Eliot's Blog : Tablet PC

ArtRage Beta Shows Windows 7 Multitouch Capabilities at PDC

Eliot — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:12:00 GMT

I sure wish I could have seen this in person. The fine folks at ArtRage were showing off a beta version of their upcoming release. ArtRage is a graphic artist software package that uses Tablet PC functionality to enable realistic creation of water colors, oil paintings, chalk drawings, and much, much more. This new version includes a lot of new functionality, including the use of the Windows 7 multitouch APIs. As you can see in the YouTube video, touch enables real "painting" with a brush, giving artists the feel and interaction of non-digital art.

If you're not familiar with ArtRage, take a look at their Starter Edition. It's got a limited set of functionality, but it still shows off the awesome selection of capabilities. The full version is absolutely worth the nominal fee that they charge.

Star Power Behind Tablet Advertizing? That's So Dirty!

Eliot — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:01:00 GMT

I'm hoping that the title got someone's attention. Did it? Let me know. I get so little mail these days......

Anyway, I found this a little while ago, and immediately thought to put it up here, but then promptly got busy with SDK topics, reviews, newsletters and stuff. Better late than never.

HP has released a series of internet ads for their tx2000z Tablet PC, starring (drum roll)

Mike Rowe, from Dirty Jobs.

OK, it's not earth shattering, but it is, at least a little bit. Over the past five years there have been a few Tablet PC commercials that have made the airwaves. I remember the Lenovo ad with the ink; Microsoft Office had an ad where some workers spun a Tablet PC in an end-zone-like celebration; Gateway had an commercial in which a Tablet PC had a brief cameo; Best Buy had one appear as well. But these were small potatos next to a production of five vignettes of up to five minutes, each starring a recognizable talent. To me, this trumpets that HP sees return on investment. I'm sure Rowe doesn't come cheap, and you need to sell a lot of Tablet PCs to recoup the investment.

I am truly glad that they have taken the lead and produced these bits. They're really funny, especially if you are a fan of Dirty Jobs. And Tablet PC. Or just poop jokes.

My favorite exchange: "Hey, Mike. I got the massage table ready...That folds into a tablet, you know? You can write love notes."

Tablet rocks.

Pen Attention - Highlights Your Pen Cursor for Presentations

Eliot — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:11:00 GMT

Kenrick, an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage, posted a blog entry in which he highlights something he calls "PenAttention." It's a little add-in he created that creates a sort of halo around the pen cursor. Usually, the cursor looks like the tip of a pen. With the add-in, you can also use the cursor as a pointing device. This is super useful when using a Tablet PC for a classroom lecture or a presentation.

Kendrick also got a nod from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The program is free and requires .NET 2.0 or higher and Windows XP Tablet or Windows Vista with a tablet pen.

Tablet PC MVPs Are in Town

Eliot — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:34:00 GMT

Baseball season's barely underway, so we don't know the MVPs yet. But I've been lucky enough to meet with many of the Tablet PC MVPs this week. Flying in from all around the world, these folks are the cutting-edge when it comes to what's happening around tablet and touch computing. They're giving up a week's worth of their time to come to Redmond and engage the product team members in discussions about customers, trends, and where we can improve Microsoft.

They are focused on all segments: consumer, IT Pro, developer, and OEM. They each have their favorite hardware and software. And they each have their audience and following. Consider these few sites, run by MVPs:

Wonderfully passionate, it's been a pleasure talking shop with them this week.

Sales Are Looking Good--if you're stocking laptops

Eliot — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:00:00 GMT

Last week I published an article in the Mobile PC Newsletter (brash and brazen plug, go subscribe through https://profile.microsoft.com/. You just need a Windows Live Passport.) that Mobile PC Growth in India Is Almost 20 Percent in 2007. And then today I saw an article in Ireland's Silicon Republic that talks about how Notebook momentum is driving European PC growth. To quote:

European demand for notebook computers showed no signs of abating in the past year and resulted in over 88 million devices shipped in the region but going into 2008, connectivity alliances between PC vendors and telcos will transform the shape of the market.

