As much fun as a small device is on the road once it is setup, you need to get it to that point. With or without keyboard may not matter once you are on the go, but you need to get your device to that point.

Using the example of the OQO + Windows Live Mesh we will use the slightly hidden but very useful Live Mesh Remote Desktop to achieve our goal. (This procedure of course can be used for other devices running Windows as well using any remote desktop application which works for you.)

Why use a remote Desktop?

Syncing files is just one part of the equation and even if your MID has a nice keyboard, it is no comparison to your big keyboard, mouse and monitor when you want to setup all your tools and applications. And before that, you want to familiarize yourself with all the bells and whistles the little device might have. This is much easier achieved when you are not distracted by a different input device.

You can make a regular routine out of how to use the device in combination with your main computer. Usually when I travel, I have a special folder containing all the files I need and also save all files I need back on a special folder on my mobile device. This way I am crystal clear what needs to be synced or not. Using it with Live Mesh has the additional benefit that you should be able to sync files against the cloud and just switch on your MID before you go onto tour.

Step 1: Take care of your battery

One of the more expensive and fragile parts of your MID is the battery. Call me superstitious, but I like like to remove the battery so I do not have to worry about any kind of strain on the battery. Plus you do not need to worry about running out of battery if you leave the device on for some hours during syncing / installing.

Unplug the battery, connect to power and boot the OQO (Additional settings should be done once you are connected with the big computer).

Step 2: Install Windows Live Mesh on all machines

In order to use the device syncing and remote desktop capability of Live Mesh you need a Windows Live ID and the software. Head over to mesh.com and take a look at the feature list or more detailed information. While the main purpose is to have a ‘place in the cloud’ for your data or access your home computer through the web, we will use it ‘just’ for setting up our tools.

• get a Windows Live ID if you don’t have one yet
• download the Live Mesh Software
• install it on both machines, your main computer and the MID device
• start the software on each and add your device to the mesh

A more detailed instruction with pictures can be found here.

You can now try and sync folders and more, but we will work with the Remote Desktop. If you already have folders in your mesh, it will add these to the desktop without syncing them but with a remote desktop it is easy to clean up.

Step 3: Connecting the devices

As soon as both devices are online and are connected through a Wifi (make sure it is not a connection through your Sim card unless you have a flat rate) you will be able to see the ‘Connect to this device’ in your main computer. In the picture below you can see that I have several computers in my cloud Noir is my big computer, Cutie my laptop (currently offline) and Live Desktop is your desktop in the cloud. By default you get 5 GB of storage on that Live Desktop, more than enough for most.

After clicking "Connect to device" it may take some time until your MID shows a popup window asking you to accept the remote access. Once you have agreed, you now have access to your little device through your big computer!

This is how the screen looks like (click on it for a larger image):

Step 4: Switch on the power

Now that your devices are connected and you are on normal power, you should change the power plan (right click on the power symbol, Power options).

I switched to "high performance" but remember to switch back.

Step 5: Setup and Install

You can now work with the device to run

• anything requiring installation / download because it is much easier to configure this through the remote desktop on the device
• anything needing login / passwords you can fill your browser / apps with all the relevant ones, like for example twitter / Flickr / Friendfeed
• setup complicated bookmarks like for twitter search or others which would be hard to type on the keyboard
• setup tools like Google Gears for Gmail and sync them while connected to real power and possible strong Wifi

Step 6: Disconnecting

Disconnecting the systems is very easy, you just click CTRL-ALT-Delete or press the according menu point on the Live Mesh Screen. If you are done for the day with installing and setting everything up, remember to switch the battery settings back and shut down the little device from the big desktop. Voila.

