Tag Archives: Tablet PCs

Great Tablet PC Development Blog

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Gavin Gear, a software engineer on the Tablet PC Team (SDK) has been writing some great articles on Tablet PC development, complete with code samples (C# mainly).  He started off with the basics, and is now starting to move into some advanced areas.

If you are a developer who wants a crash course in Tablet PC programming (or hire / manage such developers) be sure to check out Gavin’s blog – you’ll be up and inking in no time.

Gavin also has an open invatation to answer any Tablet PC SDK questions you throw at him – very cool!

Gavin, keep up the great work!

Ink Blog Plugin – Update for problem systems

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I’ve had a few problem reports from folks using Ink Blog Beta 2, where they get an exception message that starts like this:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly
‘Microsoft.mshtml, Version=7.0.3300.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a’ or one of its dependencies. The system
cannot find the file specified.
File name: ‘Microsoft.mshtml, Version=7.0.3300.0

 

If you are getting this message, or any similar message that has “Microsot.mshtml” in it, then it probably means your system is missing this Windows file.  Normally this file is installed as part of IE 5.5 and up, so most folks have it.  I have read several reasons why this file may be missing, including IE7 Beta installs, but it seems pretty rare.

If you are missing the file, and you want to run Ink Blog Plugin you have 2 options:

1) Download / Repair your IE Install

2) Or (much easier) just download the missing file from here, unzip it, and copy it to your plugin directory ( C:\Program Files\Windows Live Writer\Plugins )

 

Hope this helps a few of you.

-Ed

Tablet PC Hummer

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Lora over at “What is New” had a nice post last night mentioning our Tablet PC Hummer.  Since I’ve already had an email about it, I figured I’d post some photos.  Who wouldn’t like seeing a Hummer with a GIANT Tablet PCon the side?

This is a vehicle Field2Base co-sponsored (the artwork) with one of our large resellers.  The Hummer makes it’s rounds to quite a few tradeshows, and is also one of the salesguys’ daily driver.  Needless to say, he gets quite a bit of attention,and questions driving this around. Right now there is always a Tablet PC in the Hummer for demos.  Future plans include a complete mobile office inside, including printer, GPS, scanner, etc..

The photos below show a company group photo with the beast, and me taking the Hummer somewhere I probably shouldn’t have in our office park 🙂

 

 

 

 

Ink Blog Plugin Beta 2 now Available!

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UPDATE – Please note the newest version (v1.0) is now available here

I’ve just released an updated version of the Ink Blog Plugin, Beta 2 for Microsoft Live Writer & Tablet PCs.

There are quite a bit of new features here including:

  • More ink colors, including custom colors
  • Handwriting Recognition of Ink, which is posted in blog under the ink area
  • Various pens and line weights
  • Highlighters
  • Lasso tool / Move / Cut / Copy / Paste
  • Multi-level Undo / Redo
  • Text inside the ink region
  • Ability to re-edit ink before you publish
  • Vertically Expanding ink area – unlimited ‘paper’
  • Edit mode backgrounds for cleaner inking (Several line widths & Grid)
  • Recognition of shapes
  • And More….. 🙂

Requirements:

  • Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
  • Windows Live Writer
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
  • Microsoft Ink Update for Tablet PCs on .NET framework 2.0 / CLR

To Install the latest version on your Tablet:

  1. Download Here
  2. Close any open MS Windows of Live Writer
  3. Run Installer by double clicking on the downloaded file
  4. You will now have a “Insert Ink Blog” option in the Live Writer task pane, and on the ‘Insert’ menu
  5. Ink Away, and enjoy!

Important NOTES:

  •   If you get a warning message during the install, it is probably because you do not have the Microsoft Ink update installed (see above).  Continuing through the install is fine, but you will need to download and install the update for full & proper functionality.  (This is a good update to put on your Tablet PC either way to ensure optimum ink compatibility in other applications)
  • This beta build will expire on October 1, 2006 (Don’t worry, I should have another out long before then! 🙂 )

As always, please leave your feedback, issues, and requests as a comment here, or contact me directly.

 [UPDATE] If you are getting an error when you try to use the plugin that mentions the file Microsoft.mshtml please see the post here for a fix.

Ink Generated with Ink Blog Plugin - http://www.edholloway.com

Lenovo X41 Tablet Performance Tweak(?)

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I just saw Jeff’s post on his experience with the X41 for a month in the field.

One complaint he had is the performance – a big issue I had with mine too.  Even after upgrading to 1.5 Gigs of RAM, the machine was still considerably slower than my other tablets.  Since I love the form factor, and really need a keyboard at times, I spent some down time on a cross country flight playing with settings to see where the bottleneck was.

What I (eventually) found is that the “Thinkvantage Active Protection System” was the culprit.  This is the service that is supposed to lock your harddisk if it senses a sudden fall or jolt.  Great concept, and if it is something important to you, you may want to play with the settings rather than just disabling it like I did.

To disable it, open the app – locate under: Start/Program Files/ThinkVantage/Active Protection System and remove the enable check box (see image below), and reboot.  That’s it.

In my case, I felt like I was just given a new machine.  We have also recommended this tweak to many of our customers on the X41, and they have had great results too.

I mentioned this to one of our Lenovo technical contacts, and he assured me that this had been fixed on newer versions (he did not specify if this was newer hardware or software).  So if you have a newer X41 or have updated the app, you may not notice as much of a difference as I did.  For the rest of you, enjoy your new Tablet!

Ink Blog – Feature Requests?

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If there are any features you were hoping for in the ink blog plugin – now is a good time to let me know.  I’ve got most of the big items on my list done, and will be starting on some others soon.

Please comment here and let me know what you would like to see.

Writing or Riding – OR When is the next update of Ink Blog going to be ready Ed!?!

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Well first, let me thank everyone for all the positive feedback I’ve received on the Ink Blog plugin – I’m really glad to hear everyone is enjoying it.

Now that I’ve teased you with what is in the works for the next drop, many of you have been asking when it will be ready.

That’s a tough one, first there is the whole day job thing , we have a new product line coming out in October and things have been a little hectic.  Not only is it a new product, but it is in a different space than where we currently play ( Enterprise Tablet PC software).  New websites, marketing material, yada yada yada, oh yea, docs, and the code! 🙂  I’m not releasing any specific on the new software quite yet, but it will be for the Tablet PC, and at a lower price point /target than our current offerings.  More soon.

Next is a superbike motorcycle race I have been looking forward to.  I’m not a big race fan, but the venue is close to home, and sounds like a great excuse to ride the Ducati on a fun day trip.

So I guess the the ultimate answer depends on Saturday’s weather.  If it’s nice out, I’m off to the races, if not, I’ll be writing code for the plugin.

Either way, I’ll have something out soon!   Thanks again for the great feedback!

OneNote 2007 vs Windows Live Writer

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Darren Strange (the UK PM for Office 2007) compares the OneNote 2007 and Live Writer as blog tools.

I must admit, I haven’t spent much time with OneNote 2007, so this was a good read for me.

Ink Blog Progress

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I’ve been working on the Writer Ink blog plugin some more this evening, and have added quite a few new features, including:

  • More ink colors, including custom colors
  • Highlighters
  • Lasso tool / Move / Cut Copy
  • Undo / Redo
  • Text inside the ink region
  • Ability to re-edit ink before you publish
  • Expanding ink region

And a few others, but I’m just too tired to think of any more right now 🙂

Here is a teaser until I can do some clean up and do another code drop.

Blogging in Ink

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