shattering your small cosmos

With a new job, which I start next week, I was finally able to get back on a mobile contract with a proper mobile device.  It’s kind of ironic­—AT&T declined to give me a 2-year contract (because of the bankruptcy), but T-Mobile did provide one, only to now be potentially acquired by AT&T. Guess AT&T got my account after all.

That aside, I’ve been looking to go back to an Android device since I had the chance to play around with Verizon’s Droid 2 last year. T-Mobile has a few free ones online with a new two-year contract, but none of them as powerful or versatile as the Droid series, so I was not expecting much.  Once you’ve been spoiled by the Droid 2, Incredible, or the new Thunderbolt, everything else is just awful.

I did, however, settle on T-Mobile’s Comet (a.k.a. the Huawei IDEOS), quite possibly the smallest Android device I’ve seen. Following is the review I posted on T-Mobile’s site, along with some updates since the review was posted.

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This is a good entry-level Android device, but it you've already been spoiled by Motorola's Droid/2/X/Incredible or Samsung's Galaxy with beefy 1GHz processors, auto-focus/flash cameras, tons of RAM, and HD video, this is not your phone. The processor is half the speed, the RAM is significantly less, the screen is QVGA (240p, but still very readable) versus the 480p HD screens on the bigger devices, and the responsiveness is significantly slower with frequent delays and/or stalls. Many camera-based applications supported on the more powerful devices like Google Goggles, QIK, UStream Producer, etc., are not supported on this device (Microsoft Tag, however, *is* supported, so you're not totally out of luck). You will also need to convert any video down to iPod (320x240) format if you want to be able to watch it without glitches (most podcast video is being released in 640x480 or higher nowadays, which this phone will not play--I tried). The small screen resolution will also complicate some Android apps designed for the larger screens; they don't always scale correctly.

Those are the negatives, but this phone has a lot of positives as well.

The device is extraordinarily compact compared to other Android devices on the market; that's the Comet's biggest selling point. The screen is small, meaning the touch keyboard is also tiny, but it's extraordinarily dead-on touch-accurate; I've had no issues using the tiny keyboard and rarely make touch errors even with my long fingers holding this itty-bitty thing. You *do* want to be careful holding the phone in vertical profile that you're not accidentally resting a finger on the on/off/screen key on the top left or you will find yourself getting frustrated when you unwittingly keep dimming the screen in the middle of something (it doesn't take much of a push on that key). The built-in speaker is also surprisingly powerful and provides good quality sound for speakerphone use and listening to audio podcasts with Google Listen or another podcasting application (I recommend Google Listen and sticking with audio podcasts because of the aforementioned limitation on video resolution); however, the device's built-in FM radio only allows listening through headphones as it uses the headphone wire as an FM antenna (it's a 3.5mm three-contact plug, so your iPhone/BlackBerry's stereo headset should work just fine for listening and making/taking calls). The device does include Wi-Fi and it works decently with my Apple Airport Extreme with WPA2 encryption. Skype also works over wi-fi (and only wi-fi) on this device without any apparent T-mobile restrictions except for not being able to use it over 3G (that restriction is universal to all the carriers except Verizon, which only lets you use Skype over 3G and not Wi-Fi, and you probably wouldn't want to try it over 3G anyway).

The device's physical features are kept to a minimum: Volume keys, power/screen dim, call/hang-up keys (many wonder why on an Android device, but it's actually nice to be able to *feel* keys when you don't want to have to use the screen to dial or hang up), and a big center button with surrounding four-way keypad-ring (the big center button only really works to bring up the screen and snap camera pics; they really could have taken better advantage of this button for other things).

Overall, this is a great starter device for those who want Android in a smaller, less expensive package and don't need all the more advanced bells and whistles; but if you're looking for a device that really does it all (including visual searches like Google Goggles, barcode snapping other than MS Tag or small QR codes, and best-of-class responsiveness), you really should invest in one of the higher-end devices like Droid or Galaxy.

