Comments on: New digital notepad gadget http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/ What keeps me ticking & what keeps ticking me off Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:02:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Berlin-DE http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-628 Berlin-DE Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:06:58 +0000 http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-628 Hi, here's our long story: Well, we are dirt poor, and already carefully crafted our finances over several months to get my wife a Lenovo 3000N200-model, the cheapest 'Thinkpad' from the original manufacturers. Not a dual-core, just a Celeron M. Think single-core version of the modern dual-core puppies. Anyway, great machine which was about 500 euro from HD-Computer.de. I thought that would do it for her University needs. Of course not! My wife went on and on about getting a Tablet PC. I said no, as these are with a very old CPU and hardware setup, within anything we could afford (Think of the executive laptop models, WITH a touch-screen). She came up with this "Digitaler Notizblock". Aldi, one pervasive grocery store chain, their electronics brand is Medion, and has kind of a mixed reputation, as Medion is more or less a marketing front-end for diverse electronic products of all sorts of quality levels, many poor quality, in my opinion. As one previous poster pointed out, the exact same tablet as the Medion is available on eBay for 29€ plus 8€ shipping (in DE). Just do a search on ebay.de for "Digitaler Notizblock". The only other product which comes up is some kind of clip-on to a normal paper notebook, which tracks the pen's movements. I can't imagine it would be as good as the item reviewed here. I wanted to find some alternatives, to look at reviews, etc, be an 'Informed Consumer', and since English is my native language, I looked at Amazon.com for Digital Notebook and immediately found the http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C42MLE/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top "Cyberpad", which sells currently for 147USD. I couldn't imagine with the price it was anything like the one offered she was looking at: one missing a pen going currently for 17€. After reading several reviews, and seeing photos where all the digital notebook tablets all look identical, except for maybe the software, the hardware is all the same, minus some branding. So she ordered the Buy Now 29€ tablet and are waiting for delivery. We have already purchased a Canon MX310, sans cartridges (Please honey, READ the entire auction before buying), for about 55€, solely to use the ADF 30-sheet feeder with some OCR software to take in all her university documents and get rid of boxes of paper (the Germans LOVE paperwork). The MX310 is so-far working great and is really fast. Coupled with hacking XP to enable Mirroring and installing two inexpensive Seagate SATA drives, we are well on the way to the 'digital age', on an extremely tight allowance. In all cases, I recommend reading reviews, and looking at past similar auctions. Looking now at a completed auction search on ebay.de, shows some ridiculous patterns: The notepad has been offered for as much as 149€ (not sold); the prices people have paid have been between 29€ and almost 60€. With the 60€ instance, there were 9 bids, although about 9 hours earlier, the same digital notepad, with different branding, was passed over and not sold, for a Buy It Now price of 29€. I am only left wondering how much the pen is simply a pen, with a plastic stylus option, or if it has some other function or feature, for the pad to track the pen. This because the pen is large. It would be probably be handy to replace it with a thinner model. Hi, here’s our long story:

Well, we are dirt poor, and already carefully crafted our finances over several months to get my wife a Lenovo 3000N200-model, the cheapest ‘Thinkpad’ from the original manufacturers. Not a dual-core, just a Celeron M. Think single-core version of the modern dual-core puppies. Anyway, great machine which was about 500 euro from HD-Computer.de. I thought that would do it for her University needs. Of course not!

My wife went on and on about getting a Tablet PC. I said no, as these are with a very old CPU and hardware setup, within anything we could afford (Think of the executive laptop models, WITH a touch-screen).

She came up with this “Digitaler Notizblock”. Aldi, one pervasive grocery store chain, their electronics brand is Medion, and has kind of a mixed reputation, as Medion is more or less a marketing front-end for diverse electronic products of all sorts of quality levels, many poor quality, in my opinion.

As one previous poster pointed out, the exact same tablet as the Medion is available on eBay for 29€ plus 8€ shipping (in DE). Just do a search on ebay.de for “Digitaler Notizblock”. The only other product which comes up is some kind of clip-on to a normal paper notebook, which tracks the pen’s movements. I can’t imagine it would be as good as the item reviewed here.

