Tablet Scribbles

description

This blog will document my experiences as I learn to love or hate the Tablet PC. While it started out about the Tablet PC I have had to settle on one of the many machines available and there will be some posts about the way my hardware is working and how the Tablet PC has been implemented on it.

notes

I can be a very creative speller, especially when I am scribbling on my Tablet PC and letting it translate for me. So you might have to be equally immaginative in your reading of this blog.

The guy who designed this template used technology that I am not familiar with and there are some problems with it that I haven't figured out yet.

The biggest one is that links are supposed to be underlines but sometimes they don't get the underline, and it isn't consistent when it does and doesn't underline them. So if it looks like something should be a link mouse over it and see if it turns gray. If it does you were right.

The other thing I have seen is that the full justification seems to get turned off for the reat of the post after I include a hyperlink. This is more of a cosmetic thing but you will find that the full justification can do some pretty funky things to the document depending on what size window you are using.

Friday, October 31, 2008

My Tablet PC is dead so so is this blog.
Any images that were in this blog were on a server that I can no longer access so they will not appear in the blog.
I would delete the blog, but there might be something here that would be of use to someone else.

I scribbled this @ 15:48

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

I don't know if I ever got the blog updated after my last round of repairs but CompUSA finally got it mostly repaired just days before the contract on it expired. I got another new system board and new memory. It worked for a while but is dying again.

Now it thinks the Ctrl key is pressed most of the time and none of the programs will work when that happens. I can't tell if it is a hardware or a software issue. Sometimes I think it is one and at other times it looks like it is the other. I rolled it back to a system restore point a while back when I wasn't having this problem and thought that had resolved the issue but it is here again. The only thing I know for sure is that the spring under the Ctrl key is holding it up and pressing it down when the machine thinks it is already down doesn't do anything. If I bring up the Tablet soft keypad I can sometimes click on Ctrl and shut it off, but that is a rarity.

I think it it time to bite the bullet and junk this lemon.

I am thinking about maybe even moving to an Apple if they have one cheap enough. The only problem is that most of the software I use is Windows based.

I checked into the Toshiba upgrade program, which doesn't appear to require the purchase of a new Toshiba machine, and they will give me a whopping $88 for what I paid over $4000. The hard drive alone is probably worth more than that.

I scribbled this @ 14:54

Monday, December 26, 2005

Five Weeks And No Word - CompUSA has had the laptop now for five weeks and I haven't heard a word about it so I went back down there on 24Dec05 to get a status report on it. They had a lot of trouble finding it. After a long time they showed up with it (minus the line in cord for the power adapter) saying there is no record of it ever having been brought back to them. The last documentation they have says that I was called to pick up the computer which has a software problem not covered under warranty. That call was made back in October. So the laptop has been sitting there for another month and nothing has been done to it. This after the service manager watched it fail the memory test and said it needed to go in for repair and after a technician made extensive notes about the problem.

I ran the memory diagnostic for the a new technician who agreed that there was a hardware problem with the machine and didn't understand why it hadn't been repaired before. She said she would leave it on the service manager's desk for Tuesday morning with a note explaining everything.

Today 26Dec05, I got a voicemail from CompUSA saying they were trying to facilitate the repair of the machine but didn't have any idea what was wrong with it.

I scribbled this @ 19:54

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Blog Template - I just looked at what you see and realized there is more missing from the blog than just the archive. It looks like I need to select a new blog template. This is likely to get ugly - or uglier - for a while.

I scribbled this @ 23:43

three weeks and no word - compusa has now had the tablet for three weeks. Assuming they got working on it right away, and sent it out for repair right away, that probably means another major repair like another new system board. If it had been a simple bad memory chip I should have had it back within a week.

I scribbled this @ 23:25

Friday, November 25, 2005

Back in the shop, so what's new - It has been a while since I updated the blog. The computer come back from the shop last January but now I can't remember what they did to it other than reformatting the hard drive.

From CompUSA I went right down to the library to get on their broadband and start doing Windows Updates. It started blue screening right away. I took it back to CompUSA who asked what I had done and said that because I had written to the hard drive they were not responsible for any problems unless they were hardware related. That means that since I can't prove it is a hardware problem if I give it to them for repair they are going to reformat the hard drive again because the OS is corrupted and I am going to have to pay for it. Their suggestion was to reinstall the OS myself. I don't know where the disks are to reinstall the OS so since January it has been a $3,000 paperweight.

Early this month I was playing solitaire on it, about the only thing I can do with it, and noticed when it boots up there is a POST error message saying

Media Failure: Check Cable

There are no cables on the machine other than the poser supply so this says to me that there is a hardware problem somewhere so back I go to CompUSA.

I happened to have hit them at a good time I was told because they didn't have a backlog and I did get the computer back quicker than the usual three weeks. This time they replaced the hard drive. I took it home and it had blue screened three times within two hours of starting to perform Windows Updates.

I was talking to one of my friends that I used to work in help desk with and was telling him about it and my feeling that something had gotten fried when I was having fan problems: memory chips, the CPU or maybe the motherboard. He suggested that I run a memory tester on it and gave me the link to download the Microsoft Memory Diagnostic.

This is a program that you put either on a floppy or a CD and boot from that. It loads DOS and begins to run tests on the memory. It has six different test that it runs but it says that if it passes the first it will probably pass them all and if it is going to fail it will probably fail on the first of the tests and al subsequent ones. It will keep iterating through the test sequence until you stop it with a menu command.

