It’s a sordid story. Terrible really.

Just don’t ask about the dwarves.

Paris

Earlier this year C., a colleague of mine (see viral map), purchased an IBM Tablet PC after seeing my TC1100. She had never l heard of or seen Tablet PCs but was intrigued and purchased it soon after she met the tc1100. We’ve been working on a project here for two weeks in Paris and Rennes and I got to meet the newly purchased IBM Tablet PC firsthand. It’s quite light and sleek. Lynette is convinced that the resolution is not as good as our TC1100 though she prefers how the writing feels to the TC1100. It seems like a reasonable alternative once my TC1100 bites the dust, though I am still hopeful some manufacturer out there will produce a hybrid model. Lynette is possibly eyeing a Motion since she is quite the slate user.  

No one asked once about the Tablet PC despite many hours of hanging out at brasseries though there were stares. No one asked. Perhaps more inhibited? Or not that hard core on technology like we are? This was quite a different experience than at home in Halifax at the coffee shop, Steve-o-reno’s. Today, the very nice man at the hotel asked if there was wireless close by because it was obvious that I must be doing something out there at all hours of the day. Yes yes there sure is.

Here the TC1100 meets the IBM Tablet PC at an empty brasserie on Bldv du Montparnasse in Paris.

Au revoir from Paris where the duck and wine is excellent, where fruit is tasteful (yummy cherries and figs and more!), where zebra crossings are for zebras and and not humans, and where getting a taxi is a rare feat (I am sure that if there was less regulation on the taxi business it would defintely increase economic activity in Paris)!

Paris

A few days before I left for France I posted a question on the Tablet PC
Buzz asing how I could work best in Paris on my email and documents given
that my TC1100 had to go into HP repair. Well this is how things got
resolved.

I purchased a 4gb verbatim flash drive. I wasn’t looking for any kind of
self contained operating system but it came with Ceedo. James Kendrick
suggested I use Migo but since the flashdrive came with Ceedo I thought I
give it a try. Well, overall it wasn’t that great. I can see the
potential though.

First of all there seems to be a problem when I plug the verbatim in the usb slot and run Ceedo on a tablet PC. This is the error message that comes up ("to open TCServer.exe under Ceedo, all other TCServer processes must be closed"):

 
When I plugged it in to a non-tablet pc this error message does not occur.  

So how was I able to manage all my work email? Well since I was meeting
Lynette and her TC1100 in Paris, she agreed to let me use it while I
stayed in France. She left Paris for Montreal last week sans Tablet PC, a
strange thing indeed. I put all my working documents on her Tablet and
also created an additional account in Outlook and was therefore able to
access all my email and write new ones with abandon (thank to mostly free wireless generously donated by the French).

Lynette’s TC1100 will be returned to her when we meet each other at the
Montreal airport tomorrow and board the same flight to Halifax. I suspect
that she’ll be eager to put her hands on the TC1100. All in all, let’s be
very clear: leaving me with her tc1100 for over a week was the ultimate
sacrific and I am grateful for that! Would you hand over your tablet for
a week without having access to any alternative except perhaps webmail (yikes!)?

So no Ceedo and Verbatim did not help sufficiently though I did need a
new flashdrive. I think Ceedo does have potential but it would need to be
able to run Office and Outlook without a hitch. I also posted a question
on the Ceedo forum asking them about the tsc server issue. I had hoped
for some response from Ceedo support but nothing was forthcoming before I left for France and I just checked the form website and no rsponse has been posted. Not sure if Ceedo understands the importance of customer relations.

What Ceedo looks like when you want to remove the flash drive:

Check out more on Ceedo by reading today’s article by NYT’s David Pogue.

And as to my TC1100, I received an email from work yesterday that my
TC1100 has been ruturned. And repaired, I presume. Yay!

I am here for work interviewing academics, civil servants as well as representatives of the private insurance side in the French health care system. Broadly speaking it has to do with resource (re)allocation in the health care system (we are doing a multi-national study comparing 7 countries). During one of the interviews I had the view of the Hotel National des Invalides and the golden dome was wildly bright. I would probably have to wear sunglasses if that was my office. During another interview I had a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower. It’s a nice way to see Paris.

Here you see only part of the dome of the Hotel National des Invalides, an old soldiers home. Clearly, veterans were treated quite differently during Napoleonic reign.

Brasseries in Paris tend to have signs in the windows advertising free wireless. And that is exactly where I am right now with my Cafe Creme (latte equivalent with a twist). Though as you can see, many wireless setups are security enabled. In the offices I visit I see many Dell computers and a few have laptops as well. However I have not seen one Tablet PC as of yet.

In general, Paris is la cite de wifi gratuit – there are always a few people who kindly leave their wireless wide open, so that you can sit in most cafes, parks, squares, and be in touch with the rest of the world without paying. Of course the charm of the local environment does make escape via the internet less necessary than in some settings!

The other day I stood on a corner with my tablet, headphones on, someones donated wireless and skyping some friends in Canada.  

And here Lynette and I gave an opportunity to let the TC1100 see the Eiffel tower. There were more close ups but, truth be told, we did not take the tc1100 everywhere! And you have to look carefully for the Eiffel tower (it’s in the back!).