Knowing .NET

Peter Rysavy sez: While selecting with a pen is definitely fast and intuitive, the text editing experience on a tablet is still very lacking. ... only a Microsoft will ultimately bring a decent editing experience to the mass market.

I've investigated writing a Tablet PC editing add-in for Word. Unfortunately, ink-collectors must be created in the same process as the Window for which they collect. Thus, using COM Interop is  insufficient; you get an exception when you try to add ink to a Word application instance.  The next question is whether VSTO could be used to get the process. I don't have VSTO on my Tablet and it's kind of a longshot and even if you could collect ink in Word's window, you're miles from relating it to the underlying text. All of which is to say that I think Peter's right that it will take Microsoft to create a compelling ink editor for Word  documents.

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My latest SD Times column is up.
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I wrote some of the articles in Intel's "mobilized software" series, including one that presents source code for a GPS interface for the .NET Compact Framework. The articles are finally online.

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My latest on programming for the Tablet PC is up on DevX. This is part 2 of 3. My next one will be on Tablet PC resources. If you're a Tablet PC developer, where do you turn to for advice and support? Email me: lobrien 'at' thinkingin.net (which, by the way, isn't my preferred email address -- use 'at' knowing.net for that.)
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The latest SD Times has a graphic showing that 31.7% of Linux developers said they planned to develop for Mono or Dot Gnu. The blurb highlights the "Undecided" attitude of 55.9% of the surveyed, but I think that almost 1/3 of Linux developers apparently being eager to at least try C# is pretty impressive. Survey was by Evans Data Corp.
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