Re: Recommend a Tablet for App Dev?

David,

I use a Toshiba M200 for approximately 50% of my total development work. I
use it100% for any work that involves either specific Tablet UI issues or
recognition.

My desktop, which runs a MSDN version of the Tablet OS is used for all other
work. I would convert over completely to the Tablet but I find the keyboard
on the Toshiba not as appealing.

There is an area of Tablet developement, loosely phrased as "keyboardless"
development. This deals with the issue of developing using only a pen. I
believe this has some potential and there is some progress being made, but
it's not quite ready for prime time.

One area that has that untapped potential is ink-enabling web apps. The
latest Tablet SDK has a sample, but I've not seen many implementations, but
I don't get out much either.

Good luck, keep us posted on your effforts. The m.p.w.tabletpc.developer
newsgroup is a good place to get any answers if you get stuck.

Fritz


--
Fritz Switzer
Microsoft MVP Tablet PC
www.abletfactory.com



"davidemile" <> wrote in message
news:zYNje.4596$ ink.net...
> Hello All:
>
> I am going through the books, learning Visual Studio.Net and .ASP. I will
> primarily build web pages use SQL and customize Office apps.
> Anyone actually use a Tablet PC for desktop and/or Tablet PC development?
>
> Thanks
>
> --Dave
>
>

Johnathon,

The discussions that I'm familiar with have been mostly on a couple Tablet
developer blogs, The Buzz and the ms.p.w.tablet.developer newsgroup. It is
a subject that comes and goes.

One very interesting approach that I feel compliments "keyboardless"
programming is made possible by using the visual programming tools available
from Softwire. They have now made their components a free download. IMHO
one of the most interesting opportunities for Tablet developers. I've used
these components extensively in a number of the free tablet downloads
available at the website in my sig.

Hope this helps,

Fritz


--
Fritz Switzer
Microsoft MVP Tablet PC
www.abletfactory.com



"Jonathan Sachs" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Sat, 21 May 2005 18:46:48 -0500, "Fritz Switzer" wrote:
>
>>There is an area of Tablet developement, loosely phrased as "keyboardless"
>>development. This deals with the issue of developing using only a pen. I
>>believe this has some potential and there is some progress being made, but
>>it's not quite ready for prime time.
>
> Slightly OT, but as a former software developer who was sidelined by
> carpal tunnel syndrome, I'm very interested in this topic. Is there
> any place where I can keep up with ongoing developments without having
> to invest a great deal of time in it?
>
> My email address is LLM041103 at earthlink dot net.

Jonathan, you can use Microsoft's own servers - msnews.microsoft.com - for
ALL their newsgroups. It is free, no logon or password required, and
available to anyone with a news reader. Just create a news account,
download the list of newsgroups and you can subscribe to any of the
newsgroups you wish.
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone


"Jonathan Sachs" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Sat, 21 May 2005 22:21:16 -0500, "Fritz Switzer"
> <> wrote:
>
>>The discussions that I'm familiar with have been mostly on a couple Tablet
>>developer blogs, The Buzz and the ms.p.w.tablet.developer newsgroup. It
>>is
>>a subject that comes and goes.
>
> I found The Buzz, but I couldn't find any relevant information when I
> searched it. A search on the words "keyboardless programming"
> (occurring anywhere in the same message) yielded zero hits. A search
> on "keyboardless" alone produced about a page of hits, none of which
> looked relevant. A search on "programming" alone produced two dozen
> pages of hits, but I reviewed the first couple of pages and none of
> them looked relevant.
>
> I assume the newsgroup reference is to
> "microsoft.public.windows.tablet.developer," but my ISP's USENET
> server does not offer such a group. I tried to find it in Google
> Groups and came up empty, but because of their new, supposedly
> improved interface, I can't tell whether I got the name wrong or the
> group doesn't exist at all.
>
> If there are other keywords that would be better for searching The
> Buzz, I hope you can tell me what they are. If not, perhaps another
> source.
>
> I'm familiar with the concept of visual programming. It's valuable for
> its intended purpose, but not for this stuff I'm interested in doing
> -- which mainly involves creating the type of functional blocks that
> visual programmers can move around.
>
> My email address is LLM041103 at earthlink dot net.

One virtually keyboardless development environment for games is
http://gamemaker.nl/. For traditional programming it is a real bother not
to have a keyboard.

"Fritz Switzer" <> wrote in message
news:...
> One very interesting approach that I feel compliments "keyboardless"
> programming is made possible by using the visual programming tools
> available from Softwire. They have now made their components a free
> download. IMHO one of the most interesting opportunities for Tablet
> developers.

You may also want to check the information at the Tablet PC developer web
site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/t...c/default.aspx You may
find information there, or at least leads to the subject.
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone


"Jonathan Sachs" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Sun, 22 May 2005 07:17:48 -0700, "Chris H." <>
> wrote:
>
>>Jonathan, you can use Microsoft's own servers - msnews.microsoft.com - for
>>ALL their newsgroups.
>
> Never mind. It's on my regular server, but it's named
> ...tabletpc.developer, not ...tablet.developer. No messages with
> "keyboardless" in the title, though, as far back as Google Groups goes
> (presumably to the start of the group).
>
> What I really would like is a site that will tell me the _status_ of
> this topic whenever I think to check it. That would probably be two or
> three times a year.
>
> My email address is LLM041103 at earthlink dot net.

