I've been able to successfully install Vista Home Premium Edition on my X41 Tablet, and am REALLY liking the experience so far. I'm writing an article to help people decide if they're ready to take the plunge, but in the mean time, I've gotten a lot of hits on my other X41 Vista post, so I thought I'd point people to a very helpful post I found. Give Our Abilities Time has a great article on a couple of the pitfalls of installing Vista on this machine. Most notably, the relatively hard to find ThinkVantage Fingerprint Software v5.6 which is required to get the fingerprint reader working.

All in all, things are working pretty well, and I'm very happy with the overall experience.

I was looking around today on the news wires and noticed that Microsoft has finally published the suggested specs for Vista compatible systems. To my surprise, it appears as though my X41 tablet will be able to deliver a "Windows XP-comparable graphics experience". So basically, it won't work with all the super-cool eye candy, but it will be able to take advantage of all the other new tablet enhancements that Vista has promised. You can see the whole list of desktop, mobile, and enterprise requirements here.

One of the main reasons I originally was intrigued by the idea of a Tablet PC was that I take notes into a legal pad on a regular basis. A lot of my job entails listening to someone's ideas about what should be changed in a show, then executing those ideas. My system up until last month included a legal pad or small spiral notebook, a pen and a couple of colors of highlighters. Here's a picture of my last paper notebook:

I take the notes with the pen in this format while I talked with a client about the show. Then after they left, I would implement the changes and highlight them as I completed each point. When my page was neon I knew that I had completed everything, I could refer back to the notes in our next meeting and remind the client about each change that was made, and I could talk about how it was addressed. This system not only makes sure I don't forget anything, but also helps the client feel like everything was covered in the follow up meeting. Sometimes it's difficult for my clients to remember each and every mundane change they requested, so being able to read them their list back is extremely comforting to them - they know every detail has been attended to.

Read More...

As I posted a week or so ago, an errant uninstaller corrupted my new tablet's registry. While this was extremely unfortunate for me, because I was forced to work the rest of the day with a pen and paper, I did have a fairly good experience with both IBM's support, and the IBM Rescue and Recovery (RnR) Software. First, the bad news: RnR was not able to recover my registry. This is not entirely the fault of the system however, as I had not yet created backup discs or created an image of the system to directly restore to - that was my fault. I ended up having to restore to the factory state of the system.

Read More...

Well, after reading about Eric Mack's issues about not having a true Windows XP Tablet PC Edition disc to recover his system, it seems I'm going through my own saga on the subject. I've found some intersting things about the IBM X41 Tablet's Rescue and Recovery system though that have been fairly promising, and I'll write up my experiences in full once I'm back up and running.

This is the part where I was going to tell you to go sign the petition on this subject, but it seems to have been pulled down. I might have to ressurrect it.

Look what came via UPS today:

Guess when my tablet is slated to ship…July 21st. What am I supposed to do with this? Lenovo has found a new way to torture people, they announce that they have created the best convertible sub-notebook Tablet PC ever, take orders, then ship the batteries a month ahead of the computer that uses them. Now I have to sit and stare at this brick and think about how cool it will be when it actually is useful. I CAN'T EVEN CHARGE IT!

Since all I have is the battery, here are my thoughts:

Read more...

Writing a blog post about OneNote, in OneNote…that's what I'm doing right now. Kinda circular isn't it? I decided to go out and purchase Microsoft's OneNote now, instead of waiting until I got my Tablet (the delivery of which Lenovo keeps pushing back) because I wanted to get used to the metaphor that OneNote uses before I really jumped into replacing my spiral notebook. What follows, are my thoughts after 24 hours with OneNote:

Read More...

Well, I've gotten it ordered finally! YAY! Now comes the waiting. I thought I was so cool getting it so quickly, but even with the help of the great CS rep, it's going to be 3-4 weeks before I get my tablet! 3-4 weeks! Are you serious? Anyways, here are the specs:

Read More...

I'm bummed, no 'add to cart' link on their site today, June 14th will be the release date. There is a nice webcast though - running roughly 23 minutes. I've roughly transcribed the thing below. It's pretty interesting and you get the feeling that IBM/Lenovo knows what they're doing here. Waiting to make a tablet until now has allowed them to learn from mistakes others have made, and it looks like their first Tablet PC will be a home run. Read More...

via TabletPCReviewSpot It looks as though CNET has some inside info that IBM is either announcing or releasing their tablet PC on Monday! This article coupled with a leak on the Lenovo site paint a picture of me with my credit card in hand on Monday.

Everyone seems pretty excited about IBM's (Lenovo?) entry into the Tablet PC arena, and I have to agree. IBM's notebook track record is very good with business users, and I think this will really add credibility to the platform as a whole.