Brian Jarvis, UMPC Geek

The more I use the Tablet PC edition of Windows, the more I expect of it and the more I get frustrated with applications that do not support ink. Most applications are at least functional, but I’ve found one that really isn’t - AbiWord.

I like to use AbiWord to write blog posts because it’s a relatively rich word processor that doesn’t create formatting issues when I copy and paste the content into WordPress. It has two issues though: the first of which is a major flaw and the second of which is an annoyance.

Let me show you the big issue first:

As soon as I hit the “Insert” button on the TIP, the text is stripped of all spaces and then inserted into the document. I don’t know why it would do that, but it makes using the this application completely unacceptable. The odd thing to me is that I haven’t seen this behavior in any other program.

The other issue is that I cannot get the TIP to float in AbiWord no matter what I try. I would be able live with that as an annoyance if it were the only problem I was having with the application. Since it is not however, these two issues have driven me away from using this program. I am now experimenting with OpenOffice and doing some MS Word tricks to getting around pasting formatting into my blog entries. If anyone has any suggestions, I am totally open to them!

I bet I’ve been using my Q1 for 80% of my non-professional computing lately. The remaining personal computing is split between my X41 and my wife’s laptop. I have grown accustomed to the lower performance of the Celeron processor in my Q1and had managed to convince myself that it is sufficient for most of my computing needs.

Well, the other night, I had the need to edit 120 photographs I took at my brother-in-law’s wedding and I knew that my UMPC was simply not up to the task. Instead, I blew the dust off my gaming system that hasn’t even been turned on for almost two months. It’s a 2.67 GHz Core 2 Duo processor overclocked to just over 3 GHz with 3 GB of RAM and a pair of decent-sized hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration - it’s a screamer!

Working on that system was an absolute dream! I forgot what that kind of raw horsepower is like, but it didn’t take long to reacquaint myself! It was so snappy that using it made me giddy. At one point, I opened all 120 photos in Photoshop and the system performance was still better than my Q1.

It helped me put things back into perspective: sure, you could use a UMPC for your sole computing device, but the processing power will probably disappoint you on occasion. These devices really should be given secondary-PC-status and allowed to shine as the mobile computing devices they were designed to be. Don’t get me wrong, I still LOVE my Q1 and wouldn’t trade it for anything (and I’m still using it to write this entry even though my more powerful desktop PC is sitting idle in the next room). :^)

I know I have completely disappeared from the blogosphere lately and I feel really bad for having done so. We recently purchased a new home and the honey-do list is longer than it has ever been in 12 years of marriage. From the moment I finish dinner to the moment I fall exhausted into my bed at night is filled with different activities around the house. As a partial list, I’ve hung ceiling fans, painted, installed a garage door opener, graded the back yard, built a fence, built shelving in the garage, and installed sprinklers.

Being the geek that I am, I’ve included my UMPC in as many of these projects as possible. Sometimes I just use it as my jukebox to play music while I work, but sometimes it helps me plan things out. As an example, check out my sprinkler planning (the guy at Home Depot was impressed):

I’m hoping that as the projects are getting smaller, I’ll have more time to update Geekblog…so stay tuned!