Spaced out TD: Tablet PC

Been having fun with daily ink blog

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 17:41:08 GMT

Fellow Tablet PC users, get on over to Tablet PC Blogs and scoop up your own ink blog so you can ink your travels. I've been using my blog as a daily comic. Yeah, mine is all poorly drawn completely amateurish stuff, but I won't get any better without practice. Watch me improve ... or not.

This might just be the start of a new type of trend: blogging, podcasting, vlogging, inkcasting?

tabletpcblogs.com launches and shares some MSN Spaces similarities

Mon, 30 May 2005 19:12:24 GMT

If you don't already have an MSN Spaces blog and are a Tablet PC enthusiast, then you might be interested in the latest Heiny creation: TabletPCBlogs.com. They say it is open to everybody, and it's free (ad supported by Google Adsense), even non-tablet users, even Tablet non-believers:

In other words, someone may register who does not own a Tablet PC. They may create a blog. Someone might even hate the Tablet PC, register, and create a blog. This site is open to all individuals. While we may not embrace all ideas that we are oppossed, it is best to keep our minds open.

Blogs created are done using similarly restrictive blog software as MSN Spaces, called Community Server in that you can't do much outside of the imposed sandbox. I tried selecting a different template and it apparently somehow fubarred the comment system (sorry Layne!).

This might be a good place for a first time blogger and tablet PC user.

I signed up and created the TD on Tablet blog with the heading: "Tales, trials and tribulations of integrating the Tablet PC into a multi-business environment from someone who doesn't drink the Microsoft Kool-Aid." Unless they make it more Tablet-specific, though, it will probably be updated about as much as my AOL blog, or this one, for that matter.

Tablet PC Buzz outgrows server

Wed, 27 Apr 2005 01:00:44 GMT

If you are new to Tablet PC then you'll quickly find yourself at one of the best resources for Tablet owners out there: Tablet PC Buzz. The last time I checked their publically accessible Site Meter stats they were pushing 5,000 uniques a day. Earlier today I was at the site and notices things were moving painfully slowwwww. I just refreshed their site and saw the message below that they are upgrading servers and expect to be back online by midnight April 27 (Wednesday).

Good Tablet PC for wife?

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:01:37 GMT

Her birthday is a good nine months away (December) but my wife has already put in a request that a Tablet PC would be one cool possible gift (which surprised me, BTW), so now I'm wondering what type of tablet would be good for a woman? She would probably use it for mostly personal use, but maybe some business use. I'm sure by December of this year a whole slew of super powerful new tablets will be on the market, but stylistically and of course in weight, features, etc, what type of tablet would you recommend for a women?

More on Tablet PC slate elbow syndrome

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:46:53 GMT

A couple days ago I posted about a condition I called 'elbow syndrome' and how it's caused by using a Tablet PC as a desktop slate. Here's a picture to better illustrate the condition:

Lora suggested using a pillow, but unfortunately that doesn't look very professional having a pillow on the desk.

What I have decided so far is to use a mouse in most cases or pick up the Tablet most of the time when using the pen is better. I'm still looking for a leather strap which would keep the tablet propped around my neck and hand's free. I know the Otterbox exists but as I explained in my 60 days as a Tablet PC owner summary, that thing isn't very professional looking (more militaristic looking). Not a slam on Otterbox, but I'd rather use that for personal use like taking the Tablet PC to the beach or some other rugged outdoor scenario, just not into the corporate office or a district or regional meeting.

Other suggestions / ideas?

Tablet PC slate elbow syndrome

Wed, 02 Mar 2005 15:43:51 GMT

Has anybody else with a Tablet PC developed any 'elbow syndrome'? What I mean by this is when the Tablet PC slate is propped on a desk in portrait mode with a keyboard hooked in and not using a mouse, when using the pen it's natural for your elbow to rest on the hard surface of the desk. This can cause discomfort in the elbow after extended use in this scenario. I am taking my mouse with me today and plan reduction of use of the pen when in office mode like this. It would be cool if there was a way to easily switch back and forth between mouse and pointer without unplugging/plugging in the USB for the mouse.

