AS TESTED ON GOOGLE CHROME VERSION 5 under Windows!

Should work with V4 and who knows what other versions. The feature has been out for more than a year now.

Some Background Info

If you want to just do this, skip to the next section.

This is kind of pointless in my opinion, but sometimes you might prefer a more touch friendly interface. Then this would be the guide to follow.

This can be done for any webpage in Chrome (or Firefox), simply by spoofing the user-agent string. Note that not all webpages have had the iPad touches made to them yet. Remember to add quotes.

You can also skip directly to the iPad editions if you don’t like the application shortcuts. Skip to to the second last section and just use your browser. For Gmail you need the user-agent spoof.

The user-agent string for iPad is:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safari/531.21.10

You ‘could’ just change all your Chrome user-agent strings to the iPad one to browse all sites in iPad mode, but I wouldn’t recommend it. So let’s just use Application Shortcuts.

How to Make an iPad Application Shortcut to Gmail

Step 1) Go into Gmail and make yourself an application shortcut

As shown below. You will need to modify these shortcuts later!

(my screenshot looks a bit different because my Chrome is already running under the iPad user-agent)

Step 2) Modify the shortcut(s) you just made

You’ll need to do this to every shortcut you made just now.

Right click on the application shortcut you have created with Chrome, and in the “Target” text field, input. We need to trim this because the user agent string is too long and you can just paste the ‘user-agent’ parameter as is without Windows cutting it off. If you replace the Gmail url (http://gmail.com) in the “Target” text field within the ‘app’ string to anything else you will launcher a different webpage as a web application:

"chrome.exe" --app="http://www.gmail.com/" --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safari/531.21.10"

Now in “Start in” text field, make sure the the target location of Google Chrome is correct. Mine is:

"C:\Users\xaueious\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\"

Step 3) Launch!

Now just click that shortcut you modified.

If you did everything correctly, you will have the iPad version of Gmail!

More Links Mobile Edition

Some of these are just iPhone editions. Anyways I’m not here to make an extensive list.

Gmail

https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/#tl/Inbox

Google Reader

http://www.google.com/reader/i/?source=mog&gl=us

Google Buzz

https://m.google.com/app/buzz?source=mog&gl=us#~buzz:view=following

Google Calendar

http://www.google.com/calendar/gp?source=mog&gl=us#~calendar:view=m

GTalk

http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/m?source=mog&gl=us

Firefox?

Note that you can do this easily with Firefox via Addons, and can create applications in the same way. I’m not writing up another guide for that, but look up ‘user agent switcher’ and ‘firefox prism’. Might be a bit more complicated to get it working the same way.

User Agent Switcher Addon

Firefox Prism Addon (web apps for Firefox)

Credits:

iPad User Agent String

User Agent Switch Discussion on Google Chrome Groups

Exported from aTrackDoog

Abduction!,1.44
CacheMate,2.4
Documents To Go,2.003
ES File Explorer,1.3.0.0
Facebook,1.1.2
FxCamera,0.5.4
GPS Status,3.0.3
Maps,3.3.1
Moto English,1.1.16
Moto input method,1.3.00
Moto Smart Handwriting,1.8.6
Moto 拼音,1.1.13
MySettings,1.0.0
Root Explorer,2.5.1
SetCPU,1.4.3c
Simeji,3.C.4
Startup Auditor,1.1
Transdroid,0.13.5
Twidroid,3.0.9
Wireless Tether for Root Users,1.60
Accelogger,1.2.0
AdFree,0.3.2
AndChat,1.2.7
AndroZip,0.9.3
Ankidroid,0.3.1
aTrackDog,3.11
AudioHack v1.1,1.0
Barcode Scanner,3.1
Bonsai Blast,1.2
Bubble,1.8.2
Cestos,1.34
com.mathpad.mobile.android.wt.unit,1.3.3
Compass,1.0.22
CrossConnect ESV Bible,1.35
Digital Clock Widget,1.7.6
Droid Wall,1.3.6
Evernote,1.3
Free Dictionary Org,2.0
Google Sky Map,1.3
gStrings,0.9.9
Hi MSN,6.0.2
it.tautility,1.4
Kaomoji List,1.1.0
Kids Paint,2.0.1
Log Collector,1.1.0
Mobentoo Marketplace,3.3
mVideoPlayer,1.5.7
NewsRob,3.5.3
Places Directory,1.0.20
Robo Defense FREE,1.2.0
Shazam,1.2
ShootMe,0.7.3
SleepTimer,0.9.3
Soft EZ,1.0.0
Solitaire,1.12.1
Stopwatch,1.3
SwiFTP,1.23
The Weather Channel,2.1.9
Tip Calculator,1.2.2
Titanium Backup,2.4.2
Toodle Droid,1.0.3
Touch Recorder,1.0
TubeDroid,2.3.1
TuneWiki,1.7
Wapedia,1.6
Wifi Analyzer,2.2.8
WiFinder,1.5
WordPlayer v3,11.0.1

This is an extension of the glass streak tweak for Windows 7 I posted earlier. While I don’t understand all the settings, I decided to write this up anyways to show my config.

