I know two different small business owners that purchased subnotebooks this past year. Both travel a lot and wanted a small computer that they could use for email, Word, and Internet Explorer. Size and battery life were their top two criteria. Neither is a power user.
So how come neither purchased a Tablet PC instead? I think both were following the wise rule of only purchasing a computer equipped with the features that you need now. Since computer prices often drop there’s no reason to pay a premium today for features you don’t see yourself using until later.
Both are heavy keyboard users and don’t see why they need a Tablet PC…until recently, that is.
One in particular has recently discovered the power of video and voice using MSN Messenger for an alternative to calling overseas with his business partner. In his business he often has to talk through various manufacturing issues and now when he tries to explain something he can just lift a part up to the camera. The fact that Messenger is “free” is a nice touch too.
He was mentioning to me the other day how he’s found MSN Messenger so useful that he’s purchased webcams and microphones for all his siblings and his parents so they can have video chats together.
Interestingly, he uses the webcam with his desktop machine and not his notebook. So I showed him what it’s like to use a webcam and MSN Messenger with a Tablet PC instead. I shown him before, but I don’t think it meant much–until now that he’s using a similar set up a lot for his work.
I showed him how he could do the exact same thing with a Tablet PC. But using a WiFi network he could carry his webcam-equipped Tablet PC anywhere in the office. If he wanted to show the overseas factory something in the lab he could just pick up the Tablet, walk to the lab (talking all the way if he wanted to since all Tablet PCs have built in microphones), and point the webcam at whatever he wanted to show them. In effect he would have a cordless “webcam phone.”
Then came the clincher. His eyes lit up when I showed him how he can sketch out suggestions or ideas in Messenger since Messenger supports ink on a Tablet PC. Admittedly, a good ink-based whiteboarding capability in Messenger would be what he really needs, but at least he can send and receive ink drawings with others. As he already discovered, the only “trick” is that both ends of the conversation must have the same, most-recent version of MSN Messenger.
Yes, there is a whiteboarding app built into Messenger, but it doesn’t use real ink. It’s really a mouse-based application and the results are obvious when you try to use it. The drawings look poor. On top of that, the connection is finicky. Sometimes it extremely frustrating to try to get it to connect to a remote computer. Sometimes it’s not. A much better bet is to use some other product for whiteboarding. Unfortunately, for most people they aren’t going to run out and get a whiteboarding app–unless they really, really need it. For most of us, we’d use it if it was built in or yes–free. Actually, Messenger just needs a pop-out whiteboarding area. It doesn’t have to be too complicated.
Another issue that comes up with inking in Messenger is copy/pasting ink. It turns out you can copy ink from MSN Messenger with no problems. That’s nice. A person, for instance, can sketch out suggestion for a dialog box or change to a product and you can copy/paste it as ink into OneNote. But, unfortunately, you can’t paste ink into MSN Messenger. This has been a frustration to me many times.
When I know I’m going to be copy/paste ink drawings I switch to the “other” Messenger–Windows Messenger. (Again, you’ll need the latest version of Windows Messenger–not the one that comes with Windows.) It also supports ink, however, it enables you to copy ink from Journal, for instance, and paste them into its chat window. Since you can only be logged into MSN Messenger or Windows Messenger at one time, you have to think ahead as to which features you need. Most of the time I stick with MSN Messenger and forgo the paste capability.