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April 24, 2008#

Make sure there’s no special character in your name if you’re planning to become a Tablet PC user

As a Tablet PC user I’m relying on stylus input and handwriting recognition a lot. So let’s start with the good news: Microsoft did a hell of a job with Windows Vistas handwriting input panel. Recognition accuracy is really astonishing and though some third-party product like Firefox leave room for improvement talking about the input panel’s integration, it works well and fast in most other situations.

tip

Now the bad news. I can’t get that freakin’ thing to learn my name. I must admit there’s no way my parents could have known that I’d be using handwriting recognition on a computer one day when they named me over 20 years ago. So I can’t blame them for deciding on Jürgen.

As long as I’m using German as the selected input language on the input panel, I’m fine. But since I’m dealing with English most of the time and since I’m also talking to some Spanish guys every now and then, most of the time my input panel isn’t set to German. Unfortunately Microsoft didn’t consider that case as relevant and there’s no way of teaching Vista my name with the input language set to English, not even using the handwriting personalization tool as it won’t allow me to enter any characters that aren’t part of the selected language’s keyboard layout. Automatic learning and correction tools aren’t an option either since whatever I write on the input panel gets changed into the closest fit of a standard character. As soon as the correction tool is running out of close matches to "ü" it just comes up with not-so-close matches. This turn’s out to become an extremely funny game that in no way I can win.

Finally as a another little side note on handwriting recognition in Windows Vista let me mention that I started training the system (in English) using the handwriting personalization tool to improve accuracy even more. This again works great just that I can’t run this tool for any language other than English. Especially not for German, Spanish or French input. It took me a while to find that information on the web but turns out that this is in fact true. Handwriting personalization is only available for English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

To be precise, automatic learning of handwriting style and targeting specific recognition errors is available for these languages and only these. Automatic learning of vocabulary and teaching the system your handwriting style by feeding the system with handwriting examples is even supported for English exclusively. Check for yourself here.

Microsoft could really care a bit more about DETAILS!!!

April 24, 2008#

Useful and fun-to-use Tablet PC applications (1)

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I’ve been planning to exchange my current notebook for a Tablet PC for quite a while. Few weeks ago, I finally got it over with and now I’m a proud owner of a HP 2710p convertible Tablet PC.

compaq-2710p-notebook_190x170

Needless to say that during the last weeks, as always with new toys, I spent an excessive amount of time configuring my new device and installing and trying out every application I could find out there. So why not share a few of my discoveries?!

OneNote 2007

clip_image001[10]My favorite application for Tablet PCs absolutely is OneNote 2007. I’ve been using this application even on ordinary computers over the last months and it’s still a whole lot better on Tablet PC. Take (handwritten) notes, organize stuff, capture web pages, screenshots, … and all with just a few easy clicks with your stylus. Fantastic!

 

InkSeine

inkseineAs said before, OneNote can also be used on ordinary PCs which means  there’s has to be a certain compromise regarding its interface to be usable by both stylus and keyboard / mouse users as well. For the heavy stylus users among you, I found another application called InkSeine at Microsoft Research. It’s not an actual product but as one might guess an application with the purpose of research and testing of new techniques in mind. Nevertheless it’s user interface is designed for heavy pen use and even better, searching the Internet or documents on your computer and linking or inserting the results is completely integrated into this interface. This application is really worth a shot. Nevertheless I should mention the lack of textual input and support for non-Microsoft applications such as Firefox or OpenOffice. Besides, there is a problem with the integrated search functions not being compatible with the current Windows Search 4 Technology Preview.

Having said that, I’d like to make a short side note: You should definitely try out the tech preview of Windows Search 4 (available for Windows XP and Vista). It’s just so much faster and more responsive than former version that I wouldn’t wanna live without it anymore. But remember: InkSein’s integrated search functions won’t work anymore after installing the tech preview of Windows Search.

Ink Desktop

clip_image001[12]Another note taking tool by Microsoft. Ink Desktop allows you to take handwritten notes directly to your desktop. That’s a really handy thing for stylus users. Now you won’t only put recently downloaded files or documents you’re currently working on on your desktop but important notes, too. Handwritten, quick, easy!

Now the last tool for today, finally a non-Microsoft application:

SnagIt

clip_image001[14]The Vista Snipping Tool, OneNote 2007 and InkSeine are already doing a good job on taking screenshots quickly and easily, nevertheless there’s an even better way. SnagIt allows you to easily take screenshots not only of your whole desktop, a single window or a certain region of the screen but also of webpages, preserving links (if you wish so) and windows with content that requires scrolling. SnagIt’s the definite standard when you’re talking about screen capture. Try it out!

More tools coming soon … Ink Crosswords, Tic-Tac-Toe, Sudoku, Calculator, Inking Math Formulas, Physics Illustrator and personal fonts

Stay tuned!

April 24, 2008#

Hey Microsoft – I’m so annoyed! At least a bit!

Since quite a while Microsoft is pushing 64-bit operating system versions. In fact, talking about most of Microsoft’s current server products they’re even exclusively producing x64 versions. Now I’m a Windows Vista user since November 2006 and for half a year now I’m using the x64-version.

clip_image001[10]I’m quite satisfied with it as almost all of the hardware manufacturers of my devices provide the necessary drivers BUT I’m quite disappointed by Microsoft itself regarding their 2007 office series. I’m ok with its not being available as a 64-bit version, but I’m definitely not ok with messages like "Internet fax services are not available on 64 bit operating systems" which comes up when you click the Send as fax button in Word 2007. Same thing with Groove 2007 Filesharing Workspaces: "Filesharing workspaces are not supported on 64 bit operating systems". Neither is the Send to OneNote printer driver and as far as I remember the office problem solution assistant.

