Almost 6 months later

Well, after the M-CAT, finals, summer break, and the beginning of school, I remembered I had a website somewhere that talked about my experiences with my Tablet. I'm currently having a love-hate relationship with it. I really wish that my tablet were more reliable. It's about a year and a half old, and I've vowed never to buy an off brand tablet again. My next tablet will be a slate. I will never install another HP printer again.

My Averatec tends to overheat. So much so that I bought a chill mat. Now all of the problems with it locking up have gone away, as long as I continually use the chill mat. Aparently, it was overheating continually. I installed some software that I thought would let me draw houseplans, but instead it just made my computer reboot every time I performed a specific command. I uninstalled that software quickly. Now I know all of the ins and outs of the tablet and exactly how finicky mine is, it's really just a bother to use it. It's not as simple as it could be - there are lots of hoops to jump through to keep it functioning properly (using the chill mat, not letting it auto-hibernate, and a few more annoying things like that).

I also love it. I keep my cords with me and have worked out a system of charging my computer so my battery will last through my classes. I take notes on my powerpoint slides in Microbiology, I take notes in OneNote for Abnormal Psychology and Human Physiology. My Spanish class is hopeless, I just try to listen and then read the book. I use the flashcards powertoy for my Clinical Terminology class. It's the best studying tool a student could have -- especially when I hook it up to my external monitor. I feel really comfortable with the technology. It's the actual computer that I have so many gripes about.

I can't wait to apply and start attending Physician Assistant's school -- I'm planning on having a desktop for my pictures, music, e-mail, and internet and using a slate for school (the syncing functionality of OneNote 2007 should be wonderful for having 2 computers).

I don't think tablet functionality is for everyone, however it is most definitely my favorite piece of technology.

Nerdiness

I continually feel like such a nerd when I tell people I have a blog about TPC's. I am not computer savvy, I continually am reminded at how little about these machines that I know. For instance, I went to a workshop today on Powerpoint, hosted by MSU's Center for Teaching and Learning Technology. I thought I knew how to use Powerpoint effectively, but no. There's lots of bells and whistles within that program I never knew existed -- like the fact that you can embed a movie within the presentation. Or when my two friends were talking about internet browsers the other night and how they were written/coded differently. I felt like they were speaking a foreign language. I wonder exactly how much I know about computers and the programs I use. Sometimes I feel like it's a lot, sometimes I feel like I don't know anything. My roommate says, "You can attach another monitor to your computer???" and I've known that for the past 5 years. Then I tell one of my friends, "I just learned how to navigate Windows with a keyboard only, like 'Alt+Tab' to switch between programs. Then he looks at me and says, "I've been doing that since I was in the third grade." Grrr.

I continually realize how new technology is a learning curve. I love OneNote, and the "Tutorials" Windows added on to introduce you to the program are helpful, but I research online how to use OneNote more effectively, and find that there are TONS of different ways to use it.

Side note: wherever I attend medical school, I want to study using tablets in the medical workplace. Microsoft has tons of articles about tablets and healthcare.

The Tablet and the M-CAT

Part of my paperless challenge was to use only my TPC to study for the M-CAT. It's only the largest exam of my college career (think a final over all of college), so losing material and staying organized were paramount concerns when I began studying in January. Because life and acutal college classes intervened during the beginning of the semester, I spent all of spring break studying. I covered 3 lectures a day in the ExamKrackers (EK) prep books - one each of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.

I set up my notetaking in Microsoft OneNote. In my main Notebook I created a folder for the M-CAT and inside the folder created sections:

• Intro to the M-CAT
  
• Planning
  
• Chemistry
• Organic Chemistry
• Biology
• Physics
• Verbal
• Math
• Science Tips

When I began, I created stationary for the folder. Each EK lecture has 24 questions imbedded within the chapter. I created a page to serve as an answer sheet, 1-24 in the first column, 25-48 in the second, up to 192. I used the large grid rule lines to serve as my boxes to hold my answers, and left myself 3 boxes per column: one for the number of the question, one for my first answer, one for my second try if I got the question wrong. I can't post a screen clipping of this. Hmmm, I'll have to figure out how to do that later. Anyways. I was able to save that page as stationary and use it in all of the sections.

