This summer, I spent some time working through a host of scenarios to move ink data around when you have collected it on a web page. Because the ink data is only available on the client side, there are a number of hoops to jump through and pitfalls to avoid. “Persisting Ink on the Web” walks through each of the following tasks:

• Transferring Ink to another Ink-Enabled Control on the Same Page
• Transferring Ink to an Ink Control on Another Page in a New Browser Window
• Moving Ink to Another Page in the Same Browser Window
• Transferring Ink to Another Page as a GIF
• Storing Ink in an XML File on the Web Server to Be Used at a Later Time
• Storing and Retrieving Ink from a SQL Server Database
• Sending Ink to a Web Service
• Surviving a Postback

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Okay – this paragraph at the end of a review of the new Acer C200 is annoying

In summary, the C200 is a welcome breath of fresh air in a category which was supposed to be all about innovation – yet has become woefully stagnant due to the lack of software fully exploiting pen based input capabilities. Granted, it won’t run Doom IV, but at least future owners are sure to raise an eyebrow by the mention of it having 256 MB of VRAM.

The tablet pc BOF that I hosted last Tuesday night at PDC was jam packed. A large number of people from the Tablet PC Team were there as well as developers who are currently programming for tablets, developers who were “tablet-curious” and even someone from Motion – who has the best tablet out there (for non-developers).

There was a lot of discussion of the usual question – why is the tablet so slow to come to market. Developers are frustrated because we are hoping to make some money writing apps or consulting to companies that are writing apps. Manufacturers are frustrated, although I did explicitly ask the guy from Motion if they are satisfied and I think they are somewhat. They do look forward to the expansion of the market and the success of other manufacturers. The ability for manufacturers to make white box tablets can also change things dramatically.

I don’t think there was any one in the room that didn’t think that eventually a digitizer and stylus will just be part of a laptop and it won’t be a special thing – a Tablet PC – just a laptop again.

Koji Kato who is a PM on the Tablet Team brought up a really good point – maybe the real problem is that of expectations. Who set the expectation that Tablets had to explode on to the scene? (And stop comparing them to IPODs – that’s just not an, err, apple to apple (sorry couldn’t be helped) comparison.) There is a big worry that the media is drooling for it to fail – just because it will make a good story. So because it is not going fast, it’s a problem and then the blame game begins. It’s the manufacturer’s fault for not having cheap enough models. It’s Microsoft’s fault because, well just because it’s Microsoft. And it’s the developers fault because, as the journalist noted above, we aren’t writing enough apps.

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Loren Heiny points to Gateways newest 14″ widescreen TabletPC which apparently weighs in at over 6 pounds.

Loren says I’m not so sure what I’ll think of the wider and heavier Tablet design, which suggests to me more that it’s a “notebook” than a “Tablet.”

Loren, it’s still a Tablet, maybe just not so “mobile”. Tablet does not mean mobile, just that you can write on it, right?

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Frank Arrigo highlights an article about a company in Australia deploying 400 Tablet PCs to their sales and marketing team.

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Rob Bushway is doing an excellent poll and the responses are educational. If there are 1,000,000,00 tablet pcs out there, there is a potential for Rob’s comments to get a little long!!

by way of Loren Heiny

www.acehaid.org

I noticed this on the Tablet PC home page, but finally checked it out when I saw a link to a Channel 9 video on Loren Heiny’s site.In it Emily Rimas, a PM on the Tablet PC Team demo’s the (free) product for Robert. It has features from Agilix’ GoBinder Lite in there and definitely looks like bits of xThink’s equation translators. I wonder if the FlashCards are from Loren? I remember he was working on something a while back. There’s more in there. I just sent the link off to my friend who is the Dean of a local college (part of UVM) where all of the students are required to have TabletPCs. Here is a post by Loren where you can get a quick overview of what’s in the pack.

www.acehaid.org

I just came across this utility that looks like something great for professors using their tablet to ink via projector. It’s called Lecture Pen and actually displays an image of a pen at the mouse cursor so that the ink doesn’t look to be like ghost writing. I haven’t tried it out.

www.acehaid.org

Finally!

And here’s a synopsis of her travails since she has ordered it…

www.acehaid.org

Avonelle Lovhaug has been waiting for her Lenovo for a long time! And she’s not alone. But this is not stopping people from glomming on to the tablet that will finally make the mark for TabletPCs on the end user market. According to this eweek article: “The ThinkPad Tablet has sold so fast since its introduction that Lenovo quickly ran out of stock … [read more]

[A DevLife post]

www.acehaid.org

Hilton Locke, a member of the Tablet team at Microsoft, is listing issues (and solutions) with installing and running the beta on a Tablet.

• Cautions
• Device Driver problems
• Application Compatibility

There will probably be more, so check back for new posts on his blog.

www.acehaid.org