Re: Tablet recommendations?

Jeffry Smith <jsmith <at> alum.mit.edu> writes:
>
> I've thought about the Toshiba Thrive - full size USB ports, powered
> (so I could plug my movie HD in and watch movies) - but it 's heavier
> and thicker[...]

This must be the one I my wife and I saw when we stopped into Best Buy,
a few weeks back--thick and covered in rubber, with a really grippy
back surface?

It doesn't have the immediacy of the `oooh, look how thin and smooth
it is!', but we've generally found that `thick enough to make the edge
grippable' is an asset rather than a liability, as is `grippy rather
than smooth': compare `slides off your lap' vs. `doesn't slide off
your lap' and `easy to drop' vs. `easy to hold onto'.

`Oooh--how ergonomic!' is a tough first impression to give, though.
Unless you're presenting to ergonomists, maybe :)

--

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))."

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Re: Tablet recommendations?

David Rysdam <david <at> rysdam.org> writes:
>
> On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 20:15:46 -0400, Jeffry Smith <jsmith <at> alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > Just got our tax return back, and looking to buy a tablet, preferably
> > Android.  Something in the 9-10 inch range, 32-64GB of memory.  Anyone
> > have recommendations?  If so, why those?
> 
> I think we are going to need usage patterns before we can offer
> solutions. What are you trying to do? Draw? Read? Watch videos? Surf the
> web?

This is one of the things that sort-of saddens me about the whole
`tablet revolution': despite the deluge of tablets, it seems like
it's actually become *harder* to find one that's any good for drawing.

Five years ago, it seemed like every tablet-computing device
on the market was `Wacom Penabled'; they were all spendy,
but they were there. Now the manufacturers appear to have
mostly given up on selling to that market. And Wacom's New Hotness?
The `Bamboo Stylus': a `high-end' frenchfry pen for the iPad,
whose high-end features are the `look and weight of a real pen'.
No pressure- or tilt-sensitivity, no paint-tool memory--no electronics.

Looks like Asus actually does have a neat digital sketchpad, though:

    http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Note/Eee_Note_EA800/

And it happens to run Linux--out of the box :)

--

-- 

Fwd: Re: [DLSLUG-Discuss] anybody else have computer junk to recycle?

In case anybody wants to drive up.

-Bill

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [DLSLUG-Discuss] anybody else have computer junk to recycle?
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 23:52:50 -0400
From: Bill McGonigle <bill@...>
Organization: BFC Computing, LLC
To: dlslug-discuss@...

OK, we're a go for recycling.

Location:  Ansys loading dock (thanks, Dave!)

10 Cavendish Court, up in the Centerra park.  Drive into the park and
keep making right turns after you get past the Courtyard hotel.  There's
a large sign on the entrance to the building.

http://g.co/maps/u5cfm

Drop-off instructions:

Check in with the receptionist, who should page Dave Clifton, and then
go to the loading dock on the far end of the building and meet him
there.  Dave will have a cart or dolly available to move larger and
heavier items.

Schedule:

Re: Tablet recommendations?

> `Oooh--how ergonomic!' is a tough first impression to give, though.
> Unless you're presenting to ergonomists, maybe :)
> 

How about "how easy to use"?

md

--

-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
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(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several
countries.
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pursuant
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(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
   countries.

Re: Tablet recommendations?

"Jon \"maddog\" Hall" <maddog <at> li.org> writes:
>
> > `Oooh--how ergonomic!' is a tough first impression to give, though.
> > Unless you're presenting to ergonomists, maybe :)
> 
> How about "how easy to use"?

"Ease of use" encompasses a lot of things beside the ergo aspects, though;
and the non-ergo aspects can be much more prominent--especially when
the thing is bolted/tied down like it was in the displays I've seen
at Best Buy and other similar stores. This in-store experience is always
terrible from an ergo perspective--but it's hard to notice the ergo problems
of the *device* itself when the store's tie-downs have already brought
the sum experience down to `pessimum'. It's sort-of like those Bose
speaker showcases, except in reverse....

I think my wife suggested that we could just buy each and find out,
experimentally, which was more likely to be dropped and broken--
and then keep only the one that faired better.

--

-- 
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RE: open office base

> Any suggestions on reference material for open office base?  I've read the
> open office 3 guide and a couple of on line tutorials which cover the basics.
> Nothing that tells me how to deal with the nonspecific often nonfatal error
> messages that pop up or help me understand how things really work.  Is
> there enough functional overlap that books on non-OO data bases would be
> useful?

This may be a silly question, but how different is OO Base from LibreOffice base. Both apps suit my basic
office needs so I never really have to track anything down for docs. Perhaps the LibreOffice fork is less
braindead in the error reporting?

Patrick

[GNHLUG] [DLSLUG-Announce] DLSLUG Monthly Meeting 2012-04-05

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EMACS - enabling at spi2 support

Does anyone know how to enable at-spi2 support in emacs?
My understanding is that it doesn't automatically kick in when you start EMACS, but that there is a module
you can load, and that the module is included with the program or available on the debian / ubuntu
packaging. 
So far I've downloaded every likely candidate and there is nothing. 
(Where are EMACS's el's kept, anyway? I can't find the folder on my hard drive.)
Thanks. I'm sort of an EMACS newbie. 
Susan Cragin

Re: EMACS - enabling at spi2 support

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Am I 32-bit, or 64-bit?

Okay, because I think that Ubuntu 10.10 with Compiz, the cube, wobbly windows
and Gnome 2.x is the epitome of the Linux experience, I've given up on more
recent stuff, and installed 10.10 -- 32-bit -- on my laptop.  But I'm a total
btrfs whore, so I installed that (aside from my /boot partition).  Buuut...
btrfs on whatever 10.10's kernel is is kinda flaky; blew up the FS the first
time I tried to create a subvolume.  So I booted a (very) recent random distro,
64-bit, with a 3.2 kernel, specifically because 3.2 has some magic in it to
help with unmountable btrfs drives.  Worked like a champ.  Then, still in my
64-bit OS, I downloaded a 3.3 kernel off kernel.org.  Since my base OS --
Ubuntu 10.10, as I installed it -- is 32-bit, I *wanted* to do a
make ARCH=i386 bzImage
But... i386 seems to be missing as a possible architecture.  The closest I
could find was x86.  But this concerned me, because x86_64's bzImage is a soft
link to x86's.  Anyway, "What the hell," I thought, and compiled it.  Installed
it.  Booted it.  And it works great!  Until I went to install Chrome.  Chrome
said, "You're running a 64-bit OS; here's your 64-bit version."  I tried
installing that, and no soup.  32-bit version installed fine.  So then I
glanced at "uname -a":

Linux galadriel 3.3.0 #2 SMP Wed Apr 4 13:04:22 EDT 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Am I running a 64-bit kernel on a 32-bit OS?  Bwah?

-Ken