Just 13 things - Tablet specific

Five things to try on your HP 2730p tablet. (Rather specific I know, but there are reasons.)

9.)  Play games.

The best way to get used to the pen is to do something fun. The games section has “Inkball”, which is mildly amusing (I ended up playing it for a ½ hour, but I’m also easily amused).

10.) Check out the Microsoft Experience Pack for Tablet PC (located in “All Programs” after you hit the Start button). There’s Ink Art, Ink Crossword, and the “Snipping Tool”.  The snipping tool actually quite useful, I use it to take ‘clips’ of articles or pictures I’m reading and stick them into OneNote 2007 if I’m doing research.

11.) Download your own “Experience Pack”.  As an operating system, XP is fairly old. As a result, there is a whole whack of resources that have been created for it, that you can download and install. Remember, to install anything, you will need to be logged in as the Admin user on your tablet.

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/tabletpc.mspx and take a look at what’s available. There’s art tools, a drawing animator, a physics illustrator, a bunch of games, a Music Composition tool, and a bunch more.  My personal favourite is the “My Font Tool”, which allows you to make your own font – in your own handwriting! I managed to fool my Bio12 class for a week that I finally learned how to write in a straight line by preparing some notes in “Neufeld Font” on the Smartboard.

12.) Explore all the buttons and settings.

When I got my first laptop, I noticed that whenever I was typing, occasionally the mouse would ‘jump’ around and I’d end up typing in the middle of a previous sentence without realizing it. This was frustrating, and I thought my laptop was defective until I finally found the culprit – my large thumbs. While typing my thumbs would hit the Touchpad.

If this happens to you, there is a way to shut off the touch pad when you’re not using it.  Press the Function key located on the bottom left:

And then press the F5 key at the same time, located at the very top leftish:

The light above the F5 key should turn on, and be amber in colour. This is to remind you that the Touchpad is off.  Since you have a pen, you essentially already have a mouse, and don’t need a Touchpad unless you prefer it. I hate the touchpad with a passion usually displayed by two year olds towards their vegetables. To turn it back on again, hit the same key combination (fn + F5) again, and the amber indicator light should shut off.

13.) Turn on the light.

Lastly, I don’t know if you noticed, but your laptop comes with a light to illuminate your keyboard at night. I think it’s kind of unnecessary and gimmicky (and therefore kind of cool), but in case you haven’t noticed it, press the little square button at the top of your screen as indicated.  The light should pop out, and illuminate your keyboard. Just push the light back in to shut it off (I have no idea how quickly this drains the battery – I assume relatively quickly).

I thought that might be of use to some of you – it took me awhile to figure it out. I still haven’t found the off control for the nub (labelled “Pointstick” in the diagram), so if anyone knows how to shut it off, let me know.

Cheers,

Ron Neufeld
Canada's Best Boarding School