I loaded it up and it started finding memory errors almost immediately. The report says it found over 900 errors while running the tests. I don't know if that is 900+ places where there is a problem with the memory or if it is 900+ / 6 tests, but that is a lot of problems to my mind. There is an option to see where the problems are so I selected that and it says it can't isolate the problem to one of the chips and it might actually not be a chip at all but the system board.

Back to CompUSA again. This time I take the test and run it for the technician to prove that it is a hardware problem. He asks how many times I have had the machine repaired and says that if they repair it again it is just going to die again so I should go over to the laptop section and talk to a sales manager and explain the problem and ask for a replacement machine which I am entitled to under the terms of the warranty.

I go over there and after a long wait finally find the manager who listens to me and tells me that we need to go back over to service because they have to write it up and make a recommendation that the machine be replaced. When we get there he takes the technician in the back and after a long time comes back and tells me they will take care of me. Then the technician comes out and does everything he can to keep from talking to me. He spends time flirting with customers other technicians are working with and takes care of people who have arrived after the sales manager has talked to him. It is obvious to me that the sales manager has told him he has screwed up and there is no way they are giving me a new machine. Finally it is slow and he is finished with someone and I ask him directly if we can please finish up my machine. He fiddles around and finally tells me that I need to call the 800 number and request a replacement machine because it needs to be approved by the service manager and he isn't there today. I tell him I want to put it in for repairs since I don't think they are going to give me an new machine and I will call and they can do whatever they need to do. It takes a long while but I get a receipt and ask if it specifies that the machine is failing the memory test and am told that he will go into the record and make the update.

That was on Saturday. I didn't call CompUSA when I got home. I did get on the web and found all kinds of horror stories about CompUSA extended service warranties and extended service warranties in general. I never buy them when I buy hardware. I always figure whatever I am covering will be obsolete before it breaks and that is usually the case. Usually if something is going to go wrong it does it right away or at least within the manufacturer's 1-year warranty period. The only reason I bought the warrant on this machine was because I thought the screen would be more vulnerable than or a conventional laptop and the warranty is supposed to cover one screen replacement.

What I am reading about the CompUSA warranty says that they will replace the machine if you hold their feet to the fire. But they pro-rate the value of the machine and subtract the value of all repairs they have made to the machine in the past. That isn't the hype they give you when they are trying to coerce you into buying this expensive but necessary option.

On Monday I got a message saying my machine was ready to be picked up. They had looked at it and determined that it was a software problem so not covered under warranty. They would be happy to repair the machine at a cost of $150 and were awaiting my authorization and credit card number.

Back to CompUSA I go with my empty computer bag and the floppy drive and disk containing the diagnostic software. The technician who dealt with me the last time won't even talk to me this time. There is another guy standing there who is complaining to the sales associate he is flirting with that Windows machines always end up having software problems when they are brought in but Macs rarely need repair but on those rare occasions it is always a hardware problem. Eventually he gets the word that he has to deal with me.

He is a nice guy and listens to what I have to say. He tells me who took my machine in based on what I have told him and there is an unstated understanding that that guy works the front because he doesn't know anything about machines. I run the diagnostic again. He calls the service manager and tells him the machine was supposed to come back to me because it was a software problem but the diagnostic is showing a hardware problem. The sales manager says to take the machine back and put it in for repair. The technician tells me that what has happened is unacceptable, that I should write to CompUSA, The Attorney General, the Better Business Bureau and the media to be sure that I get the service I have paid for. He says that he will get the machine to their best Windows technician and keep an eye on it to be sure that it doesn't come back to me until it is working properly.

That was two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything about the machine since. I hope that means they now agree that there is a hardware problem and it has been sent out for repair. I am not confident that the repair shop they send it to is competent to find the problem and make the repair though. They have had the machine twice before and haven't been able to fix it. When they had it for the out of box failure of the PCMCIA slot they replaced the system board but said it hadn't corrected the problem although it had. And every time they get hold of it the break parts off of it and scratch it up.

I don't know if Toshiba made a lemon when they made my machine, it is a distinct possibility, or if the repair facility doesn't know how to fix the machine and is causing more problems, actually I do know that they don't know what they are doing and this is a Toshiba authorized facility that Toshiba told me to take it to that CompUSA is also using. I just hope someone gets lucky or has an aha moment and it gets fixed right this time.

I scribbled this @ 09:20

Friday, January 21, 2005

Two Weeks With No Tablet - The tablet went into the shop two weeks ago today and no word on it yet. It worked long enough for me to burn DVDs of most of the data I could find on it. I am sure there is stuff buried by some of the programs I use that is in places I haven't even heard of.

At the end the crashes were coming more frequently until it would crash as soon as Windows loaded then during POST before Windows started loading. I think it is a heat related problem. It seemed like it was fine until I asked the CPU to do something then when, it started generating more heat, it would fail. It is like there is a broken trace on a circuit board somewhere that is fine until it heats up then it spreads apart at the break and fails to pass electricity. Maybe their failure, in my opinion, to remedy the fan problem the last time it was serviced has resulted in a failure of the CPU or some other component(s).

I am anticipating that it will come back with a new system board again and I won't at all be surprised if the hard drive has been replaced. The extended warranty from CompUSA is a repair or replace warranty covering everything including willful damage so I should be OK. But I am sure there is more than one loophole in the warranty so they can walk away from it Scott free.

I scribbled this @ 02:53

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Dead Again - The Tablet died last night. It has been locking up while I browse the internet and I thought the problem might be Firefox since it seemed to happen when I was scrolling a web page. The DUN lights would both light up and the system would not respond to the mouse or keyboard or to the Tablet Ctrl+Alt+Del button. The only thing that works when that happens is the power button. That is what happened last night although I wasn't surfing at the time.

