Microsoft Hiring Ruby Implementor
Microsoft is looking for a developer whose “first task will be to drive the exploration of other dynamic languages such as Ruby and JavaScript on the CLR“. Dang. If only they allowed people to work remotely…
Archive for 28th March 2006
Tablet PC Honesty
Rob Bushway data-mined the buzz about Origami to reveal that a lot of Tablet PC users don’t carry their existing Tablets around as much as they might claim. It’s a good catch. I have 3 Tablets (how ridiculous is that?) and have to admit in all honesty that somewhere over 90% of my work on them is done in desktop mode. For something to be carryable requires an incredible fine-tuning of features. I never carry around my Toshiba Portege M200 (a convertible) — that’s the role of my Motion Computing M1400 slate (which shares the form-factor of my third tablet, an M1200, which is gathering dust, quite honestly). It’s not that the M200 weighs a few more ounces (although it does), but the balance. The Motion Computing slates are really, really appealing for carrying around — the M200 just doesn’t feel the same way.
On the other hand, what do I carry around all the time? My Pocket PC Phone Edition PDA (an O2 XDA) which I like much more than my now-bricked SMT5600 Smartphone. Its got instant-on and battery life long enough not to worry about it. If only it had Shapewriter / Shark text input I’d be in heaven. (By the way, the “coming soon” version of Shapewriter has been that way for a year and a half: could IBM be holding back because Microsoft has so much to gain from a great mobile text input technology?)
On the other hand, the view-anywhere screen on the M1400 is better than that of even my PDA. But it’s only 1024 x 768, while my M200 is 1400 x 1050.
In other words, there are a million (or at least a dozen) tiny little things: balance, screen readability, resolution, accessories, battery life, text input speed, etc… that weigh into the decision to carry a computer at all times. It seems to me that it’s more a case of time and luck than anything else, that eventually there’s going to be some piece of hardware that really hits the sweet spot. Whether the Origami / UMPC is it, I don’t know — the base resolution of 800 x 480 makes me doubt I’ll be using it to compose articles.