These are settings found in:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\

Again, you will need to run the following commands to see the changes apply:

NET STOP UxSms
NET START UxSms

Settings for Maximum Usable Transparency

ColorizationAfterglowBalance: 0

ColorizationBlurBalance: 64

ColorizationColorBalance: 0

ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity: 0

ColorizationOpaqueBlend: 0

Settings for Fully Opaque Black Start Menu and Active Window Frame and Inactive Window Translucent, Glowless

ColorizationAfterglowBalance: 0

ColorizationBlurBalance: 0

ColorizationColor: ff000000

(change “000000″ to any RGB color you wish)

ColorizationColorBalance: 64

ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity: 0

ColorizationOpaqueBlend: 0

Known settings

Composition: 0 = disable Aero, 1 = enable Aero

ColorizationOpaqueBlend: 1 = forces all window titles opaque, same as unchecking “Enable Transparency” in settings

ColorizationAfterglow: ARGB glow color for all windows after first two digits. Glow appears when frame overlays any color, where it adds the color defined in ColorizationAfterglow as a bright glow. Has no effect on solid color backgrounds.

ColorizationColor: ARGB base color for all windows after first two digits. Opacity is higher on active window by default.

(ARGB is alpha-rgb color in hexadecimal form, for a total of 8 hex digits)

More unknown settings

Couldn’t quite figure out these settings. Posting them here anyways so someone else can figure it out.

ColorizationAfterglowBalance: 0-64h range: makes all window frames and start menu glow layer more opaque

ColorizationBlurBalance: 0-64h range: makes active window frame and start menu more opaque with lower values. Setting to 0 makes active window and start menu completely opaque. Max value makes active windows look the same as inactive windows, where glow and base colors are mixed together.

ColorizationColorBalance: 0-64h range: makes all window frame and start menu base color layer more opaque, more effect on active window

ColorizationAfterglowBalance + ColorizationBlurBalance + ColorizationColorBalance = 100 (decimal number) with Personalization panel settings

Changing the Alpha value in the ARGB doesn’t seem to have much effect

Final notes

I found the glow to be useless and a little unpredictable, so I disabled it completely.

Turns out it was really easy, but you can do some things that will result in unexpected behavior.

The proper way to install Windows 7 on another Windows 7 is to INSTALL IT FROM WITHIN YOUR ORIGINAL WINDOWS INSTALL!

You need to choose a ‘Custom’ in the following Window, then choose your partition to install it on. Make sure you choose a different partition than the one you are installing from if you want to retain a dual boot.

After your new Windows 7 install is completed, you may want to run the command “msconfig” or the program “EasyBCD” to change your boot order and waiting times.

The nice thing with EasyBCD is the ability to rename the OS display name in the boot menu. You can also reduce the timeout to less than 3 seconds. I found anything less than 2 impractical.

After your install, you should find that your new Windows 7 is on ‘D:’ drive, and your original Windows 7 is on the ‘C:’ drive

If I install Windows 7 from Boot?

In my install of Windows 7 from boot, it did the following:

• removed the original Windows 7 from the startup boot menu
• moves master boot record to the partition of the new Windows 7 install and marks it as the boot partition (verified with UBCD)
• can break your rescue and recovery partition options from your computer manufacturer (tested on my Lenovo SL410)
• original Windows 7 partition becomes ‘D:’ drive, but is unbootable until you perform a startup repair from the Windows 7 setup disc

Conclusion: to save yourself some trouble, just do it from within Windows!

After I finished cloning my hard drive using Acronis True Image (latest boot CD available to me at the time), I knew from experience that Windows will not boot until you perform the startup repair from a Windows installation CD. This has been the case with Windows Vista and 7. Not doing so results in a bluescreen that says something to the effect of ‘unmountable boot volume’.

The default factory install of Windows 7 comes with 3 NTFS partitions, and for some reason my Windows 7 is on the 2nd partition, with the 1st partition reserved for the Lenovo system recovery software labeled “SYSTEM_DRV”. Upon booting to the setup CD, the CD reported my Windows 7 operating system as being on “D:” drive, which was incorrect.

I did not proceed with the repair install at this point because I wasn’t sure if it was going to work properly with the wrong drive letter. Instead, I booted to UBCD and opened Cute Partition Manager. From there, I modified the partition type of the first partition so Windows would not recognize it. In my case, I chose hNTFS (hidden NTFS).

