Jeff Julian's Blog

OT | ElfYourself is back, and now powered by JibJab

Jeff Julian — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:51:35 GMT

Merry Christmas All!!! Try ElfYourself.com

Technorati Tags: Christmas,Elf Yourself,JibJab

HP TouchSmart IQ816 (Series IQ800): Day One Review

Jeff Julian — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:08:14 GMT

** WARNING: You can not mount this via VESA out of the box like the announcements describe, a special part must be ordered **

Now that I have my warning out of the way, Michelle purchased a HP TouchSmart IQ816 for the house so we could hang it on the wall so we could easily interact with the machine to leave notes, add calendar events, review pictures, and watch Blue-ray movies. I have to coolest wife, I know…

The machine arrived yesterday and man is it big. I would see why you would not want to have this thing on a desk, but that is the only option you have with it as it comes out of the box. The VESA mount that everyone reported this thing having is not something you can’t buy at a store and it does not come in the box. You have to order it from the HP parts site, but they actually have great turn around time. I ordered mine last night at 6:30pm and paid for next business day morning delivery and it is on the truck this morning set for delivery. That is fast. The part ended up only costing me $80 after shipping, but it is definitely something I would have ordered with the machine if I knew about it. Now you do, so order it if you want to hang your HPTS.

The VESA mount, which can be purchased here, only works for the IQ800 Series and not the previous versions.

Back to the review, the machine is fast, the touch surface is very responsive. However, the TouchSmart applications need some work. The music player doesn’t like Zune marketplace music (does hook to iTunes natively) and the Calendar doesn’t like Yahoo, just Google. These should have been much more configurable.

I am going to look into the SDK to see if I can create a Flickr Touchsmart application, but if all else fails, I will just create a cool Flickr WPF application for it instead.

I will do another review tomorrow or Friday after I get this mounted on the wall and can start using it for the purposes I purchased it for.

Technorati Tags: HP,Touchsmart,VESA,Amazon

#PDC08 | Look mom, Engadget “borrowed” one of my photos!

Jeff Julian — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:20:02 GMT

I was getting caught up on my RSS feeds after PDC today and I ran across this Engadget article. I then thought, hey that photo looks familiar. Oh I know why, because I took it!

Technorati Tags: PDC08,Photography

#PDC08 | Today is the last day!

Jeff Julian — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:28:24 GMT

Today I am checking out the event to see what all this amazing new stuff is about. I have been stuck in the booth since Saturday with only bathroom privileges so I have not been able to see what is going on.

I ran the Azure Build Service HOL with D’Arcy, but after the second machine crash, I gave up and came over to the Open Spaces area.

Technorati Tags: PDC08,Geekswithblogs.net,Darcy

GWB @ #PDC08 | Today is our last day in the Expo Hall

Jeff Julian — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:49:13 GMT

It has been surprising to talk to the attendees of the PDC about blogging and participation in communities. Most don’t seem to have blogs, but have lots of things to talk about. Most like the concept of Geekswithblogs.net after reading our bag insert and we have had a lot of registrations. But, there are a number of them who just want to read the blogs and we are completely ok with that. Our goal out here has been to register more bloggers who are interested in these new technologies Microsoft is announcing and help expose Geekswithblogs.net to a new audience of potential readers and bloggers. We feel we have been very successful doing that here.

Having Chris and D’Arcy out here has been a lot of fun. You haven’t heard much from Chris because he has been recording videos like crazy and hopefully we will see some of those popup today.

Well, it is time to get back over there. I want to thank all our new bloggers for joining and please let me know if you see any problems with the site and we will try to get them resolved quickly.

Technorati Tags: PDC08,Geekswithblogs.net,Expo

#PDC08 - Get your Shirts Here....

Jeff Julian — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:46:46 GMT

We still have a handful of shirts here for the attendees of PDC who requested them. We are in booth 100 on the edge by the Channel 9 area so swing by!

#PDC08 | Sorry for all the “Signal to Noise” issues on the main feed, Jason Olson is back!! :D

Jeff Julian — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:21:03 GMT

And he is very welcome here. We had a major bug left over from the “previous vendor” who owned the blogging tool we are using with the BlogML importer, putting all of Jason’s posts on the main feed instead of in the correct time they belonged.

Jason, it looks like all is good and we are glad to have you back!!!

Technorati Tags: Jason Olson,PDC08,Geekswithblogs.net

PDC08 | D’Arcy Lussier is on booth duty!

Jeff Julian — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:59:08 GMT

Our resident Canadian is present and ready to test the Surface out in the booth.

Technorati Tags: Geekswithblogs.net,PDC08

#PDC08 | We Are Here! Our booth is going to rock!

Jeff Julian — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 02:18:49 GMT


We have arrived!	Like the booth?

This is going to be a very busy week. John and I will be debugging the Surface table (huge thanks to Joe Olsen and Phenomblue for helping us with the Surface) and Jerod will be getting the marketing down. Can’t wait to catch up with the herd of you at this event!

Time for rest…

Technorati Tags: PDC08,Geekswithblogs.net,Booth

We Need You! | To Create A Video and Upload it REAL Soon

Jeff Julian — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:32:05 GMT

Ok, we are getting desperate here because we only have 2.5 working days before PDC left and 3 videos. I have a lot of “I will get you …” but only a few uploads, so if you are planning on participating, can you get us those videos soon? Thanks and hope you like the new site as well :D.

Technorati Tags: Geekswithblogs.net,PDC08,Videos