I wanted to find some alternatives, to look at reviews, etc, be an ‘Informed Consumer’, and since English is my native language, I looked at Amazon.com for Digital Notebook and immediately found the http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C42MLE/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top “Cyberpad”, which sells currently for 147USD. I couldn’t imagine with the price it was anything like the one offered she was looking at: one missing a pen going currently for 17€. After reading several reviews, and seeing photos where all the digital notebook tablets all look identical, except for maybe the software, the hardware is all the same, minus some branding.

So she ordered the Buy Now 29€ tablet and are waiting for delivery. We have already purchased a Canon MX310, sans cartridges (Please honey, READ the entire auction before buying), for about 55€, solely to use the ADF 30-sheet feeder with some OCR software to take in all her university documents and get rid of boxes of paper (the Germans LOVE paperwork). The MX310 is so-far working great and is really fast. Coupled with hacking XP to enable Mirroring and installing two inexpensive Seagate SATA drives, we are well on the way to the ‘digital age’, on an extremely tight allowance.

In all cases, I recommend reading reviews, and looking at past similar auctions. Looking now at a completed auction search on ebay.de, shows some ridiculous patterns: The notepad has been offered for as much as 149€ (not sold); the prices people have paid have been between 29€ and almost 60€. With the 60€ instance, there were 9 bids, although about 9 hours earlier, the same digital notepad, with different branding, was passed over and not sold, for a Buy It Now price of 29€.

I am only left wondering how much the pen is simply a pen, with a plastic stylus option, or if it has some other function or feature, for the pad to track the pen. This because the pen is large. It would be probably be handy to replace it with a thinner model.

]]> By: Stephen http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-611 Stephen Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:44:18 +0000 http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-611 The digital notepad normally ships with a CD that contains 'MyInk Suite' among other programs. This Windows software will convert a .top file to JPEG, BMP or PDF. The digital notepad normally ships with a CD that contains ‘MyInk Suite’ among other programs. This Windows software will convert a .top file to JPEG, BMP or PDF.

]]> By: verhohner http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-603 verhohner Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:55:57 +0000 http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-603 I am still looking for a freeware programm that is just converting the top into some usable file like top2svg does it unter linux. Unfortunatly I have Windows so I hope there is something similar. The official way would be to buy MyScript Notes Full, but I don't really accept to buy another software just to use the data that is coming out of the gadget... I am still looking for a freeware programm that is just converting the top into some usable file like top2svg does it unter linux. Unfortunatly I have Windows so I hope there is something similar. The official way would be to buy MyScript Notes Full, but I don’t really accept to buy another software just to use the data that is coming out of the gadget…

]]> By: Dirk http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-595 Dirk Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:46:05 +0000 http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-595 I just bought this thing on ebay. It really seems like a cool gadget to have. I am on Mac OS X Leopard and it works out of the box when I plug it in via USB. But unfortunately every couple of minutes OS X seems to lose the connection and tells me about an unsafe drive removal. The TOP 2 SVG program (link above) immediately crashes when I try to convert a .top file. Any help would be appreciated. For now I have to settle with running the converter and handwriting recognition software in VirtualBox on XP. For all of you on Linux and Mac OS: it works ok and sure beats rebooting to Windows but a native application would be nicer, of course. By the way, that handwriting recognition software seems to work pretty good. I tested only a few sentences but I have a really nasty handwriting and the program did pretty good. At least with words it did know. My name and address came out somewhat crippled. I just bought this thing on ebay. It really seems like a cool gadget to have. I am on Mac OS X Leopard and it works out of the box when I plug it in via USB. But unfortunately every couple of minutes OS X seems to lose the connection and tells me about an unsafe drive removal. The TOP 2 SVG program (link above) immediately crashes when I try to convert a .top file. Any help would be appreciated. For now I have to settle with running the converter and handwriting recognition software in VirtualBox on XP. For all of you on Linux and Mac OS: it works ok and sure beats rebooting to Windows but a native application would be nicer, of course. By the way, that handwriting recognition software seems to work pretty good. I tested only a few sentences but I have a really nasty handwriting and the program did pretty good. At least with words it did know. My name and address came out somewhat crippled.

