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Newsletter Archive
TabletPCBuzz Newsletter - February 15th, 2004
(February
15th, 2004)
Mobile
Computing with the Tablet PC By Bernie Day, VP Marketing, Leszynski Group
The
concept of being able to work in a periodically connected world,
move about while viewing and gathering information, reduce or eliminate
unnecessary paperwork, all while improving efficiency and reducing
overall operating costs, has been an elusive dream for quite some
time. Many approaches have been tried and just as many have failed,
but it took the advent of the revolutionary (if not evolutionary)
Tablet PC to make this dream a reality.
It's
the Tablet PC's form factor that allows for true mobile gathering
of information while standing up and moving about. What is a Tablet
PC? It's a full-fledged computer equipped with a special screen
that you actually write directly upon with a special pen (or stylus).
Virtually every aspect of this new device was engineered from the
ground up to make it a truly integrated solution to the mobile computing
environment. All in all, it has the same speed and capabilities
of your desktop PC, only it has legs-yours! The Tablet PC is as
mobile as you are.
Many
are ready to adopt-they just need help overcoming the hurdles of
complexity that Tablet PCs introduce. Yes, everyone wants to convert
from paper to digital-it has been talked about for years. However,
many companies are afraid of making the transition incorrectly,
having to throw away what they have already developed, and of starting
over again.
There
are, however, some steps you can take to "get it right the first
time":
1)
Educate yourself and your team about what it means to "go mobile".
2) Study your workflows and determine what tasks are redundant,
wasteful or inefficient.
3) Develop a migration roadmap on paper. Consult with experts.
4) Get buy-in from those who will use, engineer, and deploy what
is built.
5) Build a pilot program.
6) Measure results.
7) Test, test, test.
8) Make modifications based upon your experiences with the pilot
and testing.
9) Deploy your solution enterprise-wide.
When
you carefully plan and custom-design your mobile strategy, you greatly
improve the odds of ending up with a useable and efficient system
that will stand the test of time. To learn more about mobile strategies
for your work flows, attend a FREE seminar sponsored by Microsoft,
Acer, ScanSoft and Leszynski Group. Call 1-866-644-7826, x219, or
visit the Web page outlining the dates and locations of events coming
to your city: http://www.tabletpctraining.com/evtMobileQ1.htm
About
the Author:
Bernie
Day is the VP of Marketing for Leszynski Group and helps clients
understand and migrate toward a mobile strategy that integrates
current workflows and modern technologies-paper to paperless. She
offers educational seminars and workshops to end-users, software
developers, and management teams. You can contact her by e-mail
at: bernied@leszynski.com
Buzz
forum member MrDecav started this
thread back in January. Basically the thread is about his idea to
do a new web site with a twist. His web site would be done "completely
in ink" using his tablet PC. His initial quick attempt can be seen
here. Reactions to his efforts
were interesting, and some good conversation sprung forth. A number
of people liked the idea a lot, but others questioned the place
of "ink" on the internet as a graphic design element. Interestingly
enough, Spencer and I have been having a little of this same debate
ourselves. Spencer would like to see some ink on the Buzz site somewhere
besides just in members forum signatures, but not sure really how
to incorporate it into a good clean web site design that is enhanced
for viewing on a tablet pc. Here are some of the comments people
had:
(ifly)
"Good idea, I only use inking to create greeting cards and upload
it to websites. Most of my friends saw and gave feedback that they
loved it. People miss handwriting for many reasons."
(ipagrat)
"Mrdecav uses these components to good effect, plus throws in a
priceless dash of style. What he's up to is worthwhile for coolness
sake alone. Time will tell how cool it seems later, when everyone
else is copycatting."
I agree
ifly! I have heard some interesting comments along these lines.
Funny that we went to using a keyboard for computers for so many
years, and now we are seeking to return to the handwritten message.
The presence of someone's handwriting definitely adds something
to the personalization of any message, long or short. I think we
get hung up on the speed at which we can type, and forget the personal
side of communications. If you only sent your significant other
a typewritten Valentine message, I suspect you may be in the doghouse
today (or at least not on their good side)! :
There
were also a number of mentions for the new 1.7 SDK that will be
out in the next few months (it is in aloha right now). This SDK
version will have some ink controls that will be usable in a web
page. Once that is released, you will start seeing more ink capable
web sites! Spencer and I are experimenting now with a little bit
of code (a sample provided by forum member ArinG at Microsoft) using
the alpha 1.7 SDK in the form of an ink blog. Still a way to go,
but it looks promising!
Attention
was brought to a current Tablet PC web site tool "(PhilL) "With
the advent of the Tablet PC, some folks down at UC Berkeley built
an application called Denim that's designed to help build hand-drawn
websites, albeit, again, mostly for prototyping purposes. It also
allows developers to build a site based on a sketched information
architecture. You can learn more about the project and download
the software (free) at: http://guir.berkeley.edu/projects/denim/"
In
a related
thread on handwriting, there were some comments relative to
the bandwidth and data storage requirements of using ink on the
web, as well as some actual ink "posts" done with image inserts.
Some
good debate on this topic. Check out the threads on this and post
your comments, let us know what YOU think! Where (or if) ink should
be used on the internet! Where would you like to see ink on the
Buzz?
"In
a forthcoming release of its Tablet PC operating system, Microsoft
is working to improve its pen and ink functionality. Microsoft,
in fact, will send out to beta testers Release Candidate 1
of a new version of Windows for its Tablet PC by the end of
March, with an eye toward delivering the finished product
by late May or Early June."
Also, according to Microsoft employees on the Tablet PC chat
yesterday afternoon, Lonestar (or Tablet PC 2004, whatever
you want to call it) will be a bundled release with Windows
XP Service Pack 2. So they will obviously be released at the
same time. The actual Tablet PC parts of the update will only
install on Tablet PCs however, not just any PC you put SP2
on.
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