• Multiple monitors attached to a single card – no problem
• Multiple monitors attached to multiple cards with the same driver (which normally means the same chip set family) – no problem
• Multiple monitors attached to multiple cards with different drivers – no support for Glass

or more details check out this link

tscon.exe 0 /dest:console

Under Vista to achieve the same thing the command needs to be:

tscon.exe RDP-Tcp#0 /dest:console

this command needs to run as administrator, so in my case I right click on the shortcut on my desktop and pick “Run as administrator”

when combined with synergy, this allows me to:

1. use my tablet display but my desktop keyboard and mouse for casual tasks
2. click on a saved RDP config file that brings up a full screen RDP session to my Tablet on my left hand screen when I want to do some more serious work, I prefer this because I get a lot more screen area to work with and because under Vista UAC prompts can not be responded to using synergy, but they can be responded to over RDP
3. right click disconnect.bat when I have finished with my RDP session, which leaves my tablet just where I started and without having to login etc, I can just continue working with it using synergy.

Behind my displays I have a 30W 1 Meter fluorescent light fitting which kicks out the equivalent of 3*60W bulbs,  I added a small inline toggle switch for easy access. 

The effect is excellent, I get a nice background of reflected light that means I can clearly see everything on my desk, but I also get this great glow behind the monitors which is really easy on the eye.  Overall I am very pleased with the effect, and as a twist I assembled it all during a conference call briefing this afternoon – one of the best conference calls yet!

Andy Jones, a director at Xerox Global Services, explains a crucial change in the way we use paper. “Thirty years ago paper was the definitive record of so many things that happened within business. Today it is increasingly the case that the electronic record is the definitive copy, while paper is becoming much more a work-in-progress medium,” he says.

I agree with the work in progress role of paper, and its this role that multiple monitors and a Tablet PC address.  The Tablet is great for sketching, note taking, review and markup as well as reading on the plane/train.  Multiple monitors avoid the need to use paper as a reference copy while you work on another document on a single PC display.

tags: paperless, tabletpc, multiplemonitors

• small enough to take anywhere *****
• worked great as a phone *****
• seamlessly receive push email in the background without impacting mp3 playback ******
• basic calendar, mainly used in day view ***
• ability to lookup people in company address book for email and phone numbers  X
• mp3 playback of mainly podcasts and recorded conference calls ***
• rock solid stability ***

Overall conclusion:

I really liked it, but won’t be keeping it.  In the end it just doesn’t compare with the Treo 650 which with a few important additions is optimised for me to be the perfect device.

Detailed conclusions:

The SP5 is a compromise device,  if you start out wanting a great phone with a well integrated contact address book then you are onto a winner.  The fact that you also get calendar integration and email are real bonuses.  Because I have a Tablet I hadn’t expected to use the SP5 to send emails - I have never been very comfortable with a keypad – but the SP5 has well integrated voice email functionality so I ended up using that a lot whenever I needed to send or reply to email.

