In many respects is not really fair to compare these two products, as they are mostly targeted toward two different markets, however, the HP Slate 500 is the best offering that Microsoft and its partners have put forward to compete head-on with Apple and the rapidly growing tablet/slate market.

As way of background I have been a Windows Tablet PC user since the product was first released as an extended version of Windows XP. I started by testing a Panasonic Toughbook convertible, moved on to what is still my favorite convertible, the Toshiba M200, and last used the Toshiba M400 convertible. I mainly stuck w/ the convertible form factor as it met the dual need of a development laptop (ie I had to have a keyboard) combined with my desire for a pen input device for note-taking. The new HP Slate is my first foray into a Windows slate device as my development (Windows, iPhone and Android) has moved to a 15 MacBook Pro.

I have also been using an iPad since about a month after its release, and recently upgraded to the new iPad 2, managing to grab hold of one on launch day. (The 2 is definitely a worth upgrade to the first device.)

HP Slate 500

While I may have missed a few quality slate releases in the previous years, in my experience the HP Slate 500 is the best Windows tablet to hit the market. The Asus Eee Slate may come close, but the size the HP is what makes this unit the perfect business companion. The screen resolution can be a bit small, especially for software not written for such a short screen, but where you really use it, OneNote, the size is perfect.

Even though I love the iPad and use it daily, I still believe Gates has it right when he says pen input is required for a usable tablet device in business. The iPad is great for consumption, say for execs or board members in a meeting and needing access to information, but doing little in the way of creating digital content. While there are great Apps for the iPad that actually work to take notes, it still feels like writing on a paper w/ crayon. This is the single strongest point of the HP Slate and Windows 7 on slate devices. Handwriting recognition is incredible, OneNote is perfect for use around the office, and the HP Slate is truly a business device in Gates vision.

This same vision has led the Tablet PC market to sit stale for years and years, until Apple again took an idea and turned it around to create an entirely new market. What has been missing all these years was a quality Windows interface that worked well in a tablet form factor. Yes touch and pen input has been around forever, but the standard keyboard and mouse experience has remained the core of a paradigm that has been with us since Windows 1.0. I believe the focus on pen input has also been the biggest distraction keeping Windows from embracing the tablet form factor. Since a tiny stylus point can compensate for bulky, awkward fingers, there is no need to increase fonts or button or various other UI elements. Thus Windows has remained Windows but now you use a pen instead of a mouse.

Of course the single greatest benefit of Windows on a slate, is well, Windows on a slate. Its a full Windows PC, so every single piece of your favorite software runs perfectly. Theres no need to purchase new software, learn new software or change anything youre used to.

Hardware

Enough about Windows, what is the hardware like? As I mentioned the form factor is great for note-taking. Unlike when I carried the M400 into a room, I now fit into the meeting environment, with a notepad size device in front of me, not an SUV. The screen resolution can be a little low, but any higher res and things would be unreadable. Battery life has been great, I pretty much never worry about the battery, and just keep the unit in its (included) dock when Im not actively using it. I find that its actually small enough that I use it even during phone calls at my desk instead of sticky notes or various scraps of paper.

There is a bit of adjustment is getting used to the NTrig digitizer over the Wacom digitizer though. Wacom makes an incredibly accurate and high quality digitizer that I have loved on the M400. The HP, while the screen is much clearer, doesnt have quite the same resolution and my handwriting isnt quite as sharp as it used to be. This took about a week to get used to. Another change from the Wacom is that the stylus requires a battery, which a AAAA (yes 4 As) comes with the stylus. This makes it a bit thicker than expected but still a very comfortable to use.

There are cameras on the front and back, though I really havent used either beyond the initial tests with Skype. There is also an SD card slot and single built in USB port.

The nicest thing HP did was include both a dock and a leather case for the unit. This helps reduce the total cost of the unit and gives you everything you need right in the box. The dock is nice and includes 2 additional USB ports, and an HDMI port. The case includes a spot for the stylus, though it would have been nice to also have a pocket for business cards or other small pieces of paper.