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Some new things since I wrote the initial review:

• QRCode, DataMatrix, and UPC scanning using AT&T’s new barcode scanning application seems to work fairly well in addition to Microsoft Tag.
• The FM radio stops working and refuses to turn on if you use Wi-Fi; you have to shut down wi-fi and restart the device in order to get the FM radio working again. I also found that you can listen to the FM radio thru the built-in speaker, but the headset still has to be connected for use as an antenna.
• Voice searching and voice commands work just about as well as it does with the more powerful devices.  I used it to search for Foursquare locations with a good deal of success. You really need to have 3G coverage rather than 2G/EDGE as it appears that Android uploads your voice to the internet to do the interpretation “in the cloud.”
• Some additional applications that will not work with the Comet/IDEOS: Firefox Mobile (however, Opera Mobile and Opera Mini run flawlessly and quickly—I recommend the Mini version as it provides RSS reading support not apparently provided by the full Mobile app), Square credit card processing app (so much for being able to use the reader I got from ’em), Skyfire web browser, Adobe Flash, pretty much any app that incorporates the need for a higher-resolution/autofocus camera such as the USAA banking application or banking applications that have a “deposit by snapshot” feature.
• The best way to find out if the app you want to install will work with the Comet, use the web-based Android Market (http://market.android.com). Look for the app you want to install, and when you click the “INSTALL” button it will ask you which device you want to install to. If the Comet is grayed out or otherwise not selectable, then the app is not designed to function on it.  If you use the bulit-in Market app, an application that isn’t compatible with the Comet will simply “not be found” if you search for it in the Market.

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Christianity is about teaching the whole counsel of God, even if it steps on someone’s toes (including my own).

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I’m sure this is going to get me a whole lot of private and public response and probably earn me some enemies, but I was never about holding things back. here goes…

I find this article from the Orange County Register rather fascinating.

GARDEN GROVE – Choir members at the financially troubled Crystal Cathedral say they are upset by a covenant they have been asked to sign that places a strong emphasis on them being heterosexual and Christian.

Let me rephrase this: members of a church that claims to be Christian (the Crystal Cathedral is a member church of the Reformed Churches in America, which has this statement about homosexuality) are upset because they’re being required to sign a covenant that enforces the doctrine of their church on the subject and contains a statement defining marriage by its traditional, scriptural definition (one man, one woman, for life). 

Hello? Isn’t this a Christian church? And we’re objecting to agreeing with Christian statements in a Christian church?

I have, admittedly, never been very thrilled about the Crystal Cathedral and the whole idea of “positive thinking” as definitive of Christian doctrine. I attended the church on a couple of Sunday mornings when I used to live across the street, and never saw a single Bible carried by anyone. Anywhere.  The sermon on both mornings did not contain a single reference to Christian scriptures. It was, for all intents and purposes, a mass psychological counseling session. I never went back.  I’ve been told the midweek classes and such are far better in quality than what people get on Sunday mornings, but experience and statistics indicate that only a small percentage of people that go to a church service anywhere (not just the Crystal Cathedral) on Sunday morning get involved in more in-depth meetings during the rest of the week.

Christian life isn’t about “feeling good”

My response to churches such as the Crystal Cathedral and “positive thinking” churches has always been this: If the reason you go to church is to sing some great songs, listen to “positive preaching” that doesn’t address real life, and then leave for Sunday brunch feeling better about yourself, you’ve been to the wrong church. In fact, you’re doing your spiritual journey a huge disservice.  Let me advise you of this from first-hand experience and from my experience leading small groups of Christians for whom all the “positive thinking” in the world is useless in their day-to-day struggles.

The entire concept of “church” should never revolve around making oneself feel good for going to some “lovey-dovey” pep rally so you can feel all happy inside about how wonderful it is being a “Christian.” Church is ekklesia, an assembly of believers worshipping an almighty God (who is not only love but also justice—we always forget that second part, don’t we?) and being taught and equipped in the moral and scriptural principles that define Christianity.  That is a pastor’s job; it was the job I was trained and earned my Bachelor’s degree cum laude in.

