Category: Mobile Productivity

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Computer Applications, Leisure, Mobile Productivity, Web/Tech

Report from CES 2011, Part 2: Tablets, Slates, Convertibles, and Sliders

The form factor of our computing devices has changed over the last year with the introduction of the Apple iPad, and this revolution was clearly evident at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week in Las Vegas.  In this second of three posts on CES 2011, we review some of the products you’ll see on the shelves of a retailer near you later this year.

Tablets and Slates

The biggest trend for 2011 is the appearance of competitors to the Apple iPad tablet computer. While most of the devices shown were running the latest version of Google’s Android cell phone operating system (v. 2.2, aka FroYo) on devices with a single-core processor, devices slated for release in the second and third quarter of 2011 will feature dual-core processors and Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), which has been optimized for use on tablet computers. Microsoft mentioned running Windows 7-based tablets and slates in Steve Ballmer’s show-opening keynote. Ballmer also announced that Windows 8 will include a special version which compiled to run on the ARM processor line, which is used in many consumer electronic devices such as cell phones. Although this will require publishers to recompile their applications to run on this new platform, this may keep Microsoft alive in this new category of devices until they come out with a more substantive strategy.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab

Samsung created a lot of excitement in the tablet space with the fall 2010 release of the Galaxy Tab, a 7” tablet running Android 2.2 which was sold through most cellular carriers during the 2010 holiday season (along with a wireless data plan and two year contract). A Wi-fi only version of the device was announced at CES, and should be available in the first quarter of 2011. Specs on this device are as follows:

The Galaxy Tab runs on Android™ 2.2 (Froyo) and features a 7-inch TFT display with 1024 x 600 WSVGA resolution. The lightweight and sleek device weighs only 13 ounces, is 12 millimeters thin and easily fits in a jacket pocket or purse. The Galaxy Tab includes 16GB of internal storage and has microSD expansion for up to 32 GB of additional storage. The Tab also supports Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 to deliver an enhanced content experience with access to thousands of Web sites packed with complex Flash-based applications and content. The Galaxy Tab’s Flash content support includes games, animations, rich Internet applications (RIAs), data presentations and visualizations, ecommerce, video, music and more. The Galaxy Tab is also designed with a rear-facing 3 megapixel camera for taking pictures on-the-go, as well as a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera and camcorder for video chat. [1]

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Figure 1 – The Samsung Galaxy Tab is an early leader in the emerging Android tablet category (Source: Samsung).

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Figure 2 – Most of the new tablets interface with home entertainment devices, as shown on this Samsung Galaxy Tab connected to an LED flat panel television.

Most tablets included significant enhancements to allow for interoperability with home entertainment systems. These features include media sharing, wi-fi, docking stations, micro-HDMI connections, applications which transform the tablets into remote control devices using wi-fi and many more.

Convertibles and Sliders

While the biggest news of CES 2011 was the entry of numerous iPad competitors into the marketplace, there were some other notable trends, including the demise of the netbook in its current form factor. Although the $300 “netbook” with a 10” display, a 1.3 MP camera, and an Intel Atom processor running Windows XP Home was exciting at CES 2010, this bargain device has been eclipsed by siren call of the tablet. Major netbook manufacturers such as ASUS have introduced a new spin to the netbook – a “convertible” PC with a removable tablet, or a “slider”, which can take conceal its keyboard behind the screen for use as a slate. Most of these devices have screens which are 10”-12” diagonally, built-in webcams, a keyboard, and run either the Android or Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system.

While the Android operating system does not have as extensive of an ecosystem of business productivity applications as Microsoft Windows, concerns about battery life and processing speed have driven many manufacturers in this category to look into using Google’s open source Android operating system instead of Windows. Although business customers will demand Windows-based hardware, it is unclear which operating system consumers will choose for their gear.

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Figure 3 – Sliders, which can be used like a traditional laptop or like a tablet were present from Samsung (L), Dell(R), and many other manufacturers.

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Figure 4 – The ASUS T101MT convertible tablet configured as a notebook (L) and a slate (R).

ASUS indicated that its Slider and Convertible tablets will be available in the second quarter, and will be priced from $299 to $699 (with netbook-style processors) and slightly more than comparable laptops for Core i5/Core i7 based processors.

