A Great Graphic Film

Sin City is a movie that will keep you captivated with extreme graphic art, acting and story. Prepared for graphic vivid content, this movie seamed so artistically real, yet it also felt like I was reading straight out of a graphic novel. It was fun, exciting and there were a couple moments of laughter at the right times. Much of the acting performances were up to par, including Benicio Del Toro, Bruce Willis, Clive Owen and Mickey Rourke, all of which impressed me with their performances. Most amazing was the style in which the film was produced. It was far more intense than any comic book turned movie. The artistic methods used to create this film were as novel as the graphic art of the stories. Frank Miller's Sin City is a great graphic film.

InkIE for Inklings

InkIE Address Bar 3.0 is available for download. This internet explorer add-in allows Inklings to write web addresses into an Internet Explorer toolbar, to be recognized and opened. I'm going to continue to give this add-in a try but can't guarantee I will stick with it. InkIE currently does not support the pen eraser or the scratch out gesture, although there is a clear button that may be utilized. The performance of the recognition seemed slightly slow.

This add-in is a great concept and future versions have the potential for being very useful to Inklings. Another web log post on InkIE may be found here: Randomelements

If you would like to get a copy of InkIE, you may go here: http://inkieaddressbar.tripod.com

Sharing Notebooks in OneNote 12

OneNote 12 has some more new features that are worth mentioning. In the next version of Microsoft OneNote, we will be able to have multiple notebooks rather than just the one that is currently available in OneNote. This will make for better organization of notes.

OneNote 12 will also allow us to share notebooks among other specified users of OneNote. This will allow a team of people to have access to a notebook and share notes at the same time. The notes other people are taking will be on your computer as well (and searchable) in shared notebooks. These shared notebooks will sync and be auto-merged as note takers go offline and come back online. Microsoft is passing the grade for offering premier forms of communication and knowledge sharing. The following blogs share detailed information regarding these new features:
Chris_Pratley's OneNote Weblog: OneNote 12 - Working as a team with shared notebooks
Owen Braun: OneNote 12: A squadron of notebooks

Microsoft and Palm Partnership

Microsoft and Palm partner to provide perhaps the best of both worlds in the next Treo (available in early 2006). The next Treo will be packing Windows Mobile 5.0.

Thousands of One Unite The Haunt

It was a great pleasure for me to have my first run in with the spirited performers, “Thousands of One”, last night at The Haunt, in Ithaca, NY. Thousands united their fans through rhythms straight out of Congo Square, New Orleans. The atmosphere was fronted by Jhakeem Haltom capturing me with groups of lyrics sung with affecting improvisation and free-style. Saxophone player Regan Carver provided hard bop measures that united the band in groove. Brent Eva was most impressive with solid droppings of bass lines from funk to soul. Brent’s expressions gave him away as having a great time. Tom Sayers’ Telecaster guitar manner gave me glimpses of a subdued Tom Morello, as he experimented with sounds that bounced around the rest of Thousands of One. The backbeat, provided by drummer Joel Blizzard, paced the rhythm.
If you have yet to experience the music of Thousands of One, don’t wait any longer. You can see them perform with John Brown’s Body, on November 19, at Magic City Music Hall, in Binghamton, NY. Don’t wait that long, pick up their new self-titled album at I-Town Records.

Nintendo Revolution's Remote Controller

I can’t wait to get my hand on the new Nintendo Revolution game controller. Yes I did say “hand”. Nintendo Revolution is developing their next console system with an innovative wireless controller. The controller will be held by gamers in a single hand and will detect hand and wrist motion to determine operations within the game. On top of the remote, I mean controller, will be the standard D-pad (movement detector shaped like a plus sign) and operating buttons. Below the controller is positioned a trigger. We’ll have to wait to see if gamers take to the new controller or if they will prefer to keep their arms motionless when playing games.

Flick Inklings

Windows Vista is adding some exciting new features for Inklings. One feature in particular, users will be able to “flick” their pen in any direction to make the system perform a specified operation. The operations associated with the direction of the pen flicks may be customized by the user. The screen shot shows the configuration screen where Inklings will be able to customize each flick direction and the associated operation the flick will perform. This is allowing for fast and easy computer use for Inklings. With just a flick of the pen, like a wand of a wizard, I am able to perform a computer task; perhaps pasting something I’ve copied. These added benefits make tablet users Inklings forever. We seem to be just scratching the surface.