That means teaching the whole counsel of God, even if it steps on someone’s toes (including my own).

As a church, we’ve become so afraid of the Gospel offending people that we’ve watered it down into some mass love-in where everyone is supposed to feel good and be patted on the back rather than challenged that if we intend to call ourselves Christians, we should be Christians and not just pay our faith lip service.  Try that watered-down approach sometime with Christians who are being persecuted for their faith in other areas of the world such as China, Africa, and the Middle East, and see if they don’t laugh you out of their churches.

It also means that if we claim to be Christians, we don’t get to pick and choose which parts of Christianity we’re going to live with and which parts we’re going to ignore or brush aside because they not comfortable or convenient to follow. (I realize that statement is going to open up a whole other debate about killing gay people because that’s what it says to do in Leviticus, but’s that’s a rhetorical diversion that takes scripture out of the context of the whole, and that’s a whole other essay.)

If you’re going to be Catholic, be Catholic

I claim to live as a Catholic.  As a Catholic, there’s a volume called the Catechism of the Catholic Church that essentially details everything that we, as Catholics, believe. As a child I was taught from the Catechism until my family left the church when I was 12. Having returned to the Church, if I want to know what a Catholic is to believe about a given topic, I refer to the Catechism (lest someone say I should refer to the Bible, the Catechism provides the scriptural references providing the basis for the belief stated in the Catechism, so the Bible is part of it, too).  If I want to know how the Catholic Church does a certain thing, I can look it up in another volume called the Code of Canon Law. One of the things I’ve appreciated about returning to Catholicism after being Protestant so long is that if there’s a question about what we believe about something, there aren’t twenty separate answers from twenty different preachers about what I should believe; I go to a single source to find out what Catholics believe—there’s no guessing.  Coming out of Protestantism, there’s still significant parts of what Catholics believe and have written in their Catechism that are not comfortable or convenient for me, but if I claim to be Catholic, I follow those things too, even if I don’t like to. Because that’s what it means to be a Catholic Christian.

That said…

All of the above said, does that mean we have a license to run roughshod over people’s emotions and lifestyles to force our beliefs down the throats of others?

Obviously not. But it also doesn’t mean that we compromise what we believe just so others will like us. We stand firm on what we believe, while at the same time, to quote the RCA’s own statement:

To adopt as the position of the Reformed Church in America that the practicing homosexual lifestyle is contrary to scripture, while at the same encouraging love and sensitivity towards such persons as fellow human beings. (MGS 1990: 461, emphasis mine)

and earlier in the same document (emphasis once again mine):

When Paul rejects homosexual acts on the grounds that they are “against nature” he expresses and reaffirms the clear sense of Scripture: Human sexuality was created for heterosexual expression…When the subject of homosexuality is raised, the majority of modern opinion still seems to be: “People weren’t made to be that way.” If such opinion is expressed with fear, loathing or recrimination, as is often the case, it must be pitied and resisted. When the same statement is made in humility and with compassion, it may be considered biblical.

This is what the choir members of the Crystal Cathedral are being asked to agree to. If you don’t like what a church teaches, there are literally hundreds of other churches within easy commuting distance that would be more than happy to scratch your itching ears (and ego).

To provide the views of the Catholic church that I claim to belong to, here it is directly from the current Catechism, with the footnotes rewritten for clarity by me since I assume my average reader is not going to know that “CDF” means “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”.

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity [Note 140], tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" [Note 141]. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Note 140: Cf. Genesis 19:1–29; Romans 1:24–27; 1 Corinthians 6:10; 1 Timothy 1:10.
Note 141: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Persona humana (Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics), 29 Dec 1975, § VIII.