We will wrap up our series on CES next week with a discussion of the emerging home entertainment ecosystems and how the convergence of the home theater and the home network may affect you in the future.

[1] Source: Samsung Press Release dated 1/5/2011, “SAMSUNG Mobile Announces Upcoming Availability Of WiFi-Only SAMSUNG Galaxy Tab™”

 

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Auditing, Computer Applications, Mobile Productivity, Travel, Web/Tech

Report From CES: Mobile Monitors and Mobile Scanning

I attended the 2011 international CES show in Las Vegas last week.  I’m posting some of my observations on monitors and scanners which would be useful for mobile accountants below.  I’m looking forward to working with the ScanSnap S1100 and putting it through its paces!

Mobile Monitors

There has (finally) been some innovation in the mobile monitor space to make it much easier for mobile users (e.g. road warriors) to have two monitors without carrying a ton of gear. Two new models offer road warriors workable solutions for that second display, the Toshiba Mobile Monitor (to be released in March 2011, price TBA) and the Field Monitor Pro from Mobile Monitor Technologies ($289 from www.mmt2.com)

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Figure 1: The Toshiba Mobile Monitor is a 14.1″ LCD display which runs on USB power. (available March 2011)

The Toshiba device uses one USB 2.0 slot to provide a second 14.1” display (1366 x 768) for an external monitor, and we understand that there will be a USB 3.0 version coming soon. This exciting new offering comes in a leather folio which seals with Velcro, and can be used as a stand for the monitor on any flat surface. The model we saw was a prototype, and we were told that this device will be available in March, 2011. (Pricing not available at press time)

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Figure 2 – The Field Monitor Pro, from http://www.MMT2.com is $279, and includes a numeric keypad.

Although they were not at CES 2011, the enterprising accountants at Mobile Monitor Technologies appeared at the 2010 CCH User Conference with the Field Monitor Pro. This device is similar to a very thin laptop, and its 15.4” 1280×800 display is connected to a PC using a USB port. The LCD can be positioned using three different stands, and includes a full numeric keypad. The Field Monitor Pro is priced at $279, and is available now from www.mmt2.com.

Mobile Scanning

Scanners for use on the road have been a challenge for accountants on the go for some time, and although Fujitsu has offered the ScanSnap S1300 portable scanner for some time, this device is still somewhat bulky to carry every day or for road warriors. Fujitsu recently released the ScanSnap S1100 to fill this gap in their product line.

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Figure 3 – Fujitsu’s ScanSnap S1100 offers portable scanning in a micro-sized footprint.

Weighing in at a light 12.3 ounces, the svelte (10.74” x 1.33” x 1.87”) ScanSnap 1100 scans one side of one page at a time, and will handle hard to scan originals like embossed cards without an issue. Scanning takes 7.5 seconds per page, which puts the speed for this device at about six pages per minute.

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Figure 4- The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100 portable scanner

Although the scanner itself is impressive, the real advances made by Fujitsu are in the accompanying ScanSnap Manager software, which has been extended to allow users to scan documents directly to PDF files, e-mail messages, printers, or to numerous cloud applications for online collaboration. One-click online document sharing is available for Evernote, SharePoint, and Google Docs.

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Figure 5 – Fujitsu’s ScanSnap Manager software allows one-touch uploads to numerous document portal services.

Another alternative for mobile scanning is to use software to convert the high quality digital cameras in tablets and cellular phones into a scanning device. One application, PDF Scanner, which is available for Windows Mobile 6, Android, and the iPhone, will take pictures of documents and convert them into PDF files, which can then be either downloaded using a cable or attached to e-mail messages. PDF scanner is available from most cell phone application stores, and more information can be found at www.melonmobile.com.

 

Accounting Software, Auditing, Computer Applications, Mobile Productivity, Web/Tech

Analysis on the Cheap

I often remind participants in my seminars that every accountant I’ve ever met shares a common favorite four letter word.

Seriously.

That word is, of course, FREE.

With that in mind, I’ve run across some tools over the last few months that I haven’t blogged about, and wanted to pass these along to you all.  The tools are available for the low, low price of….. wait for it…. FREE.

