TeacherTabletPC

I haven’t taken advantage of it (yet?), but Allegiance Technology Partners has a 48 hour demo period.

Our 48-hour Tablet demo program has the following requirements of participants:

1. Sign the 48-hour Tablet demo program agreement
2. Provide credit card information in case unit is lost, stolen or damaged (credit card will not be charged except as stated in agreement)
3. Pay for shipping and insurance charges in both directions (usually $59-$95)

This is almost certainly the route I’d go if I were considering buying a tablet they carry (Motion LE1600 with View Anywhere Screen, Motion LS800 with View Anywhere Screen, Fujitsu ST5112 with Indoor/Outdoor Screen, Fujitsu ST5111 with backlit outdoor screen, Toshiba Tecra M7 Duo Core, Toshiba Portege M400 Duo Core, Fujitsu P1610, Tablet Kiosk UMPC eo 7110, Coming soon – IBM/Lenovo X60 with Multiview/Multitouch screen).

Ed Holloway’s Ink Blog Plugin for Windows Live Writer is very cool. I finally got around to upgrading both of them and I’m even happier with how well they work. Just beware that WLW still seems unable to recognize a title inserted with the ink-recognition modes of the tablet input panel (it’s only happy when I use the real or tap-on keyboards to put in the title).

InkBlogger at oneof.us looks really promising but development is currently stalled.

A post at The Student Tablet PC gave some tips for using Journal–stuff I hadn’t discovered yet. The two that I’m most likely to remember and use are that you can tap-hold-drag to lasso while in ink/highlighter mode and that scratchouts work best if it’s about five times as wide as high and covers at least half of the ink to be erased.

The EdHolloway.com entry on SizeEasy has this image, which I think shows the size difference between the X60 and the M400 that I mention when I talk to people about what tablet I’d recommend and why I like the X41/X60.

Mind you, that slight size difference means a lot more when you’ve got the thing in your hands all the time. Yes, the pictured UMPC is much smaller, but the X60 has what I’d consider a usable keyboard, which is also a big advantage for me, and the screen on that UMPC is smaller than I’d be willing to go (I might consider a 10″ screen, but right now I’d tend to say that 12″ is the bare minimum for usability).

Microsoft’s Tablet PC Team Blog seems a little Vista-heavy to me, but then again I keep reading that people are moving to Vista, so I’m sure it’ll be of use to people.

TeacherTabletPC was mentioned in Incremental Blogger on Wednesday and GottaBeMobile.com yesterday, both much more well-read blogs than this. Thanks to Loren and Rob for the mentions.

Both blogs have tons of good stuff. GottaBeMobile.com is Tablet PC and UMPC focused; Incremental Blogger tends to be a bit more on general technology but is also the home of a Firefox Ink Plugin.

Kenrick’s Tablet PC Resources (from a CS prof at U of Alaska) has a variety of things including an Ink-enabled IRC client, some more formal papers on using the Tablet PC in teaching (here’s one available in PDF from the ACM), and numerous links. There’s also some discussion of recording the in-class use of the tablet along with some examples.

J. Ricky Cox at Murray State University has some interesting tidbits on his use of the tablet in teaching Chemistry, including an interesting “postcard” promoting the tablet and a quick intro page on Journal. There is also a Murray State U page on tablets.

Here are some productivity tips from CNET.

(My new plan is to try to post at least once a day, even if I’m just giving a link to something that could be useful.)

Microsoft has some OneNote Courses available online:

• Get to Know OneNote (40 minutes)
• Audio Course: Get to Know OneNote (40 minutes)
• Use Note Flags and Search to Find Your Notes (20 minutes)
• Take Audio and Video Notes in OneNote (30 minutes)
• See What You Can Do with the Research Service (30 minutes)
• Organize your OneNote notebook (20 minutes)