Just as I’ve started working on a secure vehicle mounting solution for my eo i7210 using after market mounting components, I learn from an undisclosed source that they have a car mounting plate product that they have not announced yet, but which will be available soon.
Monthly Archives: September 2006
TabletKiosk to Announce a Car Mounting Plate for eo i7210 UMPC Soon
Posted by Evan
on September 29, 2006
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TouchStyk Misaligned on my TabletKiosk eo i7210
Posted by Evan
on September 27, 2006
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I’ve mentioned in earlier posts that I’ve had a few problems with my new TabletKiosk eo i7210 UMPC. We’ll I’ve had questions via email from a few people about it so I’ll describe some of them.
One of the first things I noticed after getting the device was that if I tried to use the TouchStyk controller to move the mouse, it really only wanted to go to the right and down. Attempts to move it to the left resulted in the mouse moving very slowly or not at all.
After a while looking around for some sort of software configuration options, I discovered that the dish shaped stick on the right side of the i72xx is really just a slip on cover over a rubbery/plastic stick that is mounted in a hole in the front cover of the machine. When I pulled it off, I immediately saw the problem.
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Mounting a TabletKiosk eo i7210 in a HUMMER H2 – Part 1
Posted by Evan
on September 26, 2006
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The moment the UMPC platform was unveiled at Microsoft, I immediately knew that I was going to put one of them in my HUMMER H2. My H2 doesn’t have an in-dash nav unit. It’s just a stereo, CD player, tape deck. I’m currently using a Creative Zen Touch to pipe audio into the head unit using an aux input module from Pacific Accessory Corporation that I installed a while ago. I figured, if I’m going to have a UMPC, it’s going to replace my Zen Touch and add every other capability I might want in-vehicle since it’s a complete Windows PC.
— Added on Sept-29 —
My requirements for this mount are:
- don’t obscure air vents
- don’t obscure shifter or cup holders
- don’t obscure center console stereo, climate controls, transfer case, e-locker, and traction control buttons
- securely hold it in offroad driving situations
- position at convenient location for use by driver (i.e. don’t have to stretch or bend to reach or read it)
- allow for repositioning for use by passenger
So I am pursuing a mount that positions it solidly over the center console cupholders and allows its orientation to be quickly adjusted without tools.
Now, one major problem is that there is no mounting system available for the TabletKiosk eo’s yet. TabletKiosk has a “Universal Mounting Plate” spec’ed out, but I don’t know when they’ll be available. I contacted Arkon, Ram Mounts, Panavise, and ProClips and no one had anything specifically made for the i7210, nor were there any generic/univeral holders that looked to be the right dimensions to hold the i7210.
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I’m loving my TabletKiosk eo i7210
Posted by Evan
on September 26, 2006
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I was one of the lucky ones who received his eo i72xx series UMPC from TabletKiosk before they indefinitely postponed shipments of the first allocation of machines due to “driver issues.”
This is according to this post on September 13th at origamiproject.com‘s forums.
Thank you for contacting TabletKiosk. We have received your order, however at this moment we have stopped shipping units due to a identified software driver issue. We anticipate we should have this issue resolved within the next 72 hours at which time we will resume shipping these units.
Based on some support requests of my own concerning the video drivers, I believe the driver issue that’s holding up shipments is with the Intel graphics drivers. I’ll follow this post soon with another detailing my issues.
But as of today (Sept-26), it seems that TabletKiosk still hasn’t resumed shipments of the 72xx series models.
As of today (Sept-26) it sounds like TabletKiosk has recently resumed shipments of devices with updated video drivers. A couple people with order numbers at or above ~1000 have either received their machines with updated drivers or received notice of shipment (cite).
While people wait to get these machines I’ll feed the interests of others by reporting that despite the varied issues I’ve had (posts forthcoming on these), I still love my eo. I’m using it all the time in lots of different places. Here’s a list of things I’m using it for now.
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InScribe Keyboard as Fullscreen Touch Keyboard Video
Posted by Evan
on September 19, 2006
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Ilium Software has recently released InScribe as an alternative onscreen keyboard for tablet PCs and DialKeys for UMPC. It can be downloaded for free right now and runs on any Tablet PC.
A few people have taken a look at this product already, including James Kendrick of jkOnTheRun in this article. It’s got a number of features including a way that you can drag your finger/stylus between keys and it recognizes presses by change of direction and the ability to make your own keyboard layouts. But I just wanted to show how useful it is as a simple transparent touch screen keyboard.
Here’s a brief video showing me using it on my eo i7210 UMPC to type into notepad.
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SRS Popup Panel on TabletKiosk eo i7210 UMPC Doesn’t Resume after Hibernation
Posted by Evan
on September 14, 2006
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Shortly after receiving my eo i7210 UMPC from TabletKiosk, I tested out whether everything worked out okay when I put the PC to sleep using Windows XP’s hibernate feature. This feature will serialize the state of memory to disk and completely power off the PC saving battery compared to a standby. Then when you power the machine on, it quickly boots back to the state it was originally in. In other words you don’t have to restart all your apps and reopen all your documents, etc.
Hibernation can be a problem though if some of the software on your PC doesn’t cooperate. The OS tells the apps when it’s suspending them and later resuming them. But if they don’t act appropriately, you can end up with an application that gets very confused and ceases to function properly after a resume from hibernate.
It just so happens that a fairly critical function of the eo i7210 failed the hibernate resume test for me.
Received My eo i7210
Posted by Evan
on September 13, 2006
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I preordered my TabletKiosk eo i7210 on August 10th. They were supposed to start shipping “by the end of August.” Come August 31st, my order status was still pending and my credit card hadn’t been charged.
Apparently, they arrived in the California warehouses late that day and TabletKiosk needed to perform some burn in testing prior to shipping them. As of Friday, September 1st, they hadn’t started shipping either…the first pre-orderer, Dennis Rice at GottaBeMobile.com, hadn’t gotten notice of shipping.
Rooftop Hi-Lift Mount
Posted by Evan
on September 6, 2006
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Original Project Date: July 2006
Project Summary: I mount a Hi-lift farm jack on the roof rack cross bars on my H2.
A Hi-lift farm jack is a useful tool to have with you when you go off road. The factory jack that comes with your vehicle to help you change the tire is really designed to lift the vehicle on level ground just enough to raise the tires off the ground. However, in an off road situation uneven ground may necessitate lifting the vehicle much more than the several inches to change a tire.
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Tightening the Front Torsion Bars
Posted by Evan
on September 2, 2006
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Original Project Date: April 2006
Project Summary:
I explain how I level the H2 front to back.
The front end on my H2 had always been a little bit lower than the front. At first, I liked it this way, but it began to bothering me. It was about 16 inches to the bottom of the rockers in front, and just over 17 inches to the bottom of the rockers in the rear.
The H2 has an independent front suspension that uses torsion bars to provide upward force on the lower suspension arms, thus setting the ride height (and firmness). When you can tighten these torsion bars it raises the front ride hight.
I tightened the torsion bars on each side. On the passenger side about 4 turns and on the driver side about 5 turns. Each turn results in about 0.2 inches in ground clearance at the front differential.
I never measured the difference in height at the front differential or the front bumper, but I did bring the front and rear lower edges of the rocker bars withing 1/4 inch of eachother on each side.
I’m guessing that I obtained about 1.25-1.5 inches more of clearance under the front differential and skid plate, which obviously is important on an independent front suspension vehicle if you take it off road.
Caveat #1
Whenever you make this sort of adjustment, you are changing the camber alignment of the front wheels. So you need to get it aligned soon after making the change. It’s recommended that you wait until driving about 50-100 miles before doing the alignment to allow the front suspension to "settle" into where it wants. It certainly doesn’t hurt to drive over some rough dirt roads to accelerate this proces 
.
Caveat #2
As I mentioned above, tightening the torsion bars will not only change the height of the front end, it will also increase the firmness of the ride. Some people will find the ride too harsh. I personally prefer a stiffer front end.
Caveat #3
You can be overzealous in trying to obtain increased ride height. If you tighten them too far you limit the ability of the bars to dampen the suspension arms through their full range of movement. On a recent wheeling trip, I noticed that I’d hear lound clunks frequently from the passenger front corner whenever coming down on that wheel in ditches. We straightened out all the undercarriage protection and made sure all the bolts under there were tight, and still it would clunk.
A couple HUMMER techs and I all concluded that the right torsion bar is probably a little too tight. Nothing that will result in a chronic wear problem, but rather just something that’s going to clunk a lot when a lot of weight is put on that corner while wheeling off road. Next time I plan to get rotate and alignment, I’m going to back off the tightness on the torsion bars a turn or so and see if that makes a difference on my next wheeling trip.
Before and After Pictures
I set up a camera on a tripod to take a picture before and after the change without moving the truck. This allowed me to make the following two pictures.
Picture #1 – Composited before and after picture. The difference between before and after is most readily seen in the lines of the front door edges.
Picture #2 – Before and after pictures animated in a loop.
Conclusion
If you have a torsion bar front suspension and they’re not already too tight, there’s an easy way you can adjust them to raise, or lower, your front end a little bit to improve appearance of your vehicle when viewed from the side, and maybe even gain a little bit of front end clearance over off road obstacles.
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