Microsoft OneNote - Is it the death of the pen and yellow notepad?

Although like most things that come from Microsoft, there always seems to be room for improvement, I needed to comment on Microsoft OneNote. Although OneNote has been around for a few years now, the advancements in tablet computing hardware has really started to take shape. The marriage of an adequately powered tablet PC and Microsoft OneNote brings people closer to achieving what I set out to do many years ago, that is, scraping my pen and yellow notepads. You can’t appreciate a tablets capability until you experience the interface that a product like OneNote brings to the table for you.

Personally, I am still learning all its capabilities, however, my initial findings is that it now is practical to take phone notes, meeting notes and similar information that you normally write down on a piece of paper, right on the tablet. The general human interface issues that were inherent with tablet computing in previous years really have been minimized by Microsoft’s OneNote. I would expect that as more technologists experience this product, the adoption of the tablet environment will begin to integrate better for people and add yet another common human interface right next to the keyboard and mouse. That is, of course as long as the hardware manufacturers continue to refine the ergonomic technicalities of integrating tablet based computing into the mainstream of personal computing. For now, OneNote makes sense and if you haven’t investigated it’s impact to your personal or business computing environments, it may be worth some of your time to take a look.

Identifying your computing environment

If you’re considering adding to your technology inventory, or retiring a well deserved work horse (See The Vistas of expansion in a Personal Computing Environment) its best to step back and take a look at how things are working today. I my conversations with folks over the years, I get the sense that the majority of us buy personal computing equipment almost as an impulse buy. Let’s get the cheapest or the fastest or the latest fad device into our hands. In most cases the best approach is to do a little diligence and assess the entire situation including the hardware options (See Guidelines for selecting the right Tablet PC ).

Since a personal computing environment varies from individual to individual, let me set the stage about my objectives. Since I have a small network in my home office, I have found that by default I have started to move (not purposely mind you, more like natural selection) to a utility based environment, that is each computer I own has begun to take form as a primary tool and less of a general purpose tool. My music and entertainment stays on one system (two if you count my Tivo) and my business needs on another and my home based apps (like Quicken) on a third; with all of them connected to a small NAS device. Over the years this has evolved to a fairly comfortable layout. It’s like a comfortable pair of shoes that you have owned, you put them on in the morning and forget the fact that they are there… And like shoes when it’s time to replace them, it takes awhile to get things back to the way they were.

It’s almost comical to admit that I too have a bit of resistance to change in me - something I often comment about as unfavorable trait in other individuals. I guess, the older we get the more we resist change. This isn’t due to being stubborn and I certainly can claim to be a technologist while showing technophobic tendencies. No - this is more of experience talking. I unfortunately know that the claims of the golden egg that the technology companies like Microsoft or HP declare often aren’t delivered as they would like you to believe they will be.

The Vistas of expansion in a Personal Computing Environment

As a technologist, I have come to realize over the years that upgrading one’s personal computing environment is a bitter sweet process. Having to recently go through a replacement of my notebook computer, I couldn’t help but to provide some highlights of the event. With the thousands of computers sold on the market today, I am certainly not a pioneer here, but there are a few observations that I thought were worth posting on the blog that centers around the infamous computer upgrade.

In keeping with the theme of the blog, I’m not going to compare Product A to Product B (although I will comment on a few disappointing challenges and lack of features that I ran across). What I will do is discuss the sociological aspect of the event. I know, this sounds deep but it's really not. So - follow the links below to get the story. The sections can stand on their own if you want to go to a specific point, but I would recommend reviewing all of them since it tells the whole story.

Since all of us must go through this seemingly undesirable process at one point in our lives, I thought it was a worthy blog topic. Actually, according to my estimates the average person has to deal with this undesirable process at least 11 times in their lifetime. That is of course if you don’t count any of the upgrades for your wife, kids or other relatives that were smart enough to pawn it off on you.

For me, buying new technology is like being a kid again. It starts by imagining how wonderful it will be to finally got your first bike and be able to race around with the rest of your friends only; to find that you need to build your skill level a bit before you can keep up with them . As with anything, you need to stop and think - is owning the new toy (or in my case latest technology gadget) as good as the anticipation of owning it). Will I gain the productivity advancements that they claim comes with the purchase? I can’t help but to think about this especially when it comes to Microsoft Vista.

I’ll admit that the marketing campaigns that must have cost the Microsoft millions to produce probably had an effect on me. If they didn’t I most likely would have stayed with XP a bit longer before I made the jump. However, being the technologist that I am, my curiously got the best of me.

Making that decision, I was well aware of what I would be up against. After all, I have already been through 50% of my life expectancy of upgrades. I was ready for the excitement of getting a fresh new technology and all the rewards that are claimed to come with it. On the other side, having to give up a comfort level that was established over much time with my current system (even though it did have its problems) was concerning. Although, I’m not one to coin corny phrases, this is an obvious lead into one; there are always two sides of the coin. In this case the reality of upgrading one’s personal computing environment especially with a new operating system often dulls the anticipation a bit.

Outline
Taking the jump into new computing territory takes a little planning. Other than the obvious configuration bits and bytes that you need to decide on (See Guidelines for selecting the right Tablet PC); one other consideration that is often overlooked is evaluating your current personal computing environment. That is, understanding what you clearly are trying to achieve by buying a new computer or moving to a newer technology like Vista (See Identifying your commuting environment). In my case, it started out simple. My laptop was about 5 years old and was starting to run into more and more configuration problems that was effecting my work. Since I was staying with a portable, my choice was a Toshiba tablet based system using Windows Vista and Office 2007 (See Can you see the Vista?). For some strange reason I have been curiously patient in buying a tablet PC. This was odd since for many years now I have felt very strongly about the major benefits that tablet based systems can bring. The Tablet PC’s evolution has been slow, but significant developments have helped to bring its computing capabilities more mainstream (See The evolution of tablet computing). With this, it seemed to be the right time for my needs to make the move. More importantly, this supported one of my personal goals that I have had for quite some time of trying to achieve a paperless environment. I’m not sure if I am entirely there yet, but I am certainly closer than I have ever been (See Microsoft OneNote - Is it the death of the pen and yellow notepad?). Tablet computing still has it challenges today and the manufacturers may need to rethink the way they are delivering these systems to the market. More importantly, they need to take a closer look at how people can effectively use them, something I call "the personal integration factor" (See The Personal Integration Factor).