For months I’ve been waiting for a fix to this now, as none of the issues have

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been addressed with SP1. Today I found a note on this blog stating that Microsoft isn’t planning to take care of the Send to OneNote printer driver in the current 2007 version of Office at all. It’ll probably be fixed in the next version of OneNote but there’s not gonna be any patch, update or fix for the current version.

This really disappoints me! It’s not just that Microsoft is taking care of those things very slowly, seems they’re not even caring about them at all. Considering that Microsoft Office isn’t exactly the cheap or free open-source office suite this makes me really hate MS a little bit. It’s just not ok like this!

Although the blog post mentioned above doesn’t say anything about the Groove Filesharing Workspace and Internet Fax service issues with 64-bit operating systems, I’d be surprised if they were facing a brighter future than OneNote.

April 16, 2008#

Wow, Google! I’m so impressed now!

Just read the news that Google released a new beta version of it’s planetary explorer Google Earth which now includes 3D models of some of the bigger German cities, too. Among the Berlin and much to my liking Munich.

I gave it a try a few minutes ago and decided that this is definitely worth a quick (almost) real-time post. I activated 3D  buildings while having the map centered to Munich and all I could say was “Wow!”. Nothing more to say!

Have a look for your self:

munich 1

munich 2

munich 3

Get it here.

April 10, 2008#

ADS-B – Next Gen Air Navigation

This is nothing really new but something that is definitely overdue!

Given the background of my experiences at AENA and my studies, the video below (Source) which I found through Pogue’s Posts wasn’t actually much of a surprise for me but I think it gives a really good overview for non-pros! Besides, for me, it’s at least been a short update on the American state of the art and future plans as my personal knowledge tends to be a bit focused on the European on-goings.

For those among you who want to know a bit more then “ADS-B = AIRPLANE + GPS + COLOUR DISPLAY = COOL” and may be wondering how GPS with it providing a downlink only is to provide every airplane with other planes’ positions, have a look at the Wikipedia article on the topic. There you’ll find the details!

April 8, 2008#

Formula-1-Ticker Sidebar Gadget Update

ranking Just uploaded a new version of the Formula-1-Ticker sidebar gadget. Now supports a setting dialog to control the size of the gadget. Also supports different sizes in docked and undocked mode. Text size is now adjustable, too. Give it a try!

April 8, 2008#

Website Update: Formula 1 Sidebar Gadget, Rendering Smoke & Clouds

Just wanted to point out two recent updates to my website.

presentation-page-01 A few days ago I finally uploaded a short description together with the slides and paper of a talk I gave a few weeks ago on the topic of “Rendering Smoke & Clouds” in the context of a game design university course. Have a look at it here.

 

ranking The second update is a Windows Vista sidebar gadget, my first one actually. It displays the content of a (German) Formula 1 live text ticker (sport.rtl.de) in the Windows sidebar and includes features like a flyout window for detailed view, automatic refresh, quick access to the original website and a Formula 1 live stream. Feel free to give it a try here and please leave your feedback!

February 12, 2008#

FSXGET 0.1 Beta 2 Released

logo Just released FSXGET Version 0.1 Beta 2 which contains a new feature, allowing you to select display units (meters or feet) and several bugfixes. Checks for the operating system and service pack version now as well as for SimConnect installed and instances of the application already running, to give better user feedback if the application encounters a problem at startup instead of crashing with some cryptic error message.

As always, more info and download here.

February 11, 2008#

Planes’ and Trains’ Locations! Live!

As I myself already got some experience with using Google Maps and Earth to display things such as stars (Web-based Planetarium) or Flight Simulator X aircrafts (FSXGET), I really like those two applications I’ve came over yesterday:

They’re both based on Google Maps, with the first one showing the realtime positions of Swiss trains…

train

… and the second doing the same for planes over Zurich.

flight

Absolutely awesome! The latter one comes really close to FSXGET just for the real world and looking at the technique behind reminds me of a passive radar I’ve seen in action during a visit to INDRA‘s plant in Madrid.

Besides, since my internship at AENA, I somehow just enjoy looking at realtime maps with planes moving around ;-)

February 11, 2008#

.NET Programming: OS and Service Pack Version

Yet another short article about how to programmatically detect the version of the operating system and installed service pack version in a .NET application (C#).

Basically I found three ways how to determine these version number in a C# application:

  1. Using the System.Environment.OSVersion class
    - Fast and easy, perfect to get Windows version including major, minor, revision and build section of the version number.
    - Problematic to get the service pack version: Gives you a string like e.g. ‘Service Pack 1, v.744′ which you’d have to parse then. Not an ideal and very stable way (regarding future service packs) to get the service pack version number.
  2. Using the WMI Interface 
    SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery("Win32_OperatingSystem");
    
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(query);
    

foreach (ManagementObject mo in searcher.Get())
    
   int iSPVersionMajor = int.Parse(mo["ServicePackMajorVersion"].ToString());

    Allows to retrieve numeric (major and minor) version number of installed service pack

  3. Using native Win32 API: GetVersionEx

    I didn’t try this solution myself but it seems quite promising, too. More details can be found here.

Last but not least, some information about Windows Version and Build numbers:

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