The New Slate Keypad/Folio: the good, the bad and the ugly!

[Bronsky]

Bronsky,how is it synced with ur laptop?...which specific programs?What did u use for note taking n writing letter? Did u use the TIP or free hand writing?.... I love the slates productivity !! Amazing stuff that a few 1% take advantage of! Unfortunately I'm writing on my iPhone while having dinner with young son!

I use Synctoy to keep my slate and my 13" Acer (now religated to a desktop role) in sync. All of my documents are always available on my slate to use as forms.

I use PDF annotator as a scratchpad. Whether I'm home or on the road, my slate is normally nearby. I can never find paper and pen when I need it, so I have gotten into the habit of reaching for the slate when I am on my cell. The limitations of my early-version N-Trig pen are less obvious in scratch pad role.

I would prefer to take notes in OneNote or Acrobat Pro (notetaking in Acrobat Pro and OneNote is great on more powerful devices but lags under Atom power). I could use the Tip or Conversion to convert my notes to text for cut-and-paste insertion into pleadings.

I use WordPerfect as my primary wordprocessor. It has been the lingua franka of my profession since I was in law school. Until recently both the federal and state superior courts used it. Now that they are finally converting the federal court's to Word, we will be changing over to Office, probably in the fall, when we change over to Windows 8. Typing large documents on the keyboard is a true pleasure. The only issue I had was the "fn" keys issue. The ' key is an fn key, so you need to use the fn key for any reference to the possessive case. I had noticed that key at the time of my review. What I did not notice is that the "?" is also on fn key. So, you need to use the fn key every time you ask a question. When I encounter these punctuation marks, I have to look up, visually find the key and press the awkward keystroke. At least I'm learning to write simpler, declaratory sentences: no questions, no possessive case. This keyboard will make me the Hemmingway of my profession.

I will say this about the use of the fn key. I think HP's engineers were damned if they do and damned if they didn't. The keyboard is a pleasure to type on because the keys are nice and large. Their spacing is ideal for my size hands. But, to create that size and spacing in an 8.9" slate, the engineers had to eliminate some keys or make them all smaller. Clearly it's a compromise but I'm not sure the other options were any better.

[sjaywu]

That's fantastic to hear. I've kept both the basic and keyboard folios close by, and regularly switch between them. Keyboard for business hours, and the basic one for more consumer iPad-like functions: sitting on the couch browsing the web, etc.

[dceggert]

I use Synctoy to keep my slate and my 13" Acer (now religated to a desktop role) in sync. All of my documents are always available on my slate to use as forms.

* Snip

You may want to look into trying Windows Live Mesh as an alternative to keeping your documents up to date instead of SyncToy. Mesh provides a hands off sync option as opposed to actively running SyncToy. Mesh syncs as soon as both are connected to the internet (from anywhere) and also provides a remote control feature between your Slate and whatever machine is your chosen 'desktop.'

I have used my Palm phone to tether my Q550 onto the internet and remote into my T580 at home. I then used the T580 to modify a photo I saved on my Q550 (the photo sync'd to the T580) and resaved it to the T580; the photo then sync'd back to my Q550. I was able to use the processing power of the T580 to do the photo editing and the photo showed back up on my Q550 in my document folder. Pretty nice! This could have worked from anywhere I could muster up internet access or obtain 3G service on my phone.

[2disbetter]

You may want to look into trying Windows Live Mesh as an alternative to keeping your documents up to date instead of SyncToy. Mesh provides a hands off sync option as opposed to actively running SyncToy. Mesh syncs as soon as both are connected to the internet (from anywhere) and also provides a remote control feature between your Slate and whatever machine is your chosen 'desktop.'

I have used my Palm phone to tether my Q550 onto the internet and remote into my T580 at home. I then used the T580 to modify a photo I saved on my Q550 (the photo sync'd to the T580) and resaved it to the T580; the photo then sync'd back to my Q550. I was able to use the processing power of the T580 to do the photo editing and the photo showed back up on my Q550 in my document folder. Pretty nice! This could have worked from anywhere I could muster up internet access or obtain 3G service on my phone.

Sounds nice, but a little tedious. If you have decent bandwidth at your house, I would suggest an online cloud solution. This would free you from having to have both devices on, and online. It sounds like Mesh could do that with the use of SkyDrive? Have you messed with that?

2d

[dceggert]

Sounds nice, but a little tedious. If you decent bandwidth at your house, I would suggest an online cloud solution. This would free you from having to have both devices on, and online. It sounds like Mesh could do that with the use of SkyDrive? Have you messed with that?

Matt

Matt,
For me, 'cloud' services are a 'do not use' option due to the nature of some of my documents. Corporate secrets, if stolen from a cloud storage location, would be grounds for termination. Actually, if they were just stored there it would be grounds for termination.

Live Mesh supposedly only stores file name and version information and then uses that info to coordinate between the two (or more) computers.There is nothing to steal except an actual file in the process of being transferred.

[jnjroach]

I second the use of Mesh, I've used it since the Beta Days (Ray Ozzie's team developed Mesh has a test bed for Windows Azure). It does a great job of Syncing folders Machine to Machine....

[ships10]

This is a very interesting discussion. However, is it not possible that anything flying over the internet, even if encrypted, has the potential to be hijacked?
With Syntoy isn't there less of that possibility?

[Bronsky]

This is a very interesting discussion. However, is it not pssible that anything flying over the internet, even if encrypted, has the potential to be hijacked?
With Syntoy isn't there less of that possibility?

That is exactly my concern and why I have just stuck with Synctoy. I don't think I have any real need for immediate syncing and, for me, security is paramount. I still tend to discourage client communications through email (dark ages or what?).

[2disbetter]

Any computer connected to the internet has the potential for security compromises. So to answer your question (and not being familiar with synctoy and how it operates) the answer is yes.

However, since the only way to be 100% percent sure of never being hijacked means never going 'online', solutions have been created to help mitigate this risk.

By syncing only over a local LAN/network you are usually perfectly safe from tampering or hijacking.

Clouds services are inherently more vulnerable. This is because not only is information vulnerable in transit to and fro, but there is a potential danger depending on how the servers holding your information are secured.

Most companies regardless of their corporate friendliness offer what has become the standard in this kind of security. They use SSL layers and encryption to minimize these threats.

The average user will never have to worry about these things, as there are bigger fish to fry.

AES encryption is pretty rock solid. It would take a corporation or government a lot of resources to crack it.

And while many simply can't use cloud services due to employment agreements, etc. think about what would happen if these companies offering these cloud services where infiltrated and hacked. How could Dropbox bounce back from something like that? How coudl any of them really? Confidence in their line of work has a one life kind of thing. I mean with time anything is possible, but none of these companies want to risk it.

For this reason I would say that for the majority of services out there, your risk of being compromised is very very slim. So much so as to not even be an issue.

2d

[fgruber]

You can also try Dirsync which is open source and with far more features.
DirSync Pro

That is exactly my concern and why I have just stuck with Synctoy. I don't think I have any real need for immediate syncing and, for me, security is paramount. I still tend to discourage client communications through email (dark ages or what?).