(Continued from Part 1)

Fast forward a year, from spring 2002 to spring 2003. The Vaio was my main workstation (work being too cheap to buy me a desktop machine) during that time. However, the object of my gadget lust was a Motion Computing M1200 Tablet PC. I just had to have something I could tote around to meetings and still run programmer-type apps on. I cashed in a developer discount, endured the long wait for the tablet to arrive, and sold off the Sony.

With 1GB of RAM, it outperformed the older Vaio slightly. The 12-inch screen was huge for a slate-style tablet. With the docking station, I could plug it in at work and use a keyboard, mouse and separate monitor. And boy, did I love taking it to meetings and showing people how I could write right on the screen. No one had ever seen anything quite like it.

After two years with the Motion, I still find it incredibly useful for many things. Here’s a short list:

• Couch surfing cannot be beat. Unlike a typical laptop, you can comfortably goof around on the Web and watch TV at the same time… as long as you aren’t doing a lot of data input or IM. More about that tomorrow.

• Stall surfing. Yeah, um, so I’ll leave the details of that one up to you.

• Ebooks are almost practical. The screen is big enough for two pages side by side if you like, and you won’t break your back carrying the tablet around.

• Notetaking is completely natural. In a meeting environment, you have to hunch over your traditional laptop, peering at the screen and banging away at keys. You aren’t looking anyone in the eye. You look antisocial. The tablet, however, balances right on one knee, or sits on the table like a notepad. You scribble your notes in it and can search back through them later. Microsoft’s OneNote is actually pretty good at this, although it tends to force you into too much structure.

• It’s a social device. You can load up something on your screen and pass it off to someone else to look at. They can mark up what you’ve done and pass it back.

• It’s a good quick-and-dirty recording platform. I loaded n-track on it and recorded several band practice sessions.

• It’s a digital picture frame. When people come over for parties, I set it up on its easel and have it slideshow through our photo library (which is stored on the iMac upstairs and accessed via WiFi).

• Instant messaging using ink is way cool. This assumes that you’re both using a current version of MSN Messenger.

I also have a list of gripes, of course. Check back tomorrow for those. Hey, I think I’m getting the hang of this serial posting business.

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