Received a comment recently from Beni (https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14494870&postID=1757305200817333357) who asks if I could post a video showing my usage of my Toshiba R25 Tablet PC (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/search?q=Toshiba+R25). Sounds like a worthwhile idea, but also very broad and cumbersome. I'll need to distill it down to its essence beforehand and organize my thoughts, which I will do though this series of blog posts.
First thing to keep in mind is I don't use another computer at home. Others use their tablets as secondary computers; mine is primary. That means a good chunk of my usage is regular desktop or laptop stuff. Aside from the content in my recently added side blog, everything on my blog since November 2006 has come courtesy of my R25. Not just the handwritten ink entries, but the videos, photo albums, essays, spreadsheets, the layout and graphics, everything was produced on my Tablet PC
At first glance, I should just cut all that out, but as mentioned and seen in bits and pieces, I have worked spreadsheets by pen, I annotate Word documents, and I don't recall using a mouse and keyboard in putting together any of my videos. So instead of chopping that out, I should whittle down to show the pen usage.
Second, I'll need some over-the-shoulder video shots. Screencasts can capture my inking activities, but for something like web surfing, you need to see me kicking back on the couch, tossing web pages around, to appreciate how enjoyable the process is. That means thinking about lighting, posing, and oh yes, someone to record the video.
Third, Beni asked about Toshiba R25 usage, not Tablet PC usage. That's significant because it has a 14.1" widescreen compared to the usual 12" or smaller, standard or wide. I keep it in landscape mode most of the time, affording me a good deal of horizontal space. This is great for inking as well as working with multiple windows, but it also adds bulk and weight. Good for productivity, bad for mobility, but it works for me. I should discuss that.
Obviously, there are some broad strokes that must be narrowed before I begin, which I intend to do via posts like this one. More to come. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
In setting up my new Toshiba R25 (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/11/sss-about-new-tablet-pc.html), I thought I'd be in for a fight when it comes to cleaning out the CRAPWARE (http://wickedstageact2.typepad.com/life_on_the_wicked_stage_/2005/07/crapware_spamwa.html). Turned out it wasn't that bad.
Of all the pre-installed stuff I took out, I'd refer to only two of them as CRAPWARE: WildTangent and, of course, AOL. This might be because I bought it (slightly) used with a fresh install from recovery disks, but my understanding is the RD's also reload the crapware. Regardless, I'm pretty pleased there were only a couple of critical pieces of crap.
Other programs I took out were Franklin Covey Planner and McAfee Security Center, which are certainly useful, but not what I use. Also, I took out the Microsoft Office trial because I have my own licensed copy. I didn't time it, but if it took more than 10 minutes to uninstall everything, I didn't notice. (Core 2 Duo might have sped that up.)
If only this was a pretty story, but alas it is not. It ends well enough, with me getting what I paid for, but it was a less-than-humorous comedy of errors to get there.
First thing, if you want to save money on a Tablet PC, keep an eye on eBay and be patient. That's what I did. Twice. Got my Scribbler refurbished at less than half the new list price when Electrovaya unloaded a bunch.
This time, I'd been watching the Toshiba R25 for a few months. Took a while for the first few [Core Duos] to appear and by that time the Core 2 Duos were being rolled out. Figured I wouldn't see a Core 2 Duo R25 (http://tinyurl.com/yem8pa) until after the holidays. I was wrong.
As it happens, a guy was unloading his apparently vast collection of gadgets ahead of his military deployment, including a Core 2 Duo R25 (http://tinyurl.com/yem8pa) he had just gotten two weeks earlier. Buy It Now price was $200 below list. The model had barely been out for a month. I had just received an unexpected sum of money, in addition to what I'd been saving. It was too good to be true, and it almost was.
The seller was solid and honest, but I think he was overextended. All the delivery information he sent me the first few days was fouled up in one way or another. It turns out it was just the info that was wrong; the package arrived after a week. But I wanted to be quite certain everything checked out before settling in and calling it my own.
But then I had the surge in tutoring work, followed by family business, in addition to my previously scheduled activities. Thus, I wound up sitting on my new tablet until my sponsorship campaign (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/11/sss-sumocat-seeks-sponsorship.html) was ready to launch. Sorry for the non-disclosure, but I plan on making up for it with a lot more info than I shared of my poor little Scribbler, which is now semi-retired as a print server and media player.
It's not dead yet, but performance is now too erratic to be trusted. Will need to enact my plan to get a new tablet. Maybe Sunday. Again, I'm targeting the Toshiba R25 (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/09/got-my-eye-on-r25.html) for more screen space and lower cost. Optical drive and blazing speed are bonuses. Weight's not a big concern (I need the exercise).
