Quick shout out to fellow Microsoft Tablet PC MVP Marc Orchant. He clearly has too much free time on his hands since he’s added another blog to his repertoire! It must be the Tablet PC platform that makes him so productive. Hop on over to his new Platform Agnostic blog for thoughts on technology, productivity and ideas. I wonder how much of a coincidence it is that "Platform Agnostic" launched very near to the day that Dell started offering Ubuntu Linux pre-installed?

This is a text version of the original post that was made in ink. I am always encouraged to blog more in ink but then get complaints about my poor handwriting.  Thus this text version.

Stealth blogging is blogging from any location where you typically are not supposed to blog. For me that usually means long, boring meetings where my presence has been requested but in reality is not required. So for me, lots of boring dead time + Tablet PC   + EV-DO = Stealth Blogging.

Obviously a key objective to Stealth blogging is to not get caught, something that is fairly easy to avoid with a few simple rules.  Here, then, is The Stealth Blogging Primer.

Stealth Blogging Primer

1) Ink or no go.  No matter how clever you think you are, using a notebook or smartphone to Stealth blog will not work. You will be caught. Inking on a Tablet PC or UMPC is the only safe way to Stealth Blog. You have been warned.

2) Pre-condition your "audience".  Use your Tablet for taking ink notes at every meeting, get everyone used to seeing you use that Tablet for real note taking so they won’t be able to tell when you are really stealth blogging. Be prepared.

3) Sit strategically.  Front and center will just not do when Stealth Blogging. Sit at the end of the table and make sure no one is behind you. From the front it will look like you’ve taking notes, from behind they can see when your web browser is open.  Blog smart.

4) Pay attention.  Keep some of your attention on the meeting. It’s embarrassing to be addressed and not realize it.  Keep at least 25% of your concentration on the conversation around you. Don’t tune out.

5) Recovery. If you Stealth Blog much eventually you will be addressed when you don’t know what’s going on, no matter how hard you try to follow #4 above. If this happens don’t panic, simply state you were writing detailed notes on the last topic, and ask them to repeat the question. Simple yet effective.

6) Don’t browse. Doing quick reference for your blog post is OK, that’s what you have EV-DO for. Keep it to a bare minimum, however, as the web will suck you into the vortex if you are not careful. You know it will.

7) Don’t smirk or laugh. No matter how clever or funny your Stealth Blog post is, don’t laugh and especially don’t smirk. It will be mis-interpreted.

These are just a few rules that will go a long way to keep the Stealth Blogger scribbling away without trouble. Lets face it, the world is dying to read your opinions and the words of wit you need to share.

Note: this entire entry was written during a 3 1/2 hour boring meeting without any of the participants catching on. These rules do work. I’m pretty sure that if Stealth Blogging was a Wikipedia entry that this post would be listed as the world’s longest Stealth Blog entry.

James Kendrick

Continue reading »

Sitting here blogging and checking email during a boring meeting. No one the wiser as it looks like I’m taking notes as usual on the Tablet PC. 

Great news over at Gotta Be Mobile today: the Tablet PC team is expanding and now includes Hugo Ortega! Although I only know Hugo by his on-line reputation and passion, he’s quite a character and I know he’ll add tremendous value to the already talented team at GBM. I expect we’ll see all of the breaking Tablet PC and UMPC news about 12 hours earlier with the ‘down under’ news bureau. Congrats!

I have already mentioned the release of BlogJet 2.00 and so far I am really liking the new version.  One of the new additions is the ability to embed YouTube videos with just a click so I wanted to test it.  Here for your viewing pleasure is our latest video (Origami Experience) we’ve posted on YouTube:

This video insertion just required me to copy the video link, choose YouTube Video from the Insert menu and it automatically did the rest.  Very nice work from the BlogJet folks. 

This will only be of interest to bloggers but today a new version of BlogJet was released (finally).  Version 2.0 has a total interface overhaul and looks pretty good so I upgraded ($20) and am using it to post this item.  I have been using BlogJet for some time and it looks like they put a lot of work and addressed some of the problems with the previous version.

It’s kind of funny if you ask me. Bloggers by their nature and passion are about the most open group of people I can think of. Ironically, we keep finding ways to open up more and more. Just when you thought it was safe, you never know when you’re going to get tagged and have to share even MORE openness with the world!

I just got tagged; this time by Dave Zatz. The meme this time around is to share five things about yourself that most folks don’t know. I tend to share TMI more often than not, so this is actually a challenge for me. After much thought and in an effort to have you get to know me more than you probably want: here’s my five.

• Like many folks back in the day, I took the SATs for college. One difference: I took ‘em 7 times, including one time in seventh-grade as an invite to a study by Johns-Hopkins University. Funny…I never heard about the results of that study.
• Keeping with the good ‘ol high school memories: I set a school record in the 800m track event my junior year. The record stood for about 15 years when some faster whippersnapper doubled around the track in just under two minutes. Nice job, BTW!
• As much I like my comfortable home office with complete connectivity, I thoroughly enjoy backpacking (not camping) for days at a time. Last hike: a 50-miler in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire.
• I once "lived" in a train station for 3 days and had to beg for money to get back to Philadelphia. I’m not proud of it and that $19 train ticket was the hardest thing I’ve worked for in my life. Quite a humbling experience too.
• I’ve been known to give presents on my birthday to the people that mean the most to my life. I personally think we all have birthdays backwards: what did you do that was so special on the day you were born? I figure everyone else did the hard work and they have to put with my crap during the year, so it’s my gesture of thanking them.
• I’m not an actor, but I do play one in our jkOTR video reviews. Oh wait…that’s six things.

Like I said: probably more than you wanted to know, but if you’re going to blog, you’ve got to put yourself out there. So, who am I tagging? How about:

• James Kendrick (I’m sure there’s still an item or two that we all don’t know about him)
• Kathy Sierra from Creating Passionate Users
• Scott McNulty from TUAW Edit: via Twitter, Scott tells me "no tag backs" as he was already tagged; however he’s being a good sport!
• Phil Ferris, our jkOTR tipster from the UK
• Alexander Grundner from eHomeUpgrade
• Steve Paine from Carrypad

This is actually a good test to see if these folks have Technorati "ego searches" as I’m not shooting them an e-mail. Of course, they could be jkOTR readers too; one can only hope.

The unofficial "think ink" concept carries on: jkOTR reader Philip Ferris is experimenting with ink blogging and proves that anyone can handwrite more legibly than James…but just barely. Oh, we’re kidding Phil! What’s different about Phil’s approach is that he’s using Phatware’s Phatpad application on his VGA-capable Dell Axim X51v, so the ink posts are saved as image files. He then shoots them up to Flickr and posts them to his blog from there since he currently doesn’t own a Tablet PC or UMPC. That will definitely work, but other approaches like Sumocat’s Build 52 are definitely worth checking out if you have an ink-capable computer; in Build 52, you can add links to your ink! Great job, Phil; keep us up to date on the progress!