I held the power button for 5 seconds and the machine shut down, Then I turned it on and it blue screened right away. There was a message about contacting your tech support department if this isn't the first time you have received this error. It isn't the first time I have seen the blue screen but it is the first time for that particular error (PSF_LIST or something like that has a problem), and I am my tech support department, so I went with the other option which is to reboot.

On reboot I got the screen asking if I wanted to go to Safe Mode, to DOS, or continue the boot sequence. I have always felt it was better to go to Safe Mode when given this option so that Windows has an opportunity to heal itself. It started and seemed to be running OK so I rebooted to get everything up and running.

This time Windows failed to start saying that the NT Kernel was corrupt and needed to be reinstalled. I shut down and tried to restart several times with the same result.

Obviously I have no idea where my Windows distribution CDs are to help me recover from this. Neither do I have a backup of my data.

This morning I saw the business Tablet PC, which is the same make and model as mine, sitting there and wondered if I could copy the file from the working machine to a floppy disk then to the hard drive of the dead machine. I booted the dead machine to get the name of the file and it booted normally. It even rebooted normally. I don't really trust it tough. So today I am burning all my important data to DVDs

I scribbled this @ 13:53

Sunday, October 24, 2004

I don't know if this is a Toshiba hardware problem or a Windows OS problem. I think it is probably the former. I have two Toshiba Protege 3500 series computers here and on both of them there is a section of the screen that occasionally goes dead to the stylus. It seems like it is always in the upper half of the screen when it is in the portrait orientation with the hinge to the right. If I go into then notes application and draw vertical lines down the pate they will stop drawing under the pen for about an inch then resume again lower on the page. You can't select any directory items or press any buttons with the stylus in that area. I was about to rotate the screen on the other tablet to test it in other orientations and see if the same part of the screen is dead no matter what you care calling the bottom of the screen but had that tablet laying on the bed screen down (to keep the vents from being blocked) while I was writing this post and when I picked it up it was working fine. This is a transient problem which I have sometimes cured by rebooting the machine. But when I need to be making notes I don't have eons to waste while my system reboots.

I scribbled this @ 13:24

Saturday, August 14, 2004

The laptop is back but nothing has changed.

I got a call from CompUSA about two weeks after I had taken it in saying they needed the password for the machine so they could begin to diagnose the problem. Two days later I got another call saying the machine was ready to be picked up. I knew right away I didn't have a new fan.

when I picked it up the service ticket indicated that the only thing that had been done to it was the cooling system had been cleaned. But there was a hard drive with it that CompUSA assures me is mine. They don't know why it was replaced or how it relates to the problem with the fan, but they are sure that the operating system has been transferred to the new drive. I had a real bad feeling about all this.

When I got the unit home and fired it up everything looked and sounded like it did when I had given it to them. Windows boots and all of my data appears to be on the hard drive. As soon as the CPU heats up and the fan kicks into high speed you can hear the blades hitting something.

The machine was sent out to the people who replaced the system board when it was new. These are the people who weren't able to determine that the repair they made had fixed the problem I was having with the machine and who damaged it in the process of performing the work. You will remember that they had to replace the case of the unit because they found a crack in it (it is titanium) that wasn't there when I gave it to them. I suspect that mine was the first Toshiba Tablet PC they had seen and they crushed the fan and cracked the case while trying to put it all back together.

For the time being I am killing SETI@home when I boot windows. That is the application that is causing the CPU to run at 100% all of the time which kicks the fan into high speed. At some point it needs to go back to CompUSA and be sent off for repair again.

I put the hard drive they gave me into a USB shell and tried to access it but Windows says it is defective. I may try to low level format it and see if I can salvage it. But if it has already failed once I don't think I should trust it. I am still not convinced it is my drive since the OS and all of my data and tweaks appear to be intact. But the repair bill (I didn't pay anything since it is under warranty) was nearly $300 and it certainly shouldn't cost that much to spray some air on a fan so maybe it was.

I scribbled this @ 15:35

Monday, July 05, 2004

This is another Toshiba post rather than a Tablet PC post.

The tablet is back in the shop. The fan has been going bad for a while. When it runs at full speed I can hear a fan blade hitting something. And it runs at full power any time the unit is plugged into AC power. It had gotten to the point where I could not take it to meetings without people asking what the noise was. Someone even put me on speakerphone so they didn't have the clicking right in their ear.

I got around to taking it in a couple of weeks after the Toshiba warranty had expired so had to deal with CompUSA which was a very unsatisfactory experience. It should not take an hour to get to talk to a technician just to turn the computer in for repair. The sign says they are a factory authorized service center for Toshiba but what that really means is they take the unit and ship it somewhere to be repaired. The minimum repair time is two weeks and there is no estimate of when I can expect to see it back. Someone else was there with a Mac that they had had repaired through that store and said their machine was gone for a month and the problem was not resolved. Given that Toshiba had to replace the whole system board to install a new PCMCIA slot the last time it was repaired I figure that is what will happen this time too. I am probably getting refurbished parts which may be why the fan went bad so quickly to begin with.

I scribbled this @ 13:31

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

My fan is gonna die. I can hear and even feel the fan blades hitting against something. It happens worst when the machine gets hot. I have been afraid that I wouldn't be able to use it at the library or on an airplane (not that I fly all that often) because of all the noise it can make. People have commented on it at several meetings I have been attending and the environment hasn't always been quiet at the venue. The machine needs to go back into the shop for a new fan or more likely a new system board (before the warranty expires) but I need it for a conference I will be attending on the left coast at the end of the month.