Problems I ran into

• Size of the desktop: As Live Mesh insists to have a special side bar, I was not able to have a screen in full resolution without scrolling or a slightly ugly font. Also the bar "You are now connected to OQO" was located at a least useful place on the screen, if I would run Firefox in full screen mode it would be exactly on the tab bar.
• you need to remember to switch back the power plan once you are back on normal battery. In my opinion it should automatically switch to high performance when it detects the power cord connection.
• the keyboard layout still is in English while I am typing on a German keyboard. This is relevant more for the special characters like :.?@ etc which are on a different keyboard than I am used to, but rather than switching over to a German setting, if I had something I was not able to type right away, I used copy and paste which works seamlessly between the desktops
• Usually, everything is synced through the cloud. But according to the Live Mesh team you can setup some fold
  ers to only be directly connected without the cloud which would be helpful for files which are large or should not go into the cloud. Problem I found was that this does not work, at least not on my side. But in theory it should.

Overall it is an easy and simple way to connect the two devices out of the box with one another and setup everything I need and want to use.

Having spend some time around the OQO 2, a short amount of time with the Compal MID (Specs) as well as first steps with the Clarion Mid (Specs + see the longer HD video) I am still the newbie in the bunch of us four. Meaning: It is still not 100% clear to me when a mid is a mid. Is it when there are different components on it and you would not call it a smart phone or a net book? Is it a MID when it has an Atom processor on it? And does it really matter?

You could say "Nicole you could have researched this a little bit!" and you are right. But it is only so few times when I don’t have any prior knowledge of the involved technology that I wanted to go the route of a ‘normal user’. And the normal user does exactly what we did during MBC09 conference: look at other people’s gadgets and then make a decision based upon touch, weight, maybe if it has a keyboard or not etc. But not "if it is a MID / smartphone / net book". Have a look at the video Heike Scholz from Mobile Zeitgeist made available and try to spot the Mids:

[The nice voice in the background with the slight accent btw is Steve in German. ;)]

So after playing around with the OQO my current definition of a MID is this:

Better than a smartphone, because of a real operating system, sometimes with a camera or GPS, sometimes with a keyboard, bigger than a smartphone but smaller than a net book and it has probably an "Intel Atom inside" sticker on it.

No, it is not convincing to me either. ;) What I came to realize thought where other things:

• I never knew it, but I really want a smaller device with more power when on the road, not necessary with a keyboard but with a real Windows on it to have an easier and more productive time. Even if I only travel occasionally, I am not 100% connected all the time.
• I also want a cheaper ‘notebook’. In 2005 I paid 2.200 € to have my Lenovo tablet. I never really used the tablet functionality (except for gaming where you can cheat with a stylus over somebody using a mouse). It is too big and too heavy at 3 pounds to carry around, I still need an extra phone and a microblogging device and I rather have something smaller and cheaper with me. Today’s gadgets would allow me for half the price to have 2-3 gadgets whcih are way more powerful and would suit different needs and situations. Like a real phone, an additional small "twitter a bit and check mails" device which can be switched on with the press of a button and a small netbook to replace the tablet.
• Devices have to be connected. Not with the cloud up on the internets but my cloud: my apps, my productive setup, my ecosystem of tools. The world has to revolve around me, and my gadgets have to fit into this right away another reason why it may be nice for many to have linux on these mids but I need windows. We can talk about if it needs to be XP / Vista or WIndows 7, but I need windows (see also (You had me at Windows …").
• Mids and other small devices have different modes of being operated. On the road, at home, with or without net connection, on battery or connected to power … We all have different needs and ideas about what works or not, which will make it more different for manufactures to produce for a smaller base.
• I happen to be using english quite a lot and much of my work is done in the english sphere- otherwise these gadgets would be useless to me in their current form. Why? Try öäüß. Or áàéèóò and co for others. German does have the advantage that you can write ae instead of ä and ss instead of ß but still it is not the same.
• I have to set up different models in my mind and find the right gadget combination for each job. Plan first, set up, execute. Which can mean that I will need to buy some new gadgets. *cough*

The following ‘plans and setups’ should work better for me with a Mid than with a smart phone or netbook:

