03/06: Tablet pen

Category: General
Posted by: herman

Well I decided to buy a "Genius F350" Tablet pen to help with the annotation of PDFs.    I bought it on bidorbuy from "shopandship" and must say it was a smooth transaction.    I have bought odds and ends on the web, but nothing yet from bidorbuy so this was a new experience for me.

I have done research beforehand to make sure that the F350 will work on an Ubuntu (10.04) workstation.      Anyevent, I plugged it in and voila the tablet worked from the beginning in the following areas:

  • screen calibration in place
  • sensitivity sensor working
  • the pen tip working and button nr2 working on the pen

There are some issues with:

  • cursor not moving after an event.   Get resolved when the pen is moved away from the pad or another event is triggered.   (...this is slightly irritating...)
  • the 22 "fast paths" on the pad is not operational.  (...not really an issue...)
  • button nr1 not working   (...also a slight irritation...)

I would have been very happy if button nr2 was also functional, but I suppose "c'est la vie".  Did some basic research on xmodmap and eventually came accross the following that basically stated "...If {{xev}} does not display an event if you press an extra key, than - bad luck. This HowTo won't help you...."

At this point that is where my knowledge of Linux gets challenged, so I will live without button nr 1.

Biggest challenge is however getting used to working with a Tablet!   It is a LOT different than working with a mouse, but the more I work with it the more I like it.    Very very useful with the annotation of documents.

Category: General
Posted by: herman

Constant changes being made at the moment. In the process of upgrading.

01/10: About me

Category: General
Posted by: herman

About

I am an IT Specialist working for IBM Global Business Services in South Africa.

I tend to divide my 24 hours a day into three pillars.

  • Private time between me and my Creator
  • Family time
  • Work time

It is a constant battle to get the priority right amongst these pillars.    I am sad to say that the Work time pillar often wins or that Family time is occasionally invaded by research from Work time, but the struggle continues.

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