I scribbled this @ 22:12

Saturday, November 15, 2003

I have red spots on the top of my right thigh where my Tablet PC has been burning me. So I have done a little testing to see how hot it gets. First I used an IR thermometer to measure the temperature of the bottom of the Tablet.

I let it run for a half-hour with SETI, which runs the CPU at 100% utilization, running laying keyboard down on a table. I found that the maximum temperature was 109 degrees F in the area of the cooling fan. So I started putting an old metal hot plate from the stove on my lap and setting the laptop on it. It is thin and has a corrugated cardboard core and an asbestos (I think) sheet on the bottom. It still burned my legs. Even placing it on an aluminum clipboard that has nearly an inch of air inside of it is uncomfortable.

So I got to wondering if it gets hotter when it is sitting on something than when it is upside down and free to radiate heat and take in cool air, as when I measured it the first time. First I measured the temperature of the air being exhausted by the fan while the laptop was sitting in a flat level surface. It was up to 123 degrees F. And when I measured the bottom surface of the Tablet in the area near the fan the temperature peaked at 121 degrees F.

That is the temperature when the computer is being used in the approved manner. Think of what would happen to the temperature if the Tablet were placed on your lap where the feet don't cause it to stand off from the surface and your clothing obstructs some of the air intake vents. Or worse yet, if you laid it on a bed where the blankets and sheets let it sink into the surface and completely obstructed air flow through the machine and possible from the exhaust fan (if it was able to suck any air in to exhaust).

I scribbled this @ 09:10

Wednesday, October 08, 2003

They Got It Backwards - I am sitting here listening to the fans on my computers. The tablet PC sounds different today. Kind of like it is laboring. It isn't a smooth sound. It kind of reminds me of the sound my desktop computer made when the power supply got clogged with dust. So I turned the Toshiba over to look at its fan. It has a grill over the fan that has small slits that the air has to go through. Maybe they are part of the heat transfer mechanism. Bit there isn't a lot of space between them. And at various places over the bottom of the laptop there are air intake holes that don't have any screens or grills. The bottom of the laptop has little rubber feet on it that support it maybe an eighth of an inch off of the table. So any dust on the table can get sucked through all these sizeable holes but then has to get expelled through the fan grill. If it is something like a small dust ball or piece of hair it probably won't go through the grill but will start forming a debris dam on the inside of the grill. This will restrict airflow across the CPU and could result in it overheating just like would happen if you obstructed the air intakes by placing the computer on a soft surface.

I scribbled this @ 10:08

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

We Got Your Money, But Your Battery May Not Work – I finally broke down and bought a spare battery for the Tablet. I only get 2.25 hours on a fully charged battery and would like to be able to make notes at at least a half-day conference. These things only fit the Toshiba Tablet PC so nobody is making cheap ones. They go for nearly $150 but you might find them in the $140s on the Internet. Before I cut into it to open the box I decided to read the sticker that seals it and it basically says you are on your own now that we have your $150.
“TOSHIBA DOES NOT WARRANTY THAT OPERATION OF THIS PRODUCT WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE. You must read and follow all setup and usage instructions in the provided manuals and A Guide to Using Toshiba Product. If you fail to do so this product will not function properly and you may loose data or suffer other damage. EVEN IF YOU DO SO, TOSHIBA MAKES NO GARUNTEE OR WARRANTY THAT THE PRODUCT WILL FUNCTION PROPERLY IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. YOU AGREE THAT TOSHIBA SHALL HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR DAMAGE TO OR LOSS OF ANY BUSINESS PROFITS, PROGRAMS, DATA OR REMOVEABLE STORAGE MEDIA ARISING OUT OF OR RESULTING FROM THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PRODUCT/OR THE PROVIDED WRITTEN MATERIALS EVEN IF TOSHIBA HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY SUCH DEFECT OR DAMAGE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS CONDITION, RETURN THE UNOPENED BOX AND ALL OTHER COMPONENTS OF THIS PRODUCT TO THE PLACE OF PURCHASE AND YOUR MONEY WILL BE REFUNDED.”
So we are selling you this very expensive computer that is designed so that you can walk around with it without dragging wires everywhere, but it may not work on the very expensive battery we designed for it.

Well I broke the seal and fished out the instruction manual. It is full of all kinds of warnings and advisories about what you shouldn’t do. Like don’t get it hot, but the bottom of my computer is inherently hot. And “always confirm that the temperature is 5-32 before you charge the battery,” which must mean degrees C since it is in the instructions for GB, there are none for USA. But no practical information like how long you should charge the battery before it is ready for use; what is the rechatge time when the computer is turned off and when it is in use; how many times can you expect to be able cycle the battery before ir fails.

I scribbled this @ 21:58

Wear and Tear - I am sitting here in the library with lots of light shining on the keyboard and see that some of my keys are very shiny while others have a matte finish. They were all matte finished when I got the laptop back in May, not even five months ago, and I don't think I over-use this machine but I have sure polished the most used keys. Hopefully I won’t wear the letters off them because I am not a touch typist. The polished keys in order of decreasing amount of polish are Space, T, A, N, E, R, and O. Also, the paint has worn completely off the back left corner of the base. I find that a little surprising because when I transport it in my neoprene computer case that corner is up and when I put the neoprene case in my backpack I put it in vertically with that end up so that I don't break off the plastic flaps that cover the RJ11, RJ45 or DB15 jacks.