Overall the hardware design on this unit is excellent. HP even went to the trouble of hiding all the serial numbers, and government labels in a small pullout plastic component, rather than covering the back of the unit with crap like regular Windows based units.

Now only if Windows 8 really does improve the tablet experience, this might be the perfect device for business users.

iPad 2

As I write this the iPad 2 is still very hard to find in stores or online, I was lucky enough to pick up a unit on launch day before inventories ran out around the country.

There have been many many reviews on the iPad 2, but one item Id like to point out is the upgraded dual-core CPU. Im not sure if my expectations were off on the original iPad or not, but the vast majority of reviews that Ive read have said the original CPU was more the adequate for regular usage. What is interesting is from the moment I started using the original iPad I felt that the CPU was underpowered and that application performance was impacted because of that. Small things stuck out, like switching between apps, or scrolling being jittery on many native iPad apps. While I fully understand and appreciate the need to limit the CPU for the benefit of power consumption, this was always a weak spot for me. So much in fact that I was using the original less and less during my regular daily routine as Apps such as MobileRSS were just to slow to use while syncing my Google Reader feeds in the background.

The upgraded iPad 2 CPU nearly resolves this issue 100% for the current swath of Apps. There are huge visible performance gains in many applications, everything is more responsive and snappier than before. MobileRSS is fully usable while synchronizing in the background. The WSJ app, while it still has usability issues, is actually usable on the upgraded CPU. To me this is the single best improvement that makes the iPad 2 a very worthy successor to the original release.

iPad 2 in Business

It has been said across the web, the iPad is a consumption device. You read books, watch movies, read PDFs. The on-screen keyboard is nice and okay to use, but it is still a far cry from a real desktop keyboard. There are different stylus you can purchase that work okay, and apps like Penultimate are great at ignoring your wrist as it rests on the screen. But all of these input mechanisms are a kludge to get you by.

The keyboard is just too slow to take reasonable notes, and the stylus is much like writing on a paper with crayon or kids markers. Do both work? Definitely. Are they realistic to use in a fast paced meeting? Maybe if you practice *a lot*.

Where the iPad does shine is the many cloud based apps and extreme ease of use. For meetings where you dont need to take notes, it is the perfect device to send the agendas and backup documentation to the cloud via a service like Drop Box, then consume those documents digitally. The PDF readers let you stay focused on the documents at hand and quickly browse to find relevant information. This is dramatically better than trying to find supporting documents in stacks of file folders or notebooks.

Instant on and instant access to Apps are also another huge win for the iPad. While the SSD on the HP really makes Windows fly, there is still a 10 60 second delay as you wait for a sleeping slate to wake. The iPad provides instant access to the information you need when you need it, not after the agenda has moved to the next topic.

Verdict

If is very hard to pick a specific device as the winner in this comparison. Each have their strengths and weaknesses in the business world. For me pen input is the deciding factor in my day-to-day workflow, so the HP Slate 500 goes with me to all my meetings.

It's hard to believe October was the last time I was over here on my blog. Ironically after getter the developer phone from Microsoft I have been knee deep in iPhone programming and for the past few weeks Android programming again. This time I've spent all my non-working hours programming a fun project for my "other" website, Disneyland Inside Out.

Disneyland Inside Out, a vacation planning site for Disneyland in California, has been around in various forms since June 1996. It has always been a place for me to explore new technologies and learn about some of the new trends on the web. I recently migrated the site over to DotNetNuke and have been building out custom modules for DNN. I've also been hacking things together w/ the URLRewrite module in IIS 7.5 to provide strong SEO optimized URLs. I can't say all that has really stuck within the DNNmodel of doing things, but it has worked pretty well.