Is there? Update: doh! I just tried this out and both the USB mouse and the pen can be used. Nice!

(BTW, the Spaces hack to change the font is not available on this computer, so will have to live with the default text instead until I re-add that code)

Tablet PC as an MSN IM client

Sun, 30 Jan 2005 20:27:07 GMT

I have found that keeping the Tablet PC next to my desk with MSN running makes it handy as an always-on MSN Messenger client. Normally I keep this off my main work space because it can interupt my workflow, but having it by my desk on the Tablet PC and the ability to pick up and write back my responses in ink seems to work pretty well.

I've taken some pictures of this in action.

Took my first video notes today

Wed, 19 Jan 2005 03:03:56 GMT

At a meeting today I took my first video notes using OneNote. I was surprised how easy it was setting that up. Since I still don't have a CD-ROM drive for Tablet PC, I had to go to the web to download the drivers for my video camera, but it was a snap. No problems installing on the Tablet PC.

Candy canes

Fri, 24 Dec 2004 18:19:12 GMT

To all those who celebrate, here's an ArtRage candy cane:

A little blogosphere buzz out there this morning ...

Mon, 20 Dec 2004 16:37:58 GMT

... over what I said the #1 reason salepeople should buy a Tablet PC. Always nice to start Monday off with a little blog traffic burst. Thank you to all those who linked my blog entry up!
Christmas week is always so cool! I can't believe we still don't have our tree up, we suck, but almost all the shopping is done, though.

We bought a range extender yesterday and finally moved to 802.11 G. After doing that, we found we didn't need the range extender because it broadcast throughout our home and home office just fine. We've got it locked down with WEP and yes, we changed the password from "admin" Picture below of the range extender.

Budding Tablet PC artists

Sat, 18 Dec 2004 18:54:04 GMT

Below is a picture of my son Sean using a ruler and Art Rage to work on his very first digital masterpiece.

Trying the Iggy snipping technique

Thu, 16 Dec 2004 01:13:28 GMT

I just followed Iggy's instructions for snipping something, in this case the use of another Tablet PC Powertoy called Handwriting Analysis and analyzed my lousy handwriting.
One thing I noticed not mentioned in Iggy's instructions are what to do with the 275k or so picture that is produced by the snipping tool. Doesn't look like there is any sort of image compression and I try to keep web images at 30k or below so I setup a shared folder on the network and loaded the image into Adobe Photoshop that we have licensed on another machine. I compressed the jpg and below is the result.

Tablet PC boot times and flash video insert test

Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:17:28 GMT

One thing I heard about Tablet PCs is that the boot up times were better than using Windows XP and though I haven't benchmarked it sure seems that way. Below is my attempt to insert a Flash video via userplane demonstrating the boot up time.

Update: It was removed because MSN Spaces garbled the code. I put it up on one of our other sites. BTW, at my main blog I posted the chronology of my Tablet PC buying decision which lasted over two years. I don't remember any other purchase of similar value ever taking me this long.

M1400 Tablet PC unpacked, locked and loaded!

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 17:16:02 GMT

So the very first thing I had to do once opening the M1400 packing is examine what goodies came with it. Here's the list:

Tablet PC with a full battery charge, niiiice!
gray hard shell protective cover for the screen
plastic protective sheet cover taped on by two pieces of masking tape|
AC power supply box,
AC power supply cord from box to Tablet PC
AC nice wall adapter
Digital pen (gray)|
5 QTY. Replacement plastic pointer tips
Pointer tip removal ring (for removing the tips from the digital pen)
Black string to connect pen to Tablet PC (so it isn't easily forgotten)
Black plastic stand to hold Tablet PC in monitor position|
Blue cloth to clean Tablet PC screen
Microsoft Streets & Trips 2005
Microsoft One Note 2003
2 QTY. Motion recovery CDs
Motion application CD (haven't checked out what's on it yet)
One Note 2003

That full battery charge gave me a chance to test the battery life right away. It went a good, solid three hours before going into hibernate mode. During that time I ran through many of the demos that load up. I read somebody else mentioning (sorry I don't have the link) that it wasn't required to load any software and that was the case for me as well. In fact, the only type of configuration I had to do was enter in the registration code for One Note; no need to set a clock, enter in data, it was literally turn this on and start working with it. This was easier than setting up my recent Mac purchase.

