Yankers

As if spending six hours sitting in the US embassy only to be refused a visa wasn't enough for one day, I now find myself sitting on a train at Liverpool Street Station experiencing severe delays due to a death on the rail in Romford! At least I'm getting good use from my £55 ticket.

In the meantime can anyone think of any kind of supporting paperwork I could have taken today to prove my significant family and friends ties to the UK? Let me save you the time - there is none.

More on this when I finally get home and back to the digital ink of my trusty tablet.

Tablet Heaven :)

Years back at 'Live 95' I saw my first tablet PC and thought, "this is the way it should be done".
Over Easter weekend I finally acquired one - an HP/Compaq TC1100 running Window XP Tablet edition. After just a few days of use I can say it's the best computer/software combo I've yet owned.

THE COMPUTER...

The size is perfect for mobility and the detachable keyboard is a bonus. Hard drive is only 30GB 4200RPM but I may eventually install my 100GB/5400. Last night I installed another Gig of RAM, which gave immediate improvements in speed. It has bluetooth, WiFi, IRDA, PCMCIA and USB2 and the only thing missing is an optical drive. I think I can live without this though.

Why use a keyboard, buttons and mouse/touch-pad when a one handed pen will suffice? I know some people prefer a keyboard, which is undoubtedly quicker for writing text, but I'll happily take the hit for all the other benefits of a pen-based PC.

I would never go back to a desktop machine and if I can help it, never use a laptop again. All depends on the next generation of tablets though. For video and audio editing work I still need a powerhouse of a PC and the TC1100 while plenty good enough for web and office work will not cope with hardcore processing.

THE SOFTWARE...

I've been pondering moving to an Apple Mac for years. Mainly because the Mac OS user interface looks so much friendlier, cleaner and fresher than windows. The usual reasons held me back, but now in one fell swoop MS have won me back to their OS fair and square with this superb piece of programming.

Handwriting recognition is magical, and soon I hope to get to grips with the voice recognition. I didn't realise that a computer could be so different to a laptop in so many respects. Sure you can have streaming radio, TV, magazine, newspaper, crosswords, email and diary on a laptop, but it all works so much better on a tablet.

I had concerns about entering web addresses but once I realised I didn't need to tap away on a virtual on-screen keyboard I found it pretty easy with the handwritten options. Also I tend to use a handful of keyboard shortcuts, some of which I have yet to find actions for in pen-mode.

Good 3rd party support adds to the good experience. Some well-supported tablet-specific websites have yielded some good software links.

Calculator now becomes a sheet of intelligent paper. Write the sums and let the computer fill in the answers. Desk notes - just write on the screen as the thoughts appear.
Journal - plain and simple diary app. Calendar - Tap on the date and add notes. Search notes for text - all in handwritten form. Works a treat.

Next up is a GPS interface coupled to MS Autoroute.

I challenge users of other operating systems to find serious and unbiased fault with Microsoft’s efforts and commitment in the field tablet PCs. Well I like what they've done, that's all I'm saying :)

It's Pickling Time!

There seems to be a new service on offer down at Doris' shop.
Just the other day when I returned to pick up a pork pie that had been inadvertently left on the counter, I was given the option of handing over my pie to Dave who would take it round back, chop it up and give it a dose of pickle. Hmmm. I declined on that occasion as soon as I realised that he was serious.

Again today as I went to pay for my scotch-egg based luncheon came the question "do you want it pickled-up sir?"
I said thankyou but no, and that I was sure that one day I would give in to the pickle. The thought of working through a bag of pickled maltesers loses them their appeal.

"Whenever you're ready" came the reply as I let the door spring shut behind me.

I'm changing my computer again

There's nothing like a little travelling to make you appreciate your laptop. Keeping in touch with those back home as well as generally keeping in touch with the world.

Once upon a time I had a large office with a big desk covered in kit and hiding a load more kit below.
Then I chucked out the large tower PC with all its special plug-ins for a cube PC with everything I required on board.
This made me realise I could live without PCI slots and that storage could be external and I bought my first laptop.
The laptop was very specific. It was to be a desktop replacement, fully funtional and powerful. Able to run video editing s/w, store my vast AAC libray and play DVDs in big-screen format. I opted for the HP Pavilion 17" widescreen, with Harmen-Kardon sound and a hyperthreading processor.

Everything worked a treat. I migrated my life onto the Pavilion just in time for my 6 month stint in Lake Tahoe where it did its job, successfully functioning as a games machine (online Texas Hold-em), web browser (oh that glorious 3Mbit cable connection), photo store, VoIP phone, DVD player and music jukebox. It was only ever moved to watch DVDs from the couch - great on the widescreen and the Harmon Kardon speaker system is amazing, I've never heard anything like it on a laptop.

However, once the summer arrived with the Cali roadtrips and daily jaunts to the Blue Angel for web access, I started to wish it was a bit lighter and smaller. Battery life took a turn for the worse and balancing the hot machine on a leg to prevent blocking the cooling vents is a pain (literally).

So it's now time to continue the experiment and see if I can downsize once more.

With my free Nokia 6630 doing a fine job of picking up email from anywhere, as well as IM chat on the move and the occasional web-surf, I decided a PDA was not necessary. The main benefits would be WiFi on a larger screen, and mobile video. Good but no cigar.

Blew hot and cold on UMPCs for a few days. Concluded they were too big to be pocketsize and too small for serious work.

Finally I looked carefully at tablet PCs. I really like the idea of freeing up the restrictions of browsing to the extent of losing the keyboard and mouse for a pen and voice recognition. Although I really like the slate format of tablet PC (ie no fold-out keyboard) I would seriously miss the omission of an optical drive. These only seem to come with the comvertible tablets. So, for now I will buy a cheap, small slate tablet (the HP TC1000 or TC1100) and keep my HP Pavilion while I trial the whole concept.
In time I will hopefully be in a position to sell both and replace with a larger more fully spec'd convertible tablet, good enough for all eventualities.