I scribbled this @ 15:27

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Screen Savers - I found a nice screen saver that I wanted to use. Not because I particularly needed it, but I liked the technology and it looked good. So I downloaded it and copied the file tu c:\windows\systen32 and went to the properties of the desktop and told it to use that screen saver. And my system hung up. So I tested it with several of the Windows screen savers that ship with Win XP and they hung up too. One time I got an errormessage saying there was a problem with Direct 3D and I got several messages that the screen savers had crashed and windows wanted to send an error message back to Microsoft. Like they really care that I found a problem with their neo-Beta software. I checked with a geek friend and we are of the opinion that the CPUs Microsoft speced out as the minimum required for Tablet PC support are not fast enough to run a screen saver, particularly a 3D one. He also pointed out that 3D generates a lot of heat in the video card and you probably don't want to do that on a laptop because the things run so hot anyway. So I am back to running my system without a screen saver. That isn't a problem since monitors don't burn an image into the phosphors anymore and laptop displays are less likely to do that than a CRT. So screen savers no longer save the screen, some of them just look cool and waste your battery when you are not actively using the system.

I scribbled this @ 17:38

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Journal -- Windows Journal is a little bit strange. It almost seems to me like Microsoft bought up somebody at the last minute and didn’t have time to fully integrate the software into the operating system before they had to release it. When you open Journal it comes up with a blank journal. If you then do a File > Open you get a window at the top of the journal page that shows you in your own handwriting what you called each journal. It is a form of Explorer but has a graphical component built in and it looks very different. Once you find the journal you are looking for it doesn’t open in the empty journal that first opened but comes up in an entirely new instance of the program. Every new journal opened opens a new instance, like opening multiple Internet Explorer windows on different sites. I am more used to the Microsoft Word approach where multiple documents are opened in different windows within one instance of the program. My initial thought was that this might be safer since you loose everything if Word crashes. But my experience with Internet Explorer is that if one instance of the program freezes and you have to End Task on it all instances of IE will be closed. It looks like my initial reaction was right because I just tested it and if I kill any of multiple instances of Journal the others are fine. It should be noted that none of those instances had hung and that might make a difference.

I scribbled this @ 16:46

Saturday, August 09, 2003

Tablet PC Reference Books -- When I was an the verge of buying a Tablet PC I went out looking for books about it. I found two at the time, there are likely more available now. I consider them reference books so haven’t read them. When I have a problem I will use them to help me sort it out.

How to do Everything with your Tablet PC
Bill Mann
© 2003
McGraw-Hill/Osborne
ISBN 0-07-222771-0
$24.99

Tablet PC Quick Reference
Jeff Van West
© 2003
Microsoft Press
ISBN 0-7356-1863-1
$19.99

These computers usually don’t come with a whole lot of information about the operating system. And as sure as you need to do something the computer will be in such a condition that you can’t access the online help system. So it is probably also a good idea to have a reference book on the Windows XP Professional operating system although the two books listed above will cover some of what you need to know. The following book is a no nonsense approach to fixing things quickly. It is written for network administrators and help desk personnel who don’t have a lot of time for research when things aren’t working so it is more of a cookbook approach to solving the problem than a theory behind why the problem occurred. (It is called a pocket consultant but that only applies if you always wear cargo pants.)

Microsoft Windows XP Professional Administrator’s Pocket Consultant
William R Stanek
© 2001
Microsoft Press
ISBN 0-7356-1381-8
$29.99

I scribbled this @ 23:51

Handwriting Recognition -- The handwriting recognition does a remarkably good job of figuring out what most people have scribbled (any time someone gets a new toy we pass it around at the Pocket PC meeting). After it converts the handwriting to text it checks the words against a dictionary and if it doesn’t find one it substitutes the closest match for how it interpreted your chicken scratch. Then it shows you what it thinks you meant with any words it can’t convert highlighted so you can concur with its decision or make any changes that are appropriate. This process doesn't take that long at all. It is the only way there is to edit the dictionary. I have searched various places and have not been able to find anything that looks to me like a dictionary file. I suspect that it is encrypted, probably so that there can be after market dictionaries created for you to buy. Microsoft doesn’t do anything without a profit motive. Anyway, if you like the word that was there you can add it to the dictionary and the next time you scribble it is should be recognized. It has a terrible time with HTML tags so I might add them to the dictionary. But I am worried that if I add a lot of partial words to the dictionary I might confuse it when it can’t understand my handwriting and find some HTML when I am writing real words. So far I haven’t done much handwriting to text conversion so haven’t added any words to the dictionary.

I scribbled this @ 23:21

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

Windows Journal -- is an application bundled with the Tablet PC that allows you to write on the screen just as you would a sheet of paper. You can write words, draw diagrams, or embed documents from other Microsoft programs (maybe others, I haven’t tested that yet).

The journal is infinite in length adding more pages to the document as you fill them up. You can use the default template for the journal or you can modify one of theirs as I have done, or you can create your own.

You can leave the document in your own handwriting or let Journal convert it to text. That is what I tested this morning. Usually I leave my journals in my own handwriting since they have been notes to myself. But if I were taking notes of a meeting that I wanted to share with others I would probably convert them to text.

Journal is handy because it can sort your notes by date. So if you know you tool a note on a certain date but don’t remember the name of the file you can see all of the Journal entries made on that day. There is also a thumbnail viewer built into Explorer so you see what the first page of the Journal entry looks like when you browse to it.

