Ok, no more of this DOJ / search engine stuff for awhile.

It’s been a little while since updating my Tablet PC owner usage and the newest thing I’ve been using the Tablet for is dual monitors. It turns out the graphics card in the M1400 is pretty darn good as I’ve been able to run all the games I’ve tried including Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies, as well as other graphic intense applications like Second Life (SL). The dual monitor functionality surprised and elated me so much that I moved the tablet into the middle desk position (pictured above). Now after just a little more than one year and one month, the tablet plays center stage in my every day workflow.

Not only that, but with the tablet in portrait mode it sits lower so I can see the other computer in the distance which has Vongo and the Slingbox bringing in TV and movies legally to my workspace in the distance. When I get a call, I can just move the mouse to the volume and turn down without getting out of the chair — handy! The final piece to this four monitor and trifecta computer setup is the open source program Synergy. With Synergy I continue to control all these devices with one central mouse and keyboard.

Inking activity has been down since my last update in part because I’ve made the tablet part of the regular desktop system and it’s been running Second Life the last couple weeks. It’s still fairly easy to grab the tablet and pen and make ink notes, though admittedly I haven’t been doing that much lately. I do unplug the tablet and take with me to meetings and to the kid’s bowling league on Saturday’s. My plan to draw something new every day in 2006 has been back burnered. I’ll get back to that crink sooner or later.

Along with a couple other people, I entered into a beta test for Craig Pringle’s BlogPad program. Problems with my tablet and the ClickOnce deployment method utilyzed have yielded no way to get to his program yet, although the other beta testers have been able to use ClickOnce so it’s probably something with my setup. Strangely, I couldn’t get ClickOnce to work on any of our Windows XP machines, even the non-tablet ones. Anybody know why this might be happening? I haven’t dug around too much looking for answers, so maybe there is something simple I can do to fix this? Craig tells me he will be creating a self-extracting .exe for me soon, but I’d sure like to see his ink blogging app.

Development on the Tablet PC
Surprisingly, the first significant developer work I’ve been doing on the tablet has been learning the Linden Scripting Language (LSL) inside Second Life [SL review]. I built my first game framework (it’s still pretty rough at this point) inside there and now I’m working on giving the first game based on that engine some sounds and beautification (my weak area is graphics, so this is a slow and arduous process). Once done I’ll be putting it out there live to begin taking $L .., should be interesting to see how that works out. Soon, I’ll be using this engine to make other games inside Second Life.

If you haven’t noticed by the many repeat mentions of SL in this post, I’m currently engorging on the SL virtual 3D world. I’m really hooked on that place. If you have an SL account then feel free to IM me in world, I’m TD Goodliffe (remember good life with an extra “f”). I’m not using and exploring SL for entertainment purposes much though, rather I’m fascinated by the business aspect and am working on developing a number of business ideas in conjunction with adding an SL side to some of our web business. I haven’t spent much time changing my avatar’s clothes or appearance like many people in there seem to do, I’ve been learning about SL building, scripting and how the business side of SL works. The Tablet PC has been the main tool for this exploration.

There isn’t any direct ink interaction with SL, but I could see how a program like ActiveWords could be handy for inserting commands to scripts in chats or performing some routine keyboard functions.

Summary
That’s about it for this update and I’m sure I’m leaving some current or new usage out of this report. There’s always next time. One thing I find worth highlighting as I look back at the year plus tablet usage: it’s been a key part of my computing life. I can’t say that about many computers we buy. Most of the time we buy them, wear them out in 12-18 months and replace them with something better. The tablet has become an important part of my daily computing. Has it been worth the $2,500USD or so I paid for it? Absolutely. When will I buy another one? Ask me after I see what the Vista effect has on this tablet.

For those readers with tablets, how long have you owned your Tablet PC? What do you use it for most today? Is it the same thing you used it for when you first bought it? Maybe someone should chart the various uses for the tablet and then allow folks to mark them up throughout the owner lifecycle in categories like: never, rarely, sometimes, frequently and very frequently. That might be an interesting study …

History of Tablet PC Ownership
December 19, 2004: First full week of ownership complete
February 13, 2005: 60 days after buying a Tablet PC, was it worth it?
March 3, 2005: Day 78 bought external CD-RW drive
May 3, 2005: Day 140
June 27, 2005: Day 196 incompatibility of EVDO Kyocera cards
August 12, 2005: 241 days of Tablet PC Ownership
September 1, 2005: Day 261: Tablet PC sales projections being downshifted by market researchers
September 15, 2005: Day 276 Current office main configuration includes Tablet PC, 3 PCs, Mac
October 12, 2005: Day 302 as Tablet PC owner: email, chat and gaming
December 13, 2005: Day 365: looking back at one year with a Tablet PC

Did this post make you go hmm?

Maybe Related Posts (plugin generated)

• Oooo that wire smell, the smell of tablet burning
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• Day 577: New Tablet PC purchase handcuffed by Vista waiting game
• Day 140: Tablet PC Owner notes
• Day 276: Current office main configuration includes Tablet PC, 3 PCs, Mac
• Day 508: 10% broken and easy to forget about Bluetooth