Size – great, very small and light, keys are a reasonable size
Sound – the external speaker was very loud,  much louder than the Treo,  sound via the headset was ok too.
Battery life – reasonable – about one day of intensive use
Stability – I have had to restart it on average once every 5 days, once because it completely froze and all the other times because it slowed to a crawl.
Bluetooth – not tested
Storage – Mini SD card, under battery.  Not very easy to change but I used a 1GB card and so it was fairly roomy, drag and drop of files made it easy to add/delete files without taking the SD card out of the device.
PC integration – ability to copy files to and from the SD card was very reliable,  I copied hundreds of MB’s at a time without a hitch, application installation was quick and easy.  I actually didn’t need to use ActiveSync as all my sync was wireless via OneBridge which is just as well as I had an issue with Active Sync, caused by using Windows 2003 Server.
Speed – just acceptable, no where near as fast as the Treo, switching between applications was painfully slow at times.  However music always played just fine
Launcher – I dislike the fact that I can not control the order in which the applications appear, but otherwise it works ok
Buttons – rubbish there are not enough hardware buttons and no modifier keys to make the few buttons it does have dual use.  I really like hardware shortcut buttons on my Treo so this was a big usability issue for me
Wifi – never got it configured, not sure what I would use it for
Phone – great, I think the signal strength was better than my Treo, the speaker phone was loud and easy to use.  The call history is good, quick redial is good.  I particularly liked the fact that you could do a type down search against the call history.
Contacts – great,  but I really wanted directory lookup, which didn’t work in my configuration – OneBridge GPRS connection to Lotus Notes.  I particularly liked the type down search
Email – great for reading, even with the small screen emails were easy to read.  Wireless synchronisations worked well, ticking away in the background.  On the Treo OneBridge can not run in the background with an mp3 playing without causing the mp3 to stutter every 10 seconds or so,  so I had to use on demand sync.  Great for sending email as well provided you already have the person in your address book, or are replying to an email.  In both cases sending is only viable if you are a keypad wizard or – in my case – you are happy to record and send voice notes.  I think voice notes are fantastic and seem a much better idea than sending terse emails that are easily misinterpreted
MP3 player – I really didn’t like Windows media player,  it’s handling of podcasts is poor, its library management is fiddly, the lack of a slider to skip backwards and forwards in long podcasts was annoying, the headphones were ok, but I really missed the ability to use the button on the headset to control the media player.  On the Treo you can use Headset control to turn any wired headset into a remote control.  I tried 3 or 4 alternative media players Pocket Player was the best but it’s no where near as good as Pocket Tunes on the Treo.
IE – ok if you are really desperate to browse the web,  but obviously the screen size and slow speed make it a real challenge.
Task manager – rubbish, but then I don’t use task management in Notes, so I never really used it
Calendar – poor – the day view is pretty good,  I personally hated the week and month views but I am sure others must use them for something.  Creating personal appointments works, but you can not create meetings, invite remote attendees and have this information sync to Lotus Notes.
Voice Notes – I had high hopes for the voice notes function, but the quality was very low and their was no hardware button for it.  I use CallRec on my Treo and this is amazing well integrated, especially if you make most of your voice notes whilst listening to podcasts or music like I do.  It also records phone calls.
Camera – pretty good, much better than the Treo as expected.  I am a big fan of good camera’s in phones I think they are incredibly useful, especially with good desktop integration like that promised by OneNote
RSS reader – I tried out NewsGator Mobile.  I had very high hopes for it,  the usability and speed were acceptable and I think it would have saved me a little time at my desk because I could use it whilst queueing etc.  In practice as it was a beta I found too many bugs in the synchronisation to be able to use it much.

SP5 vs Treo 650

I have used a Treo 650 for over a year so when I was asked to test the SP5 it was only on the condition that I could keep the Treo in case the SP5 failed to impress.  I knew the Treo would be hard to beat!  What surprised me was how subtle features made the Treo the better SmartPhone for me, and also how good the low cost/free software is for the Treo.  It seems obvious to me that the developer community has taken to th palm platform and the Treo in particular with great enthusiasm and fixed many small usability issues.  

The SP5 wins over the Treo in only a few areas:

• Smoother multi-tasking, in particular this is noticeable with the email background synchronisation that never seems to affect other functions of the device.  On the Treo OneBridge in particular causes mp3 playback to stutter
• Smaller and lighter, the Treo is not a small device, however you do get a keyboard!  However the weight really affects me now as I have a couple of great clip in cases that are very easy to use, and get close to the dock in case experience of the Blackberry.
• Voice notes/Email integration,  this is very slick and easy to use on the SP5.  Definitely a feature I will be requesting on Treo.
• PC integration, especially the ability to drag and drop files from the desktop.  I use Card Export on the Treo to do the same thing,  but it’s not as reliable or as easy to use

The Treo wins over the SP5 in all other areas,  but particularly worthy of note:

