Hans has created a flash tutorial for ArtRage 2 where he draws a cartoon. It is short but does a great job of showing the power of the software.

View it here.

(this post was for some reason never published - it is old news now, but still worth a look if you haven’t seen it)

I am stuck. I really want to purchase ArtRage 2.0 but I can’t because Ambient does not accept Paypal. To be fair, it is their online transaction vendor that doesn’t accept Paypal.

(this post for some reason never got published, and now it isn’t even accurate - ArtRage 2.0 can be purchased with PayPal by visiting this site!)

Also I really would like to get Sketchbook Pro, but the cost for that one is just way too high. Since I am out of luck on both of these, I will keep looking for a product I can afford and has Paypal online. I wish it had been bundled with my Tablet like some have. I have ArtRage 1.x, and it is great, but I really am looking forward to the features in 2.0.

I think I am becoming a Tablet Art Software addict!

I was watching the excellent GottabeMobile.com InkShow on Vista’s PenFlicks. In it, Rob shows how in Vista dragging on the Tablet PC-screen allows you to:
Scroll Up
Scroll Down
Copy
Paste
Delete
(and many more - watch the InkShow)

StrokeIt does much the same thing. Like Flicks, it supports keystrokes and key combinations. So, just like in Flicks if I am In a browser, I can drag left/right to go backward/forward, and drag up or down to scroll the page in that direction. StrokeIt will leave an on-screen trail showing showing your gesture (Flicks uses icons). It comes loaded with lots of “global” strokes that work no matter what program you are in: draw an O to open a file, draw N for a new document - but you can bypass those (or turn them off alltogether).

What I like about StrokeIt is that it has the ability to know what program you are using (if you set it up using the Program Identifier) and can store custom strokes just to be used in that program. There is a lot of value to being able to change the strokes depending on the program you are in. For example, in my web browser dragging left will take me backwards. But in Photoshop, I can assign that same stroke to mean “Apply Filter.”

A nice touch is that you can tell StrokeIt to ignore strokes in a specific program. For example, you would not want StrokeIt to activate when writing in OneNote. I’d say there is a steeper learning curve, but with that comes greater flexibility and control.

I don’t think PenFlicks has the level conditional functionality found in StrokeIt. But I would think it wouldn’t be long before that function is added.

I like PenFlicks, I think it has a much slicker interface and the on-screen icons are a nice touch. But for those of us without a clear path to Vista (me!), StrokeIt is a very nice, powerful, and free, alternative.

Download StrokeIt here.

If I get the guts up, I will post a video show about this cool program.

Last week I had to give a demo to a group of Higer Learning Educators. There was no way I could remember them all, so I asked them to jot their name and phone number on a page in OneNote. It was a great help to me to have their information right beside my notes I took during my demo.

Although I was jokingly accused of being a show-off, I really had no other option. I don’t carry notepads around with me anymore. And maybe, some of the faculty had a chance to use a Tablet PC for the first time. Maybe it will get them interested in learning more.

Maybe I was educating the educators.

Hm. Maybe.

I am in the process of migrating myself back to Outlook after having used (ugh) Lotus Notes for the past year. I wanted to use what everyone else used and opted for Notes. I couldn’t stand it! I lasted as long as I could, but I have always used Outlook, and now I am returning home.

So, since I’ve been away, there are several neat tools that MS has made available. Here are a few, and if you know of more/better, please leave a note.

Outlook 2003 Automated PST Backup Add-in - Not the official name, but my description of it. Here is Microsoft’s:
The Personal Folders Backup download creates backup copies of your .PST files at regular intervals, in Outlook 2000 and later versions, making it easy to keep all of your Outlook folders safely backed up.
Instructions for use can be found here.

FolderShare - Once a commercial product, but now free thanks to a Microsoft purchase. With it you can share a folder, securely, between several PCs, sync files, and even share folders with friends. This isn’t a new program, it had been discussed on many Tablet PC site (and tech sites). But I somehow overlooked FolderShare and have just now installed it. I am hoping it will be a good way to keep my Outlook PST file sync’d between my PC and Tablet.

SyncToy - Not as powerful as FolderShare, but a very slick tool to sync files between 2 computers. I believe the PCs have to be connected or networked in some way, it isn’t an online solution. It is from the MS Digital Photography site, but has much wider uses. I bet you could use in in conjunction with FolderShare to get some interesting results.Developers listened to user feedback and updated SyncToy to 1.2 on 3/28/2006 and are taking feedback on their forum.

Like any of us need yet ANOTHER blog (I have 3, no 4?), I just came into had a few invitations for the new SixApart Community/Social Blog thing called VOX.

If you are an active blogger and feel like you want to be part of a community of like-minded folks, let me know. I will pass out the invites to the first that ask.

All gone for now. If I get more, I will post it.

I have a need to Ink onscreen while showing web sites, and I am having trouble finding a good program for this.

I have looked at M2 ScreenInk, and it just doesn’t work properly on my Tablet. With no updates since 2003, it could be due to changes in the Tablet OS. I like the price (free), but it just doesn’t do the job.

OK, I searched Tablet PC Buzz and Google and found these:

AnnotatePro - $19.95
Screen Annotator - Free
(Nauman has some great stuff in his blog, be sure to read it too)
WinPointer 2 from PCmag - $7.97 (when did PCmag tools stop being free?)
Deskmarker by Delight Software (german text)- free
VB Doodle - free
Focus Express - no longer available

I’ll give these a try and report.