Today I have the Tablet PC home with me. For all those that have crisicised ClearType, the fonts on this machine look absolutely stunning. There’s no other word for it, they are that lovely. Grab yourself a high res screen, the Tablet’s is about 12 inches for 1024×768, and marvel at it.
On the otherhand, I have come to the conclusion that Tablet PCs are fairly useless without a wireless network. Their forte would seem to be browsing the web from the settee, watching a movie in bed, that kind of thing, which basically requires a fast (say 84g or whatever it's called, 802.11 next gen thing) to really achieve its potential. Doing any kind of serious work would probably be difficult; I don't think these things are going to replace laptops anytime soon. But for leisure things, they will rock. Especially as they can also be used along side your main PC as (rather expensive) remote controls for stuff in the rest of the house. In conclusion, I think that Tablet PCs are still ahead of their time, but the technology that should allow them to acheive their proper potential is just around the corner.
First day at work today! My impressions, looks as if it may be an interesting summer. I don’t know if I’m going to get to do any real UI design work, so a disappointment in that respect. On the positive side, it looks like we are going to get to do some of the meaty stuff rather than being stuck with the boring tasks. My first item is to design a transparent method of storing user UI choices over sessions. There is a usrOptions table I noticed, will have to check tomorrow if this is the table to use. I think this will also involve updating the user creation scripts and so on to make sure that the defaults propagate in a reasonable way. I think the main challenge inherant in this is to find out how the system all works and fits together. Once that is done, I don’t think it’ll be so bad to add in the stuff I want and move onto maybe more interesting bits!
Well many things have happened since my last post.
I got a job for the summer which starts tomorrow. You may think that deserves excitment. It does. But even more needing of excitment is: it's five minutes **walk** from my new flat! Thought I would save the exclaimation mark for that.
I am going to be developing C# in ASP.NET for the summer. I'd point you towards the company site, but it's in need of some refreshment. Hopefully I'll get to do that, I haven't done a completely new site for a long time now. Crossed my fingers.
I'm going to be involved in writing an EPR, which seems to be some sort of database for patient's visits, treatments and other details. It's got a webpage front end, which only works in IE. A shame, but maybe I'll be allowed to have some input so that it can do the basics in Mozilla/Opera also. Some of the things it does require ActiveX for interloping with Word, so full compatability is impossible. Whichever, I really hope I'll get a chance to use my interface design skills in a "real" for sale product. I think my ShellOn and dWall interfaces are pretty reasonable, I guess this will be the test of whether others think the same.
As you may have guessed, this job was one of the reasons for the previous [ post](http://www.dx13.co.uk/index.asp?method=display&item=73) on Windows and its shameful dominance of the PC space and the irresponsibilities of Microsoft.
I managed to miss my Amazon delivery of the [ new Harry Potter book](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747551006/ref=mk_wpban_1/202-4061017-0185443) on Saturday. As luck would have it, the Post Office depot where it is being held for me is just off my route to work, so I shall pick it up on the way in tomorrow.
How very exciting tomorrow shall be if all goes well =)
Sometimes, being a mostly Linux user, one forgets just how little Linux is used, and how big a force Windows and MS as a whole is. You start to think that Linux actually matters, and then some developer, user or whatever, comes up and couldn’t care less about Linux. Many times even Open Source itself. Sometimes you need this kind of feedback to bring you back to the real world, I guess, rather than the somewhat insular world open source seems to wrap around itself on occasion. Show yourself how far things have to move before things really start to get exciting.
New Release Candiate of ShellOn v3. Get it from the ShellOn v3 page. Dinner time, so more on this another time. It is worth your while to grab it, fixes some of the biggest usability bugs. Including the “You must restart for new shells to be selectable in the Default Shell box” one. Nice.