Analyzing and manipulating large data sets has long been the job of accountants, auditors, and analysts, and the classic tools for these tasks like CaseWare IDEA, ACL, and others have always been very expensive and required a week or so of training so that you can be proficient with them.  With the general availability of quad core processors, workstations with 8 GB+ of RAM, fast 1 TB hard disks, end users no longer need to wait on someone to create a report for them.  Get the right tools, get access to the data, and get to work.

Basic Tools: Microsoft Query and Excel PivotTables

Although they aren’t technically “free” since you need to purchase Microsoft Office to get them, Microsoft offers a couple of tools which are just as useful to analysts as an adjustable wrench (a Crescent wrench) and a claw hammer are to those doing home repair.

  • Microsoft Query is a tool for selecting, joining, sorting, filtering, and extracting data from databases.  Query is one of those “helper” applications which is hidden from most users – I have only executed MS Query from within the Data tab of the Excel 2007/2010 Ribbon (Data, Get External Data Group, From Other Sources, Microsoft Query), but it is invaluable for entry level work with databases, and is compatible with any ODBC compliant database which you can use on your PC, including MS Access, MS SQL, and many, many other formats.  Queries can be created, edited, saved, and executed from a simple menu structure, and a wizard makes the hard task of writing SQL statements into child’s play.
  • Excel Pivot Tables make it possible to summarize large data sets into interactive tables.  Although a full discussion of Pivot Tables would take all day (I actually own entire volumes written on Pivot Tables, and teach TWO half day classes on them (1) (2) through K2 Enterprises), suffice it to say that Pivot Tables will change your life, and do just about anything you want except make your teeth whiter and make you more attractive to members of the opposite sex.  Seriously – they’re that good.

ActiveData For Office

My friends over at InformationActive.com have a couple of nice products which meet the needs of accountants, engineers, and other professionals who need to perform sophisticated analysis on large data sets.  While my favorite one, ActiveData for Excel, is still a pay application, there is a version of this powerful tool called ActiveData for Office, which is now available for the low, low, price of FREE.  ActiveData for Office (also referred to as “ActiveData for SQL”) uses standard ODBC connections to talk to large databases, and will perform routine calculations like verifying the accuracy of an A/R aging report based on the dates in an open item listing, stratifying a sample, and evaluating sample results.  I’ve been somewhat confused by the move to give away this product, as I think it’s more powerful than the Excel tool – but pricing decisions are above my pay grade.  For more information, visit InformationActive.com’s page on ActiveData for Office.

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ActiveData for Office is a FREE data analysis tool which is invaluable for Accountants and other information professionals who need to slice and dice large data sets.

PowerPivot for Office 2010

With the release of Microsoft Office 2010, our friends at Microsoft have come to the table with one of the best tools for summarizing huge (100K+ records) data sets.  While the tool does require that you become an early adopter of Office 2010, the price is definitely right, and the tool has been used to analyze data sets with hundreds of millions of records.  PowerPivot (free from www.powerpivot.com) is a self-service business intelligence tool designed to let end users create their own business intelligence (BI) solutions which combine data from disparate sources using an Excel add-in.  For seasoned BI professionals, PowerPivot creates pre-summarized tables which are periodically updated and can be queried similar to cubes for almost instant calculations on data sets with millions of records.

While you can do many of the same things using MS Access, update queries, dummy databases, ODBC connections, and pivot tables, PowerPIvot is both more powerful (smarter) and easier to use (better looking) than the alternatives, and it’s free.

If you haven’t tried it, PowerPivot is available from www.powerpivot.com.

 

Auditing, Computer Applications, Mobile Productivity, Web/Tech

Monitors for Out of the Office and Other Hardware Recommendations

One of the more common questions asked by readers is a request for recommendations of external LCD monitors which can be attached to a laptop so that mobile users have two displays.  This post summarizes current thoughts on how to do this based on my experiences and the experiences of my friends, Randy Johnston, Bob Spencer, and Val Steed.  Together, we teach hundreds of CPE courses to accountants across North America each year, and also make recommendations at TechnologyBestPractices.com, CPAFirmTech.com, TotallyPaperless.com, and AccountingSoftwareWorld.com.  Many of us are also active consultants with CPA firms nationally either independently or through organizations such as NMGI.

The K2 CPA Firm Tech team members had an e-mail discussion re: our personal opinions on portable monitors for CPAs about three weeks ago.