The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) PC market recorded an outstanding year in 2007, according to IDC’s latest tracker, as PC shipments increased 15.9% year-on-year.

Those are some mind-boggling numbers. There are a lot of machines out there that need good software to perform well. A LOT.

The other thing I think is interesting is that this means that we're definitely shifting to where more and more people are using mobile PCs--notebooks, Tablet PCs, UMPCs, desktop replacements--and the applications that run on them. We're talking about a computer that's only sometimes plugged in, encounters multiple networks through a session, relies on power management to make it through the day, and is asked to work well indoors, outdoors, in coffee shops, on my desk, and in someone else's home. There are the obvious hardware needs--take for instance that it must weigh less that 8 pounds (I hear you laughing)--but there are also many software considerations.

I worked on the team that spent two years documenting the considerations for Mobile PC Developers. You can find them all in the User Experience Guidelines for Developers in MSDN. I think we did a good job laying out the various categories unique to notebook development. I know the APIs are not that difficult, because I understand them. And yet I see precious few applications availing themselves of power management, network location, and Tablet and Touch technologies.

I wonder why. Seems to me that anyone whose app absolutely shone on notebooks, Tablet PCs, UMPCs, and other portable computers would stand to make a huge splash, earning enough money that, as former governor Haley Barbour said yesterday, "they could burn a wet mule."

Well, you know what I mean.

New Tablet PC App from Microsoft Research: InkSeine

Eliot — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:11:00 GMT

I was just talking to a very special person today about how nice it would be to walk along the banks of the Seine, holding hands, this time of year. This has nothing to do with that.

InkSeine is an innovate note-taking, organizing, annotation application that was designed and build with the idea that you'll be commanding, entering data, and manipulating content with a tablet pen and ink. Menus, actions, commands, and more are all optimizrd for the Tablet PC. Just look at some of these features:

You can blaze a super-fast trail by using radial menus for pen commands. Just hover over a menu to preview the commands. Touch down in the center of the menu and drag towards the command you want to activate.
You can select existing ink right on the page to initiate a search.
Create queries in the context of your notes to keep track of searches, reuse them, or return to them later.
Easily find emails, documents, ink notes, or web pages without leaving your notes.
Drag links to the documents and web pages you find right into your notebook or drag images into your notes, from search results or file folders.
Filter your desktop searches by file type or date with simple pen controls.
Use powerful gestures throughout the application.
Create automatic hyperlinks from your notes and screen captures.
View your notes page-by-page, like a real notebook.
Pages scale to fit the screen when you rotate your tablet.
Much, much more

Of course, Microsoft Research has tutorials, Help documentation, forums, videos, and a blog up and running, just in case the app is not totally and unequivocally user-firendly.

Ink-Enabled WinForms controls for applications

Eliot — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:58:00 GMT

Looking for Tablet PC controls to add to your application? Of course, the Mobile PC Developer Center has the InkListBox Control – English, InkShortcut Control Code Sample, InkNumber Sample, InkSecureSignature Sample, and the ScalableInkPicture Sample. Beyond that, the Microsoft Health Common User Interface (CUI) puts together a slew of pen-friendly controls to be used in end-to-end medical applications.

Microsoft has been working with the National Health Service (NHS) in England to improve patient safety by creating a common look and feel for NHS systems through the NHS Common User Interface (CUI) Program. This partnership initiative is in conjunction with the UK government agency called NHS Connecting for Health. Microsoft is now publishing the Design Guidance produced through this collaboration and providing the healthcare community with access to the associated Toolkit controls.

The Microsoft Health Common User Interface (CUI) provides Design Guidance and controls which allow a new generation of safer, more usable and compelling health applications to be quickly and easily created. Their site is aimed at user interface designers, application developers, and patient safety experts who want to find out more about the benefits of a standardized approach to user interface design.

