Think you're free of a keyboard just because you own a slate? What about the keyboard surrogate? That app sits in your processes occupying memory; 14 MB on my machine. That's a lot for an app you only use when logged off. Well, I decided to do something about it without affecting my ability to use a password login. This, of course, depends on how I use the password login. On my machine, I require it for start-up only, not for resume from standby or anything else. I also do not share my Tablet, so no worries about switching users. With those factors in mind, I setup a .bat file to kill the surrogate after I use it to log in. Just a text file with a .bat extension. Looks like this [screen grab] I saved this in the Program Files and created a shortcut for the Startup folder in my Start Menu. I set the shortcut to run minimized and assigned it a spiffy icon. I also added a shortcut to the surrogate in my Quick launch in case I ever needed it. And that's how I "killed" the keyboard surrogate without affecting the way I log in on my slate.
Well, once I get a pop account (or perhaps an Exchange Server account) I can test out email in ink. I know that sends the ink as image and text, which is definitely worth looking into. Otherwise, I'm not seeing a great way to use Outlook Journal to create my web journal. And of course, my previous attempts at emailing entries to Blogger were less than satisfactory. Think I'll stick with tried and true for now.
I admit I was on the fence as to whether I'd be adding the new Tablet PC Show podcast hosted by Perry Reed to my subscriptions. Well, looks like I'll be giving it a shot since my blog is Perry's site of the week. Will give it a listen as soon as I find 45 minutes.
Technically, it's not new, but Outlook 2002 is definitely new to my Tablet. Got it along with my iPaq. This, of course, means I have also downloaded Tablet Enhancements for Outlook from Einstein Technologies. I've only fiddled with it for a short time but I've already inked in a task for me to buy it as soon as my next PayPal transfer completes. Check it out!
That's right, people! Sumocat is now the proud papa of a Pocket PC. An iPaq 1950 to be exact. Santa (a.k.a. my mother-in-law Pam) brought my wife an iPod and generously got me something just as nice too. It quite satisfies my desire for an easily accessible personal information manager, voice recorder, audio player, and notepad. More details as I explore its potential.
What? 'Cles of Narnia! Well, no, not really. Haven't seen the movie yet. But I have seen "Lazy Sunday", the short on Saturday Night Live in which Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg rap about going to see the Chronic What? Cles of Narnia. Brilliant, and it's available for download FREE from the iTunes Store.
My annual Christmas letter was shipped to my peeps along with goodie bags. And now, finally, the online version is complete and ready for viewing at markandtanya.us. Enjoy!
MobileTechRoundup, the podcast about any tech that moves (plus the Xbox 360), is running a contest giving away anything for sale at BatteryGeek.net, their sponsor. All I have to do is write a blog entry and link back to the MoTR home page. So here it is.
I found out about the hack shortly after the hackers emailed me and everyone on their purloined list. Didn't think it was noteworthy until I saw the write-up on it. Good thing I never bought anything from them online. Only thing they have from me are my email address and some outdated contact info. They do, however, have my low security password, so I'll have to change that.
Call me jaded or pessimistic, but I cannot get excited over news that MS and MTV are teaming up for an online music service. For one thing, MTV should have been at this table a year ago. The fact they aren't already "with it" shows just how out of step they've become. Secondly, MTV is largely to blame for the decline of music sales that has paved the way for the success of the iPod. It's no coincidence that music sales nave declined as MTV reduced the amount of time they give to videos. How long will their music service last before it becomes a reality show service? Finally, where's the music player? With Microsoft, they've got delivery to go with their content, but they still lack hardware, which is the key element of Apple's success. Apple's experience with providing a full computing system is translating directly into the success of their packaged music system. So unless Microsoft and MTV step up and complete their system with a music player, I will feel little urge to try out Urge.
Not that this affects me, but I never understood why Electrovaya offered a hot-swappable battery for their SC-2000 and SC-3000 Scribblers but not an extra charger. Why have the ability to swap batteries at any time if the spare battery can't be charged on its own? Well, they've finally fixed that problem by offering a stand alone battery charger. This really puts them over the top with endurance, at least until someone else offers hot-swappable 75Wh batteries.
The new platform, code-named Napa is said to perform 68 percent faster while consuming 28 percent less power. It features a twin core for multi-tasking without slowing down. Sounds like it will the chip to watch for in future Tablet PCs, But it also sounds like it will not be 64-bit, for which Windows Vista is supposed to be optimized. No telling what impact that might make, especially with AMD promising a 64-bit mobile processor.
Well, not this particular message, but Staellium, a British firm, is offering text messages that self-destruct after being read. It's being marketed as a security measure and they charge a fee for the service. The comparisons to Mission Impossible have, of course, already been made.
Zonealarm free edition is refusing to cooperate with my Tablet (works well on my desktop and my wife's computer). Thus I am currently relying on my router's security and Windows firewall. It was working at hotspots and with my wireless Internet well enough, but it was working at home too, so I'll have to do some field tests.
