Lost your tablet pen?
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Jim Norman invited me to speak at his Storyboarding Conference over the weekend. I showed off OneNote and learned quite a bit about storyboarding in general. But the best tip I think I got all weekend was from Jim himself.
Jim got his first Tablet PC for a Christmas present. I was excited to see how he was adjusting to it, since he has been admiring my tablets for the whole time we have known each other. Right away, I noticed that Jim had adapted his pen. He tied a thin piece of cable to one end of it.
What was amazing was what was at the other end of the cable. Jim had worried about losing his pen. So, he grabbed a set of headphones that no longer worked and clipped the cord as close as he could to the headset. He tied this loose end of the cable to his pen. The other end of the cable still had the mini-headset jack attached.
Jim keeps the headset jack in one of the sound jacks for his tablet. NO matter what, his pen stays attached to the Tablet and doesn’t get lost.
If I can find a cable thin enough to do this with for my tablet pen, I am planning to do the same thing. Simple, clean fix for a common problem. And it is not only economical, it is a recycling project as well!
{Want to learn more about what I presented? Check out this this entry from the MVP Seminar’s blog.)
Tags: jim norman, onenote, tablet pc
2 Comments
Adrian
May 10th, 2007
at 8:26am
Lenovo actually sells some pen tethers. About $9 CAD for 3. After having seen them, I can tell you that you can easily make them out of some fishing line. Not the regular nylon type, but the kind of line used as a leader - a heavier, usually black, string coated with something to make it more durable.
On my X60 there is a spot on the chassis where you can loop the tether - not sure if other tablets have something similar.
Renee Roberts
May 10th, 2007
at 11:56am
Oddly, I am amazed that most TPC manufacturers don’t have a tether included with their tablets, along with a slot to attach the tether to. I feel “spoiled” in some way, by HP, which has done this for at least the tc4200 and tc4400 models. I seem to recall the tc1000 and tc1100 also having a tether.
(Ironically, I haven’t used a tether on my unit, although it did come with the tether cord).