Just a quick reminder that Splashtop is going to be in Las Vegas at CES. We’re sharing space with our friends at Asus. So, in addition to seeing all of the cool things we have to announce this year, you can check out some of the wares that Asus is showing off. In fact, I’m blogging right now from my Asus Eee PC and loving it.

On the subject of blogging, please help me to get out of my booth duties by requesting extended reviews of products that you see coverage about. I will be more than happy to blog about any CES-related item that Splashtop users request. As far as coverage goes, both Engadget and CNET do an incredible job of making sure that you don’t have to be in Las Vegas to be at CES.

Here are our booth details should you want to come and visit:

The Splashtop team will be in the ASUS booth, which is located in the Las Vegas Convention Center in South Hall 4, 35162.

See you soon!

Have you ever Twittered? Hundreds of thousands of people do every day. Depending on how you look at it, Twitter is either a cultural phenomenon or a fad. A friend of mine recently asked, “what is Twitter?” I thought I’d take a post and explain it. After all, it’s the Holidays!

If you haven’t had the inclination to check out Twitter for yourself, it is simply a micro-blogging platform. Instead of taking a bunch of time to write a thoughtful, lengthy blog post, like I’m doing here, you simply dash off a quick note. For instance, “writing a blog post in a coffee shop” is a perfectly acceptable “twit” or “tweet.” Now, everyone who is “following” you knows that at 4:38PM on the Friday before vacation you were in a coffee shop writing a blog. Hopefully your boss is “following” you so that he he/she knows that you’re still working while everyone else is drinking eggnog. But, it has to be under 140 characters. Why? Because, in addition to many web-based options, you can send a tweet from your phone using SMS. This is especially great because (hopefully) we’re not always in front of a computer.

I know what you’re thinking - “following” sounds like “stalking,” right? It does, indeed, but it has a lot of practical applications. First of all, we’re a mobile world - keeping in touch with where your friends are at, what they’re doing or what they’re thinking is hard. Twitter gives you a constant stream of updates which can feel overwhelming at first but information overload has it’s advantages. Like right now - I know that @v (”v” is the twitter name) is curious about one of his clients while @beach is mad at his health care, @robknight is heading to the gym while @mrosas is opening Christmas cards. Get it?

Splashtop is a perfect companion for Twitter because we both have the same philosophy. We are amazing companions. Twitter is a great communication companion and allows you to communicate FAST. Splashtop is a great Operating System Companion as it allows you to get to your favorite web applications FAST. So all you Twitterers out there - make your next tweet from a Splashtop enabled computer!

Happy Holidays,
@thesolster

The awards for Splashtop keep rolling in and we couldn’t be more excited! Posted just today on HardwareZone is a great article about the 100 Top Products of 2007. Not only are we one of the Top 100 but we’re also named in the best of the 2007 awards.

“DeviceVM changed the game in 2007 with Splashtop, an amazing desktop environment based on a secure, ultra-lightweight Linux variant that will have your PC up in a few seconds flat with full access to the Internet and web-based applications such as e-mail, VoIP and even word processing.”

Thanks HardwareZone for the honor! If you’re a HardwareZone reader and would like to come see us at CES, we’d be excited to meet you and give you a great demonstration of our powerful companion OS. Here’s where we’ll be…

The Splashtop team will be in the ASUS booth, which is located in the Las Vegas Convention Center in South Hall 4, 35162.

A whole host of cool technology blogs have come together to create the Crunchies, which is a competition and awards ceremony that celebrates innovation in technology. DeviceVM has been nominated as the “best technology innovation/achievement.” If you’re reading our blog and have literally two seconds to vote for us, I’d be greatly appreciative. Click here, find “Best technology innovation / achievement” (it’s the first one), type in “DeviceVM” and click “nominate.” Voting ends tonight so don’t hesitate!

I’m excited to announce that Splashtop was just named one of the Greatest Linux Innovations of 2007 by Phoronix. Check out the article here. It’s an amazing honor to be named a great innovator as that’s what we work so hard to do! What a fun way to end the year.

I think 2008 is going to be even better and more innovative. During 2008 you can expect to see Splashtop hit many important milestones as we expand our relationship with Asus and show up on some new and exciting devices. Thanks again Phoronix!

CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) is upon us. If you’re not familiar with CES, it is one of the largest technology-oriented conferences in the world. In early January, hundreds of thousands of geeks (like me) converge on Las Vegas for a week of meetings, browsing and fun. From January 6-10 I’ll be in Las Vegas with the Splashtop team giving demos of Splashtop and checking out all the cool gadgets. Before I forget, let me tell you where we’ll be…

The Splashtop team will be in the ASUS booth, which is located in the Las Vegas Convention Center in South Hall 4, 35162.

Asus has generously allowed us to hang out and demo Splashtop in their booth. We’ll be giving demos of Splashtop on a few different devices. I can’t tell you which devices until CES so you’ll have to come and visit me there to see. We’ll also be highlighting some new features. I’ll be blogging every day from CES. In order to convince my co-workers to release me from the confines of our booth, I’ve decided that it is my duty to be on the CES floor reviewing cool gadgets for Splashtop blog readers. If there’s anything in particular you’d like to see, let me know and I’ll do my best to review it!

Our friends at Asus decided that Splashtop (under the Express Gate brand on Asus products) should be featured at IT Month, which is a cool event that happens in Taipei in December of every year. The idea behind this event is that computer and electronics manufacturers can sell their items at a reduced cost directly to the consumer. Given the opportunity to talk directly with consumers, Asus took some time to show off Splashtop to potential laptop purchasers. Apparently, our beloved Splashtop has been very popular and is getting a lot of attention. Thanks to Kevin for providing pics of the event!

A while back I wrote a bit about Box.net and their awesome platform for storing files online. Splashtop doesn’t currently allow access to your local files (those on your hard drive) so having online options are really important. Up until recent history, online storage was a pretty linear process - uploading and downloading was the most major feature. The ability to have “access from anywhere” was the value proposition. Now, thanks a host of incredible web applications and a well thought out API, Box.net can do more with your online files than you ever thought.

Let’s say you need to edit a Word document and you don’t want to wait the several minutes to boot up your traditional OS. Or, maybe you’re in Splashtop and want to work on a document because you like our environment better! Either way, Box.net’s platform allows you to do that easily and efficiently. Box.net will match up your file type (like a Word Document) with an online service (like Zoho). Once you add a service (for things like blog posting, image editing, file sharing, twittering and much more) you can access that service by clicking on the arrow on your file.

In the image above, I have clicked the arrow in the right hand top corner of my Word document, at the bottom you can see “edit document” with the Zoho “Z” logo next to it. I’m sure you can guess what happens next…

The great thing about this system is that you don’t have to re-download the document, edit it, and then re-upload it to accomplish the simple task of editing an online file. As you can probably imagine, the same process is true for photos using the excellent Picnik online photo editing tool. Box.net provides incredible utility and well thought out functionality that greatly extends the reach of your online files. Give it a shot and let me know what you think!