As part of my learning process, I spent most of the Fall bringing Disneyland Inside Out to the iPhone. I will post more details on my development experiences later. But this project gave me a really great opportunity to get a good feel for Objective-C development. After 3 months I actually feel somewhat competent in the language and iPhone SDK, instead of just floundering around getting things to work. The project also gave me a chance to play with some new frameworks on the iPhone and really dig into the Facebook SDK. I also dug into some of the Gowalla REST api's as well. We've been live with the app in iTunes for just about 10 days now, and have been sitting in the top 200 of free travel apps for the past few days. You can get more info and the direct iTunes download link on our site:

Disneyland Inside Out for iPhone

Since launching the iPhone version I have gotten back into Android development, porting the Disneyland Inside Out app over to Android. As I said in my first review of iPhone vs. Android, coming from a managed code background, Android is much easier to get going with. I just about 3 weeks total I will have about 85 - 90% of the functionality up and running in the Android app, that took probably 1.5 - 2x's that time for iPhone.

That isn't a totally fair comparison as I am much more comfortable w/ Xcode and Objective-C today and can get some of the basic stuff done much faster thanI could in the fall. Though I'd say some of the hardest code to debug is still the null pointer issues on objects that were dealloc'd too early in Objective-C. This isn't too bad with the NSZoombies enabled for synchronous code, but when you have a lot of async, which my app does, it can be hairy at times to track exactly what was causing the issue.

I will post more details later, as I am trying to wrap up a beta of the Android app today. But in the meantime, if you have an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad head on over to the site and take a look at my app.

If you are one of the numerous PDC10 attendees moving your iPhone SIM to your free LG-E900 Windows Phone 7, and you're on AT&T, you may have noticed the minute you lost WiFi coverage your data stopped as well. If you read through the paperwork that comes with the phone there was a quick little note that says "you may need to manually configure your APN setting." Well that was an important hint to getting your Windows Phone 7 up and running with data on AT&T. To updates the APN do the following on your phone:

• Open Settings
• Cellular
• Scroll to the bottom where is says Set or Edit APN
  • APN: wap.cingular
  • Username: wap@cingulargprs.com
  • Password: CINGULAR1

Yes those are all cingular names, but that's what AT&T still uses. These settings are those that are required for the iPhone to work, so if you're coming from a non-iPhone plan, these settings may not work, or you may be required to upgrade your data plan. Also I won't guarantee that this won't impact our data plans in any way, it simply gets the Windows Phone 7 up and running on theAT&T iPhone data plan, and seems to work fine for me.

I spent a few hours today and hacked, and I do mean hacked, together a quick iPhone App to consume the OData feed for PDC 2010. Since the turnaround is way to quick to push something like this through the app store, I've pushed to code up to github for anyone to download and play with.

You can access it at:

http://github.com/oofgeek/PDC10-OData-Viewer

I will in no way claim that this code is good, that it manages memory well or does anything other than "work". But if you're heading to PDC10, and have an iPhone and an Apple Dev account download the code and party on! Also note that I'm fairly new to iPhone development, and coming from over 8 years with .NET I'm still definitely cutting my teeth on this new platform.

In order to get the code to compile you will need the OData iPhone SDK, which you can download at:

http://www.odata.org/developers/odata-sdk

Follow the install instructions that come with the SDK to re-configure the project to point to your install of the SDK. The header and library paths on the Project info are currently pointing to a folder on my machine, as well as the binary for the library.

Also this is my first time pushing out code to github, so hopefully I didn't royally screw something up.

Have fun and see you in Redmond!

For about 5 years now Ive been carrying around the best recent TechEd bag; the messenger style bag from 2005. It served me well as it could easily carry 2 laptops, plus loads of additional tech gear; iPad, multiple external hard drives, cables, etc. My only dislike of the bag was that the strap never seemed that sturdy, and I occasionally had issues where the clip would reverse itself, making it very easy for the strap to come loose without me noticing.

Unfortunately this past week the metal clip part of the strap decided to completely break, which left my bag tumbling to the ground, 2 laptops and all. Thankfully there was enough padding that neither were damaged, but since they are both MacBook Pros, the aluminum has a decorative dent on the corner now. This led me to do some research on options that were available, of which many roads pointed to the Tom Bihn bags.

http://www.tombihn.com/

I had heard about the Brain Bag for many years (originally from .NET Rocks), and have nearly purchased one in the past, but I just could justify spending the money. Never thinking $140 for a bag to protect $5,000+ in equipment was probably worth it, until this most recent close call.

