I’ve enjoyed having a Mac, ever since I made the switch. Now, though, my Mac is unwell. I’ve booked in at the Apple store to take it in – I think it needs a new hard drive. Until then, though, I only have my old Windows XP Tablet PC. It’s quite old, and slow, with a small screen, and no access to any of the data on my Mac’s hard drive, or any of the external drives I used.

So. How’s that working out for me?

Surprisingly well, really. It’s not pleasant, but it’s usable for a while. I think I miss the hardware more than the software, though I certainly prefer Mac OS to Windows XP. The screen is so small and so low down that I’m feeling the risk of neck ache, and it doesn’t feel good for my eyes. I’ve been spoiled with that 24″ screen, though!

One of the first things I did was to install ResophNotes, which gives me access to my writing and ‘thinking’ space – the same data I’d normally access through Notational Velocidy on the Mac. I have DropBox, so many of my current files are still available. Although I use Apple’s Mail app for my email, it’s all stored in Gmail, so I can just open a browser tab and I have my email all up to date. I’m a little in limbo at the moment for calendars, but Google Calendar is currently my ‘master’, so I have that available.

I keep my notes in Evernote, so I just updated that to the latest version and let it sync. I’m using the web version of Twitter instead of the Tweetie (or Twitter official) client. My tasks are all in Remember The Milk, so they’re online anyway.

I had access to all of my most important data very quickly.

I’m still missing all the data on my external drives. Windows would be able to access them if they weren’t in Mac OS Extended format, but that would mean I wouldn’t be able to use Time Machine to keep them backed up. And since it’s Time Machine that means I’ll be able to bring my Mac home with a new hard drive and get it back up and running to pretty much where I was, I’m happy with the trade-off.

This post is part of a series of posts about switching to a Mac – here are links to all the posts:

• Switching to Mac Part 1: The Decision
• Switching to Mac Part 2: The Retail Experience
• Switching to Mac Part 3: The Unboxing
• Switching to Mac Part 4: In Use
• Switching to Mac Part 5: Finding a Photo Editor

I’ve used Windows PCs for a lot of years now – since the days of Windows 3.0. My first PC ran MS-DOS 4.01. The last time I bought a new computer, I considered the idea of getting a Mac, but ended up with a Tablet PC instead. That little tablet has done me quite nicely since, although I never really used it as a tablet any more. It was starting to show the strain, though, when processing RAW files from new 12-megapixel cameras.

We’d decided a while ago that when we sold our house, we’d both be buying new computers. I considered a Mac again then, but decided to spend the money on a new camera kit instead.

I started speccing up a new PC, and it started to get quite pricey to get the sort of machine I wanted. Still cheaper than a decent Mac, but not as cheap as I’d been hoping. On a wander around PC World, I came face-to-face with the 24″ iMac screen. Wow. Big, bright, clear. I started to consider spending the extra to get a Mac again.

• I’d tried out Adobe Lightroom, and liked it, but it didn’t really fit well for me. I wanted everything in one catalog, so I could search all my photos. That seemed a pretty basic thing to want to do, and Picasa could manage it just fine. Lightroom seemed to start having serious performance issues with a big catalog, though. My photos folder comes to just over 30,000 files. Aperture may be better, but I had no way of trying it out without having a Mac.
• I started doing a bit of searching around online to see what people thought was best for a photographer to use. Some people didn’t think it made a lot of difference, but a lot through a Mac was much better. There don’t seem to be many people who think Windows is actually better for photography.
• Big screens are expensive, especially if you want quality. I could find a PC much cheaper, but adding a good quality 24″ screen soon pushed the price way up.
• I’d changed phones recently, and was now using a Nokia. Before that, I used Windows Mobile, which was a bit limited when syncing with a Mac.
• They’re way prettier than almost any PC. When looking at PCs, I was considering a Sony Vaio, mainly because it looked so nice. If I was willing to pay extra for Sony’s design, Apple’s design was certainly worth a bit.

