Tricking Out Your HP2710p

This is written for the UA faculty, but it applies to anyone who has one of the new HP2710p Tablet PCs. Learning to change the default settings to make it more efficient and convienience can be a great help.

Read it here. It is posted on the UA Digital Ink Group web page.

Bluebeam Revu prefered over Adobe Acrobat and PDF Annotator?

Bluebeam Revu site
Bluebeam Revu discount(from Student Tablet PC blog)
Bluebeam Revu review (from Got to Be mobile blog)
PDF Annotator (from my previous post)

(links fixed 10/24/07)

Last Friday I downloaded Bluebeam Revu which is a PDF creator, has a PDF print driver, and has great annotating and markup tools. I think this could kill off Adobe Acrobat Pro from my computer and has seriously pushed to the back my previous purchase of PDF Annotator. I really like how it works and the pen tools are quite good. At first I disliked the highlighter until I discovered you can toggle it between highlighting the text and just marking up with a highlighter. This software is designed for me and the way I work. It installs a toolbar in Microsoft Office, but I can not yet figure how to get it to be the default viewer in Internet Explorer. It atomatically installs in the "SEND TO" option of the right click options in explorer. You can right click on a word document, or any document, and choose to open in PDF ala Bluebeam Revu. I do not use AutoCAD, but it you do there is a premium version to support that program.

For now I think this will replace both Acrobat and PDF Annotator, but until I am sure, I will keep both of those on here as well. So far the only thing I really do not like is their ico file. Perhaps I am just way too used to seeing the Adobe Acrobat icon in my directory listings, but I suspect it has to do with my love of red and not that shade of blue. Try it and let me know what you think. Download here.

Traveling with the great HP 2710p Tablet PC

Hello all.

James Kendrick is posting on how his HP 2710p is doing on the road. Previously he made a video while showing you the computer and the ultra slim battery and the ultra slim expansion base with DVD burner. Today he is giving more details about his use which is remarkably similar to my experience. I can attest that on my trip this month to Savannah the HP was quite the traveller. I packed the HP2710p, an extended battery, the HP2710p 6-cell Ultra-slim battery, and the Ultra-slim Expansion Base. I had the power cable and the connector cable for my Palm Treo which was my EV-DO modem for the five days. I never ran out of battery the entire time I was traveling. I had the tablet on at each airport and during the flights. I stowed the Ultra-slim Expansion Base on one side of the divider in my carryon bag and the tablet with the Ultra-slim Battery attached in the other side which I came to realize was unnecessary. When I got to my seat, the small Tablet with battery easily fit in the seat back in front of me and my bag up above my head. Nothing beats a Tablet PC for use on the plane in those cramped spaces unless it is a smaller format and light Tablet PC such as the HP 2710p. At one point I saw the battery indicator show 11.5 hours with the extended battery attached.

Since we at the University of Akron still use MS Windows XP, James comments on Vista are noteworthy: "HP has gotten the Vista experience done nicely on the 2710p and it shows in mobile settings. I have no problems with Sleep and Resume like I have on every other mobile PC running Vista, a testament to how tightly HP has integrated Vista into the 2710p. I can literally pull the HP out, do email and whatever else I need to do and put the 2710p back in the bag in a minute. That's the way this sort of thing is supposed to work and I am very happy with how well it works." -- James Kendrick (at this post). This tells me that the HP 2710p will be just fine for our transition to Windows Vista.

Upon ariving in our room at the Hyatt Savannah it was easy to connect to my Palm Treo and at 247.5 kbps I was connected to the internet and could stay in touch with my graduate assistants and my students while in GA, download my mail and log into our course management system and of course DyKnow Vision. I really like this computer, the HP 2710p, possibly more than any other computer I have ever owned.

Whiteboarding with Tablet PCs in the Classroom

Jim Vanides of HP and author of the blog Teaching, Learning & Technology in Higher Education has placed two videos on his site so far. In the first he shows how a teacher in a classroom can annotate a PowerPoint session. In the second he suggests that MW Journal is better than PowerPoint in the classroom. I agree Jim, but PPT has its useful place as well. Both of his videos are great and I embed them here for you to see. Don't forget to go read his blog as well.

First video:

Second video:

How to take notes on a notebook computer

While I prefer a Tablet PC, this article by Caleb Schmerge at TabletPCReview is a nice overview of notetaking. I think he overlooks Microsoft Journal and DyKnow Vision is beyond his review, but I agree on his fondness of OneNote. I did a Comparison of Notetaking Software which you might find instructive.

I'm more sold than ever on the mobile learning technology environment.

I got my HP2710p Tablet PC a couple weeks ago and my first impression was it's small and light and it's so different than my Gateway M285E. I liked things about my Gateway that I was about to sacrifice. The Gateway has a large beautiful screen, higher resolution, a better video card, built in DVD, and a heftier processor. I wasn't sure I wanted to leave it behind. But it was always too heavy and that made me use it like the desktop replacement it was designed to be, besides even with the 12 cell battery it seemed to run down fast.

But now I am sold. My lightweight tablet leaves the DVD behind in the dock and the extra battery extends the useful life to 6.5 or 7 hours (although I admit I have not had it long enough to properly evaluate this.) Yes it is underpowered relative to the Gateway, but it doesn't draw the battery down and it doesn't get hot. Yes it is underpowered, but only on intensive programs or when I have way too many windows open do I notice it.

It is so small and light I can hold and carry it in one hand without fatigue. I find I am using it more, not less. Even my bag feels lighter which is good for my shoulder.

What I like the most is the extra battery and the dock. I can leave both on my desk or take in my bag. They are both flat and fit on the bottom of the 2710p making it like a thicker and heavier Tablet. So I think of it like the heavy all inclusive Gateway, but if I don't need the DVD I can snap off the thin flat bottom and leave on my desk. If I don't need my extra battery, which also fits like a second bottom on the 2710p, off it comes. What is great (and I suspect this is true of all extra batteries) is that the external runs down first and charges last. That way if I am on a plane trip, after the external runs down I can snap it off store it in the bag and enjoy a full charge on the light tablet.

I had much to dislike about this HP 2710p tablet, but the more I use it the more I am sold. Still I wish the university had bid bluetooth, because I really miss it not being built in. I highly recommend this Tablet PC, the HP2710p.

I also compared this tablet to my wife's HP TX1000. I really like hers, I like the touch screen, but hers is harder to write on. She says writing on the 2710p is much easier and smooth. Nevertheless, if you are interested in a sweet consumer tablet with all the bells and whistles ... try out the TX series from HP. HP certainly has a couple of winners here. As to the HP2710p, I certainly hope the UA digital ink group ( and the rest of the over 400 faculty who have chosen a Tablet PC this Fall) will be happy with it.

"University of Akron Digital Ink Group" is formed

In a previous post I reported that the faculty have an option this Fall to get Tablet PCs and over 400 of them have done so (although that number is on the level of rumor so far). I just finished conducting three workshops for our Institute for Teaching and Learning entitled "Why Your Laptop Needs A Pen." Over 70 faculty showed up and spent 60-80 minutes with me exploring how their teaching and learning can be enhanced with the Tablet PC. We also have formed under the sponsorship of the Institute for Teaching and Learning a group to share experiences with the new tablets and to possibly lead to some study of them called the University of Akron Digital Ink Group (or UAdig for short). We will be sharing on a private on-campus only discussion list and a more public website.

PowerPoint presentation
UAdig website