Has she had surgery already? I used to do a whole lot of keyboarding, even
had carpal tunnel surgery on my left wrist (years ago). Being right-handed,
the doctors told me that was next. I'm still going without surgery lots of
years later, and honestly believe Tablet PCs with the regular handwriting
and use of the pen have helped my right wrist.
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone


"davidemile" <> wrote in message
news:XP6ke.4946$ ink.net...
> I'm getting some useful information here.
> Thank you all.
>
> My wife also suffers from Carpal Tunnel and I have been looking into
> Projection Keyboards for her. Wish the was more progress and more market
> penetration.
> Here is an example:
> http://www.celluon.com/products/laserkey.htm
>
>

You may find that those arent really what you're going to be looking for.
That's not going to help for carpal tunnel, since your hands still need to
be on top of a surface. and curled to touch the 'imaginary' keys.
A tablet pc, imo, is something to really look into...

-James
PS. I have the first signs of carpal tunnel, and i'm only 20... one of the
main reasons I looked into a tablet. (but i still use the keyboard of mine
alot)

"davidemile" <> wrote in message
news:XP6ke.4946$ ink.net...
> I'm getting some useful information here.
> Thank you all.
>
> My wife also suffers from Carpal Tunnel and I have been looking into
> Projection Keyboards for her. Wish the was more progress and more market
> penetration.
> Here is an example:
> http://www.celluon.com/products/laserkey.htm
>
>

Jonathan Sachs wrote:
> On Sat, 21 May 2005 22:21:16 -0500, "Fritz Switzer"
> <> wrote:
>>The discussions that I'm familiar with have been mostly on a couple Tablet
>>developer blogs, The Buzz and the ms.p.w.tablet.developer newsgroup. It is
>>a subject that comes and goes.
>
> I found The Buzz, but I couldn't find any relevant information when I
> searched it. A search on the words "keyboardless programming"
> (occurring anywhere in the same message) yielded zero hits. A search
> on "keyboardless" alone produced about a page of hits, none of which
> looked relevant.

Not sure but Peter http://www.gemtree.com/peter.htm could be
interesting, it gets somewhat close to visual programming and even
keyboardless programming. But in the end you'll always need some means
to enter text or numerical values that are not already included or
selectable in the IDE. There exist many graffiti, gesture, or "looping"
based "keyboard replacements" that use the PDA stylus or a pen. I'm sure
there are exist a lot for the PC/Windows side, too. But still, using one
pen is simply not as fast as ten fingers, despite bad/ancient QWERTY
layout...

- Jan

Have you downloaded the Dictionary Tool for Tablet PC
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d.../tabletpc.mspx) which
will allow you to add additional terms to the Tablet Input Panel dictionary?
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone


"Jonathan Sachs" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Mon, 23 May 2005 20:38:13 +0300, Jan Wagner <>
> wrote:
>
>>But in the end you'll always need some means
>>to enter text or numerical values that are not already included or
>>selectable in the IDE. There exist many graffiti, gesture, or "looping"
>>based "keyboard replacements" that use the PDA stylus or a pen. I'm sure
>>there are exist a lot for the PC/Windows side, too. But still, using one
>>pen is simply not as fast as ten fingers, despite bad/ancient QWERTY
>>layout...
>
> My perspective on this is rather different, because I no longer can
> use a keyboard for more than a few lines at a time. I was looking
> forward to using a tablet PC for programming, and was disappointed to
> learn that handwriting recognition depends too much on the structure
> of natural language to allow that. Writing and editing code with a pen
> is exactly what I need, and speed is not a consideration; anything is
> faster than a tool that I can't use.
>
> My email address is LLM041103 at earthlink dot net.

So basically, MS needs to send out a bunch of preset dictionaries, just for
certain people... Doctors... Real Estate Agents... Programmers... bar
tenders... I dunno I just threw that last one in there. I liked it.

-James

"Jonathan Sachs" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Mon, 23 May 2005 19:44:20 -0700, "Chris H." <>
> wrote:
>
>>Have you downloaded the Dictionary Tool for Tablet PC
>>(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d.../tabletpc.mspx)
>>which
>>will allow you to add additional terms to the Tablet Input Panel
>>dictionary?
>
> That would be idle, since I do not have a tablet PC yet!
>
> At the beginning of June I am shifting my work schedule from 1/2 to
> 1/3 time while I prepare to take the patent bar exam. For the next
> couple of months my problem will be how to pay for rice and beans, not
> computer hardware. I hope that my financial situation will improve
> after that, enabling me to buy a tablet.
>
> In any case, I do not think that a tool that lets me add additional
> terms to the dictionary would be very useful in this context. Most of
> the "words" that give the recognizer grief will be variable and method
> names, which change constantly. A vocabulary-sensitive tool is
> probably the right way to go, but it will need to understand the
> programming language I am using and update the dictionary dynamically
> according to the object names that are defined in the current scope. I
> don't know anything about the dictionary's architecture, but it might
> not accommodate this type of use at all, making it necessary to
> replace the dictionary code. Whatever, it will be a big, complex
> project, and I can only hope that somewhere, somebody who understands
> the problem and the environment is working on it.
>
> My email address is LLM041103 at earthlink dot net.