Since I was coming from a messenger style bag, I decided to stick with the same style bag and selected the Empire Builder briefcase, the Absolute Shoulder Strap, 2 Brain Cells and a medium sized Cordura Organizer Pouch.

My biggest concern with the Empire Builder was whether or not it would hold both of my MacBooks (13 unibody MacBook Pro and 15 unibody MacBook Pro). Well, Tom Bihn had posted a video to YouTube showing exactly how accommodating this bag is, so that answered that question.

Tom Bihn Empire Builder with 2 Laptops

The American made feature, that leads to the high price of the bags, is nice, but whats even better is the quality of the product that you receive. This is the first bag I have ever owned that has no sign of loose stitches or threads anywhere! Typically out of the box there are a few here or there that simply show the lack of craftsmanship, even on backpacks Ive paid close to $200 for. This quite simply is the highest quality bag I have ever held in my hand.

Beyond the craftsmanship the quality of materials appear to be excellent. Shoulder strap clips are much stronger than my TechEd bag, zippers are high quality, and materials are top notch. Even small details like the handles leave you feeling as though they are part of the backbone of the bag, not some added afterthought of an attachment that could break at any moment.

The bag has many different compartments and features, but rather than reinvent the wheel, Tom Bihn once again has posted a video showing off all the features of the bag:

Empire Builder Features

Inside the bag, the Brain Cells are excellent protection for your laptops. They definitely add extra bulk, but coming from someone who just pictured 2 cracked screens as his bag fell to the cement floor, that extra padding is now well worth it in my view. The Brain Cells are hard sided with quite a bit of padding on the bottom (the bottom changes depending on if your order the horizontal or vertical cells). They pretty much protect your laptop from any direction, from drops, or from stabs from other hard objects in your bag. You can, if you want, order the Brain Cells for use on their own. Each cell has its own handles, and place for a shoulder strap. If youre at a conference or such you can easily pull the cell out of your larger bag and carry just the cell around with you during the day.

The Absolute Shoulder Strap is probably overpriced, but I do agree with most of the reviews that I have read, namely it is the most comfortable shoulder strap I have ever had on a bag, especially when carrying 2 laptops at a time. The neoprene padding feels exactly as youd expect, and is worlds better than any of the sliding foam pads you normally experience with most bags.

Back on the overall bag, my only gripe is the forced modularity when ordering. I love that you can order Brain Cells that fit your laptop, and additional pouches for organization, but wow the price adds up extremely fast. I realize that the quality is a big reason you are paying top dollar, but it would be nice to at least include a single Brain Cell or such as part of the price of the bag. Without that you are buying a bag that offers virtually no protection for your laptop. I realize that not everyone is buying the bag for use with a laptop, so even if there were package deals, where buying a bag plus a brain cell saves you $30, would be a perfect compromise.

Overall if you are in the market for a bag, and carry lots of expensive equipment with you, Id highly recommend looking into Tom Bihn as an option. Pricing isnt cheap, but you are definitely getting the quality you would expect from this price range.

This is good to know, strange solution but it works:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/linqtosql/thread/bc2fbbce-eb63-4735-9b2d-26b4ab8fe589

I created an Interface that my Linq to SQLclasses implement so that I can create a generic function that will work across a few tables. When I used the double equals (==) instead of the .Equals() in my LINQquery I got the runtime exception:

The mapping of interface member [...] is not supported.

Changing my query up to use the .Equals() it runs beautifully.

While building our mobile app I came across a few valuable resources for some of the specific issues I was facing, I thought I'd share those in case others were looking for similar info.

Customized Color Progress Bar

iPhone

This one probably violates all UI rules defined by Apple, but we were looking to change the color of the progress bar for our app based on certain values. As the bar filled up, we wanted it to change to red so the user could quickly see while driving that is represented a different state than when it was green. There is no built in mechanism to do this on the iPhone, but I did come across a great free 3rd party progress bar that only requires attribution for licensed use: