Archive for July, 2008

After thinking about all of the serious things that you can do with a Tablet PC, I’ve decided that it’s time to kick back a little.

So far, we’ve been through things like:

• Sketching and quoting jobs
• Making presentations
• Working in warehouses and factories
• Taking notes at conferences, at school and in meetings with clients
• Mind mapping
• Capturing signatures and signing forms
• Working on planes

After all that hard work, you deserve to have your Tablet PC working for you in your down time.

John Hancock of Adelaide, South Australia emailed me:

I have an XBox with the XBox media centre  software installed. This has a web interface and I can sit in my lounge chair with my tablet in hand controlling the media center using the pen. Much easier than using the remote. I was listening to some music last night and was browsing through my play lists selecting random songs. A very pleasant way to spend an evening.

Right on John.

I don’t want to sound like a geek, but… ok, who am I kidding?

Just quietly, there are many times that I have been caught sitting back on the lounge, enjoying a cup of coffee while surfing the latest Tablet PC blogs.

Actually, everyone I know who has a Tablet PC seems to indulge in some “couch surfing.”

Of course “couch surfing” is a pretty natural thing to do with a Tablet PC because it’s not like lugging around a laptop. It’s especially comfortable with a slate Tablet PC like the LE1700 that I use.

Making the decision to switch to a Tablet PC is not easy for some people. Will you really use the tablet and pen features? It’s hard to know until you really get to use one for a decent period of time. It’s a leap of faith…

If you decide that a digital pen is not for you, then you could be left with an expensive machine that you don’t use to the full. For the same money you could have bought an awesome laptop.

Fortunately, Toshiba have produced a Tablet PC for people with commitment issues!

It’s the M700 convertible Tablet PC with a built in DVD burner. It’s really built to be a small portable notebook, and the Tablet PC features are an added bonus.

So with the M700, even if you never use the Tablet features, you will be left with a powerful and capable laptop.

The Toshiba M700 is definitely not as sexy as the R400, but it is a little more practical. For instance, the M700 does away with the R400s glossy screen. This screen has a matte finish to reduce glare.

It’s a little bit chunkier than the R400 due to the inclusion of the DVD drive. But it is remarkably light considering its size.

So if you’re looking to make the jump to a Tablet, but you’re not quite sure, this may be the Tablet PC to get you over the line.

Cheek out our video demonstration below:

Visit our online shop for more information on the Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC.

Do you think PowerPoint presentations are overused and boring? You wouldn’t be alone in the business community if you thought that. Well, Tablet PCs create a way for you to change all of that.

Hook your Tablet PC up to a projector and you’ve got a lot more than a boring slide machine… You’ve now got yourself an interactive presentation tool. That’s not just corporate speak, I’m serious!

Using a Tablet PC and PowerPoint you can:

• Replace flip charts and butchers paper
• Combine presentation slides with brainstorming and audience involvement
• Draw in digital ink to explain and illustrate concepts

Click on the picture above to download the sample PowerPoint 2007 file. By the way, you can use digital ink in Office 2003 too.

The HP TC1100 was the carrot that got us into Tablet PCs. In fact, the first Tablet PC that we had was the woeful HP TC1000. It was terribly underpowered with a Transmeta Crusoe Processor. It left a bad taste for many.

Fortunately, HP quickly got their act together and fixed the TC1000 by putting a decent Intel Centrino processor in it. The result was the TC1100, which is still today a very capable and sought after Tablet PC.

What was so good about the HP TC 1100 you might wonder? Well, it was the only Tablet PC to come in a Hybrid form factor. It could be both a convertible tablet (With a keyboard attached) and a slate.

In slate mode, you had a powerful and lightweight portable device weighing just over 1 kg. With the keyboard attached, you had a Tablet PC that also functioned like a laptop. 

Unfortunately HP decided that the TC1100 wasn’t important enough in the scheme of things. They continue to develop Tablet PCs, but have taken the safe road of laptop style convertibles like the HP 2710P.

Enter Motion Computing. To be honest, Motion have been around in Tablet PCs since the very early days. So we may be a little slow in reporting this, but we think that Motion have had an alternative to the TC1100 form factor for quite a while. It’s the LE1700 with convertible keyboard.

We put together the following video to demonstrate the similarities.

To see the Motion LE1700 Tablet PC in more detail, visit the LE1700 page on our online shop.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s very hard to use a laptop while you’re standing up. Tablet PCs slates on the other hand, are designed to be used when your standing up.

