Early impressions:

Good

• Vista installed very easily.
• Tablet functionality is excellent – a vast improvement on the earlier software. Handwriting recognition is much better.
• Aero glass looks good. Even though the graphics score of this machine is only 3.0 it looks great.
• I installed Ultimate Edition so I have access to Media Centre. Looks good – as above. I don’t think that my aging TV card will work under Vista. Might need to find a new one.
• It seems to be more stable than XP. I hope that I am not tempting fate here!
• Ready Boost – it’s happening, and I think I’m faster!

Bad

• I have set Firefox to be my default browser but Vista doesn’t listen – I am not impressed with the fact that I can’t get IE7’s new tabs to open in the background.
• I haven’t got Remote Desktop or Logmein working to my server yet. I haven’t tried hard though.
• Constant dialogue boxes and “are you sure?” questions could drive me demented very quickly.

EDIT: I am not impressed with having to go to the Microsoft Site and download the Mobilie Device Centre to get my iPaq Pocket PC to synchronise with Vista. That’s something that should have been sorted for RTM.

Indifferent

• The sidebar. Not sure yet.
• I haven’t got the power options sorted yet.

The geek in me wants the latest and greatest operating system on my computer. The pragmatist knows that it’s really important to get my work done on a well functioning computer. At this point I won’t be dropping my XP partition anytime soon. Certainly I’ll get more work done on Vista because it won’t let me do my usual morning’s scoot through FeedDemon opening masses of links in the background for a later peruse . On the other hand I think it could be faster than XP and I haven’t had the annoying 20-30 second freeze that is an annoying ‘feature’ of Tablet Edition on the M00.

There are a couple of things concerning me about Vista – one being the DRM and content protection measures built into the operating system (read here). On the other hand, in my line of work I will be asked to support Vista reasonably early this year.

Related posts:

1. Tablet @ Work – Day 1
2. Reinstalling XP Tablet Edition
3. MS Vista

And so here lies the problem. I handwrote the first part of this post into OneNote (because that’s where I now keep a lot of the “stuff” I collect and because I can theoretically covert that text into typed text. (You can see a snip of what my handwriting looks like here. ) One of the huge advantages for me of using a computer (of most descriptions) is the ability to save information and ideas and be able to sift and sort through them later (like – I took notes at that meeting and …. this is exactly what she said and I wrote down at that time). Will I be able to sift and sort through the above stuff? I possibly have the only cove Duo tablet in town that I paid for in Yen?

So where am I going with this and what is my conscience telling me? That many of the benefits attributed to putting tablet technologies into the hands of teachers and kids are imagined or overblown. Apostasy? Probably.

The ether is full of educators who are promoting tablet PCs as the next big thing for students (well after Web 2.0 that is). Even here in Godzone we have a Digi-Ops project based on a partnership between HP and a school in Wellington who are using tablets with year five and six kids. They are all very keen to show enhanced learning outcomes! Paperless classrooms!

And so they should be! But there needs to be more work. As I hope I have proven with the first part of this post, using a pen to get writing down is cumbersome and slow (I have a whole lot of Ulearn notes to prove this further). The time spent correcting from pen before proof-reading and editting is wasted time. And yet, in review after review I see all of this waffle about speed and accuracy with the pen. Not true. I simply don’t believe it. Typing is still quicker and more accurate for anything more than a simple jotted down note. I know that Vista is promising to be light years ahead in handwriting technology, but these schools are claiming speed and accuracy now. With today’s technology.

So where does the pen become useful? As I stated before, if you can translate, Artrage is a wonderful example of a programme that is only enhanced by a pen. I have also found that I find the pen is an amazing tool in KidPix, MSPaint and in PaintShop Pro. I find the pen is useful when I annotate or edit Word documents – in Excel it is clumsy and frustrating. I enjoy using the pen to edit PowerPoint slides on screen. I can make a presentation more interactive by putting comments or ideas straight up there.

But wait, there is more to a tablet than just a pen enabled device. I like to lie around and surf the web or to take my tablet to bed and cruise through my RSS reader. The form factor makes it a great device for doing just that. The buttons and pen mean that navigating through web-pages is easy. Do kids in classrooms lie around and surf mindlessly through blog feeds. I hope not, but maybe I missed that particular Web 2.0 goodie.