  • Some of my co-workers @ K2 (Val, Randy, Bob) are recommending an HP 21.5” touch screen monitor – the HP L2105tm 21.5”($299).  Personally, I think this one is too big to lug around (14.1 lb (6.4 kg), Dimensions (w x d x h) 20.2 x 9.1 x 16.5 in).  The one I mention below is smaller, but does not have the multi-touch touch screen, and is also only an 18.5” display instead of a 21.5” display, resulting in much less work area, but my recommendation is a little over half of the weight of the HP model.  Info on HP model L2105tm is available on the HP website.
  • Due its the much smaller form factor (17.72″ x 11.65″ x 2.83″, Weight 7.94 lbs), I’m recommending the Samsung LD190N monitor for staff and seniors when out of the office  ().  It is a 18.5” LCD (1360 x 768 native resolution), and has a 5ms response time with decent contrast.  I purchased one of these for my own use a few weeks ago.  Some things you should know about this display:
    • This WILL NOT fit in my backpack sized for a 17”notebook, so I haven’t taken it on the road yet.
    • The monitor is NOT HDCP capable, so you will not be able to play Blue Ray DVDs on it, and only has an analog VGA cable input.
    • Since this one is only $119 vs. the $299 of the HP above (the HP is clearly a superior monitor, but it’s big, you could always buy a few of the Samsungs, and then see if you need a larger display and the touch interface.
  • You might try to find a good deal on 17” monitors, although I don’t know of any specific models to recommend, as most everyone is going to something bigger these days.

Screen protection will be a concern for most users, as there is no protection provided with either of these displays, and they will be very easy to crack.  I plan to protect my screen two ways:

  • I plan to use black velcro (matches the framing on the monitor) to attach a trimmed corrugated plastic For Sale sign you can buy at Lowe’s/Home Depot and use it as a hard piece to protect the screen.
  • I will see if any of my existing bags will hold the monitor so I can avoid purchasing a special case for it (I have about 10 laptop cases from throughout the years).

There are a number of alternatives for a case, including:

  • For the smaller Samsung and other 19” class displays, there’s a closeout bag by Shuttle (gaming PC manufacturer) which is designed to transport their discontinued XP19 – 19” monitor (which had a piece of plexiglass over the LCD) from place to place.  I don’t have one at this point, but it looks pretty interesting, and is $60 @ Directron, an online closeout store.
  • One firm reported that they use the CaseAce LCD harness to transport monitors and shield the screens from damage.  This is a cover shaped like a messenger bag (with the bottom open) to let you carry your monitor by the handle mounted on the top of the bag.  (Note: This harness appears to not be water tight, so you may want to also carry a trash bag with you to seal the monitor in the event of very heavy rain).  There is a larger version of this LCD harness which will let you carry monitors up to 24”.
  • Another firm reported that they used contact paper to reinforce the original packaging which came with their monitors and are using these boxes on the infrequent occasions when they need to move from site to site with their LCD.

Finally, some users will want to have more than one 22” monitor available in the office.  There are a number of solutions which will let you run the second external monitor (e.g. laptop LCD + 2 External LCD’s), including:

I would NOT purchase more than one of any device until you test it and verify that the drivers will not conflict with your applications and operating system.  I have had numerous issues with drivers for these items in the past, and some of the ones you can purchase at retail in office supply stores have software which will hang up when you try to run the PC without the attached monitor – which defeats the purpose of having a laptop.

FREE WEBCAST 12/9/2009 @ 2PM – On a personal note, I’m presenting a free one hour webcast on Gadgets with Greg Lafollette at 2pm EST on Wednesday, December 9th.  I hope you will register and attend.  The webcast is sponsored by Sage.

 

Accounting Software, Auditing, Mobile Productivity, Web/Tech

Got Tick Marks?

One of the more common things I am asked from people who are implementing a document management system is how they can include their “tick marks” in their documents.  My usual responses are to look at PDFlyer or Tick, Tie & Calculate in Acrobat (or alternatively, create your own stamps), and to either use graphics or a symbol font like wingdings in Word, Excel, and everything else.