Journal only saves documents in its native format. You can send a document to someone and they can use a viewer to look at it. You can also export the file as either a TIFF or a MHT (MHTML) document. For this morning’s test I have done all three. I created a Journal and had it convert some of the text so you can see how that works. I should say that when it did the conversion and found things that it didn’t understand it offered me the opportunity to either accept what it thought I meant or to correct it. I opted to accept what it thought so you could see what it did.

I saved the file in its native format so that you can look at it using the viewer (only works on Windows 2000 and Windows XP machines). This should be essentially the same view you get in the web page.

NativeJNT format.

Free Windows Journal Viewer.

Then I exported it as a TIFF. The TIFF is a black and white image of the file and somehow has all the pages included in one file so I am not sure what will happen when it is called up in a web browser but we will find out. This is a big file so if you have a dialup connection it will take a little bit for it to download.

Exported as a TIFF graphic.
(the word TIFF above is really a hyperlink but it sometimes doesn't get underlined in this bloffer)

Lastly I saved it as a MHT file. This creates a web page containing all four pages of the document. Embedded in the file are three JPEG images that are listed in the file as strings of numbers and letters like you have seen if you have ever opened an image in notepad. So right now I don’t know how you get the individual JPEG images out of the MHT document. I don’t know either how the MHT document will display over the web but we will find that out also. This is a really big file so go get coffee if you have a dialup connection. Those of you with broadband connections should be fine. It is impressive when it gets there though.

Exported as a Web page.
(the words Web page above are really a link but they sometimes don't appear underlinend like other links in this blog)

I scribbled this @ 05:36

Saturday, August 02, 2003

The Screen -- I have always had trouble keeping my fingers off the screen when I am trying to scroll down through a long table in a web page where you loose the column headers as you scroll. So now I have this machine where you are supposed to touch the screen and I have trouble doing that.

I don’t know what kind of glass they use to cover the screen of the Tablet PC but it is remarkably resistant to scratches. They even recommend that you put your palm on the screen when you are writing. This serves two purposes. First it allows you to lift the stylus off the screen to move the cursor without selecting an entire page or otherwise interacting with it. And Secondly, it makes it easier for you to write and therefore for the handwriting recognition to have a higher hit rate.

The screen cleans up easily too. It doesn’t seem to show fingerprints and when you do get them they wipe off easily with any dry cloth. I got a special computer screen cleaning cloth from 3M but given the scratch resistance of the screen I think you could clean it with any soft fabric. I haven’t had to resort to using any kind of liquid on it yet.

I scribbled this @ 17:43

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Stylus Types -- There are two basic technologies used in handwriting digitizers. You can go to http://www.finepointinnovations.com/abcs.htm for an excellent review of them. I will give you the executive summary here.

Passive Digitizers don’t have any electronics in the stylus. The location of the stylus is determined when it makes contact with the screen and compresses two layers of conductive material in the screen effectively creating a short. The computer uses voltage detected by nearby sensors to determine the location where the stylus touched the screen. This is the technology used in PDAs. This technology creates only an on/off state that can be detected. Either the pen is in contact with the screen closing the circuit or it is not and the circuit is open. So you can’t do subtle things like create mouseover buttons and can’t move the cursor without touching (clicking) the screen. Because all the smarts are contained in the computer you can write with virtually anything that is pointy enough to create a discrete point and stiff enough to compress the screen layers. But it is slow and not very precise.

Active Digitizers, the kind used with the Tablet PC, have part of their magic in the stylus and part of it in the screen. The two devices talk to each other. So the PC can track the location of the stylus without it being in contact with the screen. The cursor can be moved without clicking, and if it is moved over a button the state of the button can be changed before it is clicked like the way a link is often changed in a web page when you hover over it. You can also do things like change the width of the line based on the pressure exerted by the stylus or create an eraser on the stylus. This type of input device is much more accurate and faster, but if you loose the stylus you can’t input anything.

Tablet PCs differentiate the Active Digitizer technology further by employing either powered or non-powered styluses. The non-powered (passive pen) Penabled system from Wacom seems to have the lion’s share of the market for Active Digitizer technology bundled with Tablet PC. This is both good and bad for users. If you loose a stylus it should be easier to get a replacement since any Penabled stylus will work with any PC based on the Penabled technology, and there will probably be some after-market styluses available once the Tablet PC user base reaches critical mass. On the down side, there is less impetus to improve the technology. A few manufacturers (HP/Compaq for one) have opted for battery powered (active pen) styluses based on the Finepoint digitizer system. These styluses are generally chunkier and heavier than their non-powered counterparts. (I don’t have a powered stylus so can’t answer questions like whether the battery is rechargeable, how long it lasts, and if it is user replaceable.) Finepoint systems have a marginal advantage over non-powered pens in the battery life area since they don’t rely on the system battery. But Penabled systems have a big advantage if you are not going to convert your handwritten notes to text since they respond to 256 levels of pressure to vary line width and allow you to be more expressive or artistic.

TIP When writing with a stylus on a Tablet PC the important thing is not where the tip of the stylus is on the screen, but where the point of the cursor is on the screen.

