## Contents ##

• Editorial: Recruiting in Michigan
• Surface Pro and TouchTasks
• The right device for your trip
• Hunter Prey
• The Object Desktop 2020 wishlist thread

by Brad Wardell

## Editorial: Recruiting in Michigan ##

It’s 9 degrees (-13C) outside, there’s 6 inches of snow on the ground, and it’s only November. I’m pretty sure my beehives aren’t going to make it. We're hiring up on engineers and artists here, but my lies about Michigan weather aren’t going to suffice this time. 

The best weather lies always have a little truth in them, like: Did you know that Southeastern Michigan is the same latitude as Northern California? So…in a way, it’s like being in California but way less expensive…! Yeah, that’s not going to cut it.

So…move to Michigan for the fun and the snow to work on amazing new stuff! Visit www.stardock.com/jobs to join us!

## Surface Pro and TouchTasks ##

I love my Surface Pro. Unfortunately, I had a problem with my type cover which forced me to use it as a tablet for awhile.  It was not a great experience.  It takes too many taps to get to the things I want to do compared to, say, my iPad Pro. The Stardock team had a great solution: let’s take advantage of the Surface’s bezel area.

It’s not commonly known that the touch-sensitive area of a tablet extends a bit beyond the visible screen. As a result, we were able to make a program that lets you assign functionality to taps just off screen.

What a game changer this has been for me - both when I’m using my Surface as a tablet, as well as just normally.  For instance, changing brightness is just a single tap away. I have Chrome set to come up with a single tap in the top left.  I even have a quick launcher come up when I tap on the left, which only has my most frequently used apps, shown nice and huge:

While it’s definitely a niche program (you need a touch screen), if you have a Surface Pro (or really any touchscreen), it’s a must have. 

It’s been interesting watching how people use it around the office (we have a lot of Surface Pros here). While not something we’d boast about on the website, one of the most common uses for it is to simply have 3 of the touch areas reserved for launching a specific website (for instance, Office.com (https://www.office.com/launch/word?auth=1), Google Drive, or Outlook) or a specific app (Zoom, Skype, Teams, etc.).

Anyway, if you have a touchscreen this really is something you should get for yourself.  It’s literally the first thing I installed when I got the Surface Pro 7 (and we’re working on a Surface Pro X version too for ARM64).

www.touchtasks.com

## The Right Device for a trip ##

Among the multitude obsessions I have is a fixation on trying to travel as optimally as  possible. I try to travel as lightly as possible without sacrificing utility. If there’s a popular piece of travel luggage for business people, odds are I have it.  The same is true for mobile devices.

Back in my OS/2 days, my kit included a ThinkPad T series (oh ThinkPad 760, I loved you so much even if you weighed 6lbs) and my trusty engineering pad. Later, I switched to the MacBooks (Pro and Air) because they were lighter and still let me get the job done.

Once I could merge my engineering notepad with my laptop, I switched to a Surface Pro until the iPad Pro 12.9 came out.  The Apple Pencil is, indeed, slightly better than the Surface pen (even if the pencil is missing the bloody eraser!), but the real difference is the available software.  The iPad Pro had two world class note taking apps – Notability and GoodNotes 5.

I’ve been surprised that Microsoft hasn’t put more effort into investing in developers making Surface software.  I know Stardock would love to develop an app with the best of Notability and GoodNotes 5, but for Windows (X86/Arm64). It’s a chicken or egg thing – there isn’t enough of a user base for us to fund such development ourselves.  So when it comes to note taking, it’s the iPad Pro.

Having picked up a Surface Pro 7, I am delighted to say that the new Intel CPU in it really does nail instant on.  It’s as fast as the iPad Pro for me in coming back to life.  They also nailed the power management with Icelake (the code-name to the new Intel CPUs). 

While reviews fixate on battery life in use, most people who use these know that the real killer for these devices is the battery drain when it's just sitting there.  My previous Surface Pros would always lose a ton of battery over night.  Not so with the Surface Pro 7. I have it sitting around and when I come back to it after a weekend and it’s ready to go (and no hibernation needed).

I tried the Surface Pro X.  In short, I didn’t find it ready for prime time yet.  It’s no better at instant-on than the Surface Pro 7 (which is more a credit to the new Intel chipset) and the battery life is comparable.  They weigh the same and the Pro X lacks a SD card slot, which means I can’t get a cheap 512GB SD card with demo assets or whatever to quickly put on.

This brings the right device for my trip down to either the iPad Pro 12.9 OR the Surface Pro 7.  The winner turned out to be the Surface Pro 7, but not for the reasons I expected.  The Pro 7’s integrated kickstand (with any variation in angle) and much better keyboard/trackpad support won the day. iPadOS helps, but it’s still not an effective productivity device for me. 

So there you have it: the closest to ideal travel device I’ve used is the Surface Pro 7. 

## Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation - Hunter/Prey ##

Stardock’s massive real-time strategy game is getting a new expansion that goes out shortly after I write this.  It’s called Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation - Hunter/Prey and includes a bunch of new units (for the Substrate), and a bunch of new defensive structures (for the Post-Humans).

The way the new defensive structures are implemented is something I found interesting. They’re done as upgrades to existing structures.  For instance, the Artillery Post can be upgraded into a Nova cannon which wipes out the shields of Substrate units.  This means you wouldn’t build it against a PHC unit because they use armor instead of shields.  This sort of dichotomy is something I think players will enjoy because it makes the weaponry more specialized.

My favorite new Substrate unit is the Clutch of Eggs.  When destroyed, it turns into a bunch of robotic spiders that swarm over the player.

If you already have Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, this is a must-have expansion.  If you don’t already have the game, then I’d say if you like RTS games you’ll like it.  If you liked Total Annihilation, you’ll love it.  But it’s definitely aimed at the core PC gamer demographic.

https://www.ashesofthesingularity.com/store

## Object Desktop 2020 wish-list thread ##

Many of you reading this are familiar with Object Desktop already.  We’re currently planning the biggest update we’ve done to the suite in many years for 2020.  We’d like to hear from you on what you would like to see changed, added, and improved.

To join the discussion, go here: https://www.stardock.com/news/497581/object-desktop-2020-wishlist-thread