My wife and I recently started using SendOutCards to send some of her follow up correspondence as part of her work as a mortgage loan officer.  One of the things you get with SendOutCards is the ability to create a custom font based on your handwriting.  I have sent mine off, and am somewhat anxious about what it’s going to look like when it is complete (my handwriting really, really stinks).  This effort, however, has opened my eyes to how easy it is to create your own, personalized font to do things like tick marks and other symbols.  While you can purchase applications for $50 to do this, the geniuses over at LifeHacker had a great post in February which mentioned YourFonts, a web service which does this for you for free.  You fill out a form, scan it, and it encodes the stuff you wrote as images in a Windows-compatible TrueType font.

CustomFont

If you needed to create a font for tick marks, you could simply create your own font using this tool, and instead of making the letters correctly, you could assign a tick mark to each character on your keyboard.  And it’s free.  You will need to share your tick mark files with anyone who would print out your documents, and will probably want to render the final versions to PDF (and embed the tick mark font in the PDF files), but if you do this, it’s a fairly elegant solution to one of the more vexing problems associated with annotating documents.

 

Mobile Productivity

Notes from the Road and Travel Tips

We’re in our second quarter “mini busy season” here with K2, and the last few weeks have seen us present technology conferences in Connecticut, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Oregon (where I will speak today).  We’re also preparing for our first CPA Firm Technology Symposium in Overland Park, KS on 6/10.  Since this is a new, all-day course, I’ve been working with Val Steed, K2’s CEO, on prep for this course so we have plenty of material and other collateral to help our participants use technology in their firms as effectively and efficiently as possible.
USA Today (normally just good for recycling, but there are exceptions) has a nice article this morning on how to pack for a long trip, as well as some tips for the chronic overpacker.  Doug Dyment, the creator of OneBag.com (a site dedicated to traveling light) does a nice Q&A on how to pack for a trip.  Since I’m headed to Connecticut (two teaching days), Montreal (Canadian GP), and Kansas City (three teaching days) in the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be reading this article with interest.
There is also a nice chart in the article which lists who will have to pay to check bags with various airlines.  Fortunately, the other airlines have not been as quick to match American’s policy of charging for the first bag (although they are almost universally charging for the second checked bag.)  One of the few (hard earned) benefits of being a super-elite frequent flyer (Delta Platinum Medallion, Skyteam Elite Plus) is that I can check up to three bags for free.  While I very rarely use this benefit, it was nice to be able to handle all of the bags for free for my two companions when I went to Florida for the Memorial Day weekend.
Some travel links readers may want to use for their upcoming trips:

  • TripIt – www.tripit.com – This site will create itineraries from your confirmation e-mails from the various sources and put them into an iCal feed which you can add to Google Calendar or Outlook 2007.  You can also have “friends” on the site and share info with them or see when you will be in the same area as one of your far-clung cronies.
  • Sidestep.com – This is a meta-search engine for travel which will look on numerous travel sites for a particular trip, and then allow you to find the best match of price and schedule for your trip.  While most people use this for airfare searches, the car rental searches are where I tend to save the most money, and they also offer other category searches as well.  I can’t recommend this one highly enough.
  • Google Transit – lets you plan trips using numerous public transportation systems around mostly North America and Europe.  While this is a new service, I’m expecting that the depth of integration with organizations and schedules is going to be really good on a going forward basis.  I’ll let you know more once I’ve used the schedules for Montreal on my trip there next week.

I’m also in the process of implementing a hosted document management system for my little firm.  I actually installed the client software yesterday, and am now populating the database with a few documents until I can get a feel for how best to organize my documents (which don’t really fit the typical organization structure for a CPA Firm, since I do so much oddball consulting).  I’ll report more on this effort after I do the second revision of tags, categories, and other ways to implement this system.  K2 has some good tips on their Totally Paperless site, but I’m working to capture the various steps and factors considered as part of this whole process in a document which can be used for either blog content or teaching classes.  I’m also working with this vendor on integration with portals for secure interchange of information, and I hope to be able to write more about this in the near future.

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Accounting Software, Computer Applications, Mobile Productivity, Web/Tech

The Future’s So Bright, We Have to Wear Shades

There’s a very interesting article by Andy Kessler on the editorial page in the Wall Street Journal this morning which discusses the coming war in technology; the link is here.  While Microsoft and Google are the armies currently fighting the skirmishes around the future of technology, this is really simply a proxy war about how we will use technology in the future.  Just as there are different methods of transporting goods around the country (think: rail vs. truck vs. airplane), there are also different models of computing

(browser vs. local vs. mobile).  Processing power (thanks to Moore’s Law), bandwidth, and wireless technology have changed the level of real time information sharing.  HP has even come out with a laptop (HP Compaq 6720t) which is designed to be used as a thin client into corporate systems and which doesn’t even have a hard drive!.