If you’re looking for ways to keep Japan front and center, Microsoft officers a couple of desktop themes featuring images from Japan, the “Best of Bing: Japan” and “Japan” theme packs. Both feature multiple desktop backgrounds that can change automatically at user-set intervals or manually by right-clicking on your desktop and clicking on “Next desktop background.”

There are, of course, many other theme packs available for free from Microsoft; simply right-click in an empty area of your desktop, select “Personalize,” then click the link in the Themes window to “Get more themes online.”

Of course, our Japanese friends need more than just desktop backgrounds—they need your support. The Red Cross is the best way to help out.

A quick project to create this map, first by creating a live data link in Excel to the USGS list of earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 and greater, then using the Excel file as the basis to create a data map in Microsoft MapPoint 2011.

This image shows global earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 or greater within the past seven days, centered on Japan. The huge dot east of Miyagi Prefecture is the 9.0 that struck on Friday. Note the 6.2 that happened earlier today southwest of Tokyo. The larger the dot, the greater the magnitude.

The first step is using the external data fetching feature of Excel 2010 to fetch the quake tables from the USGS web page, which creates the worksheet below.

Once this file is saved, you can then use MapPoint 2011’s Data Mapping Wizard to use the Excel file as a basis to map the latitude, longitude, and magnitude data points as sized circles with a continuous logarithmic scale to provide better visualization of the relative sizes. MapPoint will skip past the bad rows (the second heading row and the blank rows between tables).

Of course, there is a much simpler method if you’re not into playing with such data: The USGS provides two live KML links for Google Earth users—one coding the quakes by depth and one coding by age. The KML link also shows the plate borders and direction and length of plate motion.

I have a job once again.

Starting next week I will be long-term-temping at PMSI Settlement Solutions as a case administration assistant, which basically means I will spend my days sorting PDF files full of medical records for workers comp cases.

Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you and with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"

Jesus answered him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.' "

—Matthew 4.5–7 (NAB)

Today marks the first Sunday in our Lenten discipline, and the readings from today’s Lectionary provide the setting to demonstrate our need for repentance and forgiveness—the first reading describes the fall of humankind in the garden at Eden, and the second reading provides a bridge from our fall to Christ’s “fall” (for lack of a better word) via the crucifixion.

The Gospel reading is the temptation of Christ in the desert from the fourth chapter of Matthew, and what has always impressed me about this particular part of scripture is the very fact that is given elsewhere in Scripture:

…for Satan himself can masquerade as an angel of light…

—II Corinthians 11.14

Perhaps the reason it becomes to easy to fall into the temptations we fall into is because our enemy, Satan, has a knack for making things look so good, even using the things that are right and true to entice us into what’s not.

Note that in the first reading, from Genesis, that Satan was not wrong about the tree that Adam and Eve ate from. It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and it would indeed make them like God, having the knowledge of good and evil.

Note also Satan’s temptation in Matthew 4. The devil quotes correctly from Psalm 91.

But there is a huge difference. Satan has a way of using truth and twisting it for his own purposes.  The difference between a right response and a wrong response is what we call discernment.

The difference between discernment and lack of discernment is clear between the Old and New Testament readings. Where Eve lacked discernment and didn’t foresee the consequences of her and Adam’s actions, Jesus had discernment to recognize the temptation and respond to it accordingly—note, with scripture (quoting from Deuteronomy 6:16).

Satan is not stupid. Remember he used be in God’s presence (Isaiah 14:12–15), and there are records in scripture of Satan having access to heaven and to God’s presence (see the beginning of the book of Job).  The devil knows the Scriptures and knows truth and just the right twists on it to push his agenda.

There’s another passage this reminds me of:

You believe there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

—James 2:19

For those still dealing with their hangovers from Mardi Gras, today was the reason you got your “holiday”—Ash Wednesday is the official start of the forty days of our season of Lent (for those actually counting and wondering how we got 40 when it’s actually 46 calendar days between today and Easter, it’s because Sundays are feast days and thus not included in the counting; now go back to your liturgical math class).