The one thing that was stopping me was the thought that if it turned out I really didn’t get on with MacOS, it would be a very expensive mistake. Then, I woke up at around 04:00 in the morning thinking “Bootcamp and Parallels! Idiot!”. Of course, if I didn’t get on with MacOS, I could buy a copy of Windows Vista, and use the Mac as a PC. OK, I’d have over-payed somewhat for a very pretty PC, but I’d still have a good quick PC with a great screen.

So, off we went to the Apple store in Exeter to hand over a whole lot of money. But that’s for Part 2.

Time for an update on the tablet PC – how am I liking it after two weeks?

I recently bought a Toshiba Portege M200 tablet PC. I made some notes in a previous post about how I was getting on with it after four days. I’ve now been using it for two weeks, so it’s time for another update.

The Verdict

Let’s start with a good old executive summary. I love it. It’s a great little laptop, and the extra flexibility you get from the tablet features make a real difference.

I use it as a laptop more than as a slate, but fortunately, it works very nicely as both. The only real downside I’ve found so far is that it is a bit on the heavy side for using as a slate. If you really want to be comfortable sitting reading in bed with a slate-form tablet, you might be better off with the tiny HP models where the keyboard can be completely removed. Go see what James Kendrick thinks of his.

The Machine

The Good

The machine is very small and light. Before this, I had a Toshiba Satellite, and took it with me to work a couple of times, but it was really just a nice neat desktop machine. The tablet is so much smaller and lighter that it can go with me much more often. The decent battery life and the built-in Bluetooth makes it more portable too – I can connect to the Internet from anywhere using GPRS.

The Bad

I’ve already mentioned the main problem – the machine is a bit on the heavy side to use as a slate for too long – becomes a bit uncomfortable after a while reading in bed, for example. Considering the power of the machine, though, there’s probably not much that can be done about that until the technology moves on a bit. The screen is 1400 x 1050 – there’s a limit to how small and light they can make it. I’m happy with the compromise, though – any smaller, and it would be uncomfortable to use on a desk, which is where it spends most of its time.

Some people in the forums I’ve read have commented on the ‘graininess’ of the screen. I can see what they mean, but I don’t mind it. It’s very much like my iPaq with its WriteSHIELD screen protector on.

The Software

Tablet Stuff

Toshiba’s Own Stuff

There’s a load of Toshiba software on the machine to start with, and surprisingly, some of it is actually quite good. Their ConfigFree networking software has dealt with everything I’ve pointed it at so far, and whenever Bluetooth has played up, it seems to be able to fix it itself. The only part I’ve actually got irritated enough by to get rid of so far is the gesturing software, as it got in the way of right-button drag ‘n’ drop – not something everyone uses, but I tend to use it a lot.

OneNote

This was my first time of trying out OneNote. It’s an odd bit of software, and the main learning curve is just working out what it can be used for. It’s easy to explain Word – it’s like WordPerfect used to be, but easier, more powerful, and far more frustrating. It’s easy to explain Excel – remember Lotus 1-2-3? Just like that, but easier and more powerful. It’s easy to explain PowerPoint – it’s the thing used to make all those presentations you have to sit through occasionally.

OneNote isn’t quite like anything else, though, so it’s much harder to explain. Easiest way is probably to think of it as the stack of paper on the side of your desk, but with a bit more organising ability. You can shove content to it from anywhere – drag and drop; copy and paste; print though the magic printer driver; copy an area of the screen you’re looking at. Once the stuff you want to work on is there, you can add notes. Because this is a tablet, and OneNote is ink-aware, you can scribble your notes on the stuff you’re working on with the tablet pen. It’s great for gathering ideas, researching, and then writing up the results.

I’ve taken to using OneNote for writing articles for my blog (I’m writing this in OneNote now), and for our Creativity Wiki. Before starting, I can brainstorm for ideas with a mind map, and any time I get stuck for ideas, refer back to it, or scribble a little more.