During meetings, (if I’m in slate mode) the tablet sits on my knee meaning that I don’t look over my screen to the other people. This is good. However, the innacuracy of my handwriting means that I spend far more time looking down correcting my errors so I still don’t look at the people I am with. However I’ve seen lots of photos of kids clustered around tablets on the floor. Now that does look like a good thing – kids all with their own pen anle to add to a mind map … maybe that’s more like it? Next cluster meeting on the floor around my 12 inch tablet guys?

Here endeth the crisis? No, probably not. I wanna be a Tablet PC Evangelist. I really do! I have downloaded the Becta research papers to read later and I hope that I can find some more solid data (???) to support spending money on something that in my opinion has limited usage the way that it’s being presented today.

Related posts:

1. Taking My Tablet
2. Tablet @ Work – Day 1
3. Tablets in Education

Of interest is that although the bios update is dated August 22nd, I don’t think that they released it to their site until at least a week later. What gives, Toshiba?

—-

Download here

Version 1.70 08-22-2006

* Incorporated Intel requirements to optimize chipset memory performance.
* Made a change to support up to the C3-State when “Enhanced C-State” is disabled.

Version 1.60 08-10-2006

* Added support for the Yonah-Celeron CPU.

Version 1.50 06-24-2006

* Added EvDO wireless WAN support.

Version 1.40 05-09-2006

* Corrected an issue where the system could hang when the power supply was turned on during a charge prohibited state of the Peak Shift Function.

Version 1.30 03-29-2006

* Incorporation of Intel’s chipset requirements.
* A change was made to automatically reset the hardware when a restart is performed on Windows XP retail platforms.
* A change was made to reduce power consumption when the Wireless LAN is disabled in Device Manager.
* A change was made to the HD Audio Verb Table for Windows Vista.

Version 1.20 02-08-2006

* Initial production BIOS for Portege M400 models.

Related posts:

1. Tablet @ Work – One Week In!
2. 2GB Ram
3. Reinstalling XP Tablet Edition

When I arrived home I got my tablet out and set it up in notebook mode. The piece of dust was back inside the visible screen area. Now it’s about one third of the distance from the right hand side of the screen and approximately 10mm up from the edge. You can see it in the photo (and yes my family thought I was a bit crazy photographing the screen of my computer!).

This must mean that there is some sort of gap between the layers of the screen and that movement of the tablet flexes the layers sufficiently to allow the dust to move.

Yesterday when I made the call to Toshiba Tech Support the technician suggested that to have this issue I must be working in a dusty environment. I will admit that I hate housework but need to make the point that there is no dust trapped inside any of the other equipment that we have here. I could (almost but not quite) be described as anal with regard to the care that I take over my electronic equipment. I am forever brushing out keyboards and cleaning screens. I have an eighteen month old pocket pc here (with a carefully applied screen protector) and have had no issues with dust inside its layers.

Anyway, I am going to map the path of the dust over the next day or so and then take the unit into a service centre. It could be interesting!

Related posts:

1. Tablet @ Work – 10 Weeks In
2. Tablet @ Work – Day 1
3. Taking My Tablet

However, (and there is always a but) there are a couple of fairly serious issues that affect my enjoyment of the computer.

1. The fan runs almost continuously. It’s not usually loud (except if you are in a silent room) but it is always there and something that I am always aware of. I use Notebook Hardware Control to keep an eye on the temperature and most of the time the CPU hovers around the 33-37 degrees celcius. That’s cooler than I am.
2. I get random pieces of dust and fluff inside the screen. Sounds crazy? This was a major issue with the Portege M200 and you would consider that it would be fixed three years after the M200 was released. I got a piece of dust inside the layers of the screen just ten days after getting my tablet. That machine was replaced under warranty. Since then I have had a stray hair appear (it disappeared after a few weeks) and tonight there was a piece of dust inside the screen layers. It too disappeared after I moved the tablet from my knee to the table in front of me. It annoys me that this happens. I don’t like to have a non-pristine screen.
3. I also have a problem with random blue screening. It’s happened probably five times over the last month. Not often but still enough to be a bit of a concern. The message that I get is the old “IRQ less or not equal to error“. In my experience this is an issue with a piece of hardware. With a notebook you don’t usually install extra hardware cards so it must be a problem with a built in component or perhaps with the memory chips. The event logs aren’t any help in tracking down the error so I’ll have to have a think.

Thankfully that’s all bad stuff (I think). Now the good stuff.

The pen makes drawing and digital image editting really fun. ArtRage is absolutely fantanstic anyway; the pen puts it into the sublime category. It’s easy to edit photos or digital images in Paintshop Pro or even humble old MS Paint. Unfortunately even amazing tools aren’t going to turn me into an artist.

