As an experiment, I’ll tell you to the story of my handwriting got so bad in digital ink with Windows Vista and I’ll show you the recognition results below:

And here is the recognised text version…

I was born in South Australia but grew

up in Victoria. So I started learning

to write at primary school in Victoria. The Victorian Education Department at

the time decided to change the

writing style taught from printing to cursive script.

In grade four, we moved from

Victoria to South Australia where kids

had always been taught cursive. When

I turned up, they decided to

switch to painting… And so, my

handwriting became a hacked up version of print and cursive…

One error… not bad!

As a Tablet PC user though, I just can’t go back. Despite the trials that Vista occasionally throws at me, I just love the new features for Tablet users.

If you haven’t upgraded yet, in Windows Vista Microsoft added a few subtle but powerful visual cues for Tablet PCs including:

• Left click ripple
• Pen: Right button press cursor
• Pen: Right click ripple
• Mouse ghost for touch screens to enable easy right or left clicking

Vista is pen flicks which are a great time saver.

But the thing that I can’t live without is the upgraded recognition engine. The new engine does a much better job of identifying numbers, email and web addresses.

Unfortunately these new features don’t come without the Vista annoyances. For me, the two main culprits are:

• Speed – Vista is so slow!
• User account control – Could it be any more annoying to be prompted so often?

Speed

Tablet PCs are usually designed around a Low or Ultra Low Voltage processor. This facilitates the light weight and extended battery life, but it sacrifices some processing power.

Unfortunately Windows Vista is power hungry. However, there is a simple way to speed up Windows Vista on your Tablet PC:

Turn off the funky transparent window theme.

1. Click Start
2. Click Control Panel
3. Click on Appearance and Personalization
4. Click on Change the Theme
5. Select Windows Classic

It’s a simple thing to do, but you will be surprised how much faster everything runs!

Of course it doesn’t look all Apple Mac sexy, and you don’t have those pretty taskbar window previews but your graphics card and your watch will thank you!

User account control

User account control (UAC) is that thing that prompts you to approve things like installing a new program.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that UAC is good in principle… but the implementation of it in Vista would have to be one of the most poorly implemented features that I have ever seen.

Not only is UAC annoying, it also slows your computer down significantly too. So to speed up your Tablet PC, you can turn UAC off.

** Important Note: There are reasons that UAC could be useful for your computer, and this is only recommended for advanced, experienced users **

You must be an administrator to perform these steps.

1. Click Start
2. Click Control Panel
3. Type UAC into the search box
4. Click on Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off
5. Un-tick the Use User Account Control box
6. Click Ok
7. Reboot

Now you’re free!

These simple changes will speed up your Windows Vista Tablet PC and allow you to benefit from the good Tablet PC features without the crashing and slowness!