iPad Pens: AluPen and/or Bamboo Stylus

Finally this week has my bamboo stylus arrived from Hong Kong, as it was cheaper to buy than local.

Cost $31 including shipping.

I have been using AluPen for almost a year and was carefully avoiding buying any other pens since I was extremely disappointed by almost all except AluPen.

Now I read a lot of rave reviews about bamboo stylus and decided to buy and after a few hours I can clearly say it is a good pen.

BUY.

(Make sure you had the chance to test the Pen because choosing between AluPen and Bamboo is not always easy. I like to use Faber Castell 0.7 thick thick wooden pencils and then I switch back to my wooden 0.5 Lamy pencil and then there is also the new 0.5 Faber Castell triangle rubber pencil which comes in handy.)

Will this mean I will be happy, no! The problem lies between the keyboard (or Pen) and the iPad; which means me. I just can not cope to really work efficiently with the iPad no matter how hard I try. Using about 10 note taking applications and going through iterations of versions but still fail. Most of them are used differently and don't give full flexibility, are slow, buggy etc.

The biggest issues are:

• With the pens you cannot write as small as on paper and if you try like I do then you'll probably end up missing always the initial stroke. All applications that automatically zoom or have a real manual gesture zoom are good but hard to work with.
• Some strokes get lost, especially the first ones of a Character etc.

I cannot use the iPad for note taking. I should stop trying.

 I failed to use Windows XP Tablet PC on Motion Computing around 2004, because XP Tablet and Windows 7 tablet is not really made for use with a Pen. They never made the applications behave the same and your arm had to cover distances that were by far more than inconvenient and inefficient. Compare what you can achieve with a perfect mouse like Logitech MX 1000 or the newer models.

Nothing beats a letter/a4 notepad with a Lamy or Faber Castell pencil.

Maybe the KNO Tablet or something else, an letter/A4 iPad anyone?

Interesting read: Why the iPad has to be made in China

http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/4/19/why-the-ipad-has-to-be-made-in-china--2

Interesting Read: Apple vs. SeattleRex

http://www.seattlerex.com/seattle-rex-vs-apple-the-verdict-is-in/

The quest for the ultimate keyboard for iPad is over: Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover

I would have loved something like the apple wireless keyboard to appear on the market attached to the iPad like a smart cover.

My wishes have almost come True.

Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover to the rescue:

http://www.logitech.com/de-ch/tablet-accessories/keyboards/devices/ultrathin-keyboard-cover?WT.ac=ps|9859|hp

If the keyboard is a bit better than the old zagg/logitech product it's a 100% BUY!

It's probably not as comfortable as the wireless keyboard from Apple but it might fit.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/18/2958455/logitech-ultrathin-keyboard-cover-ipad-impressions
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/logitech-ultrathin-keyboard-cover-for-the-ipad-smart-cover-meets-keyboard/7511

Interesting read: Early History of Jack Tramiel

http://www.commodore.ca/history/people/jack_tramiel_early_history.htm

Excel: All m acros for use in all excel files

• show developer ribbon
• Record Macro enter some dummy text as name and select personal workbook
• Stop Recording (you did nothing in between, right?)
• Press Visual Basic or ALT-F11
• Select Personal Workbook and Module1, click view code
• replace everything with a sub end sub, e.g. the highlight from a previous post

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/create-and-save-all-your-macros-in-a-single-workbook-HA102174076.aspx

Excel: filter rows based on cells that contain non-ascii characters

After running the script to highlight non-ascii characters you can use the autofilter of excel 2010 and filter on color!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/213923

Excel: Highlight non-ASCII characters in Excel

http://www.excelforum.com/excel-new-users/821220-need-help-finding-all-non-ascii-characters-in-spreadsheet.html

Kudos to  protonLeah, many thanks. As well as for MAP-Daniel.

This is what I used:

Sub NonAscii()
    Dim UsedCells   As Range, _
        TestCell    As Range, _
        Position    As Long, _
        StrLen      As Long, _
        CharCode    As Long
   
    Set UsedCells = ActiveSheet.Range("A1").CurrentRegion
    For Each TestCell In UsedCells
        StrLen = Len(TestCell.Value)
        For Position = 1 To StrLen
            CharCode = Asc(Mid(TestCell, Position, 1))
            ' If CharCode < 32 Or (CharCode > 32 And CharCode < 48) Or (CharCode > 57 And CharCode < 65) Or (CharCode > 90 And CharCode < 97) Or CharCode > 122 Then
            If CharCode > 127 Then
                TestCell.Interior.ColorIndex = 36
                Exit For
            End If
        Next Position
    Next TestCell
End Sub

Ascii: Ascii table

http://www.asciitable.com/

Excel: Add a VBA as a macro

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee814737.aspx

Interesting Read: Security: Author of Zeus jailed

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2124114/Computer-hacker-Edward-Pearson-Lendale-York-stole-million-people-s-personal-details-jailed-half-years.html

Interesting Read: Wired: Google, Amazon, and Microsoft Swarm China for Network Gear

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/03/google-microsoft-network-gear/