Welcome to the Flyblog!

I am a very pleased owner of a Flybook V5 (from Dialogue Technology). When I started looking at the unit In July of 2007, there wasn’t a lot of information available. I set up this blog to not only connect with other Flybook Owners, but to provide real-world experiences for anyone else looking into purchasing this ultra-portable laptop. Please let me know if there are any questions I can answer for you, and welcome to the Flyblog!

Vitakey working on Windows 7

Hey, a comment left by Hugo Leonardo and an email from  Egistec themselves pointed me to a version of Vitakey that works with Windows 7. I still couldn’t get it to work until I uninstalled the Authentec driver (Control Panel > System). On reboot, the biometric was found and reinstalled automatically. I then installed the Vitakey “5″ update from here, rebooted and voila! It’s working!

As Hugo points out, it is actually Vitakey v6.1.46. The Authentec driver that I’m using is: v7.10.1.2.

Refurbished V5 for sale…

Hey, I was contacted by someone who has a refurb V5 for sale. Here are the particulars:

“If anyone is interested, I have a newly factory refurbished black V5 for sale.  It has 4GB RAM, and 60GB HDD.  It comes with a new slipcover and a brand new Flybook briefcase ($300.00 value).  I am asking $1500.00 plus shipping.

If you are interested, please contact me at 1-877-248-3627 (W), 1-416-457-7777 (C) or email at patrick@itmedicalsolutions.com.

Thanks Brenda for all of your help!”

It’s back.. and I have Windows 7 on it…

My V5 has returned from service (again, a rapid turn-around) and I’m very pleased.

I installed Windows 7 (off the MSDN website) on it last night (new install, not an upgrade) and everything is working except… Vitakey (the fingerprint software). Hmm.. seems like someone warned me about this… The Authentec (fingerprint) driver came through as a Windows update (but just to be sure I tried the beta driver from their site as well), and shows up as working properly in Device Manager, but Vitakey doesn’t find a fingerprint reader. I’ll contact Egistec and see what gives.

By the way, Windows 7 wasn’t aware of the touchscreen. I installed the latest Vista driver from Flybook and that did the trick.

I downloaded the latest Generic 3G Watcher from Sierra Wireless (it’s all black and deadly looking) and that worked fine right off the bat.

But oh dear… should have seen this one coming… with the new motherboard, I got the “no wireless in tablet mode” issue and none of the Vista hacks appear appropropriate for the Windows 7 Registry.

Anyone? Anyone?

Anyone have Windows 7 on their V5 yet?

When my V5 gets back from service, I plan on rebuilding it with the Windows 7 RTM. Anyone done this already and have any words of wisdom (cautionary tales) for me?

New things from Flybook?

I don’t know about anyone else, but even though that one article in my last post was all I could find on the net, I did find it encouraging to know that Flybook is working on new products. I tried getting more info out of them but they are playing it pretty close to the chest. It does sound like they’ve been putting a lot of effort into R&D and that there are some neat and innovative things coming.

Innovative. I like that.  I wish there were more companies out there willing to float new ideas in products. When I first went looking for the V5, I knew I wanted small form factor, tablet, real processing, and broadband. It was the only unit I could find matching those specs (Fujitsu had something close, but it wasn’t there yet). I realize I might be a niche market, but I appreciate that someone else in the world was thinking along the same lines and actually produced it. Even two years later, they don’t have much direct competition (the Lifebook P1630 comes close once you upgrade the memory and pay to add the Broadband).

Of course, to stay in the game, Dialogue/Flybook can’t be only about a niche market. Or… at least… not just the one niche market. Netbooks do seem to be the answer for a lot of people. If anyone can create the iPhone of netbooks (what we used to refer to as the Holy Grail), I would think this company could. But here is me hoping they have a V6 up their sleeves…

By the way, I’ve also been told I’ll be on their press-release list when they are ready to announce; I’ll post as soon as I hear anything official.