As time drags on, I'm looking more and more seriously at upgrading to a new tablet from my aging little first gen Scribbler. As much as I'd like to get a new Scribbler, like the SC3100 (http://www.electrovaya.com/product/sc3100.html), my budget dictates a more affordable unit and the Toshiba R25 (http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmod.to?seg=HHO&coid=-31402) may be just right.
True, it is considerably larger and heavier than my current machine. However, my truly mobile usage is minimal. Primarily, I need a machine that can go anywhere and be used on location, but use while en route is infrequent and I can handle six pounds for that.
In exchange for the weight, it offers a 14" wide-angle screen, DVD superdrive and multi memory card slot. In tutoring, my tablet often serves as an infinite digital whiteboard and portal to endless information. I can definitely use the extra screen space and wider viewing angle for writing and displaying formulas and equations.
The DVD drive would be useful for data storage & retrieval, not to mention playing movies. However, particularly interested in its DVD-RAM capability. I imagine it could be used for quick and reliable incremental document backup.
I have several memory cards of different formats. A multi-format card reader would be useful and leave me open to new devices. Also, ReadyBoost (http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx) in Vista (once I upgrade) should be compatible with different formats of flash memory. Yeah, it has a cramped notebook keyboard, but I can always keep it in slate mode. The standard Core Duo processor and 1GB of memory are nice too. The slice battery, which lifts the back to a good writing angle, in addition to boosting runtime, would make a great future add-on. Bottom line: this baby's on my shortlist.
Proud new iPhone owner Rob Bushway (http://www.gottabemobile.com/LoadedDownWithTabletPCsAndUMPCs.aspx) recently commented on all the mobile tech weighing him down. Minimage (http://miniaturemage.blogspot.com/2007/08/too-much-mobility-weighing-you-down.html) put in her two cents and paged it forward to me, turning the topic into a meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme).
So, how much mobile tech is weighing me down? Not much actually. My Toshiba R25 (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/11/flickr-first-photos-of-my-new-tablet.html) is my primary computer, carried regularly in my sling pack along with my iPod Nano, camera, and phone. I still have my old Electrovaya Scribbler SC-500 (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2005/11/electrovaya-scribbler.html) as a backup. I'm still pondering how I might set it up in our townhouse. I also have my IPAQ Pocket PC, which is retired due to a cracked screen. And that's it.
So, since we're making up the rules as we go along, I think I'll throw the topic forward to Michael Venini (http://mvenini.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/i-dont-know-what-to-post/), who needs topics, and Warner Crocker (http://wickedstageact2.typepad.com/), who usual gets hit with these first so I never get to meme him.
I was tweaking the memory settings on my Toshiba R25 (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/11/flickr-first-photos-of-my-new-tablet.html) Saturday night and unfortunately found one that it absolutely hated. Kept crashing minutes into startup. Tried to do a System Restore but it turned off amid all the crashes, which dumped all my restore points. By then, I'd given up and went to my backup image, which worked like a charm. The backup was a few weeks old, but I managed to pull all the documents since then. Lost some time but no loss of data. Acronis TrueImage (http://www.acronis.com/) rocks!
While the big tablet was restoring, I went with my wife to a meeting of the Blue Ridge Vegan Society (http://www.blueridgeveg.org/index.html) and took my little Electrovaya Scribbler (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2005/11/electrovaya-scribbler.html) with me. I must say, even though it was nice to have the smaller, lighter tablet in hand and on its little stand, I was feeling a little "Flowers for Algernon" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon) with that little screen and wimpy processor. Nothing but Core 2 Duo or better for me from now on.
Continuing my look at how I blog, I thought I'd explain my signature format: digital ink.
Scribbles: Pretty much all ink here. Entries are penned on my Toshiba R25 Tablet PC. I like this model because it has a 14" widescreen that provides plenty of horizontal writing space in landscape mode.
I write my entries and most of my other notes in Windows Journal. It's a simple app designed specifically for ink. Pages are easy to size and zoom. Colors are easy to pick. Oh, and it offers a chisel tip option.
Once written, I create a text conversion and paste a copy to the end of the entry. the I use the tool ring from Inkseine (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/inkseine/) to capture the ink as an image and paste into Paint.NET (http://www.getpaint.net/download.html) for resizing and conversion to jpg.