Many accountants are rightly concerned with the security and information control implications of using online services for their

mission-critical applications.  While these are legitimate concerns, the reality of our digital infrastructure has generally made these concerns less of a problem now than in the past.  High speed internet is getting faster.  Last week, I received a flyer from my local telephone company offering a fiber internet connection which would have 25Mbps down/10Mbps up connectivity to my home.

While I’m still mulling over whether or not I really need that fast a connection at home since my current connection is 10Mbps down/1Mbps up through my cable provider, it’s really interesting that this level of service is now available in Knoxville, Tennessee, which, although a nice-sized city, is admittedly not one of the first cities you think of when you imagine fast internet speeds.  My current internet connections (cable and Sprint wireless) continue to impress me with the speeds which are possible; my cable connection averages 8 Mbps down, 970K up whenever I test the speed, and my wireless connection (backup) has been running over 1.1 Mbps down/300K up on the road lately with EVDO Rev A.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that telecommunications and other utilities are also more reliable than we have had in the past.  Where I used to reboot my router and modem every morning, I now go for months without rebooting these devices, and they seem to just work now.  My collaboration with others within K2 suggests that their experiences are similar:  I have noted only two critical outages among the team during the first four months of the year.  When I started my career 15 years ago, we would have two or three power outages during the busy season which would shut us down and cause us to lose work.  While utilities aren’t sexy, they certainly seem to have made significant improvements in the last generation.

If you haven’t tried some of the latest evolutions in Web-based applications, here are some for your consideration:

While the future direction of computing hasn’t been finalized, there are really interesting things happening in technology, and some things (like those pages or CD’s for reference materials) are on the way out. The future appears to offer more choices for how tools are delivered to users, which will make it much easier to work from anywhere – even a condo in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Brian Tankersley is a CPA and CITP based in Knoxville, Tennessee.  You can learn more about him at http://www.bftcpa.com.

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Computer Applications, Mobile Productivity, Web/Tech

Mobile Broadband Kicks it Up a Notch

As many of you know, I am a loyal (paying) Sprint customer,
and have used a variety of their cards since they rolled out EV/DO service
about a year and a half ago. I am
usually home a lot during the winter months, and have recently started
venturing out of my winter hibernation cave to go back to my life of roaming
the earth and through it searching for the best accounting technology. I have noticed a significant increase in the
speed of Sprint’s mobile broadband service since I last talked about it last
year. Where your average city would have
a download speed of 500-700K and an upload speed of 70K last year, I’ve been
seeing speeds of 1.7-2 Mbps down and 200K upstream. Since these are as good or better than those received
by low end DSL, Ma Bell has to be shaking in her boots(!).

Last
Result:

Download Speed: 2111 kbps
(263.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 282 kbps
(35.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 1631 kbps (203.9 KB/sec
transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 218 kbps
(27.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 1654 kbps (206.8 KB/sec
transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 220 kbps
(27.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

BTW, I did these tests at 7:15A, a time when many road
warriors are using their aircards to check e-mail and surf the internet in
preparation for another busy day on the road. Website used: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest

 

Mobile Productivity

An Update from the Road

So I’m on the road this week….pexels-photo-490466
I wanted to let you know that I was a conscientious objector to CES this year.  Really, if I want to hang out with 100,000 of my closest friends & neighbors, I’ll stay home and go to a football game.  Seriously – maybe next year.  For those of you looking for gadget guidance, I’ll refer you to my friend, Dr. Bob Spencer, who is carrying the torch for the skeptical gadget fan, and has posted some of his observations from his trip….er… pilgrimage… to Vegas for CES.  Heck, he even got a free dinner out of the deal from Greg LaFollette, so if they’re giving away free dinner, I may have to go next year (chortle, chortle….)