With the Microsoft Health CUI you can:

Interactively browse and download the available Design Guidance documents
Interact with on-line implementations of the available controls and samples that implement the guidance
View the delivery roadmap for future areas of the Design Guidance and controls and learn about the delivery lifecycle that is used to create them
Download and install the controls for use in Microsoft Visual Studio
Provide feedback and suggestions through the Microsoft Health CUI community project on CodePlex

You can view the project on CodePlex: http://www.codeplex.com/mscui

In addition, the full website is available at http://www.mscui.net/Default.aspx

The available controls include:

AddressLabel
ContactLabel
DateInputBox
MonthCalendar
PatientBanner
TimeInputBox
TimeLabel

Reading and Tablet PC

Eliot — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:14:00 GMT

OK, maybe this is more about a bold business move by HarperCollins, but that publisher is releasing entire books from its catalogue to the web, starting today. Each of the books will only be available for a month. You cannot download them to a laptop or reading device, such as the Kindle from Amazon.com, but they're available and they're free.

HarperCollins believes that offering larger segments of books for readers to flip through will generate greater sales for the company. Jane Friedman, chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, told the New York Times that she doubted most people would read the entire versions online, but HarperCollins would track whether the editions actually helped increase sales. “We will know very soon if we sense any kind of cannibalization,” she said.

The immediate offering includes “The Witch of Portobello” by Paul Coelho; “Mission: Cook! My Life, My Recipes and Making the Impossible Easy” by Robert Irvine (from the Food Network); “I Dream in Blue: Life, Death and the New York Giants” by Roger Director; “The Undecided Voter’s Guide to the Next President: Who the Candidates Are, Where They Come from and How You Can Choose” by Mark Halperin; and “Warriors: Into the Wild” by Erin Hunter.

With a wireless connection and my Tablet PC, I can really curl up with a good book, now. And when my eyes start to droop, I'll just use my tablet as a tiny electric blanket.

It's Getting Rough Out There

Eliot — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:29:00 GMT

I was on the Tablet PC team before any OEMs had any of the tablet hardware that's is available to the market. As a result, we had hired a company to make prototype units for us. They were thin, slate models that were actually pretty cool. That is, they were cool when they worked. They were true protoypes. But walking around with the forced slate model really made us think about where and how the pen (and ultimately, touch) input would be used, as opposed to standard mouse and keyboard.

Note-taking and annotation were the "big-bets" Microsoft made in the first few years, and these are truly viable scenarios. I wondered further, though, partly because I was a reasonably quick typist and partly because I had become adept enough at Office products to know how to make comments and show annotation with a keyboard. What really piqued my curiosity are the places where pen and touch are indispensible. Ever see anyone try to type on a laptop on an elevator? Once a person stands, the keyboard is awkward, at best. And who really wants to take out their $1500 notebook in the field...a real field. Most notebook's cannot handle a lot of rain or a drop from more than two feet. Imagine if a real estate agent needed to look up an easement on the fly. Or a construction manager, dairy farmer, lobster fisherman, wine-maker, soccer coach, yacht broker, EMT, store manager, astronaut, well, you get the idea.

Which is, I suppose a long way of saying that it warms my heart to see hardware like the Duo Touch II ruggedized Tablet PC that General Dynamics Itronix released. Not specific to any industry, this computer boasts:

Easy switching between active digitizer and passive touch digitizer
Intel Core Duo processer
Up to 2GB of RAM
EVDO
802.11 a/g/n
Bluetooth
Up to 3 RF modems and GPS at the same time

But on top of that, it's magnesium-alloy case, water seal, HazLoc certification, and other rugged goodies means that not only can it be used in and on the field...you can use it as second base.

Testing the Waters

Eliot — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:53:00 GMT

Because there are only a kerjillion blogs about technology and especially ones that mention Microsoft products, I thought I would stick my toe in and see how the water feels. Actually, I am taking this up because too few of our issuing statements deal with Tablet PC, laptops, and the whole world of what's happening with hardware, software, and development in the mobile PC (no, no, nothing to do with Windows Mobile or phones) space. I will try to keep you abreast of the kinds of things that I include in the Mobile PC Newsletter (you can sign up for a copy at https://profile.microsoft.com/RegSysProfileCenter/ with a Passport account). This includes things like Microsoft news, hardware announcements, code samples, industry analysis, and the occaissional nerdy joke.

Well, I think that's pretty good for the first foray.

Thanks