Hanging out at the Origami Project Forums always proves to be fruitful. It's Microsoft's official community for the UMPC and there are quite a few Microsoft reps who frequent the forum there. Besides the forums, the occasional blog postings there are a veritable treasure trove of sneak peaks into the future of the UMPC platform.

That said, I'm sharing what I found today. A french programmer, Boris, has created two nice pieces of software specifically for the UMPC. One is a calculator and the other is even better, a screen rotator! In order to install these two pieces of software you'll need Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 installed and use Internet Explorer as your browser.

I mentioned last week that the Q1 will play WoW and I even posted up a video on YouTube as evidence. Since then I've found more and more people who are using their Q1 to play WoW. It's just amazing to me that something so small can do so much. You just can't compare something like a PMP to a UMPC. The PMPs are so limited in what they can do, with limited support for video and audio codecs and no real operating system.

The guys over at geek.com have been trying out the Samsung Q1 in their daily lives and have got a lot of positive things to say. I'm noticing a trend in these latest articles, that the reviewer actually prepared for the review. This makes a huge difference in their ability to utilize the UMPC.

After looking through his notes, I'm convinced that #1, I need a SlingBox, and #2 I need to give ritePen a try. If it's as good as they say I'm definitely missing out. I must say I'm not very impressed with the TIP that comes standard with XP Tablet Edition. The windows journal hand-writing recognition is about 10 times better. If ritePen can remedy this little annoyance I will be a happy camper!

It's nice to wake up in the morning and find a little bit of good news. I read a great article on The Mobile Gadgeteer. Matthew Miller blogs about his recent UMPC-enabled business trip and was thoroughly impressed with the portability. I think they key to his enjoyment of the UMPC was that he had quite a few other gadgets along that he could connect with.

His experience worked because he used his UMPC with a number of other products, both software and hardware. That the UMPC is so versatile and works with such a wide array of products is it's real value. Mr. Miller used a 1GB CF card to watch his movie, watched TV streamed from his PVR at home with a SlingBox, went online in various locations thanks to local wifi, and it's this rich infrastructure and interaction that allows the UMPC platform to shine.

I think this is what those other reviewers were missing. They sat in their office, or perhaps at a table with a company representative, tapped on the screen with their fingers and the stylus and then promptly wrote it off as a horrible notebook replacement. I urge everyone with an opportunity to review the UMPC to get up and walk outside, go down to the coffee shop, just get out of your traditional computing modes and try something new. It's only when you can take the UMPC out of your bag and simply start using it that you can realize the how convenient it is. Never having to unfold your notebook screen, plug in your external mouse, or find enough counter space to set your notebook down makes the UMPC shine.