OneNote Missing Features

The two things I think are really missing from OneNote are a zooming function, and a ‘hand’ button for moving the page around. Maybe we’ll see these in the next version. It would be handy to be able to zoom out on a large page full of stuff copied from elsewhere, and scribble the connections between them over the top, then zoom in to annotate individual parts.

The magic printer driver mentioned above is a third party product – fortunately, it’s free – but Microsoft probably need to license it quickly to include as part of the package, as this lets you grab your content from anywhere, and is very useful.

Office 2003

I use Outlook for email, and GTD, but apart from that, I don’t really get a lot of use from Office apps. Their ink abilities are limited, but the main apps can all be scribbled on now. Outlook can be used for sending ink mail, but only if using Word as the email editor, which I find a bit unpleasant. I may well move all the GTD stuff into OneNote yet, to take advantage of the ability to just scribble.

Journal

If your tablet doesn’t come with a copy of OneNote, you may want to stick with the basic Windows Journal. It can do quite a bit of the stuff OneNote does, and it’s provided with the tablet edition of Windows XP. Not bad at all, for a freebie. If you’ve got OneNote, though, you probably want to stick to that.

The Tablet PC Experience Pack

A free download from Microsoft, the Experience Pack adds a few useful extras to the tablet experience. InkArt is a rebadged version of ArtRage, and is one of the best reasons for buying a tablet PC. The snipping tool is useful too, the crossword is kind of fun if you’re bored. The ink desktop is a nice little extra – makes it possible to scribble with ink directly on the background of your desktop. Good for the odd quick note. With some of the included templates, you can also use it as a simple way of organising your day or week, or even keeping a simple to do list.

Handwriting Recognition

If it can work with my handwriting, it can work with anything, and it can work with my handwriting . It’s really quite impressive to see it recognise scrawls that I’d have trouble recognising myself, sometimes even working when I’ve got the word completely wrong and added letters of my own devising to the word.

Voice Recognition

My results from trying the voice recognition out have been comical. I’m a northerner, though, and quite a few people around here have trouble understanding me. I confuse bar staff when asking for a Coke. They can’t understand why I’d want a cork.

Other Stuff

I’ve already admitted recently that I’m now using Internet Explorer, as Firefox just doesn’t seem to get on as well on the tablet. My mail is still in Outlook, and I’m still using pretty much the same apps as before other than that. Notepad++ for text editing and HTML, FileZilla for FTP, eReader for reading books. I’m a recent convert to Paint.NET for image editing – less powerful than The GIMP, but it’s fast and friendly – neither of which really apply to The GIMP. All I usually want to do with images is crop, resize, adjust levels and sharpen, then output as a JPEG – Paint.NET does all this pretty well, and it will have done it all before The GIMP has finished starting up.

Usage

For the first week after I got the machine, I was at work, so it was used at home during evenings, and during my lunch break at work. For the second week I was on holiday, so it was only really used at home.

Portability

It goes everywhere with me. I have changed to a slightly larger bag to fit it all in, and now carry this machine everywhere. As mentioned, the built-in Bluetooth means that I can connect from anywhere. The fact that it’s a tablet means that I don’t even need a desk to be able to work.

At Home

In Our Office

In our office, the machine has a space on the desk to sit, with its mains adaptor, network cable, and a short lead to a USB hub, all ready to plug in. The USB hub connects (among other things) to my external Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer Wireless. There’s also my new Philips speakers on the desk for when I want a bit more noise from the machine, and my GuitarPort for when I want to make noises myself (which then feeds back out through the Philips speakers).

At Work

For use in my lunch break, I can either set up laptop-style on a table, or take a short drive to Cossall, and use it slate-style in the car. Either works fine.

So how good is it really?

Let me put it this way – I have given my iPaq to Sam. I can manage with just the tablet and a CheapsterPDA.