Dissol has his global effect again; I post a blog about Tablets, and Steve Jobs has to reply by releasing the iPad...  The iPad may be a Tablet, in the strictest sense...but it is competition to the iTouch, and iPhone, not to Tablet PC's.  In this second post, I'll try to begin to explain why.

First of all, the iPad cannot multitask.  But this is something, in conjunction with Windows 7, that the Tablet PC excels at!  That is not to say that the Tablet PC has not stolen ideas from Apple, it certainly has.  But it has chosen the ones that work well...  And managed to incorporate them into Windows.

We are all used to Toolbars (whether PC or Mac).  In Win 7 they are big...big enough to select with your finger.  They only show the icon for the programme.  But once selected, it shows a thumbprint of each window, within that programme.  The individual thumbprint can then be selected from here.  Or even closed from here.  Right clicking (a right click is achieved by pausing with your finger over the selected icon - the Tablet cannot tell the difference between right, and left fingers!) will also bring up a short historical list of files last used with that programme.  The icon itself also has a transparency to it, and it progressively changes colour, as, say an item is downloading, so if I glance at say iTunes, and see it half greened, then I know it is half way through downloading.

Web browsing is great on a tablet, and in this respect, the iPad looks similar in use.  Here, I am using the tablet in Portrait mode (so it feels like a typical piece of A4 paper to read.  The page is easily zoomed in and out.  One can navigate around the page, by gestures.  So press anywhere on the screen (not on a link, and you can scroll left, or right, up & down. 

Then there are 'flicks'.  If you flick the page to the right, then it goes back a page, flick left and it is forward (these can be personalized, of course), and the same technique works with many programmes, but it is nice, when browsing, the page appears slightly smaller, and then grows into the screen (as can be seen on the picture here).  There are some good videos on the MS website.  Links are selected by finger, or pen, or mouse (if you are really old fashioned!!!).  If you press and hold, then the right click options are available as a pop up sub menu.

More cool features to follow...and then I'll demo some programmes...  BTW, using a Tablet, this post has been written in my car, waiting in a car park...  My biggest frustration?  The fact that the battery goes flat on the HTC phone that I use to link via bluetooth, to the net...

11h30 from the car park adjacent to Cape Town stadium.

 I'll add my photos when I get home, as I forgot a cable to connect my card to my tablet.

There is a huge Police presence here (as you would expect for a dry run for the FIFA event).  I am within the security curtain, so I, and my car, has been checked for explosives.  Good to see some of the very latest electronic sniffing techniques being used.

 Now this is a "Lifestyle Blog", clearly...  Or is it?

I am writing this on my Tablet PC, connecting to the internet through my cell phone (and blue tooth).  Windows 7 and a tablet PC make this such a pleasure (and easy to do).  It is the everyday application of digital technology which makes all this possible.  It makes a massive impact on my lifestyle.

But MyDL is a technology site first and foremost, rather than a social networking site.  So the owners, managers, of the site have every right to do with it as they will.  We, as users, have only one basic right; are can use the site, or not...  We cannot dictate our own terms.  We can suggest and cajole, but MyDL do not have to listen.  Of course any organisation that does not listen to its customers is not going to last long!  But MyDL's biggest customers (and therefore much more important than us) are the sponsors and advertisers.  They want more digital blogs. 
Personally, I think that the recent suggested changes will be counter-productive.  too many of the digital blogs are too dry for my tastes, and if they are the only ones being supported then I would imagine that I would slowly drift away, and look for alternative social networking possibilities.  However, if we can work with the system, and perhaps make more of our lifestyle blogs more digitally focussed, then we may find a solution that makes everyone happy.

As an example of what I mean I have a look at Jeremy Clarkson's Column in the Sunday Times.  It is in the "motoring" section, and does cover motoring issues.  But over 90% of each blog is lifestyle, and therefore much more enjoyable to read...  Take a look at my tags for this post and tell me which ones do not apply.?

 This is Dissol, live from Cape Town stadium, signing off!

My Windows 7 upgrade kit arrived yesterday after the long weekend. I was a little upset that the tracking information reflected that I was on holiday on 24 December. I would have liked to have been on holiday very much. Of course I can understand that for some - for many - 24 Dec is at most a half day.