Mentioned by those Tablet PC podcasters (http://jkontherun.blogs.com/otrwithtpcs/2005/12/ontherun_with_t_1.html) (and again by Warner Crocker (http://wickedstageact2.typepad.com/life_on_the_wicked_stage_/2005/12/paceblades_slim.html)), PaceBlade offers a few slate models, two of which have passive digitizer touchscreens and a feature I've long-anticipated: a full-size on-screen keyboard. It seemed like such an obvious direction to me (it's something I envisioned for a future Apple tablet), I was amazed it wasn't being done. Well, it's finally arrived - here (http://www.paceblade.com/site/desktopdefault.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=155). [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Forget passing notes in class, kids these days are able to beam them across the room wirelessly. Oh yeah, they can also beam in their homework, read ebooks, animate drawings, and mindmap their ideas on the increasingly popular handheld computers that becoming must-haves in several schools. Very broad yet detailed overview about this from the AP.
Decided to try a new look. Since I dropped borders from my handwritten entries, I thought I'd see how it looks with no borders at all. Might switch to partial borders. Definitely need to jazz up the left menu a bit.
Been using my Creative USB external sound card at home for a while now. Never bothered to try it in my car because I didn't think it would make much difference with my cassette adapter. I was totally wrong. The sound is amazing even with MP3s playing on my Tablet to the sound card to the cassette adapter. Tried it after I saw a USB to headphone adapter at Best Buy. Definitely considering it.
Been hearing Alanis Morissette's cover of Crazy by Seal lately and I love it. Typically I'm not big on remakes of hit songs because they usually sound just like the original (big offender: The Ataris). But when an artist can remake a song in his or her own style without maiming it in the process, I really enjoy it, as I do with Iron Horse's bluegrass tribute to Metallica. Alanis definitely pulls this off when she reminds us we need to get a little crazy.
Watch Napoleon Dynamite. If you love it, congratulations; you are young. If you don't get it, you're old. I have yet to meet a teenager (and I work with many) who does not love that stupid movie. They crack up when I say "whatever I want! Gosh!" But I have yet to meet a mature adult who gets that movie. It's a better age test than checking ID.
wet, damp, and a little snowy but not yet frightful. But I'm still sitting at Sylvan waiting for students who won't want to be here if they do show up. Can you tell I'm bored?
Growing up in Hawaii, I never saw a lot of snow. In fact, I had never been in snowfall until I moved to VA. However, I did learn to drive through a lot of rain, which turned out to be good practice for driving in snow. Too bad most drivers around here aren't so experienced. Here's hoping they've learned before the 1-3 inches hits tonight.
Living far away from my family, I started a tradition of writing a sort of year-end wrap-up letter to let everyone know what's been going on with me in Virginia. Problem is, not a whole lot happened this year aside from my trip to Japan. Well, sure I did move, but other than that I'm fairly short on events that will mean anything to my family. Perhaps I'll pad it with shout-outs to people with actual news, like my pregnant cousin and my sister who moved out of our parents' house to live with her boyfriend in Atlanta. Oh well, if every year was noteworthy, none of them would stand out.
One thing I notice about Intelligent Design theory is that it fits seamlessly with the ideology of cults that believe we were created by extraterrestrials. In fact, given that our design is far from perfect, it makes more sense that our creators were flawed beings of advanced intelligence than a perfect being of supreme intelligence.
Revisited this idea after reading this article about SETI vs. IDT. It basically refutes the argument from ID ideologists that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is based on the premise that complexity indicates intelligence, just as ID is. This is, not surprisingly, an incorrect statement; SETI searches for artificiality, patterns which would not occur in nature, not complexity. This is not to say our complex structure could not have been created by aliens, only that SETI is not judging intelligence based on complexity.
But for some reason it is not displaying images for my new posts, after I was so excited about seeing image and text. Nice time for it to start working the way I thought it would.
Life on the Wicked Stage is one year old and Warner is marking the occasion with the Ink Blot Awards, which I am calling "The Blotties". I cleaned up with most consistent ink blogger and best TPC haiku. Great wrap-up of some of the antics in the world of Tablet PC enthusiasts, presented with Warner's usual sense of humor.
Been relying on the built-in live bookmark feature in Firefox for my RSS feeds. Finally decided to augment that with a reader extension. By design, RSS readers are supposed to be simple and Newsfox is no exception. Installed just fine into Firefox 1.07. It grabs the feeds. Couldn't ask for more, except I found that the text view also shows images. I can really appreciate that since all my posts are text and image.
Think you're free of a keyboard just because you own a slate? What about the keyboard surrogate? That app sits in your processes occupying memory; 14 MB on my machine. That's a lot for an app you only use when logged off. Well, I decided to do something about it without affecting my ability to use a password login.