Think about the possibilities for this… For instance, a cold storage company recently told us that a Tablet PC will save them hours every day. How?

Well, each time they have a question in the cold store, they have to walk out of the store, into the office, look it up on the computer and then walk back again. It was a massive warehouse. Can you imagine how much time that takes up every day?

With a Tablet PC (in this case, the semi-rugged Motion F5) they can have the PC on hand, and look up the information while they are standing at the pallet.

Here is a list of just some of the places that you’ll see Tablet PCs where a laptop is not practical:

• In a warehouse
• On a building site
• On a farm
• At a hospital bedside
• On the street
• In meetings
• In hallways

By the way, a Tablet PC is easier to use on you lap when you’re sitting down too, since there’s no need to balance the keyboard and screen.

I demonstrated the Motion F5 Tablet PC for a large warehouse this week. So while I was in demonstration mode,  I thought I’d put together this video review.

Overall, the F5 is a very impressive Tablet PC. For applications like logisitcs, warehousing, manufacturing and construction this Tablet must be on your list to evaluate.

Motion Computing F5 Tablet PC Video Transcript

If you’d like to see a Motion F5 in action, email us at info@tabletpc.com.au, phone on 03 9012 6602 or use the contact form below.

[contact-form 2 "Tablet PC Contact Form"]

Trades people all know how hard it is to accurately measure and estimate areas. Some incredible software for Tablet PCs can help you to get it right before you even leave the property.

The Apex Nexus software demonstrated below is one of the most intuitive Tablet PC applications that I’ve ever seen. It allows you to quickly and easily sketch lines while adding angles, curves and dimensions.

Importantly, you can quickly calculate accurate area. A trades person with this kind of power could even produce a quote on the spot. Goodbye competition!

With Nexus, you can sketch a house, a plan, a driveway, a window or anything that has lines and measurements. Click on the picture for a video demonstration.

The Nexus software is often used by:

• Property valuers
• Insurance assessors
• Real estate agents
• Construction engineers
• Builders, concreters, pavers, landscapers, carpenters, carpeters, floor installers
• Anybody who needs to measure and quote.

Nexus also works beautifully with Disto Bluetooth laser measuring devices. Amazing stuff!

Microsoft’s One Note program adds a powerful elements to your notes… sound.

One Note allows you to record audio with your notes, play back the audio and see the notes that you wrote in real time. Want to see how it works?

Current generation Tablet PCs like the Motion LE 1700 enhance this function with array microphones that allow you to get better audio quality.

A pen makes a lot more sense for note taking than a keyboard because it is unobtrusive. So a Tablet PC is ideal for note taking at conferences.

A Tablet PC goes under the radar at a conference because it takes the expected form of pen and paper.  On the other hand, if you pop out your laptop, the people around you might suspect that you’re hacking the Internet or something!

Because you write on the screen flat on your table or lap, it’s also harder for the people sitting five rows behind you to glance at or be distracted by your screen.

Tablet PCs are designed to last for hours on a single charge thanks to the use of Intel ultra low voltage processors. That means that your Tablet can practically go all day at a conference on a single charge.

Using Microsoft OneNote to organise your conference notes and capture the audio at the conference will help you to make use of valuable information.

TIP: Want your Tablet PC to last a couple of extra hours at the conference? Turn your screen brightness down to the minimum you can practically use and detach unneeded peripherals.

One of the most likely places that you’ll see a Tablet PC is at a school or university. Tablet PCs are especially handy in university for two reasons:

1. Digital note taking and recording
2. Mobile computing.

Of course, a regular laptop can do mobile computing.  However any time you need to take notes, a Tablet PC comes into its own league.  That’s because for taking notes a regular laptop with keyboard is:

• Too slow
• Too noisy
• Too distracting
• Too difficult to balance.

Note: Many people tell me that they can type faster than they write. That might be true when handwriting an email using text recognition, but not usually for note taking when text recognition doesn’t matter.

Watch the Microsoft Tablet PC Education Presentation

A Tablet PC allows a student to be organised to an unprecedented degree. These are just some of the things that a Tablet PC will allow you to do:

• Organise lecture notes into a digital folder
• Audio record lectures with your notes (with Microsoft OneNote)
• Carry your entire note history, handouts and recordings with you at all times
• Access the Internet from anywhere with Wi-fi or 3G.

The only drawback for many students is the higher price of a Tablet PC. So the question is, will it add value to your education? If it can help you to get organised, to get ahead and pass exams then why wouldn’t it be worth it?

Read Microsoft’s top 10 benefits of Tablet PCs in education.