I scribbled this @ 15:59

Friday, July 25, 2003

It Is Working -- After poking around on the Xircom site and downloading their driver something told me to try to install it one more time before calling Toshiba. So I put the CardBus adapter in the PCMCIA slot and the machine made a mangled sound but it was the sound it normally sues when it has recognized a card. So I opened up Device Manager and there was a Mass Storage Device that that hadn’t been there before. And it had a yellow exclamation point meaning that it was probably having driver problems that I confirmed on getting more details. So I dug out the instructions Targus had sent me on installing the driver from there and gave it a try. It worked on the first attempt. As soon as the driver was installed Windows said it had found new hardware and properly identified the Targus DVD drive. Then it opened an Explorer window showing the contents of the CD-ROM that was in the drive. So then I installed the DVD software Targus supplied with it and listened to part of a music CD and watched The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD. So it looks like the repair place didn’t have enough smarts to perform a manual install or to even to call Targus to find out how to do it. Had I followed the Toshiba's authorized repair place's advice I would be paying to return the drive to Targus again. Needless to say, I don’t have a warm and fuzzy feeling toward Toshiba and their support system right now. Oh yeah, it looks like Targus was right about Toshiba putting defective units on the street.

I scribbled this @ 12:51

Not the First CardBus Issue with Toshiba Laptops -- While I was waiting for some Windows updates to finish this morning I went searching for web pages reporting my problem. I thought Toshiba or Targus might have documented it, but who am I kidding. Telling people that your hot machine has a problem is not going to sell all those machines you have in inventory with the problem. I did find an instruction manual for an old Xircom RealPort CardBus Ethernet 10/100 network adapter that says that Toshiba laptops may not detect the CardBus adapter when it is inserted so it appears that Toshiba may have a history of poorly implementing the CardBus technology. The manual refers the user to a file on the CD-ROM that came with the adapter for instructions on resolving the issue so now I have to try and find a copy of that file and see if it sheads any light on my problem.
See http://www.portable.co.uk/SUPPORT/downloads/Notebook%20Connectivity/Networking/Information/rbe.pdf, page 10

I scribbled this @ 04:13

Thursday, July 24, 2003

Tablet Is Back But It Still Doesn't Work -- I got the Tablet back from the shop today and as so often happens when you have something fixed, it is in worse shape than when it started. The system board was replaced due to the PCMCIA slot not working and it still does not work. It appears that in the disassembly and reassembly process the repair facility broke the cover around the keyboard because that has been replaced due to a crack that did not exist when I delivered the unit to them. This is probably why the unit could not be returned to me when it was supposed to have been. All the stickers have been peeled off the original cover and put on this one and the metal Windows XP sticker is all bent up and miss-aligned. The Toshibe logo on the back of the screen is also bent and will not stick in place properly. This is all cosmetic damage but it is damage that should not occur at a factory authorized repair facility. The system board supplied by Toshiba came without a trap door over the PCMCIA slot and the insert that was in the CF slot is missing. They tell me that the problem is the CardBus card that came with the Targus DVD/CD-ROM and not with the computer itself but I don't buy this. The original card was not detected and Targus shipped me another which they tested before shipment and it would not install. Then they replaced the entire DVD/CD-ROM and it still would not install. And they have had at least two similar cases which have been resolved by having the units repaired by Toshiba. I asked if the technician had tried having the operating system detect any other CardBus adapters to verify that the slot is working but they say they don't have that capability. So now I go back to Toshiba and see what I need to do to get a working latop.

I scribbled this @ 17:10

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Toshiba is in Hospital -- I have been fighting since I got it to install the Targus DVD/CD-ROM that came with my Toshiba Tablet PC. I E-mailed Targus and I phoned them and we finally came to the conclusion that the CardBus adapter that comes with the Targus was bad so they sent me an new one but that didn't change anything. So I had to ship the drive back to them (at my expense) and they shipped me a new one and it still didn't change anything. After the new drive wouldn't install they said that they have had at least two other cases where it would not install on a Protégé 3505 and it ended up being a hardware problem with the PCMCIA slot so I needed to have Toshiba look at it.

I waited until midnight to call Toshiba figuring I would get through to their 24x7 technical support center easier. But after listening to music for 20 minutes I learned that technical support was having some technical issues with their equipment and couldn't provide technical support at the time, try back in a couple of hours. Not what you want to hear on your first call to a new vendor. At 2:00 AM there was a recording saying to try back in an hour. At 3:00 AM I finally got to talk to a technician who had a computer system that was working enough to register my hardware and take down my complaint. After explaining what wasn't happening and what I had already done about it I was placed on hold. When the technician came back on the line he told me that the machine needed to be taken to a repair facility. They didn't even try to do any diagnostics over the phone so I suspect they know they have a problem.

The machine went into a local Toshiba authorized repair facility this afternoon (Thursday). They say that if it needs parts they will not arrive before Monday so I am looking at being without the laptop for about a week. I am stuck working on my desktop computer which is running under Windows ME and has many more issues that the Tablet.

I guess I should document the problem in case anyone is concerned. When the laptop comes back I will follow up with the resolution.

The Targus Noteworthy Slim Line DVD/CD-ROM PC Card Drive for Toshiba Notebooks ships inside the boxed Toshiba Protégé 3505 Tablet PC (it is a separate box inside the Toshiba box) but it is not installed on the computer. It looks like a walkman without any buttons on it and is in a very square case. There is a 16-bit PC Card (PCMCIA card) adapter and a 32-bit CardBus adapter as well as a battery, small installation instruction pamphlet, and two CD-ROMs of software.

To install the drive you first insert the 16-bit PC Card which is detected and its drivers are automatically installed. This is working fine. Then you detach the PC Card and switch to the 32-bit CardBus adapter. When you insert it it is supposed to be automatically detected as new hardware and allow you to install the driver for it that was copied off of the CD-ROM during the installation of the 16-bit PC Card. This is where things are breaking down. The card is not being auto detected. And you can not force the installation with the Add and Remove New Hardware wizard in Control panel. I can see the driver I need to install on my hard drive but the computer can't see the CardBus card so it won't let me install it.