The Adirondack Forest Festival

The Adirondack Forest Festival has a great lineup this year. The spotlight for the event is on legendary reggae musician Burning Spear. I was fortunate to see Burning Spear in 1999 in Poughkeepsie, New York and the show was a sight to behold; it was dreadfully spiritual. Their performance alone will be worth the trip to the beautiful Adirondacks.

That’s not all you will see at this festival. Also showing will be the hip hop group, playing “Life Musik”, Arrested Development. The Slip, Mecca Bodega and other great bands will be performing as well.

Also, comedian Jim Breuer will be performing. Jim is known for his work with Saturday Night Live. His standup comedy is among my favorite. It’s a treat to have the opportunity to see a standup from Jim Breuer in person.

The festival is on September 23, 24 and 25, in the Adirondacks, New York. The event is coming soon so you will want to pick up your tickets right away.

Now You See Me...

The Microsoft Research lab in China put their new photo-editing software on display at the Professional Developers Conference. The software is capable of removing images from the foreground of a photo and then replicate the background of the object that was removed. I'm not sure how this could become useful, but as Ina Fried writes "It's photo-editing software Joseph Stalin would have loved. "

Acer's New Tablet

By the end of the year, Acer will be offering a new tablet pc; the TravelMate C200. Unique to this convertible tablet pc is the lack of a hinge mechanism. Instead, the pc transforms into a tablet by a sliding mechanism. First opinions of the tablet are saying that it is a sturdy machine and that the new tablet sliding mechanism may take hold over the hinges that have had many skeptics (despite much durability in new models).

This tablet will also wow us with it video card. It has an option of packing the Nvidia GeForce Go 6200 chipset with 256 MB of VRAM. Not many pictures of the machine out there yet, but expect to see many more soon. Let's hope to see this machine on the market soon and into the hands of inklings.

New Site to Sell Motion Tablets

Tablet Authority is a new web site geared to sell Motion tablet computers. Tablet Authority is hoping to assist the tablet market by increasing the sales of the advanced Motion tablet. You'll never turn back once you become an inkling and this web site wants to make you one.

XBox 360 Release Date

The countdown to the release date may begin. Microsoft has announced that the XBox 360 gaming console will be available in stores on November 22. Mark your calendars.

Inklings: Tablet PC Show #24

The Tablet PC Show #24 was released yesterday. This show features Mike Jetter, the founder and CTO of Mindjet; producer of the mind mapping program MindManager. Tablet PC Show

Shipped From Shanghai

My wife and I are excited because her new laptop was shipped from Levono today. I called IBM and was told that it should be here the middle of next week. The ThinkPad laptop comes with 512 MB of additional free RAM, which is far better than the normal free printer promotions. I can only store so many printers away in my closet as it is.

OneNote 12 More Searchable

One of the great features Inklings have with OneNote is the ability to search hand written notes. Before I had a tablet there were countless times that I would ravage through my various notebooks searching feverishly for a note I had taken months ago, most often to no avail. With Microsoft OneNote I no longer have to do the searching. I enter text into a standard search box (like the one below) and OneNote finds every instance of the handwritten or typed notes.


Chris Pratley provided some great information on features planned for OneNote 12 (codename for the next version of OneNote). In this new version Inklings will have enhanced searching capabilities. Through Microsoft research technologies like “OCR” (optical character recognition) and audio/video indexing, OneNote 12 will allow us to search anything we put into our notes.

We will be able to search the contents of scanned and printed documents, screen clippings, and our recorded audio and video within OneNote 12. I thought searching hand writing was cool; these new features will be amazing!

OneNote 12 uses the new Windows Desktop indexed search engine, which means we get our search results instantaneously! You can see Chris Pratley’s article here: Chris Pratley’s Article

Fujistu Makes Inklings Drool

Today, Fujitsu announced that they will begin offering the Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 operating system with their Lifebook P1500. The Fujitsu Lifebook P1500 is the industry's smallest and lightest convertible notebook on the market. Offering this hot notebook with the Tablet 2005 operating system is a very wise decision and will have the Inklings drooling. Fujitsu continues to be a pioneer in the pen-enabled computing market. Lifebook P1500

Microsoft Unveils Next Office User Interface

Today Microsoft released some great screen shots and information pertaining to the user interface changes in the next Office Suite (currently in development). You may find information pertaining to these changes (including an address from Bill Gates) here: The Future of Microsoft Office: Be the first to know

The coming interface is highly graphical and gives users functionality on-demand. We're hoping to have features that are easily accessed in the new interface, without being invasive on our working real estate. The screen captures (like the one above) show an interface that is driven by command tabs rather than menus and toolbars.