I have become evry comfortable with the small keyboard (except for the fact that it has a single Ctrl key – I have mapped the Insert key to Ctrl so that when I’m using the tablet in keyboard mode I can use the Firefox shortcut Ctrl +/- to enlarge or reduce the text size). Using the pen is great. The handwriting recognition is excellent; after several years of using a Pocket PC it’s a real treat to have my scrawl recognised.

I’m using all my usual programmes but I have found a couple of exciting new additions.

I am seriously in love with OneNote 12. Although its a beta programme it rocks. I’m a great collector of information, ideas and scraps of stuff from all over the place. OneNote is a terrific place to store it all and be able to sort and sift later. I have set up note flags that correspond with my Outlook categories so that I can think through my own productivity system.

Speaking of Outlook (and I’m holding onto Office 2003 as this is my working machine), the tablet community introduced me to the best ever addon: Tablet Enhancements for Outlook (TEO) version 3. This little gem allows you to ink in contacts, tasks and appointments. The latest version also has a fabulous integration with Windows Journal. there is also a research feature which takes you straight to the Wikipedia. Everyone knows about how much I love the Wikipedia. You can take audio notes and the whole fandango synchronises with the Pocket PC. Which only makes Pocket Informant even more useful.

I also love the snipping tool (available through the MS Experience Pack and the Enhancement Pack) and the Send to OneNote tool (available in the Education Pack and and the Enhancement Pack). The Websearch Power Tool is great when I am surfing in tablet mode.

I’m playing with the screen real estate a little. I’ve (possibly temporarily) dumped the Quick Launch Bar for RocketBar. I’ve got it on the right hand side of my screen and on auto-hide. Very useful and it looks very sexy.

What else? There’s a lot more but in the interests of actually retaining some readers I’d better finish this missive now!

Related posts:

1. Mysterious Moving Matter
2. Tablet @ Work – Day 1
3. Tablet @ Work – One Week In!

Windows Live Writer

Ink Blog Plugin from Ed Holloway

Related posts:

1. WYSIWYG
2. Blog-xymoron

via Warner Crocker

Related posts:

1. Tablet @ Work – Day 1
2. Mysterious Moving Matter
3. Tablets in Education

NZ Herald story

DigiOps Website

There has been lots to say about this project and about some of the dollars that are being spent on increasing connectivity and capability for New Zealand teachers and schools. Computerworld journalist Stephen Bell provided an interesting analysis of the press release information. He notes that the initiative could be a useful little earner for HP as it is one of the few vendors still selling tablet PCs.” Not quite true. There are several big name vendors selling Tablets , it’s just that many of the vendors are not well known here in New Zealand. Motion Computing? NEC? Fujitsu? And Lenovo or IBM? Toshiba? Off the top of my head …

Overall the article is a positive report about the value of putting tablets into the hands of kids and the importance of the government putting some dollars into ICT in schools in general.

Stephen Bell’s last paragraph is worthy of comment:

The children say the tablets provide for a quicker method of recording data in real-time, but say they would prefer a simple spreadsheet rather than the specially set up, but perhaps inadequately explained, database entry form provided. (italics mine)

In this case it’s not the tablet that is the issue, it’s the activity that is the problem. The kids can use the Tablet PC but are not quite sure about the activity they are doing. Surely the same issue would occur if they had been using a regular laptop or desktop computer – or even a pen and paper. So in this case it’s the design of the activity that is the problem.

Apparently there was a bit of controversy about this story:

There is little need for computers in day-to-day education. It may be nice to use Google Earth to see where you live, but Google this (or that) is not going to teach you the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic.

and this:

Kids doing this kind of survey should stand outside with clipboards and pencils, and make marks on sheets of paper. They should then transfer the results to the white/blackboard. After that, they should draw, on paper, their own little bar chart showing the results and then colour it in.

And on the discussion goes.

What is being ignored here is the reason why we put kids in front of computers (on in this case, computers in front of kids). It’s to allow access to other ideas. It’s to allow data and ideas to be manipulated and shared and focussed upon. Yes, children need to do the old tally charts and construct graphs by hand. But, they don’t need to stop there. They need to be able to look at those tally charts and elegantly constructed bar graphs (and pie charts and line graphs) and identify what the data is telling them. Once a child has made a few graphs in their maths book do they need to go on forever making pretty colourful graphs? Or does it then become more important to analyse the data and develop some ideas or conclusions? And then maybe find ways to appropriately share their conclusions.
—

As a new tableteer, I am interested in how they are being used in education. One of the huge advantages of a Tablet PC over a traditional desktop or even a ‘normal’ laptop is the smaller form factor and the way that it combines the best of paper with the best of digital. Sometimes a screen becomes a barrier in a discussion; the tablet, because it resembles a diary or notepad, is far less intrusive. I quite enjoy entering information using the stylus pen and it’s an amazing way to work on digital art. A lot of the time (like right now), it’s easier to type but if I am in a meeting, then I prefer to go into slate (tablet) mode and draw on my screen.

The DigiOps website says:

Brooklyn School is part of the Digital Opportunities Project, a joint initiative between the Ministry of Education and technology partners and is looking at how emerging technologies can help improve student learning. The school’s three-year project named CHaOS (Children Having Ownership of Schooling), is investigating whether pen-based technologies such as the Tablets, help increase student engagement levels and contribute towards enhancing student learning.

I am interested in the Tablet Classroom project. I hope that we continue to discuss what is happening in all of these inovative projects and actually get some hard data about whether “whether pen-based technologies such as the Tablets, help increase student engagement levels and contribute towards enhancing student learning.“

Related posts:

1. Tablet Apostasy
2. TabletWiki
3. The Real World

Lots of users report that the fan goes continuously and I have to report that yes, my fan goes all the time too. It doesn’t matter what alterations I make to the profiles the problem remains. On the positive side it’s not a noisy fan like the one on my Dell Inspiron. Perhaps there will be a BIOS update that will solve this issue. I hope so.

Another common issue is that the unit goes into hibernation and freezes. Mine doesn’t freeze but what I have noticed is that you need to actually flick the power switch to bring it back to life. That’s not ideal. Hopefully that too will be addressed.

I am grumpy about the number of Toshiba utlities that are installed. I have turned off the fingerprint reader and the RAID tool because of the memory overhead. Maybe it won’t be so bad when I ghave the full gig of ram. I sincerely hope so.

Now for the positives. I love the screen. It’s 1400 X 1050 and absolutely gorgeous. I have a microfibre cloth and I polish it regularly. Photos and HD movies look fabulous.

The keyboard is comfortable to use and I haven’t found it hard to go to the smaller size. I’m loving using the pen – which is just as well as it’s a major feature of the tablet.

The tablet’s small form factor is great. The slice expansion battery doesn’t add too much extra weight either. I’m getting around 3 hours out of the main battery at the moment – hopefully I can tweak the settings to get a tad more.

I’m pretty annoyed with Ingram Micro as my extra ram and the DVD drive are now not going to arrive until mid July. Some large order has pushed mine out of the way. While it’s not a major hassle to install from my backup removable drive, I would like to make a backup of the restore software and ghost my current setup.

Related posts:

1. Taking My Tablet
2. Tablet @ Work – Day 1
3. Tablet @ Work – 10 Weeks In

I returned to the disaster scene with my camera.

And snapped some photos.

Back to work.

Day one with the tablet. Toshiba’s Config utilty allows you to set up different profiles to allow your laptop / tablet to set itself up in different networks. It was a snip to get through parakai’s proxy-server and get onto the ‘net.

I found that my screen resolution was too high to let the teachers that I was working with to see what I was doing. I was able to fiddle with the settings and get an 800X600 screen and centre the screen so that the others could see what I was doing. This was the ideal resolution to let the others see Kidpix – an essential tool in my line of work.

Other jobs. I found that I needed to set the tablet so that I could wake it from keybowad. During the day, I move between all sorts of things and the computer often went to sleep. It asw a serious pain to have to turn the computer on again. So I set t to allow it to wake up from the keyboard.

I bought an extended slice battery. This meant that I could use the tablet all day – I hoped. In reality the battery ran out at 4:15pm. Not too bad, but I hope that with conditioning I can get the unit to last an hour. the sl or so longer. For sure, I can set up profiles to make the thing go to sleep here and turn off this bit there and make the screen dim at this point, but really I just want a devcent 6-7 good hours out of the batteries.

The slice battery adds a sort of wedge under the machine. When you are in notebook mode it tilts it approximately ten degrees towards you. Quite usefull really. In tablet mode, it adds a bit of weight, but not uncomfortably. I was still able to work with the computer tucked into my elbow.

As my partner in crime describes it, “that computer is really quite dinky.”

Related posts:

1. Tablet @ Work – 10 Weeks In
2. Tablet @ Work – One Week In!
3. Taking My Tablet