I scribbled this @ 19:59

Friday, July 04, 2003

Types of Tablet PCs -- Tablet PCs come in two basic flavors and one hybrid:

Convertible: has a perminently attached keyboard. The screen rotates 180 degrees and folds back over the keyboard for use in the tablet mode.
Examples: Acer TravelMate; Toshiba Protege 3500 Series
Slate: The slate does not have a keyboard for portable use but it can be attached to a docking station (sometimes an optional extra) for use as a laptop/desktop.
Examples: Electrovaya Scribbler; Fujitsu Stylistic
Hybrid (my term for it): Comes with a keyboard which can be removed so the screen can be used like a slate. This saves weight if you don't think you will need the keyboard wherever you are going.
Examples: Compaq Tablet PC

I scribbled this @ 05:39

Thursday, July 03, 2003

The Toshiba Protégé 3500 is a convertible Laptop/Tablet PC. It has a permanently attached keyboard. The computer opens like a conventional laptop computer with the screen lifting on a hinge at the back of the keyboard. The keyboard is a 100% laptop keyboard (they keys are full size and normally spaced). It has a touch pad mouse, which I find to be overly sensitive.

image of the back of a Toshiba Protege 3500

To convert to the Tablet PC mode the entire screen is rotated clockwise 180 degrees and folded down over the keyboard just like it was before you started only now the screen us on the outside and the back cover is against the keys.

image of an open Toshiba Protege 3500 with the screen partially rotated

image of a Toshiba Protege 3500 in the Tablet mode

To convert back to a Laptop PC you simply raise the screen and rotate it 180 degrees counterclockwise.

A software utility automatically senses which mode you are working in and rotates the screen to the appropriate aspect ratio for that mode. These settings are configurable so that you can either work in the portrait or landscape mode as your default Tablet configuration. You can further configure it so that the hinge, which bulges out about a half-inch in the center of the back of the computer, is on the left, or right in the portrait mode or at the top or bottom in the landscape mode. If you don’t like the default Tablet aspect ratio for a particular task you can change it on the fly using another software utility that instantly rotates the screen 90 degrees either clockwise or counterclockwise.

The stylus is stored in an indentation at the side (top or bottom) of the screen.

I scribbled this @ 18:46

Friday, June 27, 2003

Mouse Tales -- This is a Toshiba issue rather than a Tablet PC issue. The Toshiba Protégé 3500 has a touch pad mouse. It is extremely sensitive. Early on I found myself clicking things I hadn't intended to because I was drumming with my index fingers to the tune of the music I was playing and the touchpad mouse interprets a tap as a click. I figured out what was happening quickly enough and got out of that habit. But I am forever selecting whole web pages. If you just brush the topchpad with a finger it knows it and moves the mouse correspondingly. The other thing that happens is that if you move your finger left quickly it appears to interpret that as a backspace and IE interprets a backspace as a back command and I end ou on the previously viewed web page. I haven't found anything in the Win XP or Toshiba setup that lets you control touchpad sensitivity.

I scribbled this @ 08:49

Thursday, June 26, 2003

headphones graphic accesses file Hot Hot Hot from www.mplsreggae.com

Hot Hot Hot -- My Toshiba Protégé 3505 is a hot machine and I mean that in more ways than one. But the one I feel most is the physical sensation of heat generated by the CPU. I don’t understand why these machines are called laptops when they run too hot to sit them on your lap. Like all laptops, the Toshiba sucks air in through vent holes somewhere in the base of the machine, and expels it after, it has been superheated by passing over the CPU heat sink, from the back of the machine. If you put the laptop on your lap, or any other soft surface like a bed, the vent holes will become obstructed and the machine will overheat. Aside from the obvious danger of burning sensitive skin or possible starting a fire, this could cause damage and premature failure of the CPU and possibly other components. So a laptop computer should really only be used on a firm surface like a desk.

I scribbled this @ 15:36

Sunday, May 18, 2003

The purchase decision -- Lately my laptop has been spending more time on Vacation on service technician's bench at Sony in California than it has spent burning my lap. Each time it has come back to me it has developed a new problem. At $300 a pop I don't think it is worth pouring more money in to a sinking ship. It wouldn't be long before I had as much tied up in repairs as I initially invested in it. So I began to look at Tablet PCs seriously.

I had used a PalmPilot early on and currently have an iPAQ so am familiar with pen-based computing and knew it was a technology I could live with. My trepidation was in investing in a first generation machine knowing that there will be a whole crop of new machines here for Christmas. Everyone said wait; it is too early to adopt the technology; it is too expensive; it is slow; it will get better shortly. But the bottom line was that I heeded a machine now.

So I looked at what was available today and narrowed my decision down to the Compaq or the Toshiba 3500. Everything out there has something good and something bad to be said for/about it. Being a firm believer that you never have enough memory that was my primary concern followed by hard drive capacity. for me the thing that tipped the scales in favor of the Toshiba was native support for CF and SD cards. I use both of them and am looking forward to being able to swap cards between devices without having to find a PC slot adapter.

I made my purchase from CompUSA because I could get an extended warranty and find a store to provide the service in almost every state. Unfortunately, it appears that the only way to get a maxed out system is to order it direct from Toshiba. I have not found systems with 60GB drives, 1GB of RAM or Bluetooth on the street. And most systems have 2x256 memory rather than a single 512 chip.

Anyway I now have a Toshiba 3505 with 768MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a built in 802.1b wireless adapter. And so far I love it.

I scribbled this @ 12:13