• The media playback experience, especially for podcasts and recorded events
• The larger screen and keyboard, make reading longer documents easier
• The touch screen, means that more functions can be surfaces for easy access, on the SP5 you have fewer features and the few there are are hidden away behind several menus
• The voice recording, this really is very slick on the Treo,  as I do a lot of my research on the move,  I listen to a lot of podcasts, conference sessions, analyst briefings, recorded conference calls etc on my Treo.  Using headset control I can pause/play/skip them with a single headset button click and now with CallRec I can record snipets from them, or record notes for myself – ideas, web sites, book names etc – with a single side button click.  If a make or receive a phone call my media player auto-pauses and restarts after the call and I can also record all or any part of the call with a single side button click as well.

In fact I run an allowance system of sorts myself at the moment,  I gave up long ago expecting my company to invest as much in the tools of my trade as I would have invested if I was given the choice.  So when I started working from home I took the money that I was saving in fuel, personal broadband and other incidental travel and office related expenses and stuck it in a dedicated bank account.  I now draw on that account – without guilt – whenever I need/want to invest in my personal effectiveness and I am much happier as a result,  I no longer spend every day wishing my laptop had more memory, or wishing I had a second display, or a better headset,  I just buy them!

Hardware

• 1.1 GHz processor
• 1.5 GB memory
• 40 MB hard disks, one backs up to the other every night using a robocopy script, the scripts also does a backup of the SQL server databases.
• 100Mb wired network connection to the hub
• 802.11b wireless
• Bluetooth
• HP Docking station, with interal CD drive

Core software:

• Dot net framework 1.1 and 2
• Windows Tablet PC edition 2005 Firewall
• Maxthon Browser (free), the best browser,  see my other posts
• Skype (free)
• Synergy (free), allows me to use desktop keyboard and mouse to control the Tablet when I don’t want to use RDP connections
• Microsoft desktop search, and Adobe iFilter
• DAEMON tools virtual CD drive (free),  for mounting all of those MSDN ISO images!
• WinDirStat (free) to keep an eye on my hard disk useage
• VMWare Workstation v5.5
• FoxIT PDF reader (free) , my pain PDF reader, very quick
• Adobe Acrobat 6, for printing to PDF and PDF document composition
• Adobe Acrobat Reader 7 (free), for when FoxIT PDF reader has a problem
• HP officejet d series Corporate Driver (free), Windows 2003 compatible driver for D125xi Printer/Scanner
• Microsoft ActiveSync (free), synch to Windows Mobile/SmartPhone (not currently used)
• Palm Desktop and Hotsync (free), for integration with Treo 650
• WinZip, compression and archive manager
• Robocopy (free), command line utility that I use for all disk synchronisation and backup
• Process Explorer (free), task manager on steroids
• Sun’s JVM (free), Java Virtual machine
• Microsoft Reader (free), eBook reader
• Clipname (free), explorer context menu that places URL for any file or directory that is right clicked, supports encoding methods for different applications
• LiveMeeting Console

Security

• McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 7
• Windows XP SP2 Firewall (free)
• Microsoft Defender (free) – anti-spyware
• Maxthon (free). Ad, popup and everything else blocking
• Firefox (free), for comparison with IE and Maxthon

Telephone, Audio, Music and Video, TV

• Windows media player 10 (free), mainly for Video, RIPing and Creating CDs
• DivX player
• Real player (free), because the BBC use it for their radio programmes
• Skype (free), for calls to international land-lines and for recording conference calls. I use the phone for everything else
• Quicktime (free) because my camera produces quicktime movies and I download some

Pictures, images, scanning etc:

• Microsoft Flash (free) for screen captures and simple image editing, scale, crop, format conversion etc,  it shipped with HTML Help a long time ago
• Paint.NET (free) for more complex image editing
• PaperPort Pro for scanning of all of my paper, it really is a great product
• Artrage art package
• MapPoint Europe 2004

