robgruen's WebLog : MIX06

MIX06: Playing in the Sandbox - Playing nice with the other kids

robgruen — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 22:07:00 GMT

The Sandbox here at Mix contains all sorts of labs, vista pcs, windows media center, and of course the awesome ultra mobile pcs. :) I got to play with the devices and talk to Lora who was tending the devices and answering questions. Unfortunatley I had to share her time and the time of device as there are lots of people wanting to play with them.

Here are my thoughts on the devices so far (I've had about 30 minutes total on them):

Of the devices so far the Founder device is my favorite. It's lightweight, has great ergonomics, and is lightning fast.
They were all prototype devices so there is some work left to be done.
The Asus did show some wear on the buttons (the coloroing was worn off) but it was at CeBIT in Germany so I'm sure thousands of people have touched the device. To me that means that'll hold up well.
The key typing glyphs are hard to get used to but I think will be quite usable once you get the hang of it.
The Samsung had a vent for the cpu fan right under the left hand which was not very comfortable and doesn't encourage lengthy use of the device since your hand will definitley start sweating. They should probably invert the CPU and put vents on the back of the device, or along the top edge, instead of along the side.
The touch screen often goes forgotten as I kept wanting to use the stylus but I guess that's because I'm not used to having the luxury of a touch screen.
I'm left handed so trying to use windows journal or one note was tough because of the touch screen...I had to keep my hand off of the display otherwise I'd freek the cursor out when the side of my hand touched the display surface.
There are products you can use to connect the device to a larger display.

To sum it all up: :) Bye bye laptop!

MIX06 - Lunch time

robgruen — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 23:14:00 GMT

We were fed quite well, thanks to all of the folks that made the food decisions. My tummy is happy!

The keynote was pretty cool, Tim O'Reilly's interview with BillG went really well. Bill had great answers and everyone was happy with his responses. I'm sure others will blog about it in more detail than myself.

I'm having to use one of the terminals set up here to blog since my lappy is in the hotel room.

Mix Registration - "done, check"

robgruen — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:33:00 GMT

MIX06 is sold out! 1900 attendees have come to Vegas to talk about the future of their respective portions of the internet. In fact, I think it's already started since I heard some conversations on the flight in. The check-in area has about a dozen lanes, looks like we were smart to check in tonight instead of early in the morning.

Since I'm registered as an "attendee" I got a bag of gifts including VS.NET 2005 standard edition, that'll be a nice gift to one of my buddies. There's also a notebook (yes, paper for hand written notes) and various other items.

Should be a grand day tomorrow!

MIX06 - So it begins

robgruen — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 08:50:00 GMT

Well, I just stepped off of a 5.5 hour flight got a rental car for 16 hours and then I'm back on another flight to Las Vegas all within a 24 hour time span.

More to follow!