• setting up the system with a direct remote desktop system like Windows Live Mesh
• using data backups with File syncing tools like Dropbox and for example a spreadsheet
• be the quick ‘download your fotographs from the device, sort them and upload the relevant ones’
• be a small podcasting station with an USB microphone
• run your emails with something like Google Gears and Gmail
• be a secondary device when doing live blogging from an event
• using iTunes on a mid for podcasts so that when you are on the road travelling, you can use your one Ipod and still stay up to date with your podcasts

Any more suggestions from you? :)

How is it that we feel instantly connected with some devices and really not with others? Today I ‘upgraded’ from my Compal / Aigo device with Linux to something running Windows. Being a die hard windows person who can work her way around Linux (I don’t do cake but I baked myself some kernels …) but does not really want to,  I convinced Steve that is really is a great idea to swap devices. As in “I want that other one!”.

It was nice getting to know you but the other one is sexier …

The gadget session at MBC09 today had more than one person who was happy that “no crappy windows” was running on the machines, while I am the opposite. Give me that familiar loved interface! And if it happens to be on a shiny new OQO 2 that is fine with me as well. ;)

Meaning:  if there had been a windows on the compal / aigo, that would have been a totally different game for me. Though I sound subjective, I did test the little one with the flaw during the short time I had it and will provide more insight why I think we did not bond (and why this is relevant). Now let’s see how the new gadget behaves over the next days so I really can get going with some crazy stuff as everybody else once I am back from my travel thursday!

I am also using this time to familiarize myself with the device and like to see how I can use it in a typical mobile situation for me: being on a conference / event, wanting to tweet around and maybe something more. I’ll keep you posted!

I’m beginning to doubt that I really do have an OLED screen on the OQO 2+ here because the power drain test I just performed showed some relativelt poor results. I knew that OLED screens could be tweaked for power or brightness but I didn’t expect to see so much of a difference in my power-drain test results. There really isn’t any power advantage over LED in this case and with amazing LED-backlit screens like the one on the Wibrain, you wonder why they did it. Did I just hear someone say ‘marketing’? Keeping things in perspective though, these results are ‘good’ but just not as good as I expected.

The first image show power drain as measured by Vista’s ‘performance and reliability monitor’ in battery-saving power profile with the OLED brightness turned down to minimum.

Drain at minimum brightness

This image shows the graph for the same setup but with max OLED brightness.

Battery drain under full brightness

Be aware that I’ve got a production sample OQO+ here and again, don’t forget that in the big world of mobile computing, these results still represent amazing efficiency.

From the drain graphs above, you can calculate how long the 17wh battery will last. I’ve written a bit more about this over at MID Moves.

As always, full specs and more links available in our product database.

Article written on the train with the Wibrain i1.

I’m on my way to MBC09, the microblogging conference that starts tomorrow in Hamburg so its a good opportunity to do some more testing.

OQO 2+, Wibrain i1 and a mobile phone on a seat-back table.

Not only was Chip thrilled to learn about the new OQO and how it could help him keep track of his acorn stash, he also said that with the extended battery, he could put Dale to work on it too. A combination of portability and power, the Model 2+ is ideal for mobile professionals who do a lot of their work in the field. With the native Vista operating system, users can access, edit, and create files and documents that can easily be transferred to their office computers and shared in a presentation.

Note: My original plan of having the mascots pose with the devices has been foiled by their oversized gloves and cautious photographer companions. Unlike at Magic Mountain, the characters here at Disneyland aren’t allowed to hold anything. So we’re going to make do with statues and figures until we find a mascot with human hands.

I bumped into Porky Pig at Magic Mountain today while using the OQO Model 2+. He waved at me and pointed at the device. "Is that a mini computer?" his uncostumed photographer asked.

Well, with a question like that, how could I not take a moment to explain to him all about MID Moves, Intel, the Atom CPU, and of course MIDs and UMPCs. I could tell from his enthusiastic nodding that he was pretty impressed. Just look at his expression. That pig wants an OQO!

In case you were wondering, the answer is yes. Yes, you can take an OQO Model 2+ on a rollercoaster while it’s in sleep mode and have it running just fine after all the sharp turns, drops, loops, rattles, and jostles.