I really liked not having to write out all of the numbers every time I completed a chapter, I was able to keep all of my notes from a chapter in the same section as my lecture quiz answers. I also created a Noteflag specifically for reminding myself to look up a question with which I had difficulty later on the EK website.

Overall, I think studying this way has been much more productive and less stressful than with a paper and pencil or binder setup. I didn't have to constantly wonder where I had put my M-CAT notebook, where a specific page was that I took notes in, or search for questions I had while studying. I could easily go to my Noteflags summary page and see all of the questions I needed, and was able to look up them up all at once. Therefore, I didn't break in my studying, go to the internet to look up a fact and risk getting distracted. I merely marked questions to come back to later.

I'm starting to really get attached to this thing.

Recent Changes

Firefox will become my internet browser for good, because I found a plug-in that supports my TIP through searching on studenttabletpc.com for tips. Below is a list of my changes for today.

OneNote

1. I customized my pens - Black, blue, red, green, orange, purple, a thick red for marking up papers, and a large white for white-out. They are set at .4mm, which is a little thicker than the .35mm "thin" pens OneNote came with, but it's a little thinner than .5mm pencil lead. Yes, the .05mm makes a difference -- to me at least.
   
2. I customized my highlighters - blue, orange, pink and green. I hate yellow highlighting because it's difficult to see or bright, or something.
   
3. I played with my toolbars. My pens and noteflags now reside on the right side of the window, my tabs and scrollbar on the left (I'm a lefty, this just works the best). I also got rid of icons I don't need from my standard toolbar, so I now have 4 bars showing all icons at once, without any dropdown menus.
   
4. My zoom is now set to 85% where it will stay (unless I need to change it to 87, or something). This makes the college rule actually look like college rule. I'm hoping this helps out with my inking in class and studying notes after class -- the smaller I write the faster and neater it gets. By the way, "Zoom" was not located under the "View," but rather part of the Standard toolbar.

Desktop:

1. I moved my taskbar to the top of the screen. This works so much better for me, as a tablet user and a lefty. I can be writing on the very right side of the screen and while my arm used to cover my start menu and my taskbar, I now have it in plain view at all times. It feels much more intuitive to reach to the top.
   
2. "The TIP button takes a lot of space on the taskbar. To get rid of it, paste this command into Start>Run regsvr32 /u "c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\ink\tipband.dll"
   Now, simply use the floating TIP, or use the swipe gesture to get the docked TIP. You can get the button back with this command:
   regsvr32 "c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\ink\tipband.dll" - quoted from a post on studenttabletpc.com. I'll see how this works. I still haven't figured out the swipe gesture...

Firefox:

1. I created a "Tablet sites" bookmark folder with several of my favorite blogs and forum sites. There is so much to learn from people who have been using their tablets as tablets longer than I have!
   
2. http://geckotip.mozdev.org/index.html - My TIP panel now works wonderfully in Firefox.
   
3. I set a MasterPassword.
4. EVERYTHING will now open in a new tab! Who needs a multiplicity of windows?
5. When I'm downloading files, Firefox will ask me where I want the downloaded files, not just automatically sending them to the desktop.
6. I downloaded lots of plugins the other day. I'm in the middle of learning how to use them all - here's my full list now:
   
1. Talkback
2. Closebutton
3. Crash Recovery
4. Colorful tabs
5. CTRL tab preview
6. Firefox menu buttons
7. Googletabs
8. IE tab
9. Morning Coffee
10. Separe
    
11. Unread Tabs
12. Backgroundimage Saver
13. GeckoTIP

That's about an hour and a half's work on trying to make myself more productive.

More later, studying for the M-CAT beckons (or at least, revising my study plan does...)

Wait! I also installed an Extended Desktop and Hold Tool for TPC -- Extended Desktop opens a window with which I can control my second monitor with my pen (it's a little akward, but hopefully it'll serve me well). Hold Tool turns off the press and hold functionality for scrollbars and the like. I'm superexcited about this because it means no more frustrations with scrolling! I hated trying to scroll and seeing those red dots and the right click window open.

