has been more or less the one to fullfill my needs. But even so, the browsing experience is nowhere near the built-in browser of the iPad, the Safari, of course.

Before buying my iPad I scouted out the other options, i.e. the newer Android based tablets since that was what I'd been using already for a year or so, and there still is no Windows tablet available. Even though they definitely were more sleek than my poor Tab, and - at least in the store ;) - not at all tacky, I still got myself an iPad, and felt defeated. I don't have anything against iPads per se, as I have stated before. My problem is the hype around it, and the loads of sh*t Apple gets away with, simply by being Apple (and, as for now, the maker of the undeniably best tablet so far).

I have high hopes for Win8 tablets. Android as a UI is like Windows in its XP's. Gives you a lot of modification options and enables you to arrange your icons as you like etc. But in the long run, it gets tiresome. In the end, even I just want my apps available with as low maintenance as possible. The iOS does this - but it is high time they get a worthy competitor. So does WinPhone7. And I myself, after using the WinPhone7 UI on my Lumia for these past months, really hope Microsoft in Win8 tablets will redeem their promises. For I like the UI even better than the iOS which I admit to liking quite a lot!

As for my Galaxy Tab? Is it at the end of its lifecycle already then? For sure no! Ok, it's not as sleek and cool anymore as it used to at least feel, but it is still a good device. My iPad is not 3G, but I can insert my second SIM in my Tab. The Tab is more lightweight and slips easily into my purse. I like it as a Kindle device much better than the iPad (holding it leaves dents on my palms...). It's got some cool apps like the Cartoon Camera, that you don't get on iPads. It's got some games my daughters like to play, that you don't get on iPads.

No, time has not flown by my "age old" Android device just yet. But it is a good reminder of how fast the technology is advancing now. And I don't even have a "new" iPad, I have the iPad2. We'll see how old that feels in a year or so.

First Impressions on Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Of course I tired out the Developer Preview too. But it was very much not ready, and I really couldn't muster out much more than a "ah, I wish I had a touch screen" and "geez, this will take some getting used to" with it. Those feelings remain, the first and initial impressions, with the consumer preview too, of course, since it is the same Metro UI and thus would really be much more awesome with a touch screen.

I've had the Nokia Lumia Windows phone for a few months now, so by no means is the Metro UI foreign to me. As a mobile device platform. But as I started to look at Windows 8 from the perspective of a desktop platform, the whole idea took me some getting used to. And it isn't over yet. 

All the time as I was fiddling with it, I needed to remind me that this is something I actually should be able to use for similar kind of functions as I use my Win7, not (maybe only, if I manage to get myself a Win8 tablet at some point) for similar things as I do with my phone. It is a bit of a task, when the UI so persistantly functions in the way of a mobile device instead of a PC.

Where, for example, is the Exit or Close in applications? Start screen with the Metro tiles, and the All Apps alternate view is fine, applications are easy to launch and all. And there's a desktop and the old way to look at many, if not all, things. And cool new features you can even use with the mouse, eg. for returning to the Start screen or Desktop or to the last used app or whatnot. 

But the one thing I sincerely miss in all of my mobile devices too, is the option to actually exit an app, not just return to the home screen and then close the apps at some point, using the Task Manager or the little screen that pops up in the upper left corner of the Desktop. 

And I admit that I actually missed the task bar. Sure I can navigate from app to app using the keyboard shortcuts, but as I happen to be as I am, a very visual person, I like to see what apps I am running and, yeah, navigate to the apps using the task bar. So far I did not find an option for using a task bar. Not that I really looked for it that hard, though.

I am coming off in a very Finnish way here, bringing out the negative first. Oh well, that done, we can focus on the good. Which is, in a general sense, the rest of it. Most probably some other details that are not to my liking will emerge at some point, but so far so cool! I like the Metro UI on my phone, I like it as a consept, I'm sure I will get used to it as the UI on my PC too (when the time comes, for now, it is installed heretically on a VirtualBox machine).

The beauty of the Metro UI lies in its simplicity. Simple design, straightforward user experience - for the most part ;) It has the potential to revolutionize the PC experience.

[Also published in Bordering .Net: First Impressions on Windows 8 Consumer Preview]