The command tabs are dynamic (smart) based on what the user is doing at the given moment. Dynamic previews will also be available to allow the user to see if the changes are desired before they apply the change.

I believe Inklings (tablet pc users) in particular will have a much better experience with the command tabs and the graphical selections provided in the coming Office Suite. Larger selections make for much easier and efficient use with the pen and touch sensitive screens. We'll keep our eyes open for additional features and screen shots.

High Tech Homes

Surfing the internet brought me to an interesting video link on the Microsoft website. The video takes us on a tour of a futuristic high tech home. Although not too far off in our future, much of what is seen in the video will become real only on the basis of ease of use.

There are some great family and home ideas within this video clip. Our microwaves and other cooking devices should be able to scan bar codes on food packages to determine exactly how to cook the food (taking into account altitude and other variables that impact cooking). We should have instant access to our favorite food recipes, displayed onto our counter tops, based on the ingredients we have in our house at any given time.

Now that’s just the future potential of technology playing a role in our kitchen. We could spread that potential to other rooms within the house, and/or spread the potential to larger scale operations such as restaurants and food service industries.

The high tech homes of the future are in sight. The concepts will take hold based on ease of use. I think you’ll find interest, anticipation and excitement in the following video clip: High Tech Homes

Schultze Gives the Blues

Schultze Gets the Blues, a film by Michael Schorr, is purposefully slow. Schultze drags viewers along. The little emotion we see through Schultze is a lot in comparison to his surroundings, but far less than we hope for. The amount of music we are given (including Schultze) through the film, is never enough to satisfy. We push on and search for the music that may bring new life to Schultze (and the film)... and we push on.

The movie documents Schultze's slow search for a new beginning. It slowly captures Schultze's life after retirement. The movie fails to surround viewers in the new music that captures Schultze.

Schultze Gets the Blues distorts viewer’s senses of proportion. The smallest bit of emotion was significant and large. The slightest change to environment would have such a large impact to the life within the film. Each expel of emotion from the characters seemed to be slightly more than the last. It is difficult to determine if the characters cast too much or too little emotion considering their surrounding and circumstances.

In all, I felt the movie fell short in providing me (and Schultze) with an abundance of music I was hoping for.

Microsoft Continues Teasing Gamers

I often enjoy opening the Microsoft main web page to see if I'm missing anything new to the market. As of late I've been spotting their same old teasing ad of the Xbox 360 and that it's "coming soon". We already have known this, Microsoft. We want to know more though. How soon? When is soon? Next month? I know there are a lot of gamers that are getting very anxious to step into the new world of gaming that is "coming soon". Maybe it’s just that I go there all too often to find any news that may burst my bubble of anxiety, only to find another tease ad.

One thing I do like about Microsoft is that along with their long awaited systems (Vista, Xbox 360) they do sometimes pull a trick or two out of their hat, off the cuff. I’m reminded of the Education Pack for the tablet pc. I open their web page one day and out of thin air is free software for Inklings (tablet pc owners).

Well Microsoft I’d say we’re ready for another trick; something new off the cuff. Or maybe let “soon” become “now’. Let the heads stop spinning 360 degrees in search for your new product… we’re waiting.

Apple Offers New MP3 Player

Apple is offering a new MP3 player with a color screen. This new device looks very sharp and is bound to catch the eye of your friends. Apple enthusiast or not, this new gadget should do well on the market; the soaring market of MP3 players.
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano

Music From Ithaca, NY

Here is a great website that offers some great music from local Ithaca, New York. I’ve downloaded some great live music including Plastic Nebraska, Sim Redmond and Samite. Just go to the Funky MP3s link to download some of the live music.
http://funkyside.com

Birth of Inklings and Impressions

Inklings and Impressions is born to the world of blogging. It is a host for ideas (inklings) and for impressions of those ideas. It may be used as a selective knowledgebase for enthusiasts with the same interests as the poster to the weblog. Emotions often flow freely as a result of inklings and impressions and that is a great reason to post to the blog.