Lilliput Mini USB Monitor

Andreas Wiebe

  • Model: UM-70
  • 7” Display
  • 800 x 480 resolution
  • USB 2.0

Being a geek I’ve always had a soft-spot for gadgets so when I seen this tiny little screen up for sale I jumped at the chance to give it a try.

At seven inches I knew the Lilliput Mini USB Monitor wasn’t going to replace a main display but I hoped it would have its uses as a third display on my workstation.

Unpacking

In the box they include the monitor, driver CD-ROM, and a USB cable. The monitor is fairly light and the plastic doesn’t feel of the highest quality but for sub-$100 it’s exactly what I expected.

This monitor runs straight off USB 2.0 so you don’t need a spare graphics port or power cord, just one cable runs the entire thing.

Installation

On my first install everything went well but when the display came to life I noticed corruption on the display (dead lines and pixels), a quick update of the driver software resolved this issue.

Testing on another machine I ran into issues with the drivers interfering with the primary graphics, again updating to the latest version of drivers resolved the issue.

I highly recommend skipping the drivers that come with the device, you’re better off directly downloading and installing the updated drivers from the DisplayLink website (http://www.displaylink.com/support/downloads.php) before attaching the device.

First Impressions

The resolution on the device is small at 800 x 480 pixels so many modern applications won’t fit well and doing any serious work on the display is cumbersome.

This display really shines for moving those small helpful utilities off my main screens while keeping them always visible. I’ve found the display is great for displaying Instant Messaging applications, videos, or desktop gadgets.

The picture quality on the device is fairly good but it looks washed-out if not at the right viewing angle, unfortunately the supplied USB cable gets in the way and keeps the device from tilting back as far as I’d like when in landscape mode – easy enough to fix with a different cable.

In review

The good:
- Cheap
- Requires only one cable
- Does not require a VGA / HDMI / DVI port
- Simple to install and use
- Gets commonly used widgets and gadgets off the main displays and keeps them visible

The bad:
- Supplied USB cable doesn’t allow display to be tilted enough
- Colors appear washed-out if the viewing angle isn’t just right
- Resolution is too small for serious work
- Included drivers not great, need to download updated drivers

Final Thoughts
With any gadget my take on its value comes down to one question: Do I still use it after a few weeks?

Yes, yes I do.

This display has become a permanent fixture on my desk, I have it showing MS Outlook (ribbon and preview turned off) so it’s always visible and there when I need it. If you’re looking for a bit of extra screen real-estate at a reasonable cost this is a pretty good buy.

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Usage Based Billing (Canada)

Andreas Wiebe

Usage Based Billing

With all the talk about usage based billing (UBB) in Canada lately I wanted to take a closer look at what the plans actually look like. As the decision that was rendered by the CRTC seems to be targeted at DSL providers I opted to take a look at one of Canada’s biggest proponents and issuers of UBB, Bell Canada.

Before we look at the plans themselves, let’s take a quick walk down memory lane to understand what’s been happening since broadband connections made their debut in Canada.

Historically:

  • User signs up for a plan that has a monthly charge for a specific bandwidth with no caps
  • Large ISP’s (particularly Bell) must allow smaller ISP’s to use these networks at a discounted rate to foster competition. There’s some talk that some of the infrastructure was subsidized or paid for by the Canadian government which is why this rule was originally put in place but I have yet to see any proof that this is true.
  • Small ISP’s enter the market and offer services with a reduced bandwidth but with higher (or no) caps piggybacking on the large ISP’s infrastructure
  • Though large ISP’s set limits on how much a user could download (cap), they generally did not enforce it

CRTC’s decision in short-form:

Allow large ISP’s (Bell) to charge small ISP’s (Tekksavy) for user overages while decreasing the discount they get from 50% to 15%, as part of this decision the CRTC also stipulated that the UBB caps and overage charges applied to smaller ISP’s must be in-line with charges levied against the large ISP’s customers.

UBB Plan Examples

Let’s take a look at Bell’s offerings in Ontario to get an idea of what UBB actually looks like. I’ve added a column showing the hours of HD streaming possible per day to make it somewhat easier to understand (based on 1GB / hour which seems pretty standard for 720p HD).

Bell plans - standard

Bell plans - standard

Note that Bell gives you the option of buying (pre-purchasing) an additional 40GB to add to your cap for $5.00, reports indicate you can pre-purchase up to 3 overage plans for a total of 120GB, if we factor that in it looks like this:

Bell plans - with 'Insurance'

Bell plans - with 'Insurance'

Caution:

I didn’t include details on bandwidth (the speed available on your connection) so this shouldn’t be used as a way to determine which plan to use but you can clearly see how the price per gigabyte swings drastically from as high as $15.98 to as low as $0.13 / GB depending on how you’re setup.

There’s another trick of course – unused caps do not transfer from one month to another, so keep that in mind.

Bandwidth: The total amount of data that can be transferred to a user at any given time, higher bandwidth means faster downloads

Throttling: Reducing the bandwidth for a particular user, program, or type of data

ISP’s: Internet Service Providers

Cap: A limit on how much a user can download

Network Neutrality: The belief that all data should be treated equally

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A thought on mobile phone etiquette

Andreas Wiebe

As I was waiting in line to buy a new drive yesterday I was watching the guy in front of me going through the checkout and inwardly chuckling to myself as he tried to balance a conversation with a person over his headset and answer the cashier’s questions at the same time.

Given the topic of conversation, not billing a customer because work wasn’t completed yet, I assume this gentleman was speaking to someone he works with – likely his boss. I briefly imagined the bosses take on being told “no” in the middle of a sentence every minute or so as this guy answered one of the cashier’s questions but I quickly came to realize the impact on the cashier and everyone waiting in line was far greater with the additional time it took to get him checked-out.

I’ve noticed in my professional life that having a conversation takes a lot of focus, even more is needed when having multiple conversations and compounded when two of the people involved in a conversation cannot hear each other.

In cases like this there’s no way for the cashier to know if the third-party on the phone is also speaking. The cashier is forced to either remain silent until the customer indicates he can speak or speak up and interject himself into the conversation. Regardless of which tactic the cashier opts for the transaction will end up taking longer as the cashier either has to wait or repeat himself several times. Really it’s a no-win situation for everyone involved including the guy on the phone in front of me… I wonder if he really remembers the entire conversation he had with his boss.

You can read EndUserGuides.com article on basic BlackBerry etiquette here:  http://www.enduserguides.com/mobile/blackberry/eug_bb-etiquette.html

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