After saving and rebooting, my Windows 7 startup recover tool correctly reported my boot drive letter as “C:”. I allowed Windows 7 to run its repair, and then upon reboot re-enabled the first partition by changing it back from hNTFS to NTFS using UBCD again.

Booting into Windows 7 after this process was successful, with all drive letters retained as per the cloned hard drive.

You can download the newest SPTD driver directly from the DuplexSecure webpage for free:
http://www.duplexsecure.com/downloads/

Specifications

HP TX2524CA
Specs:

2.00 GHz AMD Turion X2 RM-70 Dual-Core Mobile Processor
1 MB L2 Cache
Memory 4096 MB
Video Graphics ATI Radeon HD 3200
Hard Drive 320 GB (5400 rpm) Fujitsu MHZ2320BH
Multimedia Drive LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
12.1″ WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Integrated Touch-screen, Convertible Display (1280 x 800)
Fax/Modem High speed 56K modem
Network Card Integrated 10/100 Ethernet LAN
Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n
Bluetooth
Sound Altec Lansing speakers
Touch Pad

ExpressCard/34 slot
5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards
3 USB ports

1 VGA (15-pin)
1 RJ-11 (modem)
1 TV-Out (S-video) HD Video compatible
1 RJ -45 (LAN)
1 headphone-out
1 microphone-in
1 notebook expansion port
Consumer IR (Multimedia remote control)
Dimensions 8.82″(L) x 12.05″(W) x 1.23″ (min H)/1.52″ (max H)
Weight 4.56 lbs
6-cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion)
WebCam with stereo Integrated Microphones

Some Notes about HP Consumer Tablets

The previous TX1000 and TX2000 series have been plagued with Nvidia overheating troubles. Many of them fail after a couple of years due to a desoldering problem on the Northbridge. I personally saw one fail myself, and highly recommend avoiding these laptops.
The newer TX2 is multitouch, but has driver issues with Windows 7. As a result, the TX2500 is the most reliable out of all of the HP consumer tablets to date. As a consumer product it is passable, but it still has various issues.

HP has loaded the tablet with entertainment features, but at the cost of heat output and chassis reliability. In particular, there is a potentional loose hinge issue as described here (http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=19209). Now the repair is relatively simple, and I have done it myself. This is obviously a design flaw. Maybe it had to do with the way I used my laptop. I didn’t use it for inking in tablet mode much myself, but I constantly used the screen without it being in tablet mode, which is probably the problem.

HP has also opted for AMD mobile processors for their consumer line. Even up to the current TX2 line, these machines run very hot. I always had to throttle my CPU speed at 50% (1000 MHz), which made the machine still very usable. However the computer still averaged 60 degrees Celsius and was warm to use. Running at high power results in temperatures as high as 100 degrees Celsius and is unbearable for skin contact. See the temperature poll here for some more information: http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=19081. As long as the computer is kept in 50% mode, it is a fine tablet with up to 3 hours battery life.

Yet one more problem is HP’s decision to include a passive digitizer on the LCD display.This design lowered the viewing angle of the screen significantly. I personally never even used the touch screen at all. It was another small annoyance. There is a hack to remove the passive digitizer altogether.

Performance

Windows 7 x64 startup time ~2 minutes

3DMark 06 Score: 1410 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score: 478
SM 3.0 Score: 564
CPU Score: 1052
Windows 7 x64 Business with Catalyst 9.8
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=12658633

The HD3200 handles light gaming and HD videos, supporting hardware accelerated BluRay video, where CPU usage drops to <10% as videos are offloaded to the GPU. This GPU outclasses the Geforce 6150 found in the previous generation TX2000. It is in the same class as the NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS and is comparable to the ATI Mobility Radeon 9800, but with DX10 support.
When it was released it had the best graphics performance amongst a tablet. I believe that is still true today.

DXVA support for ATI works for all videos under the BlueRay specification, but I had many issues trying to play out-of-spec mkv h264 files with subtitles. This is a common problem amongst ATI video cards and to date has not been fixed (Relevant thread http://forum.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=308911). I also own Intel and Nvidia based graphics, and experience flawless DXVA playback with out-of-spec files. The RM-70 on the TX2524CA can handle up to 720p playback without issues using the built in MPC-HC decoder. I never got 1080p DXVA to work. I expect 1080p videos to play without any issues if CoreAVC was installed, but I never tried because it would still mean setting the CPU to high performance mode, which I wanted to avoid because of the heat issues at high performance mode with this laptop.

Inking

Inking in Windows Vista/7 is smooth, with pressure sensitivity support. I am not an artist, but it seems to work decently well.

I personally used it mostly for text input, and it was a pleasure to use for day to day use.

