Mobile PC (Tablet PC) - Thoughts and Ideas : Toshiba M700

M700 and the Intel Matrix Storage Manager

wnewquay — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:42:11 GMT

I have read several threads in various forums and there seems to be a thought that uninstalling the Intel Matrix Storage Manager results in better benchmark scores. The numbers look compelling.

I wondered how this might affect me, and whether I would see any difference with applications that I run.

The short conclusion: I will stick with the Intel Matrix Storage Manager

My machine *does* have the 1 gig Intel Turbo Memory installed and this may also have impacted my results. I also have 4 gigs of ram installed running Vista Ultimate 32-bit.

Testing with and without the Intel Matrix Storage Manager.

My test was very simple and to eliminate the vagaries of the Toshiba Utilities and other things that were preloaded I did my testing running Virtual PC with an image having only: Vista Ultimate, ESET NOD32, Office 2007 Ultimate.
The things I timed:

Time to Login
Time to Desktop
Time to fully operation Excel 2007

The actual times are not important - but the differences are.
The times to reach each of these milestones was longer in the Virtual Machine but I got really consistent results. I tested once, and then shut down the Virtual Machine and then did it again.
The interesting result was first time load of the test was slower with the Intel Matrix Storage Manager installed. But the second and subsequent tests were faster with Intel Matrix Storage Manager installed than without it.

Both with and without, the second runs were faster.

Without: The second run was 10 seconds faster to each milestone
With: The second run was 45 seconds faster to each milestone.

The net result was:
On the second run, using the Intel Matrix Storage Manager was 25 seconds faster.
I am going to leave it installed because having tried it both ways, I did not see a huge improvement in any noticeable way except that second and subsequent loads of applications seemed faster with the Intel Matrix Storage Manager installed.

I don't have any theories to account for what the benchmark numbers are showing.

Use Windows Meeting Space to Mirror Your Tablet PC to a Projector

wnewquay — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:17:00 GMT

I use my Tablet PC when I do public speaking. I like to use it to display and build MindMaps using MindManager or draw diagrams with SketchBook Pro. This should be very straightforward, but it gets interesting when I want to display my Tablet PC with a projector, and to walk around the room at the same time. (Try that with at conventional laptop machine).

I have been using MaxiVista for this application for years. (see: Wireless Presentations with a Tablet PC with MaxiVista)

MaxiVista has been great but there are some issues with Vista. You can work around them, but when I got an Toshiba M700, I thought it would be worthwhile to consider some Vista based alternatives.

Just a note: MaxiVista works well on XP or in an environment where one machine is running Vista, and the other is not. You have to been running an XDDM video driver on the Tablet PC if it is running Windows Vista.

Windows Meeting Space

If you are running Windows Vista on your Tablet PC and have Vista on a desktop PC attached to a projector then consider using Windows Meeting Space to connect the two machines and mirror your Tablet PC on the Desktop PC and from there, display it on the projector. It is very quick to set up, and in my testing it has been really stable.

The quick overview:

Start Windows Meeting Space on both PCs.
Create a meeting and "join" it.
On the Tablet PC - Share your desktop

I have set out more detailed notes for this in: Windows Meeting Space to Mirror Your Tablet PC on a Projector

Technorati Tags: Tablet PC,Presentations,Teaching,MaxiVista,Windows Vista,Windows Meeting Space,MindManager

LiveJournal Tags: Tablet PC,Presentations,Teaching,MaxiVista,Windows Vista,Windows Meeting Space,MindManager

Touch Control

wnewquay — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:02:00 GMT

I have been using a Toshiba M700 and for the most part, enjoying having both the Active Digitizer and the Touch Screen. I was having trouble though when using MindManager. This is not a flaw with either the software or the machine. I think the issues was the way I use MindManager. I write all over the screen as as I was brushing the screen as I moved around, I was wreaking havoc. Basically I was dragging topics from one place to another, or causing the screen to zoom in and out. This was particularly embarrassing when doing live presentations.

Dan (dant as he is known at GottaBeMobile and TabletPCBuzz) has written a System Tray applet that allows you to toggle the Touch Screen on and off by double clicking on the icon. This is so much more convenient than the alternative - going in through Control Panel.

Dan says that this should work wtih any Tablet PC that has Touch Screen capabilities, and that is running Windows Vista.

Read more about Touch Control and get it at

Touch Control