Chip on Your Shoulder

Around Poynter, Larry Larsen is the go-to guy if you want to know about the next cool thing in technology. I've been watching Larry use a Tablet PC and recently became part of a small group of colleagues who have gotten their hands on this approach to personal computing. I've just begun to scratch the surface, literally, by taking notes in digital ink on my Tablet screen. So, I'm thrilled that Larry has written this power user's introduction to the Tablet for journalists. -- Chip Scanlan

God forbid I were stranded on a desert island with only one of my gadgets, the Tablet PC would be my first choice. The reason is that it is a great catchall device; portable enough to be an MP3 player (albeit a large one), powerful enough to be my video editing system, and with a screen big enough to make any Personal Video Recorder jealous.

During technology demonstrations at Poynter, I often use my Tablet PC and my voice to show how a tech-savvy morning newspaper reader might consume news:

"Launch Internet Explorer," I say (and it does)

"St. Pete Times" (the Times website pops up)

"Scroll down... Scroll down..." (it scrolls)

"New York Times" (new page loads)

"Scroll down..."

This is called Voice Command, a feature built in to each and every Tablet PC. Don't know what command you can use? No problem, just say "What can I say?" and a menu pops up showing all available speech commands. Another feature every Tablet PC has is dictation: the ability to speak and have it transcribe in real time.

Every demo I do for journalists seems to elicit the same question, "Can I use it to transcribe my interviews?" That is hard for me to answer, like someone asking, "Can I mow my lawn with a hedge trimmer?" Yeah, I guess you could, but that's not the best way to use the tool.

The dictation system on the Tablet PC is the best voice recognition system I have ever used, and I've used many, but that's not to say it is entirely useful. Noisy rooms and poor enunciation make real world transcription something you sit and work with, not turn on and forget about. Voice recognition will often bring up a list of words it thinks you might have said so you can select the correct one, similar to spell check. The Tablet doesn't know which person is talking, and chances are the subjects being interviewed haven't trained the speech recognition for their dialect, so results can be spotty. But it can be done.

A better way for journalists to use the Tablet PC is leveraging the handwriting recognition on the device. The Tablet PC is a natural tool for journalists used to writing in a reporter's notebook. Without noisy fans and clacking keys, it is a discreet way to jot down thousands of pages of notes that are always at your fingertips. The difference is, the Tablet transcribes your handwriting in the background, thereby making all your handwritten notes searchable.

Another favorite with journalists is Microsoft One Note, the Tablet PC equivalent of Microsoft Word. I describe One Note as the biggest, baddest spiral notebook you've ever seen. It allows custom tabs across the top, and within those, custom tabs down the side. You may have several different beats you cover in the tabs on top, and individual notes for stories down the side.

Screenshot of Microsoft One Note showing category tabs across the top and section tabs down the side.

The beauty of One Note is that while you take handwritten notes in an interview, you can also hit a record button to record audio using the internal Tablet microphone, or an external wireless microphone for better quality.

Let's say I'm 10 pages into an interview and something is said that I want to make sure I remember. I can simply write an asterisk or some other identifiable mark on the page, and later when I am going through my notes, the audio clip syncs to the notes I wrote. Scroll to the asterisk and hit play and it plays the recorded audio right from where you were when you wrote the symbol. Scroll through the audio recording and it moves to where you were in your handwritten notes.

If you've used a Tablet PC for reporting, let us know how.