Category: Technical

This evening I have had great fun with Microsoft Windows7 and a VisTablet. I wrote a blog entry on one of my other blogs entirely on the tablet and am attempting to do the same thing with this one. This is not the first time I have tried handwriting recognition with blogging, but it is the first time I have done so without becoming frustrated. I am doing this with no special software I just the Operating System and MS Word, but I could have chosen to use Firefox to directly input the entry into Movable Type. The utility for “pen based input” is far from perfect, but the interface for it is great. I can see what the app thinks I wrote almost the instant I write it , allowing for almost instant corrections, using “pen flicks”, a new gesture system. It is interesting how the software reads my handwriting, since most humans can not. It has been a long time Since I have written anything longer than a grocery list with a pen. It is most terrifying seeing my penmanship on a large screen. From my experience so far it seems like Windows is using the general gesture of the pen more so than the resulting characters to create its conversion. The context also seems relevant to the process.

I am not likely to use this method very often as it is much slower than typing, however I could see the advantage to a person that is more accustomed to writing. For my purpose I like using the tablet for anything that doesn’t involve a lot of writing, as it replaces both keyboard and mouse input methods. The hardest part of using then tablet is getting used to the technology itself, which means adapting to what is written appearing on screen, and not on the writing surface.

One last annoyance I will comment on is that after correctly translating what is written, the app will sometimes second guess itself and convert it incorrectly , which is more of a problem when it does it several words behind your active focus and you don’t realize that it has occurred.

Having 32 spare bits, for a total of 64 is making certain pieces of software not work or install on my newest desktop. Last night I decided to install Windows 7 Professional on the desktop. Because the desktop is a 64 bit system, I decided to install 64 bit Windows. Turns out, that was a bad idea. It would appear that one of my favorite 32 bit games has a few 16 bit components, such as the installer, which are not supported in a 64 bit OS. I suppose because of progress I am supposed to simply accept this fate and move on to a new version, but unfortunately, there is no new version. MotoRacer is no longer produced, primarily because the company that made the game no longer exists, but worst yet, there are no other games that will substitute it adequately. There are also concerns with some hardware not having supported drivers on the 64 bit platform.

I installed Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, but unfortunately, it did not quite work out for me, so I am now back to running Windows 7 Professional 32 bit for now.

I am encountering fun dilemmas of how private of a person I want to be again. I have recently introduced several family members to my Flickr photostream, which is relatively clean of personal information. The most unusual thing on my profile is having Chris and his alternate identity as contacts. As a result, I had no difficulty posting updates to my photostream to Facebook. After making the formal connection between the two accounts, I was prompted to link my Delicious account at the same time. This is an interesting idea, except for the fact that I bookmark a lot of stuff, some of which is less than appropriate for all people to see. I wish I knew why I am so uncomfortable to be completely myself. I long ago got over being gay, but now it is my kinks and fetishes that has me uncomfortable. How much should I self censor what I post? Everything I would be posting would be stuff that is publicly accessible already. Maybe I should learn to be more open or just more careful about what I make fully public information?

As a network concept for a potential change in network hardware, to more fully utilize available client systems, the idea of a gigabit router was proposed, and doing one with Wireless N support seemed like a great idea. My question on this topic is now, who designs these things?

These things look like spacecraft and are a little intimidating. The projections from the side/top of the things are the biggest issue, but since when are routers black, especially shiny black? I guess one will match my new PC.

The router I am currently looking at is this:

Its a Netgear and looks like a textbook, but I can deal with that. My only concern is the lack of any visible antennae… which I have been told are quite important for the operation of a wireless device.

Yesterday I blogged that there was no new assignment for CMK5. That has since changed. CMK5 will very likely be assigned to replace CMK4 as the mail/file/print server, as well as maybe take some of the virtual machine burden off of CMK6. CMK5 is faster than CMK4 and is a lot more capable, even though the system itself was never designed to be in a server role. This will of course place CMK4 as the system without a role, although that is something I am more comfortable with, since CMK4 has been a server for over 6 years.