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Monthly ArchiveFebruary 2007



Hardware &Links Isaac on 28 Feb 2007

A Wave of Hardware Reviews

Maybe it’s more of a small ripple than a wave, but in perusing the few dozen blogs I’ve plugged into Google Reader I found a number recent Tablet PC reviews. Then it turned out to just be two reviews, each blogged about repeatedly (for instance here, here, here, and here), so I figured I’d jump on the bandwagon. (And it doesn’t hurt that the Lenovo X60 is in here…)

Business Week reviewed the X60 and said:

The Good: Extremely portable; Active Rotate feature automatically adjusts screen

The Bad: Lacks an internal CD drive; relatively expensive

The Bottom Line: It’s not much to look at, but it is a capable and easy-to-transport tablet doubling as a laptop

CRN looked at the HP TC4400, the ThinkPad X60, and the Toshiba M400 and said:

All three convertible tablet computers impressed Test Center engineers with above-average quality and similar feature sets. Price/performance came out roughly equal, as performance ratings were similar and the difference in list prices varied by only $112 between the lowest- and highest-priced units.

Lenovo garnered points for being the smallest and lightest unit tested here (excluding its expansion base), giving it a boost for ease of use. But by leaving out a built-in optical drive, that win came at the expense of features. Toshiba’s choice to include a built-in optical drive—a key decision that in the eyes of Test Center engineers creates a more versatile tablet PC—made it heavier than Lenovo’s X60 but on par with the weight of the HP unit, giving the M400 the advantage on features.

Users seeking the combined functionality of a notebook computer and tablet PC in a single unit will prefer the Toshiba Portg M400-S4032 over the HP Compaq tc4400 and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X60, which affords the lowest estimated partner margins among the three. But if low weight is a priority, then Lenovo is the way to go.

All in all, I think if I were buying a machine right now, I’d go with the Lenovo ThinkPad X60, but as I’ve said before size and weight are critical to me and battery life is a close second and I don’t really need an optical drive built in.

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Misc Ink-Enabled Apps &Off-Topic Isaac on 27 Feb 2007

Online Tech Comic Drawn with Tablet PC Help

Even a Caveman Could Do it
How a Blaugh Comic Is Created – With Video! » Drawings & Sketches » Archive

After scanning in the sketch, I import it into Flash on it’s own layer, and then I use my tablet pc to vectorize the final art on the layers above it. Not exactly the traditional vector artist technique, but it works just splendid for me. I have yet to find another vector program out there that can come close to matching the solid drawing tools in Flash. (click here to see video #2)

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Events &Links Isaac on 26 Feb 2007

WIPTE 2007

Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education (WIPTE) at Purdue University, June 11-12, 2007:

WIPTE is open to anyone with an interest in instructional technology. A wide variety of disciplines are embracing Tablet PC’s and similar pen-based devices as tools for the radical enhancement of teaching and learning. This conference is intended to leverage this shared passion and to identify best practices in the educational use of pen-based computing so that all educators may benefit from this next generation of technology.

I’m thinking this might be really interesting and Purdue is pretty close to Chicago. I think I’ll have to order the monograph from last year’s WIPTE and see what it’s all about.

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Off-Topic Isaac on 25 Feb 2007

(Boycott?) Shutdown Day 2007

Shutdown DayBoycott Shutdown DayEddie VanDerbeck of GottaBeMobile.com and Peter Rojas of Engadget both have written about Shutdown Day 2007. The notion of Shutdown Day was enough to make me create a new category: Off-Topic (though I was tempted to call it something like “Lazy Sundays,” I didn’t want to limit myself to only being this far off-topic on Sundays). I think I’m of the same opinion as Peter Rojas:

Hold on there, big guy. You want us to STOP using computers for a day? How about we all decide to hold our breath for 24 hours, too? Yeah, that’s right, we’re not giving up our gadgets for anyone. We know that some day our computers will kill us (either by rising up against us or by getting us so sucked into a six day-long WoW marathon that we forget to eat), but hey, you gotta die from something right? [...] Anyway, we’re going to show the Blame Computers First crowd what’s what and use our computers TWICE as much on March 24th — even if that means grabbing two machines and then typing with our fingers and toes at the same time.

