The migration of Carrypad and Origamiportal to UMPCPortal.com is complete and I’d like to welcome everyone in to have a look around. Since last November I’ve been planning how best to move the three domains into one and in a mad dash between CES and CeBit I’ve managed to complete it.

Underlying the new portal is the old Origamiportal engine which, while its not perfect, brought advantages of smooth migration and preservation of the valuable readers contributions in the forum. I’ve mainly concentrated on re-writing the product database portal and with the help of John Tokash (Readermini for the Nokia tablets is one of his other projects.) we’ve enhanced the database, improved the usability and introduced a fantastic new feature - the comparison engine.

John took my requirements, worked his Web2.0 magic over a few weekends and came back with a tool that I’m really happy with. I have already used it twice in the last 24 hours to compare new devices. You’ll find battery life data where we’ve done tests, pixels per inch for screens, frame diameter calculations and the ability to sort, refine, sort, refine and re-sort to your hearts content. There’s still more data to go into the database too!

In addition to the comparison engine, I’ve simplified the forum as much as I can (ripped out some adverts, improved the layout, reduced the categories) and migrated all the content over from Carrypad. You’ll find a cross-domain search tool from Google on the front page. While everything gets re-indexed by the search engine, this is a good way to find info you’re looking for.

There’s still work going on in the background to fix the little things that aren’t perfect and we’ve got a to-do list as long as our arm of changes and improvements we want to make. Feel free though, to make suggestions or point out errors as you find them. One of the items very high on the to-do list is a mobile version of the site. It just hasn’t been possible to do that yet so if you’re struggling with the site on a mobile device, the full RSS feed or even full site under something like bloglines mobile is my recommendation.

Thanks to all the help and feedback from the testers and a huge thanks to John Tokash for some really nice work and a professional approach that kept me well in line with my priorities and actions.

A few points to note:

• Anonymous comments are enabled on news items but due to spam I had to turn on the approval process. Anon comments may take time to appear in news items
• I’ve tried testing with as many browsers as I can but its like trying to fit a balloon into a toilet roll holder. You push it in on one side and then something pops out on the other. I’m no CSS expert but I think most popular browsers are covered. Safari so good-IE.
• RSS feeds stay the same. I’ll add an overview of the feeds at a later date.

Next stop: Hannover and CeBit which is going to be fantastic for the UMPC world if the Q2 rumor is anything to go by!

Steve / Chippy