Joe Levi presents Greener Living through Technology

Via Neowin.net, back in 1952, “Back to a presidential contest too close to call, a nation worried it is vulnerable to attack, and a single company dominating computing,” and there was a “super computer” which statistically predected the election. That computer was called “Univac” and had less processing power than today’s Hallmark musical greeting cards.

And now we find ourselves again on the eve of a presidential contest too close to call, a nation worried it is vulnerable to attack, and a single company dominating computing.

Who was it that said “those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it”?

For the last few years I’ve been using my Pocket PC with portable keyboard for note-taking in my college classes. With a WiFi NIC, IR keyboard, and campus-wide wireless access, I could get and send email, get and send IMs, and browse standards-based web sites, in addition to taking notes in Pocket Word, all in a package that weighed less than a pound and fit easily in the palm of my hand. The down side was that Pocket Word was too simplistic (no multi-level outlining, no styles, free-form drawing was difficult to use in conjunction with typed text, and inked text was not very usable due to screen size constraints and ink-to-text translation services that were difficult (at best) to use. But, bottom line, it got the job done… until I hit my economics and statistic classes where equations and charts were used every other sentence.

Enter my new Tablet PC. I purchased a Fujitsu Lifebook (more for their ability to get it to me quickly than for a full feature set — I’d still be waiting for my Toshiba Tablet PC, tho it was the preferred pick due to the faster technology it includes, but I digress…).

This Tablet PC is a laptop with WiFi (B and G), PCMCIA slots, USB, and has a stylus-input screen that swivels back on the keyboard for “slate-like” input (for my charts and equations, not to mention free-form text). For space/weight/battery saving measures I specifially picked a device without a floppy or optical drive, which hasn’t been a problem.

Overall, the experience, especially when teamed up with Microsoft Office OneNote, has been superb! Now I read that to jump-start the market, Microsoft and Tablet OEMs are beginning to offer Tablets to faculty and students at certain “high profile” universities (read: MIT and the like… unfortunately Weber State isn’t on their list).

If you haven’t done so already, you deserve looking at what Tablet PCs have to offer!

Via Campus-Technology.com

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