Notes and research

• eWallet for everything I need to remember, cards, licence keys, cars etc etc.  Syncs with my Tablet and my Treo 650
• OneNote 2007 beta for all other types of Notes and records
• Notepad 2 (free), instead of Notepad
• NetSnippets, integrated with Maxthon my main browser for capturing and storing web pages

Authoring:

• Word 2007 beta
• Powerpoint 2007 beta
• Excel 2003 beta
• Blogjet for blog postings
• Camtasia Studio for multi-media authoring, screencasts, videos etc
• MindManager X5 for most of my idea generation and meeting notes
• CmapTools (free) concept map drawing software
• OpenOffice.org v2,  for comparison to Microsoft Office, and to get around issues with readonly fonts in PowerPoint

Collaboration, Email, RSS, IM and Organisation

• Lotus Notes 6.52,  my companies email system and my master contact database
• Microsoft Outlook +Newsgator, my main RSS reader and Personal Email, also has backup copy of my contacts
• OnTime 2006 (free), Client task, action and project manager
• Lotus Sametime
• MSN Messenger (free)
• Groove v 3.1
• OneBridge (mobile email for PDA) desktop connector

Disks:

• C: system disk
• D: primary data disk

Backup, each night:

• No backup,  all data on this disk is a replica of data on

I guess it starts with the desk,  which is about 9 ft long and solid wood, on that desk from the left to the right are as follows:

• A small bookcase, with the following on top – a paper cutter, a clock, and a laminator
• On the top shelf of bookcase are the 20 or so books that I am currently referencing or planning to read shortly
• On the bottom shelf of the bookcase are two large wicker baskets that contains all of my bits, for example cameras, security passes, card readers, CDs and DVDs etc.  I like a tidy desk,  but these two baskets are my dumping areas
• Next along is my Tablet, its a TC1100 that sits in A4 orientation in its docking station, with no keyboard attached.  Its ready to grab at any time for example if I leave the house or go to work in my reading room or the garden.  I often have an mp3 player attached to the docking stations USB port charging and ready to transfer songs to.

• Then I have a long shelf which lifts my 3 monitors about 3 inches off the desk.  This sets them at exactly the right height and leaves room underneath for my headphones, keyboard and laptop. 
• The left end of the shelf stands on a hollow wooden support that stores the magazines that are in my “to read” pile,  the left end stores scrap paper, a mini torch and glasses cleaners, SD cards and other small stuff.
• On the far right I have my phone, pens, wired and wireless networking hubs and my printer
• Under the desk I have 3 draw storage unit, a server and my desktop PC and a large bin and storage area for boxes.

The rest of this post has more details on all of the items that can be purchased,  my desktop and server are custom built,  they both have a couple of gig of memory and a 2.4 or 2.8 gig processor with dual disks.

Details:

• Tablet TC1100 with docking station, with internal CD and 1G of additional memory.
• Swim MP3 player, waterproof with 256 MB of memory
• Logitech USB microphone
• IBM Thinkpad T40
• Microsoft explorer wireless keyboard and mouse
• Sennheiser USB headphones
• 3 * Neovo F-419 19” TFT displays, connected to my desktop PC
• Treo 650 SmartPhone connected to my desktop PC, with a 1GB SD card full of podcasts
• Polycom Soundpoint Pro dual-line, speakerphone with Plantronics headset, this is connected to my private and business lines.  I use the headset for long conference calls and when the kids are home
• KCorp KLG-575 108Mbs long range wireless access point and 4 port hub with firewall
• Netgear DG834 ADSL modem and 4 port hub with firewall
• HP D125xi Printer/scanner with auto-feeder

I am frequently asked what software I use so I have decided to maintain a number of posts that describe my working environment.  I will describe it in layers, so it’s easier to understand and hopefully maintain.  You can find the maintained posts in the folder My work environment.

The first set of posts I am planning are:

• My office
• Desktop PC
• Laptop PC
• Tablet PC
• Test Server
• SmartPhone

As a side benefit, hopefully these posts will prove a useful reference if I ever need to re-build the device in question.