Not that Eddie VanDerbeck disagrees:

A little over a year ago, I broke 5 ribs, removed a good bit of hide from both legs, and broke my shoulder blade in a motorcycle mishap. I was back on my tablet in less than 12 hours. I know, you are impressed how tuff I am. Not really, I was in a bit of a fog from the pain killers and could not tell you what I read or who I emailed. But dang-it, I was inking!

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Misc Ed Tech Isaac on 24 Feb 2007

Use Technology, But Only If It Is Used Well

Steve Myers posted about “Think Small! A Beginner’s Guide to Using Technology to Promote Learning” in Educause Quarterly 30.1, an interesting article about introducing and implementing ed tech. Some quotes from the article:

Before deciding what types of technology to use, we must first have a clear idea of what we want technology to do in our classrooms—what learning outcomes we want students to achieve.

Bringing technology to the classroom gradually, based on how best to support existing pedagogy, allows both students and faculty time to reflect on what works and what doesn’t.

The EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research found that students want professors to use technology, but only if it is used well, which many times it is not. Some students thought that technology had made their instructors less effective than when they used lectures and the chalkboard. Specific complaints included filling PowerPoint slides with lots of verbiage and simply reading them verbatim; wasting class time fumbling with equipment and software; failing to moderate chat rooms and discussion boards; and not making good use of course management systems.

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Links &OneNote Isaac on 23 Feb 2007

A Blog about OneNote and Input on Future Versions

From Rob at GottaBeMobile.com earlier this week, OneNote Extensibility & More by Daniel Escapa is a blog all about OneNote, with goodies like How to create outlines with ink. Rob also says:

Post your thoughts on OneNote here and OneNote Mobile here. Microsoft will be watching those threads, so make your voices heard.

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1:1 Computing &Hardware Isaac on 22 Feb 2007

Acting on Bad Customer Service

The Rogersville Review in Hawkins County, TN reported that the school there is sending back a large number of Gateway Tablet PCs:

City school board members voted Tuesday to return the laptop computers, which have not yet been distributed to students, and terminate the lease agreement because of the company’s inability to provide maintenance as specified in the contract.

It’s good to see that at least some people take quality of service seriously. The last time I dealt with Gateway was way back in 1995, right when they first became big and couldn’t handle the increased volume of production, much less the increased customer service load. I have been hearing good things about their tablets, though.

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Links Isaac on 21 Feb 2007

More Examples of Tablet PCs (and other technology) in Use

Jim Vanides of HP hosts the HP Online Speaker Series, 60 minute synchronous webinars. Many of the archived sessions have been about tablet use in the (higher ed) classroom.
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About TTPC &Blog Technology Isaac on 20 Feb 2007

WordPress Plugins

Since I already posted about the upgrade to WP2.1 this week, I thought I might as well post a list of the plugins I’m using. This should automatically update, since (as listed below) I’m using WP-Plugin List.

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About TTPC &Blog Technology Isaac on 19 Feb 2007

WordPress 2.1 Upgrade

If you happened to find this site any time yesterday afternoon, you probably caught me in the middle of upgrading to WordPress 2.1 Ella. So far, the differences are mostly small–there are a few plugins I wanted that only worked under 2.1, so I had to upgrade, but I was otherwise fine with 2.0.x. The post editor is probably the biggest difference, though it’s not all that different. The visual/code tab thing works well, autosave is nice, and spellcheck is always a good thing. If you find, as I did, that there are icons missing in the editor after upgrading, clear your browser cache and hopefully all will be resolved. Oh, and if you press Alt+V in IE or Alt+Shift+V in Firefox while in the editor, you get an additional bar of “advanced” buttons.

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