Eliot's Blog : ink

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.

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.

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.