Refresh

So, I reinstalled Firefox and all of my bookmarks and settings reapppeared. I also downloaded several plugins from the Firefox site. I use firefox again for most of my internet browsing, except for when I'm working only in Tablet mode. For some reason, I can't use my Tablet Input Panel with Firefox. Both browsers have their benefits - IE for Tablet use and

I downloaded some software to make my Tablet use more effective: PDF Annotator, Franklin Covey PlanPlus for Outlook (TIP dependent, however, it doesn't support ink, which is fine with me, I tried inking my calendar and tasks in GoBinder, but I really like my organizer in text), and as soon as payday rolls around again, I plan on investing in MindManager.

Hardware updates I've made include, purchasing a docking station (Targus Universal Docking Station w/video hookup) so all of my peripherals connect with one USB hookup (SWEET). It's plug and play, too, so I don't have to waste time rebooting every time I connect a monitor. I've added a second monitor. The docking station makes the reaction of the mouse and text a little slow every now and then when I'm using the monitor, but I was using a Pentium II, Windows 95 system until 2 years ago, so I don't really notice the drag time. For my use (internet, wordprocessing, music), the second monitor works like a dream. I put my research on the second monitor and type my papers on my tablet in laptop mode. Like a dream...

I am having problems with my scanner right now, so handouts can't be scanned in. I don't think I will ever scan my textbooks in, it would just take too long. Maybe if I purchased them over the summer and had a week that I just really wanted to scan stuff in....maybe not.

This semester is really busy, but I'm doing well with the paperless thing. I'm also on a "life organizing" kick - reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and using the FranklinCovey planning systems. The Tablet really seems to help. I just need to keep remembering how much I can use it for.

Crying Shame

Well, after 2 days, I finally have my Tablet Input Panel functioning like it should. Windows XP Newsgroups helped ALOT. But that's not the shameful part.

I uninstalled Firefox. It was a whim. I didn't remember how to restore XP as my default internet browser, so I just uninstalled Firefox. I also figured, IE7 upgrade will be out soon, I can get along with IE6 for a while.

After 2 days, I miss it and I will never do whim uninstallations again. EVER. [Sniffles...] I miss the 6 months worth of favorites I had bookmarked and tabbed browsing like you wouldn't believe. I just can't bring myself to reinstall it. Mainly because, after the shock of losing my bookmarks, I decided that IE just works better with Tablets because of the autofill on the Google toolbar. I LOVE having the Google toolbar and autofill back. (Note to self-Check and see if Firefox had an Extension for that...oh heavens there is one...). I like having the OneNote icon, the messenger icon, and the Google toolbar.

Also, Microsoft websites require IE for critical things like updates. I grew very frustrated with having to open an IE browser and copy and paste the URL.

While typing this post and looking at all of the Mozilla add-ins, I've decided to redownload it, reinstall it, install the Google toolbar for Firefox (mainly for autofill) and other add-ins, like the IE browser opening in Firefox.

I really, really do miss it -- IE is sufficient, but until IE7 w/tabbed browsing comes out, I might never use IE again.

I will never, ever uninstall a program on a whim again.

Hello world

Inspired by several recent postings at studenttabletpc.com and others, I feel inclined to try to use my Tablet PC to it's maximum potential. I really want to go paperless, but studying for the M-CAT this semester creates a real time crunch.

While I usually use Blogger for research, (saving links and such), I find that I'm using Microsoft OneNote more and more to virtually print web pages to my computer combined with bookmarks in Explorer. So, I decided to create an online journal to track my progress with my tablet.

Most of yesterday and today have been spent researching ways to make myself more productive through the tablet. I have ordered books, hardward, and listened to podcasts. A total of 12 hours spent researching productivity. I have come to four conclusions:
1. Becoming productive has the potential of becoming expensive. [Scanners, software (yes, even with educational discounts), 2nd monitor, etc.]
2. Becoming productive will be time consuming. Learning to use software, customizing it for my maximum benefit, and fixing minor problems = TIME.
3. I might miss paper. But we'll see.
4. Using a tablet is dependent on power -- many of my classes don't have electrical outlets in convenient locations or the outlets don't work :).

Overall, I have a year and a half (hopefully) before I begin medical school. I hope to be completely paperless by then. More tomorrow.