tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54062272011-07-30T10:29:52.531-04:00Tablet Scribbles Writings about the Tablet PC, mostly from a Tabet PC. Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comBlogger321100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-6387766287574147222008-10-31T15:48:00.002-04:002008-10-31T15:50:16.408-04:00My 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.Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-48064674699781935162007-01-31T14:54:00.000-05:002007-01-31T15:05:46.654-05:00I 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1135645470958621542005-12-26T19:54:00.000-05:002005-12-26T20:04:30.970-05:00Five 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1133671590032328852005-12-03T23:43:00.000-05:002005-12-03T23:46:30.033-05:00Blog 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.Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1133670513902574862005-12-03T23:25:00.000-05:002005-12-03T23:30:35.970-05:00three 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.Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1132931662067767332005-11-25T09:20:00.000-05:002005-11-25T10:16:52.336-05:00Back 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1106294831326377602005-01-21T02:53:00.000-05:002005-01-21T03:07:11.326-05:00Two 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1104606574492354232005-01-01T13:53:00.000-05:002005-01-01T14:11:02.636-05:00Dead 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1098635651999825552004-10-24T13:24:00.000-04:002004-10-24T12:34:12.000-04:00I 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 goCharliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1092513191586924322004-08-14T15:35:00.000-04:002004-08-14T15:53:11.586-04:00The 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1089049303448063272004-07-05T13:31:00.000-04:002004-07-05T13:41:43.446-04:00This 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 putCharliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1081995170983955532004-04-14T22:12:00.000-04:002004-04-14T22:21:28.826-04:00My 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1068905435944580352003-11-15T09:10:00.000-05:002004-04-14T22:11:45.030-04:00I 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1065622083042496442003-10-08T10:08:00.000-04:002003-10-08T10:08:03.080-04:00They 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1065059913795900272003-10-01T21:58:00.000-04:002003-10-01T22:03:00.493-04:00We 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. Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1065036423055504012003-10-01T15:27:00.000-04:002003-10-01T16:31:49.980-04:00Wear 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1062020335387131552003-08-27T17:38:00.000-04:002003-08-27T17:38:55.440-04:00Screen 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1061498810173744302003-08-21T16:46:00.000-04:002003-08-21T16:50:34.713-04:00Journal -- 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1060487464868877232003-08-09T23:51:00.000-04:002003-08-27T17:43:07.980-04:00Tablet 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
Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1060485686054505822003-08-09T23:21:00.000-04:002003-08-09T23:23:31.020-04:00Handwriting 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. Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1060076173185825862003-08-05T05:36:00.001-04:002009-06-29T15:32:56.819-04:00Windows 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1059860615606956142003-08-02T17:43:00.000-04:002003-08-02T17:43:35.520-04:00The 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1059595182191961032003-07-30T15:59:00.000-04:002003-07-30T16:06:52.540-04:00Stylus 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1059151868679639192003-07-25T12:51:00.000-04:002003-07-25T12:58:46.413-04:00It 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’Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1059120825750459992003-07-25T04:13:00.000-04:002003-07-25T04:13:45.813-04:00Not 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1059081032193739442003-07-24T17:10:00.000-04:002003-07-25T03:49:17.163-04:00Tablet 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1058486347534326842003-07-17T19:59:00.000-04:002003-07-17T20:11:41.593-04:00Toshiba 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1057311565813285162003-07-04T05:39:00.000-04:002003-07-04T06:45:14.590-04:00Types 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
SlateThe slate does not have a keyboard for portable use but it can be attached to a docking station (sometimes an optional Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1057272374138526002003-07-03T18:46:00.001-04:002009-06-29T15:30:31.171-04:00The 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.To convert to the Tablet PC Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1056718192925022952003-06-27T08:49:00.000-04:002003-07-18T11:02:12.580-04:00Mouse 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1056656194532723272003-06-26T15:36:00.001-04:002009-06-29T15:29:13.805-04:00Hot 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5406227.post-1053274385572107902003-05-18T12:13:00.000-04:002003-08-10T00:11:04.253-04:00The 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 Charliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12620812993968755530noreply@blogger.com