Pioneer podcaster (and former MTV VJ) Adam Curry has a new Tablet PC, and he’s describing it and trying it out in his April 3 Daily Source Code podcast. He’s pretty candid about its advantages and disadvantages, but in general quite enthusiastic.
It’s not surprising that Curry’s Mac user fans (Curry’s been a Mac-only operation up to now) flooded the comments section of his weblog with cries of “betrayal!” and “sellout!” To be fair, the sound quality was not up to scratch at the beginning of the podcast, but in my view and experience that’s more the fault of the headset/mic he was using and his inexperience with Windows than with any limitations in the machine or platform. And of course I’m happy to see the Tablet PC get a high-profile notice, despite the fact that a) its debut was not auspicious and b) Curry described the tablet as “kind of gone out of vogue,” though he hastens to add that the new chief of technology at Amazon.com uses one. If Curry’s now using one himself, has the tablet come back in vogue? Where’s William Gibson’s Cayce when you need her to do some cool-hunting?
Saw your comments on Adam Curry’s site re Table PC’s. I’m a windows user with plans to buy a Tablet this summer. Curious what brand you own and what you are using for audio recording software. I have Sony’s Soundforge, but can’t get it to record a Skype call. Feel free to email response. Thanks
Thanks for coming by, Ron. I use a Toshiba Portege M200 for my tablet. I got it back in January, 2004, so it has the 1.4Ghz CPU and the 40GB hard drive. I’ve upped it to 1GB of RAM. I love it and wouldn’t want to leave home without it. For audio recording I use Sound Forge 7.0. I haven’t yet gotten into Skype (though I’m very interested and will do this soon) so I can’t advise on what the problem there might be. I do know lots of folks swear by Audacity, a free open-source recording solution. You can find more on the stuff I use for my podcasts at http://www.gardnercampbell.net/blog1/?p=131