electronic notebook paper

[jasong]

We all know the paperless office hasn't happened yet, and I've heard the attempt actually managed to cause trees to be turned to paper faster than before. But the thread is intended to be more about a paper notebook 2.0.

Because of my mental illness I have TONS of free time, so I can do useless things like calculate the perfect potion to make in my Runescape game to train herblore most efficiently. But it got me to thinking...

Is capacative technology(or any technology that can benefit from a stylus) sensitive enough that a person could use a tablet like notebook paper? I've tried it with my Sony S tablet, and I got a line that was about a quarter-inch thick, definitely sub-optimal. Are there tablets out there that are sensitive enough to be used like notebook paper, possibly with added lines(notebook paper look) and the ability to ignore the hand resting on the tablet?

[firejuggler]

so you are looking for a "free-hand' drawing tablet? or a screen sensitive laptop? screen sensisitive laptop might wor iyou can folt it entierly backward...

[Dubslow]

I think I've something like that, but it wasn't great quality, and the hand-detecting thing was only sort of functional.

[firejuggler]

i might have found what you want jason...
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Apple-iT...ews-13943.html
still can't write in it but no longer dead tree book

[Christenson]

When I look at my office, I find the amount of paper that I have actually written on there trivial compared to the amount carrying machine-printed markings, whether from a printing press or from a computer printer.

I therefore conclude that writing on paper is not the problem...it is the delivery of printed information that *is* the problem. Long live the pen and real paper!

[jasong]

Originally Posted by firejuggler

i might have found what you want jason...
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Apple-iT...ews-13943.html
still can't write in it but no longer dead tree book

GAH, Apple shizzle.

Seriously, though, I'd heard about that, haven't read any articles yet.

The basic notion I'm trying to put across is the idea of using handwriting to write stuff down and then being able to edit it without those horrible cross-out marks, unless of course they're wanted. I use a notebook for various notes I want to take and I hate the idea of throwing away a sheet of paper when there's still space left on it. Additionally, I might have something important written down and it'll be just a tiny note that I wanted separated from the other stuff. Plus, consider how awesome it would be to be able to edit a Kindle book as if it's a paperback and without damaging the original content. Elementary school kids could finally fill in all the o's and b's and whatnot without a teacher yelling at them about ruining the learning experience for the next kid who gets the book.

[firejuggler]

an Ipad application that allow you to edit e-book... that would be perfect. whith a 'more snsitive screen? like the one you sign when you get a package? that sound nice.
another link
http://techland.time.com/2012/01/19/...article-latest

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by jasong

Is capacative technology(or any technology that can benefit from a stylus) sensitive enough that a person could use a tablet like notebook paper? I've tried it with my Sony S tablet, and I got a line that was about a quarter-inch thick, definitely sub-optimal. Are there tablets out there that are sensitive enough to be used like notebook paper, possibly with added lines(notebook paper look) and the ability to ignore the hand resting on the tablet?

For the last six months or so I've had access to a late-model HP Tablet PC, which (as I understand it) uses a combination of capacitive and resistive technology to allow control of the device with either a stylus or a finger. On the whole, it works fairly well--it doesn't emulate the "feel" of writing on paper perfectly (still somewhat "too smooth", though it's definitely much better than it used to be), but with a little bit of practice (using it in place of a notebook for a couple of weeks) I've found I can write on it in either cursive or manuscript with basically the same clarity as on regular paper. The Windows 7 + Microsoft OneNote combination works quite well to provide a handy "notebook"-type organizational interface.

My biggest beef with it is that it can sometimes be a tad "glitchy" when it comes to figuring out when and when not to interpret resistive (i.e. hand press) signals from the screen. OneNote is programmed pretty well to throw out extraneous signals, but Windows is a bit less picky when it comes to, say, clicking on the Start menu and taskbar buttons. I've found that when I'm writing near the top or middle of the screen (with my hand in the middle area, on top of OneNote "paper" space), it works fine, but when I'm closer to the bottom of the screen (such that my hand is hovering over the taskbar area) I get extraneous clicks here and there, which can be quite annoying. Part of the problem is that the screen is designed to detect when your finger or the stylus is "hovering" over the screen and move the mouse pointer (without clicking) accordingly--which is great when you're using the finger or stylus as a mouse, but not so great when you want to write with a pen and your hand is just getting in the way at the bottom of the screen. What ends up happening is that the OS interprets the hand "hovering" over the screen as "oh, I should move the mouse pointer"--but if I'm simultaneously writing with the pen higher up on the screen, it's getting a constant stream of "mouse click" signals, so inevitably the two signal streams (the screen is multi-touch with two touch points, so there are two distinct signals happening) get confused and some clicks occur at the bottom of the screen.

The other issue I've run into (this may be another symptom of the same situation described above) is that sometimes when I write something in OneNote, it will "blink out" a second or two after I finish writing it--an entire ink stroke, or series of strokes, will just disappear into thin air, often leaving the end of a word or such hanging mid-paper. This can, as you might imagine, be quite aggravating, especially since it tends to happen repeatedly when you're trying to re-write something that just got "blinked out". From what I can tell, this problem may have something to do with OneNote trying to figure out whether it should be in "pen mode" or "select [mouse pointer] mode"--whenever it happens I see the Ribbon buttons on the menubar switching frequently between the two. So this one may be a OneNote bug rather than an actual issue with the hardware or OS.

I've noticed that a number of my colleagues with similar tablet PCs have moved their Windows taskbar to be at the top of the screen instead of the bottom--I'd imagine that would go a long ways toward solving the "hand clicking on the taskbar" issue. Since I prefer my taskbar on the bottom, I'd really rather not have to do this if I can avoid it; but at any rate it does seem to be an effective workaround.

Anyway, just my $0.02...I must say, I'm quite pleased with how far stylus-based Tablet PCs have come in the 10 years or so since they first came out, and I do hope that they aren't abandoned completely by the industry in favor of iPad-like tablets (which are a lot less usable as a "pure notebook" device). At any rate, the Tablet PC side of the market has benefited a lot from the innovations made on the iPad-type side--much of the recent improvement in Tablet PCs has come from adopting basically the same kind of screen technology used in iPad-like devices.

The one big downside to Tablet PCs right now is that they're still hideously expensive--mine would have cost nearly $2500 if I'd purchased it myself (though to be fair it does include a top-of-the-line mobile Sandy Bridge i7 and a solid-state drive). I see Newegg has some cheaper tablets in the $500-$1200 range; many of them are more netbooks than full laptops per se, but you don't need much firepower if it's just going to be a notebook. That said, $500-$1000+ is still a lot to pay for a glorified notebook--I know if it was my own money I was spending on it, I'd be sticking with paper notebooks.

[jasong]

Originally Posted by firejuggler

an Ipad application that allow you to edit e-book... that would be perfect. whith a 'more snsitive screen? like the one you sign when you get a package? that sound nice.
another link
http://techland.time.com/2012/01/19/...article-latest

The king is dead, long live the king.

Microsoft makes stuff that doesn't work but corners 90% of the market, Microsoft let's any publisher publish on their platform. Apple takes almost all of the rest, at least for retail purchases, and basically behaves the opposite of Microsoft, but they make a TON of money with their walled-garden approach.

Is it any wonder I cling to the idea of Android like a drowning man in a storm?

[firejuggler]

and another bite done
touchpen, work on paper and on tablet
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...-of-the-stylus

[jasong]

Originally Posted by firejuggler

and another bite done
touchpen, work on paper and on tablet
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...-of-the-stylus

That's an awesome link, thank you.