If you’re looking for the armadillocon entries, they’re about four posts down.
this is my new Tablet PC, a Gateway M275. For those of you unfamiliar with Tablet PC’s, the idea is you can write directly onto the touch-sensitive screen with the accompanying stylus. this particular model has a screen that rotates so you can go from a boring conventional laptop to a stylistic and futuristic tablet configuration.
These have been around for a while, but you almost never see them in the usual laptop haunts. And there are some drawbacks. For instance, you’re pretty much stuck with windowsXP Tablet -Edition. this means your means of interacting with most programs is through that TabletPC Input Panel, a small box on the bottom of the screen that is part of the operating system. It interprets your handwriting into text and places it at the cursor in much the same way as a keyboard, only slower and prone to spectacular inaccuracies. For instance, there appears to be a dictionary index that the input panel consults as it converts handwriting. If you write a word not in the dictionary, you have to clearly spell it one letter at a time. Armadillocon for instance is particularly hated. But the single character method has its own problems, because a lowercase ‘l’ could be just as easily interpreted by the panel as any of the following characters: /\()|!1 depending on the subtle variegations of the short line you draw. this is particularly aggravating in the instance of online passwords.
and don’t get me started on the speech recognition function. I had no idea there were so many homonyms in The English language until the computer started picking the exact wrong ones to spell.
where the tablet works best is where you don’t have to use the input panel at all. the stylus is much better than a laptop touch panel or a conventionally dirt prone mouse when it comes to pointing, clicking, and highlighting. faster and far more accurate.
I also like the journal function (pictured above). I’ve been using this for the Space Squid critique period. I can import people’s stories and then mark them up with pen notes without having to go through the trouble and expense of printing them.
The big potential though is in graphics. Here’s something I did for the latest Space Squid.
And one more thing, you don’t really know how much heat a computer gives off until you’ve spent a few hours with your forearm resting on it. In the winter I’m sure I’ll be happy to have a toasty-warm tablet to curl up with, but in the Texas Summer I’ve got the screen oriented so the exhaust vents point away from my body parts.