One of the primary benefits of being a technology writer is the ability to work in my home office, aka Mobile News Manor (MNM). It is a bustling place, with evaluation gadgets constantly arriving and going back to the vendors. As part of my daily work I spend a fair bit of time testing these gadgets for review, and also looking at new apps for various platforms to streamline my work methods.
This column is my look back each week to share pertinent experiences that I believe you might find useful. There is no telling what you might find in this column, but you’ll definitely get a feel for what it is like testing gadgets for a living. Welcome to the Manor.
Nine gadgets get an update, one doesn’t
Having a focus on mobile, the Manor is always full of laptops of various sizes and capabilities. The bulk of these laptops (currently 8 in service) run Windows 7, so this week when Microsoft rolled out Service Pack 1 my hands were full with the first major update to the platform. For most folks, applying a Windows Service Pack is not a big task, but when you multiply the task by 8 it becomes a time sinkhole.
The biggest problem I had with updating so many laptops is that the Microsoft update servers were slammed with so many users applying the patch. On most of my laptops the update was only 80 MB or so, but downloading it on each laptop took well over an hour. In hindsight I could have downloaded the update once and applied it via USB drive, but I thought since the update was physically small it would be faster to apply it to each device through Windows Update. This would facilitiate applying it to 2 or 3 laptops at a time, a consideration with so many to update. Silly me.
The slow download made the process take far longer than expected, as each laptop took about 2 hours for the update. Even updating 3 laptops at a time (insufficient office space to do more), a big chunk of one day was shot. The process worked flawlessly as most Windows updates do, but after spending hours my brain was fried. When I apply system updates I nervously keep an eye on them just in case, and with so many going on simultaneously I was one nervous nellie for the day. Kudos to Microsoft for a smooth update process as usual.
Another Microsoft update rolled out this week and made big news as it didn’t go as well as Microsoft or Windows Phone 7 owners would like. I watched the WP7 update debacle closely as it affected Samsung handsets and I am currently evaluating the Samsung Focus. I was trying to decide if I should apply the update or not based on the trouble some owners were having. It turned out to be a moot point as the test handset never got the update notification, and Microsoft has suspended it for Samsung handsets so it won’t likely happen for a while.
It turns out suspending the WP7 update was a good thing as it requires connecting the phone to a computer to update the phone. I have been spoiled by BlackBerry, webOS and Android with over-the-air (OTA) updates that can be performed without connecting the phone to a computer. This makes handling evaluation phones much easier for reviewers, as the update process is contained completely in the handset. When you bring a computer into the mix (I’m looking at you, WP7 and iOS), the process becomes complicated as it turns an evaluation phone into a “real” one. I don’t like having remnants of evaluation phones in my computers after the phone goes back to the vendor, but that’s what I have with updates using a computer.
