What is it that’s so great about a tablet pc? What shifts the response from the "cool!" factor to need and finally to devotion? A few of our favourite things:

• Lying in bed reading the NYRB and NYT on the tablet (ooops, minus the NYT Select)
• Choice, choice, choice
• All these years I never knew I was a visual/spatial thinker forced to live in a linear tree-structured computer world
• Easily bringing the tablet to and from work without feeling that you carry a brick slab around (3 lbs w/o keyboard)
• Handing the tablet to someone else to read or write something
• Taking handwritten notes reduces the need for carrying around and organizing scraps of paper
• Access to email and web anywhere there is a friendly router 
• Having the computer at hand in a meeting — but not as a wall between me and others

Some of these features can only be realized most fully with a hybrid, and with our fave hybrid: the HP TC 1100. The ability to leave the keyboard behind makes it super-portable, and the beautiful quality of the screen brings the true end to the paper era finally in sight. What will happen to the hybrid model with the premature death of the TC1100? We shall investigate. After the mourning period.

@ Steve-o-Reno’s in Halifax. Now that we purchased a Rancilio we don’t see Steve much any more.

The old days at Steve-o

We miss the egg-o-reno’s

At ‘Perks’ coffee shop in Halifax grading med school exams on ethics. 

The anvil: Conrad Black, Canadian robber baron, in the Globe and Mail. A month later this rather bizarre Halifax coffee shop went belly up.

I received a call today from a research company calling on behalf of HP to gauge customer satisfaction around the return and repair of HP/Compaq products. I tend to hesitate and often say no when a research or polling company calls but HP is obviously different. Recently I had to send in my Tablet to HP because there were some problems. After calling tech support the box came the next day.

I called up Purolator and they picked up the box with the Tablet and it was returned to me after 2 business days in tip-top shape. Really, yes we do pay a premium for a 3 yr warranty and HP products in generally, but the service from HP makes it all worth it from my point of view. I answered the questions from the research company diligently and gave full kudos to HP in terms of customer satisfation. I did add that the hybrid Tablet model should be maintained.

It all started with one single Tablet PC (tablet zero) during the waning days of Summer 2004 in Toronto. Within a month there were two Tablets. (Something to do with monkeys, grapes, and cucumbers.) Then a move from Toronto to Halifax and within 10 months 5 collegaues choose to purchase Tablet PC’s. All purchased HP TC1100’s except for one Siemens Tablet PC. The light weight (3 lbs without key board) and the hybrid nature of the TC1100 are great features.