AMD Griffin Architecture: Turion RM and ZM Series CPU Versus QL

The RM-70 CPU is part of the Turion RM and ZM family, and has 3 power states (25%, 50% and 100%). The QL series only has two power states (50% or 100%). A CPU at 50% idle consumes more power than a CPU at 25%, resulting in lower battery life and higher heat output.
The QL and RM lines had 1 MB L2 cache (512 KB per core), while the ZM had 2 MB L2 cache (1 MB per core)
The RM-70 is a 31 watt TDP part. The combination of these features means that the RM-70 has the lowest heat output of it’s generation of AMD mobile processors.
Additionally, the RM and ZM series have 400 MHz dual channel DDR2 controllers, compared to the 333 MHz dual channel controllers of the QL series. As memory bandwidth is crucial in integrated graphics, expect to see an additional 10-15% speed drop with the QL series CPU.

If you had to get a TX series laptop, consider these factors.
AMD Turion CPUs Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of…icroprocessors

Final Notes

While the HP TX line is the cheapest available tablet PC to date, I highly recommend spending more money on a tablet with better build quality. The best deal at the time of this post is the refurbished HP 2730p, or a used 2710p on eBay. While those laptops are old models with much weaker entertainment capabilities, they are much better pure tablet PCs at the moment.

Specifications as ordered

• SL410 (Model type 2842-CTO)
• 14.1 in LCD 1366×768
• Intel Core2Duo T6670
• 4GB DDR3 1066 MHz Dual Channel (came with 1 stick of 2GB)
• 6 cell
• Windows 7 x64 Home Premium
• USB ports x4 (1 back, 1 left combined with eSATA, 2 right)
• eSATA port x1
• DVD writer
• HDMI x1
• VGA x1
• SDHC slot x1
• Integrated webcam
• Express card slot x1

$580 + 50 CAD taxes included

Ownership ~1 week

Comments

Thermals

• CPU runs cool enough for fan to be off most of the time, in the range of 39-45 degrees Celsius during normal operation.
• Temperatures do not exceed 55 degrees Celsius under load after undervolting.
• Not uncomfortable to keep on lap even under operation.

Performance

• Boot time into functional Windows 7 x64 is approximately 1 minute.

Build Quality

• Chassis is plastic and rigid, but does move and creek slightly under pressure. LCD hinge opens to maximum of about 140 degrees.
• LCD screen is gloss with decent viewing angles. High range of brightness control available.
• LCD hinge feels solid, and screen experiences almost no flex
• No latch on LCD  lid, but laptop with screen closed is firm not
• Plastic feels a bit cheap to touch, does not feel like a quality product
• Chassis is a hollow, leading to good thermals but could really have been made thinner
• Big power plug that secures well to the laptop
• No key flex, but keys feel mushy

Acoustics

• Keyboard is quiet to type on
• Some hard drive chatter can be heard even with fan off, but is relatively quiet during seek
• Fan is off most of the time
• Fan is loud even at lowest setting, but it is rarely on

Gallery

This small tweak removes the faint glass steaklines in Windows Aero in all glassed areas including the taskbar.

Expected Results

Before

After

How

Go to your registry and edit the DWORD32-bit entry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\

ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity

Set the value to “0”, then restart your Aero. (Default hex value 32, decimal value 50)

To do that, I switched to Vista basic and switch back to my Aero theme. Alternately type these run the following lines in a command prompt (not case sensitive):

NET STOP UxSms
NET START UxSms

Other Notes

My window color sliders

From reading comments at AskVG:

http://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-window-borders-blur-in-windows-7/

The theme originates from a limited edition of Windows 7 sold in Japan. This pack includes 3 wallpapers, and most of the sound effects as voiced by Mizuki Nana (水樹奈々). More information about the pack itself in Wikipedia, and on Akiba blog.

Here’s preview of all the sounds on Youtube. This was mirrored from NicoNico:

Well I tried it out for a while now, but then today realized that the one being distributed actually has a mistake in it. The person who packaged the themepack swapped the USB connect and disconnect sounds. To fix this, you can either modify your downloaded themepack.

Download a repackaged version here (expires 1 year from last download).

If you want a manual fix, you have to do is swap the filenames of ‘device disconnect.wav’ and ‘device connect.wav’ under the themepack’s folder under your local user folder.

After the fix:
Device (USB) Disconnnect is supposed to be:
ぁ、つながったよ (a, tsunagatta yo) -> a, it’s connected
Device (USB) Connnect is supposed to be:
ヌいても大丈夫だよ (nuite mo daijoubu da yo) -> it’s okay to disconnect

If this link does expire, you can most likely just download it from a Google search for "nanami themepack"

More resources:

http://ascii.jp/elem/000/000/470/470187/