Don't insult the feathers...

So I did it. I purchased the scaryist computer ever...





I went slate:

I bought it a few days ago when I experienced my first real downer since being here. I had taken my little laptop into Akihabara to the guys that I bought it from. It had a loose connection in the Hard Drive and when the computer was packed "Face Down" (As in where the hinge of the laptop screen was up), then the computer would not boot. Placed "Face up"(Hinge down), the computer was fine. If I forgot, I had to "Han Solo" it (Hit the computer-something I lothe to do) to make it work again.

So I take it down to the little shop with the Indian guys (Not Japanese- these guys deal in computers with US Operating Systems) and give them the computer thinking that it'd take a couple of hours or so to fix the drive. The guy that I bought it from isn't there, but his buddy is. He looks at it and says "I'll give you an estimate in three days" I should have known there and then there was a problem... I hand over my good little computer...

A week passes and no phone call. So we call them. It turns out they have sent the computer off to Hitachi for repair. We confirm our phone number and then they tell us they'll call us back in a few days...

That was five weeks ago.

If I ever see that computer again, which I very much doubt, I'm afraid they are going to charge me hundreds of dollars in repairs on it. since I only paid $400 for it in the first place, I'm not into it... $100 worth of repairs was all I was really willing to do.

So, I'm replacing it.

I bought a slate.

These computers are what Bill Gates was swearing would change the computer industry forever... but he miscalculated.

(What he miscalculated was that typewriters were what replaced handwriting, not computers.... and most people type faster than they write).

Anyway, for me, I'm all about it. I'll type on my big computer, on the keyboard, and I'll draw on the slate, with no keyboard to get in the way. They are perfect for that.

As an aside; They are also used extensively in the medical industry (Ahem, Mal) because they are easy to carry around and easy to take notes on (I have no idea if the Handwriting analysis software can understand Doctor-eze, though :D).

It does have two microphones, so that it can triangulate your voice and then, using speech-to-text software, convert that to text... I have no idea how well that works, either, but you can pretty much expect that I will try it out! Maybe I'll try to make a blog post unedited so you can see how well it does it (As in I'll make a blog post and I won't erase the mistakes...)

Anyway, because the tablets use a special version of Windows XP and you can only get that bundled with the slate (And I now don't trust that guy in Akihabara which deals in English computers), I can't buy it here. But, sombody's sister we know (Read: mine :D) is coming to visit in a couple of weeks for New Years. So I had the slate, which I bought off of eBay in Canada of all places, shipped to her and then she'll bring it over when she comes...

I'm all kinds of slate happy :D