V5 from Provantage… with DVD/CD burner?

Surfing the web, I stumbled on a link to a V5 for sale on the Provantage website. According to the Specifications, for $2,555.69, you get a unit that includes a ”DVD-R/CD-R burner.” Hmmm. Now, I have seen dealers offer the V5 bundled with an external DVD/CD burner, but the way Provantage words it, makes it sound like the burner is part of the unit. Unless the world has started spinning in the opposite direction, I’m guessing that is not the case. Are they selling an external unit with it? Or have they just had a brain fart? If anyone buys from them, be sure to let us know how it works out (and be sure to save the item listing specification itself as a pdf for when you receive the unit without a DVD/CD burner. FYI, black and silver are at the above price, pink costs $55 more.

Updated the V5 Vista Drivers page

Dialogue updated the posted dates on their Download site and I’ve used those to update the V5 Vista Drivers page. As before, I’ll be watching for future updates, but now I’ll pay special attention to version numbers rather than posted dates. If anyone catches something before me, please be sure to post a comment. I’ve added a “Previous Version” column that shows the previously posted version number.

I haven’t had any issues with any of these udpates (aside from never installing the EC BIOS upgrade). The Vitakey Upgrade/Authentec Fingerprint driver have continued to be stable.

Flybook and Ubuntu

Hey, there are some people out there working to make the Flybook and Ubuntu a winning combination. Me, I’m not this intrepid, but for those of you who are, here are a couple of links:

Emanuele Gentili’s Blog

Ubuntu Flybook Team Site (brand new site he has just launched)

Per the blog, he has had some recent successes with the fingerprint reader (I know others have been caught on that).

Latest Vitakey seems a lot more stable

Just a quick note to say that the latest version of Vitakey (5.0.0.6) seems a lot more stable than previous versions. I haven’t had one pwdbank error yet.

Brighter screen coming…

Wired has an article about the V5s in which they say:

According to Flybook, they are already working on the follow up to be released in late November, and one of the main features will be a screen that you can read in bright daylight

Damn, I’m going to totally want one…

New Drivers available on the Dialogue.com.tw site

Ok, so I have been diligently checking the download portion of the Member’s Club every couple of weeks. I always scan through the list, looking at the dates to see if there is a newer version. However, I should have been looking at version numbers because several of them have changed without the dates changing. Oops! I have brought this to Dialogue’s attention (so hopefully we’ll see that changed from here out). However, it means going through and figuring out what all is really new. For one thing, they have the latest 3G Watcher (that’s how I discovered the issue - double checking what version they had on their site after seeing the new one on the Sierra Wireless site).

I’ll summarize what I find and give you any installation observations.

At first glance:

• Audio R180 (I currently have 6.0.1.5497 dated 10/16/2007, not sure yet how this compares)
• Display v157 - this should be v7.14.10.1437 - I posted about it being available on the Flybook.com website a week or two back - it is more recent than the date suggests
• Bluetooth v5.2.0.210 (currently have v6.0.12.56 installed, so not sure what that is about)
• Touch Screen v1.1 (currently have v1.0.0.1 installed)
• LAN 6200 (really: 6.200.1130.2007 - same one as on Flybook.com)
• WLAN 11.1.1.0 (currently have 11.1.1.11 so again, not sure what that is about)
• 3G Watcher R2.4.0 build 161 (currently have R2.0.0.3: Bld 1437 installed) - this is packed with Bootloader H1_1_4_OMCBT (not new) and Firmware H1_31_8_3MCAP (also not new)

Update 2008-06-23

Oh, and the Vitakey (v 5.0.0.6) upgrade of course! It comes with a new fingerprint driver as well.

Vista SP1 Successfully installed!

Temporarily nixing the hibernate file did the trick. I was able to install SP1 and then recreate the hibernate file. Vitakey is working fine so far. Sound seems good. I was able to connect up with both WAN and WWAN. So far, so good.

Update 2008-06-17 9:23am

Ok, I did experience an odd calibration issue - I was having trouble grabbing scroll bars in the center of the screen with my pen. Seemed like calibration was ok on left and right of screen but got off the further towards the middle (??). Anyway, I ran the 25 point linear calibration that Dialogue supplies and everything seems to be fine now.

Can’t install Vista SP1 - not enough room on C:

Ok, they won’t make this easy, will they. While the SP1 download is only around 400MB (only) you need to have over 2GB of free space on the drive that has the operating system installed. My Flybook came partitioned into a c: and d: drive and while I’ve installed all my programs on D: and moved both my public and “personal” profiles to d:, I only have a little over 1GB free. Grrr.

I think the only thing I can do at this point is to use Disk Cleanup to remove my hibernation file (same size as installed RAM - 2GB in my case). Hopefully, once SP1 is installed, I can restore it (assuming I’ll have 2GB free after the install). I sure hope so - I use “hybrid sleep” where I put the unit to sleep but when it comes close to battery totally dying it writes off the RAM to the hibernation file (the answer to my “Hotter than Hades” post if anyone is curious).

Caller ID?

John posted a question on the About Me page asking if anyone has caller ID working? His isn’t, so if yours is (or if you know more about the issue) please comment on this post. I don’t even have a voice plan on my system - only data - so I can’t answer  this one.

Vitakey Upgrade available on Dialogue.com.tw!

The latest Vitakey upgrade (combined with Authentec Fingerprint driver upgrade) is now available on Dialogue’s website (you have to log into the Members Club). Don’t be thrown off by the date listed (it is still showing 2007-10-30), the version number listed (5.0.0.6) is correct - the previous version listed was 5.0.0.4.

Two things before upgrading:

1. You’ll need to back up your Vitakey info using their back up utility (listed under Vitakey>System on the Start menu). At least, I’m assuming this upgrade, like the last one, has you uninstall Vitakey (after running that backup utility)… I just went ahead and uninstalled without even checking.

2. You’ll need your Vitakey Product ID (which is not available to you in the system itself - only on the back of your original Flybook installation CD).

Warning, the download, which is only 34MB is VERY slow.