The days between now and Easter are a time for extreme spiritual discipline. It’s a time for taking serious stock of life and for repentance and cleansing. It’s the time for practicing what have often been called the three “pillars” of Lent: prayer, fasting and abstinence, and almsgiving.

Prayer

The first is obvious; it’s something we should be doing year ‘round, but it’s something that’s especially emphasized during Lent. A primary form of prayer during the season is an emphasis on the Stations of the Cross, a series of prayerful meditations with the assistance of 14 icons or stations along the walls of the nave (or 15, if your parish includes the Resurrection as the last) that illustrate each part of the discipline. There are also typically other opportunities to become more involved in your parish’s prayer life; you may hear a lot more about participating in prayer, meditation, or lectio divina before the Blessed Sacrament during the season. Often the rush of life pushes prayer out of our daily spiritual discipline, and Lent is the perfect opportunity to reestablish it.

Fasting/Abstinence

The most well-known of Lenten practices are those of fasting and abstinence. They don’t mean the same thing.

Fasting is called for only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (the memorial of Christ’s crucifixion and death). The official rules of the Catholic Church require all persons from ages 18 to 59 to eat only one meal during the day, with permission granted to have to much smaller meals “sufficient to maintain strength,” and no snacking (the two smaller meals cannot equal another full meal, but liquids are allowed any time). It’s significantly watered-down from the past, when fasting meant having no food or drink during the time set aside for the purpose. The whole idea of fasting is that the time normally spent eating and drinking should be spent in prayer and devotion. I stick to the one-meal rule and drink water, lemonade, or juices (if I have some) instead of eating the rest of the day to maintain my strength and focus. There’s research to suggest that fasting for a time may actually be good for you, so there are practical benefits and not just spiritual ones.

Abstinence is the practice of abstaining from a particular thing during the Lenten season. The official rule is to abstain from eating the meat of animals (beef, poultry, or pork) on Fridays during the season. It’s the reason those fried fish sandwiches at your local fast food joint run out so quickly on Fridays.

It’s very widely practiced by many Christians, not just those of liturgical traditions, to practice abstinence on a fuller scale during the forty days of Lent, giving up something in addition to what’s prescribed by the rules of the season itself. My own practice and that of my lady has been to abstain from meat during the entire season (not just on Fridays) and simply enjoy a lot of fish and salad. It’s somewhat easy for me since I’m not much of a meat lover anyway (I’m not vegetarian, but steaks don’t appeal to me, neither). Usually it’s something that we’ve grown so accustomed to having every day, giving it up for 40 days as a means of sacrifice and practical asceticism. Our own diocesan bishop commits to giving up his morning sausage biscuit (sorry, McDonald’s). Many I know give up their daily Starbucks habit. My sister says she’s going to give up Facebook for 40 days (yeah, good luck, sis!). Giving up chocolate also seems to be popular among the ladies.

Almsgiving

Almsgiving simply means giving to and helping others. Traditionally that means helping support the poor and the windows and the orphans, but it can also mean a lot of other things.

Over this past year we’ve ended up with a lot of meat in our freezer; part of our almsgiving is cleaning out the freezer (since we’ve abstained from meat for the entire forty days) and giving it to a family that needs it (and who’s obviously not bound themselves to the Lenten discipline, as the family we’re giving it to is Pentecostal).
Almsgiving can mean more just dropping money into the can in front of the local Walmart. It can be volunteering to help out at a shelter or migrant ministry. Think about the ways you can help out others and give somebody else a lift upward. In any event, the things that we give up in abstinence shouldn’t simply be thrown away—they should be given away to benefit others, particularly the less fortunate.

Your discipline?

So what’s your Lenten discipline? What are the things that you do during the season in one or more of the above categories to make Lent meaningful in your own spiritual journey? Talk in the comments.

I have a confession to make

After six years as a die-hard Mac user at home with a first-generation MacBook and my PC tower running as a Hackintosh, I recently converted to the “Dark Side” (Windows 7) and left my aging MacBook behind with the acquisition of a Dell Inspiron Duo convertible netbook/tablet. I had also, while I had a job, completely rebuilt my PC tower with a new case, motherboard, an Intel i3 CPU, 4 gigs of RAM, a proper nVIDIA video board with 1 gig of RAM separate from the system’s memory, and a two-terabyte hard drive for recording TV shows and capturing the video I shoot on my HD pocket camera and DV camcorder.

There were a few reasons for going the “iDuo” route instead of an iPad, the primary one being that I was planning on financing the purchase in an effort to start rebuilding my personal credit after the bankruptcy that consumed the first part of last year, and Dell (instead of Apple) was the only vendor to extend me any credit. That, plus the company I was working for had an employee discount program with Dell, so for the price of the specs on the consumer web site, I got a larger hard drive (320GB instead of 250GB at the time; the models on the web site now have 320GB standard) and next-day shipping.

The other reason was that, while I do like the very slim form factor of the iPad and the Android tablets, trying to type quickly on a touchscreen is downright frustrating (especially if you’re trained like me to type by touch without having to look at the keyboard all the time), and having the option to flip the iDuo open from a tablet form factor to a regular netbook with real keys is incredibly nice. It was also refreshing to discover that Windows 7 actually does have some touch support built into the operating system (like “flicks,” on-screen keyboards, and touch response). And the thinner these devices get, the more I’m afraid I’m going to break something very expensive; the iDuo is a much more substantial device because of its convertible form factor. Want a tablet? Flip the screen, close the lid and you’ve got one. Want the physical keyboard? Open the lid, flip the screen back over, and you’ve got a mighty powerful netbook that could just replace your regular working laptop, as it did mine. This also means that the lid in netbook “mode” serves as protection for your touchscreen when it’s closed, keeping your touchscreen from being damaged in your bag. The keyboard is only slightly under full-size; I was able to touch-type quickly on it without all that much of a problem, while the 80%-sized keyboard on my previous netbook (Sylvania’s gNetbook, which was essentially a rebranded CloudBook ) made touch-typing an impossible task, having to resort to two-fingered hunt-and-peck.

The major thing setting apart the Duo from other netbooks is that this thing, for a netbook, is powerful—this machine could actually become your regular laptop. It sports a dual-core, 64-bit Atom N550 CPU, 2 gigs of RAM (instead of most netbooks’ just-enough-for-Windows-7 1GB) along with a speedy Intel NM10 video processor that supports all the Aero bells and whistles and Windows Media Center on its typically-sized-for-netbooks 10.1-inch, 16-by-9 widescreen (so I can lay in bed to watch the TV shows I recorded in Windows Media Center on the tower. Over my wireless-N home network. In full HD). If I wanted to I could put 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate on this machine (however, the 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium it comes with is just fine, so I haven’t bothered with the Anytime Upgrade). Did I also mention this thing came with Win7 Home Premium and not Starter or—tragedy of tragedies—Windows XP? Also included is Microsoft’s Touch Pack for Windows 7, which offers some applications also found on Microsoft Surface (their table-top oriented OS), but the more graphics-intensive apps from that pack (Garden Pond and Lagoon), while installed, will not run (it gives a pop-up that the video processor is unsupported and then exits), and the games, while playable, need just a little more power than what’s offered by an Atom processor to take away the occasional lag in responsiveness. The Duo also incorporates an accelerometer/magnetometer, not just for protecting the hard drive in the event a user drops the device (the case itself has a rubberized feel, so keeping a good grip on it isn’t an issue), but also for detecting whether you’re holding the tablet in portrait or landscape and automatically changing the video orientation accordingly. Note, though, that Windows does this by flipping the x and y resolution, requiring the video driver to reset at the new resolution in the same way it would if you changed the screen resolution on your desktop, so when rotating the device you’ll get a second or two of black screen while the video reconfigures itself.

