I plan to spend the third day of my theme park adventure at Disneyland, exploring all eight “lands” (Toontown, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, etc.) with several Atom-based devices to find as many character mascots as I can. The goal? To get each character to follow in the footsteps of Porky Pig (i.e., pose for a photo) and determine how his/her/its life could be enriched by a MID or UMPC. Because the characters have distinct personalities and in most cases specific jobs, I’ll try to identify their mobile computing needs and recommend a […]

I touched briefly on the benefits of a hardware keyboard the other day and right now, I wish that the BenQ S6 had a slide-out one. I’m partial to sliders in general and not a big fan of the slate form factor, but for my use at Knott’s Berry Farm today, the S6 MID is working out pretty well. I’ve been micro blogging on Twitter, reading email, and checking a few websites using my fingers to navigate the UI and the on-screen keyboard to input small amounts of data. It’s […]

The Sky Cabin at Knott’s Berry Farm isn’t on par with the extreme rush associated with rollercoasters, but it was a nice ride up to 180 feet above the park with the BenQ S6 MID a few hours ago. Though I’m only getting an EDGE connection from my AT&T SIM card, which I put into the S6 before I left the hotel this morning, the connection was strong up there and the speed was sufficient for a quick tweet and a visit to the MID Moves site to see what […]

Update: The live dot-to-dot maps are on this page. Today’s 5-country tour was really meant to be a test of the Clarion MiND MID. Unfortunately it didn’t turn up in time (it arrived 3 hours after I left. I’ll test it out next week now.) so instead I did a live map-track with embedded media. Of course, setting yourself a tough driving schedule and then trying to do live media, on your own, doesn’t fit ogether too well so I wasn’t able to give it the attention it required. I […]

Prepare to watch one of the nicest interface demos ever created. This 5 minute demonstration shows the new interface meant for the touchscreen EEE tablets, and it is quite spectacular. Every gestures seems thought out, and there is more eye candy than in Windows 7! This is just begging for capacitive touch. Hopefully Asus will provide us with a version of the EEE like that soon.    Via Engadget

Since this is a tour about Intel MIDs, I’ve decided to use nothing but an Intel MID on my theme park tour today. Yesterday I used the Atom-based OQO Model 2+ with two feature/smartphones, the iPhone 3G and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. MIDs weren’t designed to replace smartphones, so I didn’t think there was anything “wrong” with using the latter to supplement the former when it was more convenient. The problem–and the reason I’m leaving my iPhone at the hotel and only using the Xperia as a phone (and […]

My first day of the MID Moves tour has officially come to an end, and I’m glad Tuesday is a new day. I learned a lot from the OQO Model 2+ at Magic Mountain, but the biggest lesson I’m taking away from the day’s experience is the importance of having the right device not for the right task, but for the right situation. When I planned my amusement park itinerary, the devices that would be a part of the project were still undetermined. Without knowing exactly what I’d be getting, […]

Welcome to today’s 5-country map-based, near-live media tour. As I travel through Germany, Luxemborg, France, Belgium and Holland. In the map you’ll see the main part of this tour – a map that i’ll be updating with media and route info as I go. You should see images, audio, tweets and video if everything goes well. I expect the tour to last about 10-12 hours. Update: Podcasts and images below! With me I have two Intel based MIDs. The Wibrain i1 and the OQO 2+. I’ve got spare batteries for […]