I had the privilege of getting an update from some software vendors yesterday, and I’m excited about the progress that many of the vendors are making in updating their products and otherwise finding new and innovative ways to meet the needs of the profession.  Once much of the stuff is released from NDA’s, I’m going to have a lot to blog about.  One trick I’ll recommend to those of you who spend much time in webinars is to set up your trusty LCD projector to display your webinar on the wall of your hotel room.  I did this yesterday in Syracuse, NY for a day of webinars in the Doubletree here, and it really helped me keep from going blind staring at a tiny screen.  I just closed in my garage as a home office (sorely needed – I was cramming about 300 sq ft of stuff into a 150 sq ft office.  I now have at least 300 sq ft to work with, and I can pare down the stuff a little bit.  I’ll send some pictures once I get the desk thing worked out, pics hung, etc.  It’s a pretty nice little space, and it has 14 gigabit ethernet jacks in the wall…. it’s nice to spend a little extra on the home network for a change.

[On a personal note, today my one year anniversary of my lap roux-en-y gastric bypass, and I would recommend it to any of you dear readers who have a BMI high enough to qualify (usually 36+).  I’m down 130 pounds, and have started the walk-jog thing at the hotels so I can get ready for a possible run in the 2008 NYC marathon (yes, I am aware that the original marathoner dropped dead after running 26.2 miles – but it has to be done!).  While it has a lot of ups and downs (the marathon), I’m looking forward to getting this done before I finish being 40 at the end of 2009.  Thanks to all of you who have offered your prayers and support over the last couple of years of this journey – the trip seems to get better and better each year.]

(blogged from the Outback Steakhouse in Syracuse, NY (where I ate a very tasty tiny steak)on my personal laptop and my Sprint aircard)

 

Mobile Productivity

Three Displays on a Laptop

The multiple monitor wave has hit most CPA firms and other companies now, and most IT people know how to configure Windows to support these additional displays.  That having been said, many home-based workers may not be getting the productivity gains that come from using two or three displays.  My home office setup is pictured to the left – I’m working off of my laptop (the center display), and am using two 19″ 1280×1024 displays (4:3 aspect ratio).  Both of these displays were purchased for under $200 each, so this whole project can be done for a little over $500, plus the cost of the laptop.

Here’s a question from a participant, and the related response:

Dear Mr. Tankersley  (ed. note: Mr. Tankersley is my father.  I am Brian.):

I attended your classes in November in Tulsa and really enjoyed them.  They imparted alot of useful information.  Especially enjoyed the Quickbooks classes. I have one question relating to your general technology session.  On page A13 of the general session material, you mentioned that it is possible to run 3 monitors from one laptop.  How can it be done?

Thank you

A Curious CPA

___________________

Dear Curious CPA:

Good to hear from you, and thanks for the kind words.

You can run three monitors on a laptop in three ways.  First, I’m defining screens as follows:

·         Screen One is the LCD on the laptop.

·         Screen Two is an external monitor connected to the video out port on your laptop (usually a VGA out port)

·         Screen Three is a hardware video device connected to an external monitor.  This is what confuses some when trying to figure out how to do this.

For purposes of this, I’m going to assume that you know how to enable the second monitor (go to Control Panel, pick display, select the last tab (settings).  Click on the additional monitors present, and select the “Extend my Windows Desktop onto this monitor” option for each. 

The third monitor can be enabled using a number of techniques. 

·         The easiest way to do this is to purchase a docking station for your laptop.  While some manufacturers make a docking station which will allow the third display, others (such as my cheap laptop in the attached picture) will require a USB 2.0 docking station.  I have a Targus ACP50 which supports four powered USB ports, VGA output, serial, 10/100 ethernet, and audio connections all over one USB 2.0 connection.  My experience with this device suggests that it will work fine if you want to just use it for VGA, or use it for VGA at low (1024×768) resolution, along with some of the other functions.   The one I have is a Targus ACP50, and it’s about $100 at Circuit City, Best Buy, or an office supply store.  This is the same device NMGI is recommending to CPA firms.  Info is at http://www.targus.com/us/product_details.asp?sku=ACP50US.

·         I have seen some Cardbus VGA adapters in the past, but couldn’t find any for sale on Amazon in a cursory search.  You may be able to find something like this online somewhere – but I have not used these, and have not done an exhaustive search for any of these items online.

·         If you run multiple PC’s (as I do), you can use an application called MaxiVista to send the video for the third monitor to an additional PC over TCP/IP.  This requires client/server software. 

Hope this helps – and I hope to see you at another OKCPA event in 2007.

Best regards,

Brian