It has been ages since I thought of installing OneNote to my Tablet. It looked interesting, but I wasn’t sure if it was worth paying for a bit of extra features. Since coming to Microsoft I saw many people using it for making notes, but still wasn’t convinced till one lunch conversation.

It looked that I was at the table with audio experts, so I asked about a software to annotate audio recordings (thinking about all the interviews we are doing :). I was told that this should be possible in OneNote.

This as well as heavily discounted software prices at Microsoft store did the trick – I’ve got OneNote installed.

I tried recording audio and making notes and I loved it. It’s easy and it’s provides synchronised replay. I can listen to audio and see related notes highlighted and I can jump to the relevant audio piece just by pointing to a note.

I don’t know how it will behave if I jump around a page while making notes and I wonder if it would scale for a number of hour long interviews. All those things I’m going to check, but so far it’s just a lot of fun of thinking what kind of interesting things I can do with it for my research.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2005/07/26.html#a1621; comments are here.

• Studying weblogs at Microsoft: sampling by location
• Microsoft Research Faculty Summit
• Blogging on the edge: between personal passions, work practices and business risks – SHiFT talk

As there is no way I can pretend I’m not a geek since I’ve got my TravelMate TabletPC, I’ll write more about technical stuff :)

WiFi

First thing I found out that learning “how-to” WiFi goes very fast when you actually have something WiFi enabled :) Going through the process of getting connected to Wireless LAN of University of Twente (largest hotspot in Europe, btw :) I’ve learnt about all kinds of settings and security protocols…

I managed to get connected, so now I’m enjoying WiFi connection at home, in the office and in between (actually I still have to walk outside and find areas with a good signal in a green between buildings :).

And because my employer is a member of EduRoam network I can use WiFi in some other places in the Netherlands (may be in other countries too, but still have to find out how it works). This is especially fun since there is a selection of WiFi pubs in university towns; I tried it in our unofficial corporate drinking place in Enschede and it worked.

Tablet PC SP2

Since there was a lot of discussion about problems with WindowsXP Service Pack 2 (which is supposed to enhance security), I was a bit afraid of installing it on my Tablet PC. After browsing around I found out that in a case of Tablet PC it comes with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, so I decided to take a risk.

It was worth it. Next to the fact that I didn’t experience any software conflict and feel better with firewall enabled, I’ve got small, but really nice enhancements of hand writing input (and I also installed a dictionary for hand writing recognition). Still haven’t tried to write long pieces by pen, but at least it works fine for browsing and adding del.icio.us tags to interesting sites.

I guess I’ll write more about my Tablet-specific experiences, but if you don’t want to wait you can spy on my via my Tablet resources at del.icio.us.

SkypeOut

Having discovered Skype long ago I wasn’t using it much. The reasons were quite trivial:

• It’s not that easy at work since usually there are things to do and I don’t want to bother my office roommate with too much talking (either by phone or Skype).
• Due to some mysterious problem my machine at home doesn’t support microphone.
• Lots of people I wanted to talk are Mac users.

Now life gets much easier: beta for Skype for Mac is out and my TravelMate doesn’t have any problems with microphone.

I was also waiting for a moment to try SkypeOut, paid service of calling to a normal phone from Skype. I use international calling cards to call Moscow and they direct phone traffic via Internet anyway, so I though this would be a good alternative (especially given that I always forget to buy those cards :)

So, I tried it. I had some problems with authorisation of my credit card payment, got nice chat with Skype live support, got the problem fixed and finally managed to pay.

I loved it. Great quality and very good price (1,3 Euro for 1h15min talk with a landline number in Moscow; see costs for all destinations).

Bluetooth headphone

Talking for one hour with my current headphones was not that comfortable, so I decided to find out if there is something better around. And it was logical to look for something wireless since I’m getting spoiled with anytime/anywhere Internet access, so I looked for Bluetooth headsets.

After some surfing I found something I really want: Bluespoon headsets. There are too models, Bluespoon Digital and Bluespoon Chameleon. Digital is lighter and advanced, but costs quite a lot, while Chameleon should be good enough, costs less and looks much nicer. With my birthday in one month I’m really thinking of it :)

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004/09/04.html#a1330; comments are here.

• OneNote fun
• Chumbies join nabaztags :)
• On being a geek and TabletPC

Martin picks up my yesterday’s note about the need to change my usual “everything web-based” working style since I got TabletPC and explains his struggles and solutions for synchronising online and offline data. Given lots of interests we share it’s not surprising that Martin reframes it as more general question:

I wonder how Personal Information Management Software will develop in the future. How are we going to cope with the different spaces we are in and the accessibiloty of our online and offline data? Shall we just put everything on the web and hope for permanent broadband connectivity anywhere? (Nice idea, but how are you going to survive the next five years while this is not an option?) How are you managing your data? Where do you keep it? How do you make it accessible, for you, for others?

(If your story is long and you don’t want to post it as a comment do email me! I can put together some of your writings in a seperate entry or republish your story as an own article if you like.)

I’d love to hear your thoughts as well. I guess it’s not much about the software, but our ways of using it :)

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004/08/20.html#a1317; comments are here.

• Making choices
• Email triage, focusing on not important and learning to use tools effectively
• The power of visible loose ends

Although I still do not feel comfortable being perceived as a geek, now I start feeling a bit like one. I’ve got a TabletPC with lots of gadgets one may want :)

It was a long time since I wanted a laptop of my own instead of taking one spare at work. I wanted it light and small and always connected. I tried PDA and it didn’t work (too small and not functional enough for writing and finishing presentations in trains).

There are enough people around to push me for a Mac (and watching SubEthaEdit during the BlogTalk 2.0 made it very tempting), but at the end Tablet won the battle. My main inspiration came from observing Martin Röll with his Tablet during various meetings for almost a year. The last “decision-making drop” came from Michael Hyatt’s story of using TabletPC (found via Robert Scoble). I liked the idea of something that could be as non-obtrusive as paper…

So, I’ve got my TravelMate. I don’t know if it will fulfill the promise and if I’ll be happy with it. I have to learn a lot and to rethink my usual working habits. I guess I have to change from my usual “everything web-based” style, that works well with different computers that do not move, into something else that gives a space for a machine that can travel with me and is not online all the time.

But I like it a lot. Look and feel, changing between laptop and Tablet modes, wifi, drawing, typing and even voice recognition that recognises what I say in a very special way :), and fun of playing InkBall…

And I liked the feeling of today’s morning at FOAFcamp, feeling of being equipped with a good tool for doing what I wanted to do. You can call me geek if you want :)

Finally: I’m looking for TabletPC blogs worth reading from a user perspective, so recommendations are welcome.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004/08/19.html#a1316; comments are here.

• There will be no BlogTalk 3.0
• BlogWalk: quiet
• Blog networking study: staying in touch