Setting up protected Wi-Fi. Connecting to my local Wi-Fi network was similarly easy. Since we're using WEP and not broadcasting the SSID, I logged into the router and grabbed a WEP key and turned on the SSID momentarily and almost immediately the Tablet PC became aware of the network connection. On the Tablet PC I edited the connection info and added in the WEP key and then turned off the SSID broadcast as it was before. The connection enabled. It was literally 2-3 minute process to be setup on the Tablet PC with wi-fi on a protected LAN.

Next, the Tablet PC went out to the web in search of updates, which it found several, including XP SP2. I tried to download that and it told me that it wouldn't install XP SP2 unless AC power was plugged in so I saved that for this morning. Smart install program, it knew I was on battery power and didn't want to waste it on expensive CPU processing.

I've added some pictures of the unpacked contents below as well as a picture of me holding the Tablet PC inking on this MSN Spaces blog. Later today there's a MSDN Event in Tacoma at the Sheraton that I'm signed up for. I'm hoping I can make it so that I can test recording the audio while I make notes using One Note 2003. I don't know how this works exactly, but I think this is a cool function and I'd like to check it out. Woo-hoo! I'm on my way to getting rid of all those yellow legal pads (that's the goal anyway).

Motion M1400 has arrived!

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 06:59:02 GMT

This afternoon my M1400 arrived and I am just getting into it. Pictures from inside the box will be posted when I get some time!

The box is really, really light; almost surprisingly so. Below I attached the final tracking info for the shipping. I didn't expect it to arrive today, but I was hoping to see it sometime this week. Wow, what a pleasant surprise! Check out all the activity today to get to our doorstep.

Good enough for an artist, good enough for me

Sat, 11 Dec 2004 18:56:03 GMT

I came across this detailed review of the Motion M1300 Tablet PC (I have ordered the newer model M1400 -- and was a bit curious of the differences between the two models) and it seems like this artist really did his homework on it:

Now first off, let me say, that I did a LOT of research before settling on the Motion Computing Tablet PC. I explored several different models, but being an artist, I first narrowed things down to the “slate” model, that is to say, the style of unit with a separate keyboard. This would make the unit lighter, and I would be able to lay it fairly flat, (flatter than the folded, “convertible” models) when working on an illustration project. The second reason I chose the Motion Tablet PC, was its gorgeous 12 inch screen. Working in a slightly larger format in comparison with some of the other tablets, is a definite plus. The built-in wireless, 56k modem, and lan port, ensures that I'm connected wherever I go.

I assume an artist would have probably the best use for a Tablet PC but I'm intrigued by the notetaking aspect of the Tablet PC as well as some other creative business-related uses. It's these uses, in fact, that propelled me to finally make the purchase.

I've been checking the status through Dell almost every day since making the order last week, and watching my new Tablet PC making the rounds as it routes its way to my door. Yesterday it got processed at the sort faciliity in Wilimington, OH (see screencap below).

This tracking package stuff via the web is pretty neat stuff. They said my new Tablet PC would be shipped in 1-2 weeks which puts the latest ship date as December 21, 2004 which I have circled on the calendar.

I just signed up for my first Tablet PC-related forum today: TabletPCBuzz. Looks like they get thousands of visitors a day, so I'm guessing this will be a good place. If anybody reading knows of other good forums, please use the comments or trackback to tell me about them.

Left my first spaces comment

Sun, 05 Dec 2004 21:33:08 GMT

Ok, I'm back to try this again. Still can't edit this blog or view the stats, but I made my first comment earlier on a blog that Scoble recommended on Tablet PC (see spaces blogs for link). The webmaster took his tablet pc and then made a cool link of our Things That ... Make You Go Hmm blog. Check the pic out: