More pictures from Agile Open 2009.
Agile Open art by Elizabeth McClellan
Agile Open art by Elizabeth McClellan
Agile Open art by Elizabeth McClellan
Agile Open art by Elizabeth McClellan
Agile Open art by Elizabeth McClellan
Conference center stage
Here are some pictures from the Agile Open Northern California 2009 conference
Open Space Framework
Theme for 2009, Art by Elizabeth McClellan
Marketplace of topics Thursday
Marketplace of topics Friday
Session art 1 by Elizabeth McClellan
Session art 2 by Elizabeth McClellan
Session art 3 by Elizabeth McClellan
Session art 4 by Elizabeth McClellan
Session art 5 by Elizabeth McClellan
Session art 6 by Elizabeth McClellan
Conference Center at Fort Mason
Sunset outside Fort Mason
Sunset outside Fort Mason
Chalk this one up to vanity. It’s just a bunch of links to the first few reviews (hopefully all original and not just syndicated/copied).
HP TouchSmart 600 Desktop reviews – CNET Reviews
HP ushers in third wave of TouchSmart desktop all-in-ones Windows 7 Insider – CNET Reviews
HP TouchSmart tx2, 300, 600 and 9100 get Windows 7 multitouch – SlashGear
HP TouchSmart 600 Desktop Review – PC World
HP TouchSmart 600-1055 PC – At A Glance – Reviews by PC Magazine
HP TouchSmart 600 Review Multitouch Multimedia Mogul – Hp touchsmart 600 review – Gizmodo
Video Demos of New HP TouchSmart Apps, Touch Interface GottaBeMobile.com
HP TouchSmart 300 and 600 bump the software to the next level, tx2 comes along for the ride
HP TouchSmart 300 and HP TouchSmart 600 Do Twitter and Hulu Out of the Box
HP Adds A Touch Of Genius To The Touchsmart Voxy.co.nz
HP’s Touchsmart A PC, maybe, but cooler as a TV Between the Lines ZDNet.com
HP revamps TouchSmart PCs with Windows 7; starts $899; will you ditch your desktop PC, HDTV The
New HP TouchSmart PCs get touch-enabled Hulu, Netflix and Twitter
This third-generation TouchSmart PC is boosted by Windows 7′s gesture support, but HP’s custom multitouch software is even more impressive.
But as with the earlier models, on the TouchSmart 600 it’s HP’s custom software that really shines. Version 3.0 is a significant upgrade, offering touch-friendly versions of Hulu, Netflix, Twitter […]
And the HP apps now multitask, letting you hop back and forth by sliding them around with a fingertip. The interface is responsive, and is the benchmark for upcoming Windows 7 all-in-one PCs from Acer, Asus, Dell, Gateway, and MSI.
[…], but more important is what HP is doing with its own TouchSmart application. It’s added panes for Hulu, Netflix, Twitter and an HP Music Store powered by Rhapsody, which work in nicely with the rest of the touch-friendly apps onboard and a bit of underlying Microsoft technology keeping things humming — like a nice big handwriting pane for quick Rhapsody searches. There’s also a voice controlled recipe app that can capture recipes from popular recipe sites and read them out loud to you, and the photo app can hook up with a phone over Bluetooth and pull off photos.
But to really take advantage of the system, you’ll want to use the TouchSmart interface and the wonderful, custom apps.
The one downfall here is that HP has designed TouchSmart to run all of the bundled apps at once. You’re truly multitasking, and that means stacking HDTV, Hulu, Netflix, photo editing, a browser, Twitter, and even more video playback. The system generally handles itself admirably, but the TV tuning definitely tips the scales on occasion (just watch the video for interface stutters). If I were to use the system as my DVR on a regular basis, I’d probably cut down the fat on HP’s apps and buy myself some resources.
I want to love the TouchSmart 600, but I just really, really like it a lot. The functionality is all there; no one can question the full media suite of apps, like Netflix, Hulu, and Twitter, let alone the full Windows 7 OS sitting right behind HP’s optional software. It’s the light performance hiccups coupled with a less than 100% touch interface that stop me from screaming at the top of my lungs, "YOU SHOULD BUY THIS RIGHT NOW OR GIVE UP ON LIFE COMPLETELY."
While HP has clearly borrowed from Sony in its wall-mounting and video input capabilities, the software designed for its touch interface is unique and just as compelling.
As promising as we find HP’s new touch programs, Recipe Box in particular, we found the touch interface unresponsive at times, and the main touch software carousel can be slow to load.
Neither Sony nor Gateway have put as much effort into their respective touch software as HP has.
You might also appreciate the numerous video tutorials included with the system to help you navigate the new touch software.
HP continues to put its TouchSmart user interface on top of Windows 7 and it is one of the best I have seen. The new stuff comes in the way of applications; there are now loads of new third party applications, including Hulu, Twitter and Netflix. The interface is as smooth as a baby’s bottom and the main set of tiles fan across the screen and you can easily flick to toggle them. Again, check out the full review of the TouchSmart 600 to get a glimpse of how it really works. HP may just have a method to its touch madness.
Not only is the touch interface on the refreshed tx2 much better than anything else we’ve used on a notebook, HP is adding cool new apps like Twitter and Hulu, with more to come.
What makes the “new” tx2 stand out is what it does with touch.
Unlike the very limited MediaSmart software HP bundled previously, this machine has HP’s full TouchSmart treatment, which means it has the same slick tile interface and nearly all the same applications. These include photos, music, weather, notes, games, a touch-friendly Web browser, and more. Just like on the desktop, you can move smaller menu items to the main menu by dragging the tiles up, or vice versa.
HP has released two new TouchSmart All-in-one PCs and these latest models come preloaded with an impressive, and very much improved upon set of built-for-touch applications.
HP’s new all-in-one TouchSmart PCs come with an improved touch interface and some new apps. I really like Recipe Box, an application that organizes all of your online recipes. The application can be controlled with your fingers or through a Bluetooth headset. I rarely cook, but I’d probably be willing to spend more time in the kitchen if I had something like this.
The new TouchSmart PCs have a touch interface that’s a lot more lively than previous versions.
The new TouchSmart PCs come with touch applications for Hulu, Netflix and Twitter. Consumers may have fun with these applications, but I found the business applications HP had on display much more compelling.
Edit [adding more stuff just because]:
I will hand it to HP and Sony: their interfaces are gorgeous. The HP interface I saw last week has a number of simple tools – a recipe box, for example, that can take recipes from the web and import them into a private database – as well as the standard stretch’n’drag photo and note-taking applications that make touch actually compelling.
I’m sure there will be more, and there will be more criticism too. Developing software is always about trade-offs, and sometimes customers want other trade-offs to be made; that’s why software is never “done”.
But these first few reviews make me feel it was worth the time, working on the TouchSmart software. And yes, the “shell” that hosts all the various applications is still written in WPF. WPF rocks!
Sorry about the bad scan quality (it’s from today’s newspaper – yes, dead trees, and yes, I still read newspapers). It says:
80% of Toyotas sold in the last 20 years are still on the road today.
Is it any wonder that it’s hard to make any kind of change on environmental impact? Not just for cars. Think, for example, about the inefficient lighting systems installed in millions of old houses (that aren’t well insulated, have old, inefficient furnaces/air conditioners, etc.). Things like these have a habit of lasting long and they weren’t designed with environmental impact in mind.
With information like this, it’s harder and harder to stay optimistic, wouldn’t you say?
As evidenced by this scan of one of the setup disks:
(Someone was cleaning up a bunch of old floppy disks at work. I happened to come across them because I needed a floppy for updating the BIOS of a really old laptop.)
Just an interesting little factoid for your geek trivia…
You may never have heard of ACCU, the Association of C and C++ Users as it was originally called. It is a volunteer organization, consisting of programmers who care about programming. The ACCU publishes two magazines, both devoted to raising the standards of programming everywhere: C Vu and Overload. On top of that they organize a conference every year, where some of the top names in C/C++ programming (and many other software development fields) come to speak and mingle with programmers from all around the globe.
I was introduced to the ACCU several years ago, when I first came to Silicon Valley, and still renew my membership every year, even though I don’t attend the local ACCU-USA events anymore. Yes, there is a local “chapter” of the ACCU in Silicon Valley, and they have monthly events that you can attend for free. I had the good fortune of hearing Bjarne Stroustrup speak once (plus going to dinner with him and the rest of the attendees afterwards, and even getting to exchange a few words with him in private.)
At one time I also co-hosted an event for the ACCU, and I think it is this personal connection that has kept me going as a member, even though I’ve not been much directly involved since. What keeps me hanging on now are the two excellent journals, which are largely ad-free and contain almost nothing but passionately written articles and code samples, demonstrating how to become a better programmer.
If this is something you strive for, I highly recommend checking out the ACCU and encourage you to become a member. Even if you live in the United States or elsewhere outside the UK.
How old? How about a laptop shipped in 2000, a Dell CPx H450GT:
Obviously this is from before I started my current job… One of the benefits of my current job is being able to verify soon after RTM that the Windows 7 bits you can obtain “out there” have not been messed with. Anyway, let’s see how it looks:
There’s no display driver for this system’s ancient ATI Rage Mobility M1, so it runs in standard 800*600. Thus the black frame inside the physical bezel. On to the desktop:
No sound driver, either. I think it’s an ESS Maestro 2 or something. I haven’t really spent a lot of time looking for drivers. This system used a Xircom RBEM56G-100 multifunction Ethernet/Modem CardBus card for network connectivity, and as you can see there’s also no driver for that (“x” over the network icon in the notification area.)
Okay. On to some system specs:
A 450 Mhz Pentium III. 256 MB RAM. Naturally, Windows 7 wouldn’t normally install on something as low end as this, but there are ways around that. They involve making a bootable USB drive, copying the Windows 7 install files onto it and then messing a little with a hex editor and winsetup.dll.
Now the most interesting part: actual performance of the system:
Not too shabby. Only 28 processes and it’s able to run with 256 MB with 87 MB Available. The processor curve looks pretty normal too. Mind you, this thing probably won’t be able to run much else than a browser, but since I didn’t look for network drivers I don’t have Internet access from this system anyway.
Well, there you have it. A really old laptop, running Windows 7. Pretty cool. Great job, Microsoft!
I was going to try this on two other systems I have lying around (collecting dust) as well, but one of them failed with an ACPI Stop error 0x000000A5 (0x0001000B, 0×50434146,…) which, after some digging, turned out to mean that the BIOS on this system didn’t follow the ACPI specs of the FACP table. More digging into the BIOS showed that the length entry in the table (and the table length itself) is supposed to be longer than it is, although it actually is as long as the table entry says. The other system is so old that it doesn’t have the ability to boot from USB, and the CD drive is unable to read CD-R discs, so it’s more trouble than it’s worth. It’s only got a PII 400 MHz and 192 MB RAM, too. That would be really interesting to see running Windows 7.
So, maybe Windows 7 really can breathe new life into old hardware. This may be a little extreme, but anything from within the last five years should probably do just fine. If it follows the ACPI specs and can boot from USB or CD/DVD, that is.