(and if you missed it… my V5 is winging its way back from being serviced… yeah!  Kudos to Flybook service for the rapid turn-around!)

New Flybook (netbook?) Model coming?

FWS (Found While Surfing):

DTC shows off 11.6-inch Flybook at Computex

Seems Dialogue was showing off a new unit back in June. I assuming from the brief specs that it is some kind of netbook(?) The article suggests an asking price of $400.

I’m not sure I get the bigger netbooks. If I’m going to haul something that large around, I would want it to be a fully functioning laptop (and no, I don’t want to haul something that large around).

My Flybook is Headed to Sunnyvale

That’s Sunnyvale, California  (not Sunnydale of Buffy fame). Recieved a UPS label and insurance document today from Paul at Flybook.com. You can believe I rushed right down to UPS and sent that puppy off. I feel naked without my Flybook.

I’ve spent 20 of the last 30 days in Seattle keeping company with my folks as one of them has been having health isues. (Yes, I was there when Seattle hit 103 degrees… UGH). Towards the end of my second trip out there my Flybook encountered a disaster and now it freezes within a minute or so of booting up.  Boy, you don’t realize how much you miss it until it isn’t there!

I told Flybook not to worry about anything on the hard drive as I’ve been planning to wipe it and install the Windows 7 RTM when I get half a chance. Anyone playing with 7 yet? Hmm… maybe that’s a different post. I also asked if I could get a V5 keyboard installed (the last time it was repaired they stuck a different keyboard on it which was *supposed* to be compatible but ended up with some misguided Function keys).

Oh No! I killed it!

My flybook was in its neoprene casing sitting on a low table and I bumped the corner and down it went.

It comes up and I can even do about a minute of tasks (like getting mission critical data off of it) and then it locks up – the keys, the lights, the screen, everything locks.

I *think* what is happening is that the fan isn’t coming on and it is overheating. As an experiment, I held it up to a household fan and was able to run it for several minutes before the locking up occurred. The fan remained “stopped” during the entire experiment.

So now to find out… since Memphis closed… where to send the little bugger? I’m going to submit a trouble ticket on the Taiwan website (but if anyone has info to give me, please chime in!).

Lesson One: Don’t post using a bogus email

Due to flamers, I changed the settings on this blog over a year ago so that posts by others are not automatically published. I will use my own discretion in what to publish and what not to (hey, it’s my blog) but I certainly won’t post if the email given is invalid. Please note: your email address does not show up on your post – that is something that only shows up to the blog owner. I am also not in the habit of giving out email addresses to a third party without written permission from the owner of the address.

Vitakey Upgrade – now works with IE8!

Thank you so much to Egistec Customer Support who posted comments on the Flyblog today to let us know about the upgrade to Vitakey (which just came out today, so kudos for the timely information). The good news is, it now works with IE8. The bad news, for those of you who used the “protected files” feature – that’s been abandoned and you’ll need to extract your files from the protection before installing and using the new version or you won’t have access to those files.

I have installed the upgrade and it appears to be working well.

You can find the update here. (http://www.egistec.com/download/update-vitakey5.html) (note: this is a 52MB file)

Per the instructions:

Please follow these steps to install the Patch:
1. Unprotect all your protected files
2. Uninstall previous VITAKEY from control panel and reboot PC
3. Install this Patch and follow the steps on screen
4. Reboot PC

I would add to that being sure to check the box to backup you user data file during the uninstall process.

Unlike in the past, you do*not* need to enter your serial number again.

This updated build is only for VITAKEY 5 users which carried the AuthenTec branded fingerprint sensor.

How to check the sensor brand?
1. Go to ‘Control Panel\System and Maintenance\System’
2. Click on ‘Device Manager’
3. Right Click ‘fingerprint coprocessor’ under ‘Biometric’ and select ‘Properties’
4. Find the Manufacturer brand name in the ‘General’ tab