Both the touchscreen and the trackpad are multi-touch and offer the use of “flick-style” gestures on the touchscreen (built into Windows 7 as the “Pen and Touch” Control Panel item) and also multi-finger touch gestures for both the touchscreen and the trackpad in both tablet and netbook form factors. The flick gestures for the touchscreen are customizable to set up an OS function or key combination to be executed when flicking in one of eight directions—for example, set up a flick to the “northeast” to send a Ctrl+D to Outlook to delete an email that I’m reading in full-screen instead of having to open Outlook’s ribbon and tap the Delete icon. That said, though, the gestures are not customizable on a per-application basis (I can’t set up a set of gestures just for Outlook or some other application where they’d come in handy only for that single program, nor can I create individual gesture profiles that I could save and reload when needed); here’s hoping that Microsoft provides an update to their “Pen and Touch” Control Panel item in the near future to allow for this.

Dell also included some additional software, developed by ArcSoft and designed for use on the Duo and its desktop “cousin”, the Inspiron One 2305. It’s called Stage and for lack of a better description it’s like “Front Row” on the Mac, but it’s for a touch form factor and offers a single starting point for browsing and viewing video (VideoStage), pictures (PhotoStage), music and online radio streaming (MusicStage), and ebooks (BookStage) (it’s a front end; the applications themselves are separate programs and can be opened without opening the Stage interface itself). The PhotoStage application, in addition to accessing your own local photo library, also lets you connect to Facebook and Flickr to browse and view your friends’ pictures and video on those services. The BookStage program, however, is inferior compared to Barnes & Noble’s Nook for PC or Amazon’s Kindle for PC; I ultimately ended up uninstalling BookStage and going with Nook for PC. BookStage is a rebranded version of the Blio eBook reader, which only supports Windows’ XPS format (it claims to support ePUB, but its ePUB support is limited to downloading from Google Books inside the application; BookStage converts the Google Books ePUB into XPS before opening it, so its ePub claims in its marketing materials are rather misleading; you cannot directly open ePUB books in the program; it’ll fail). I also found the VideoStage application took unusually long to load and run and eventually switched to Windows Media Center, Media Player, or Microsoft’s Zune application for watching video.

In a related note, Flickr has come out with a Silverlight-based front-end designed specifically for Windows 7 touchscreen devices (with the Duo in mind; they actually gave away the Duo in a drawing for the app’s release) and for Windows Phone, but I couldn’t get it running on my Duo without numerous application crashes and errors. Flickr claims they haven’t encounted such problems either in their testing (also on a Duo) or from others, so I’m assuming that it’s probably something being caused by a conflict with another application I’ve installed on the Duo after-market, and I’ve found PhotoStage to actually be more usable for my purposes.

For an extra hundred bucks, you can order the Inspiron Duo Audio Station that has built-in JBL stereo speakers and subwoofer, two USB ports, ethernet, and a built-in 7-in-1 card reader. Dell also provides a special application already installed on the Duo (called “duo Station”) that basically turns the Duo into an expensive desktop alarm clock when docked in the Audio Station (if the Duo isn’t in the Audio Station, running the application will simply pop up a message that the Duo is not docked and then close). The USB ports will come in handy to hook up a full-sized keyboard and mouse and use the Duo like a much smaller version of the aforementioned Inspiron One.

Downsides

• While the video processor on the iDuo is more than powerful to drive a decent PowerPoint slide show, look elsewhere or get a USB video device to show a PowerPoint on the big screen if your projector is not wireless. The Duo has no video-out ports, and neither does the Audio Station.

• Same if you want to use an ethernet connection. The Duo has no ethernet ports (the optional Audio Station does have one, though, for docked use).

• Same if you want to connect a microphone to it. In fact, the only ports on the iDuo are two USB ports and a stereo headphone out. Plan on using a USB or Bluetooth headset for communication applications.