The jpg is uploaded via ftp using Filezilla (http://filezilla-project.org/) and then I work my magic in Build 52 (http://www.markandtanya.us/scribbles/Build52.html). This is where I add hyperlinks to the image and the converted text, hidden but indexed by Google. The HTML is spit out and pasted into Blogger. It's lengthy but I have the method down. And that's how this got here.
Rambles: I ink here only occasionally. It's meant to be a quick blog, so I use Windows Live Writer with the ink blog plug-in (http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=80ddd0aa-585c-4191-b7a5-dbfb2341d284). Very simple, but without Links in Ink or converted text, so it's not searchable.
Notes to Self: Not a lot of ink yet, but I want to increase that, which is easy to implement since this is an Evernote (http://evernote.com/) blog. I can ink straight into Evernote on my Tablet PC. Not a lot of control over the formatting and the ink converts to flat images online, but handwriting recognition is built-in. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Having recently taken apart my tablet (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2009/01/further-misadventures-in-wireless.html), I felt compelled to check out iFixit's disassembly (http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/First-Look/MacBook-Pro-17-Inch-Unibody/618/1) of the new 17" Macbook Pro (http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features-17inch.html). Only one word to describe it: beautiful. Remove the bottom screws and everything in the case is accessible. It is phenomenal in its simplicity. By contrast, to even remove the bottom of my Toshiba R25, I had to remove all the screws around and beneath the keyboard, then flip it over to remove the screws from the bottom, pull out the optical drive, then remove the bottom panel. Oh, and there were two screws at the screen swivel hinge. Compare that to ten screws on the bottom of a Macbook Pro. Sorry, there's no comparison. Even my Electrovaya Scribbler slate has more to unscrew. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Interesting. Somebody YouTube'd a comparison of the pressure sensitivity of a Wacom Cintiq (http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/) (1024 levels) vs. that of a Toshiba R25 Tablet PC (http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/toshibadirect.to?page=r25_redirect) (256 levels), which is the same model I use. The testing is not scientific, but I'm sure the conclusion will hold true for the vast majority of folks.
Earlier I mentioned I was interested in a Core 2 Duo (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/10/core-2-duo-really-cool-no-really.html) processor for my next tablet, primarily because I am impressed by its energy efficiency. However, that's not to say I don't need a faster system. Do I need Core 2 Duo speed? No, but I definitely need more speed, and a processor that runs faster and cooler is hard to ignore.
Currently, I'm hitting a wall in terms of software I can comfortably run. My Pentium III processor can handle my daily load, which includes Internet & email, music & podcasts, and documents & notes, as well as ink blogging, of course. But for heavier tasks, like running compressed video and many Flash applications, the P3 can't keep up.
Ideally, I'd like the option to do screencasts (particularly one on how I ink blog), watch compressed videos longer than a few minutes, and work with multimedia files. In addition, there are several apps I currently use that I would find more enjoyable if my PC had more muscle, such as MindManager (http://www.mindjet.com/).
Fortunately, the Notebook (Tablet PC) I'd been eyeing recently got a boost to Core 2 Duo. Looks like the Toshiba R25 (http://tinyurl.com/yem8pa) is still tops on my short list.
[photo gallery: My new Toshiba Satellite R25] The first photos of me and my new Tablet PC are up on Flickr (http://tinyurl.com/yyxef9). I will be posting more info now that the cat is out of the bag. And for the surprise answer from the previous post (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/11/sss-about-new-tablet-pc.html): It is the Core 2 Duo model, but it cost me the same as the Core Duo model. Bit of a story behind that, which I will save for another time. For now, enjoy the photos (http://tinyurl.com/yyxef9).
One of the driving forces behind the "Sumocat Seeks Sponsorship" (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/11/sss-sumocat-seeks-sponsorship.html) campaign is the need for a new Notebook (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/10/time-to-redefine-term-notebook.html) (that's Tablet PC for you non-converts), or more accurately, a need to pay off the one I just got, as well as the tech I will test and use in the future.
Yes, since losing the PC card slot (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/05/gravity-1-pc-card-slot-0.html) and wearing down the battery (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/10/batterys-hashed.html) in my trusty Electrovaya Scribbler SC500 (http://www.electrovaya.com/product/sc500.html), I felt an urgent need to upgrade. And upgrade I did to a Toshiba Satellite R25 (http://tinyurl.com/y3zpaf), just as I had indicated in previous posts. But did I go with a Core Duo processor or spend the extra $200 for a Core 2 Duo? The surprising answer will be revealed after I finish my photoshoot. But if you need to know this moment, I did leave an Easter Egg link in a previous post. Hee hee ;)