  • On the bright side, the Duo comes with Bluetooth 3.0 and 802.11a/b/g/n standard, so no worries there about speed. You should download the update from Dell for the Bluetooth device, though, to resolve a problem with the Bluetooth disappearing from the system on a seemingly regular basis; the update also provides enhances to both the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi combo interface that didn’t seem to be present in the driver that shipped in the machine from the factory.

  • The Duo also includes a SIM card slot, located under a cover that one would think a battery is located (see my note later in this review about the battery; this cover is actually called the “label cover” in the service manual as the Windows license label is also under the same cover), but on my model it looks like the slot has been blocked with a piece of plastic and there doesn’t appear to be any contacts for the SIM card itself. Additionally, there is no mention anywhere on the Duo’s web site or in the literature that comes with the netbook that it supports GPRS/3G/4G data with a wireless carrier, but some online forums suggest that the SIM card may have been a move of foresight on Dell’s part by incorporating it into the original case design in anticipation of coming out with a newer model that does support 3G so they won’t have to go through the expense of redesigning the case molds again.

  • The machine comes with Skype preinstalled, but Skype shows a warning icon when making calls that the machine isn’t fast/powerful enough to handle it. However, it seems to work just fine in spite of the warning. The new phone calling built into Gmail’s web site (my primary method of calling since I can’t afford a cell phone without a job) also works without any issues.

• Battery life. Given it’s a netbook, battery life compared to, say, an iPad, is pathetic (two to four hours). The battery is also not user-replaceable (but if you’ve been using a more recent MacBook, iPhone, or iPad, you’re already used to having that “problem”). There’s a removable cover on the bottom of the Duo that one would think houses the battery, but it only houses the above-mentioned SIM card slot and Windows license label; the battery is actually located under the palmrest. Dell does provide a service manual online, so it’s not exactly rocket science to be able to open the machine and replace parts yourself if the need arises. The Duo’s external power supply is conveniently small, light, and easy to take along.

• Unlike nearly every other netbook I’ve seen and used, there is no card reader on the Duo (they put in the optional Audio Station instead). This is a massive fail on Dell’s part to have to carry around a USB card reader. If you want a card reader, carry a USB one or buy the Audio Station.

• Given that it’s a full-fledged netbook convertible, it’s bulkier and heavier compared to iPads, etc. It’s well over twice the weight of an iPad 2 at 3.35 pounds and just over an inch thick (as measured by me) compared to the iPad 2’s 0.35 inch. But that also means that, unlike the iPad, it’s more solid and much more rugged. The surface of the Duo also has a rubber-like feel to it so one can keep a good grip on it.

Positives

• With the Duo you have a convertible tablet/netbook device that has a complete operating system that can run the same software you use on your desktop.

• While the iPad’s largest configuration is still 64 GB last I checked, you’ve got a roomy 320GB SATA hard disk in the Duo, and a tech-savvy person could open the thing up and swap it out for a still larger drive (say, 500GB).

Overall impressions

As I wrote at the beginning of this review, this is the device that finally converted me from a Mac user to a full-time Windows user, as Apple has yet to produce a full-blown tablet computer (yes, they have the iPad, but it’s incredibly watered down OS compared to having a machine with the complete OS X on it, and shipping your MacBook to the various third-party companies that convert them to tablets involves substantial expense and being without your machine while they convert it). Not only has this device become my regular mobile device (replacing the MacBook) such that I can do just about everything on my desktop on the road (and if I need to do something more powerful, I can use Windows Live Mesh or Hamachi VPN and Remote Desktop Connection to access my desktop at home from the road), it also has become my portable entertainment device, being able to use Windows Media Center to access TV and movies recorded on the home PC over the network and watch it all in high definition without having to pay for extra services like MobileMe.

This is a very formidable entry into the convertible market by Dell, much better than other convertibles I’ve seen from companies like Toshiba and Lenovo. I would have liked to have seen things like a built-in card reader and a video output, but those are things that I’ll get over.