]]> By: garth http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-565 garth Mon, 26 May 2008 16:25:32 +0000 http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-565 This is a quick note for anyone trying to access the SD card reader on the tablet under Linux (at least this is how I got it to work on my Adesso branded one): Each of the different storage (internal/SD) are on a different scsi LUN. Internal memory is on LUN0, while the SD card is on LUN1. So to be able to access the SD card, you have to set the kernel to scan for all LUNs. On a kernel 2.6, you need to enable: CONFIG_SCSI_MULTI_LUN It is located at: Device Drivers -> SCSI device support -> Probe all LUNs on each SCSI device Edips: I just ran a grid pattern on mine to see if I could reproduce your result, everything came up perfectly, so I'd suggest you return your tablet. This is a quick note for anyone trying to access the SD card reader on the tablet under Linux (at least this is how I got it to work on my Adesso branded one): Each of the different storage (internal/SD) are on a different scsi LUN. Internal memory is on LUN0, while the SD card is on LUN1. So to be able to access the SD card, you have to set the kernel to scan for all LUNs. On a kernel 2.6, you need to enable: CONFIG_SCSI_MULTI_LUN
It is located at:
Device Drivers -> SCSI device support -> Probe all LUNs on each SCSI device

Edips:
I just ran a grid pattern on mine to see if I could reproduce your result, everything came up perfectly, so I’d suggest you return your tablet.

]]> By: Ekips http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-544 Ekips Thu, 22 May 2008 22:55:24 +0000 http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-544 I've just got the medion one and I've noticed some bits of my writing missing when I view the TOP files, I've tried drawing a grid to check it and I seem have dead area in the lower right side that misses vertical lines Anyone else have this? should I take it back? I’ve just got the medion one and I’ve noticed some bits of my writing missing when I view the TOP files, I’ve tried drawing a grid to check it and I seem have dead area in the lower right side that misses vertical lines
Anyone else have this? should I take it back?

]]> By: verhohner http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-531 verhohner Mon, 19 May 2008 21:21:15 +0000 http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-531 I bought one of the Tevion ones at Ebay now and I am quite happy with my new toy so far. Unfortunatly I am working with Windows and the software MyScript comes in the basic version only and I haven't found any other prog for windows to handly the .top files yet. I would like to print the "scans" from the device as pdf or something like that without any OCR. I know that the MyScript 2.2 Full supports something like that, but if theres a freeware for that I would prefer that. I bought one of the Tevion ones at Ebay now and I am quite happy with my new toy so far. Unfortunatly I am working with Windows and the software MyScript comes in the basic version only and I haven’t found any other prog for windows to handly the .top files yet. I would like to print the “scans” from the device as pdf or something like that without any OCR. I know that the MyScript 2.2 Full supports something like that, but if theres a freeware for that I would prefer that.

]]> By: Eddie http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-522 Eddie Mon, 19 May 2008 07:43:26 +0000 http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-522 @Garth: Great job! Thanks for your effort to do so and mentioning it here. @Garth:

Great job! Thanks for your effort to do so and mentioning it here.

]]> By: garth http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-521 garth Sat, 17 May 2008 03:34:32 +0000 http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-521 I've made 2 improvements to Alex's Toptools (the one written in C). I've posted them as patches on his project page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/toptools 1st fixes a segfault in top2ps and correct the width/height properties in top2svg 2nd adds the possibility to use SVG paths instead of simple lines (make editing of resulting files easier as contiguous lines are now a single entity) Cheers! Garth I’ve made 2 improvements to Alex’s Toptools (the one written in C). I’ve posted them as patches on his project page:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/toptools

1st fixes a segfault in top2ps and correct the width/height properties in top2svg
2nd adds the possibility to use SVG paths instead of simple lines (make editing of resulting files easier as contiguous lines are now a single entity)
Cheers!
Garth

]]> By: verhohner http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-497 verhohner Sat, 10 May 2008 12:59:39 +0000 http://eddie.niese.net/20071129/new-digital-notepad-gadget/#comment-497 @ yehl I'm from germany too and I'm looking for a device like this. I need it for the university and since I will probably use it the next 3 years I want one that is working properly. Is yours ok so far and what is the specific artikle description so I can find it on ebay? I'm not quite sure if that thing really works that good to be honest. Why can't you find these things in proper onlinestores any more? So if theres a device that is really working and good quality please give me a link so I can convince myself :) @ yehl

I’m from germany too and I’m looking for a device like this. I need it for the university and since I will probably use it the next 3 years I want one that is working properly. Is yours ok so far and what is the specific artikle description so I can find it on ebay?
I’m not quite sure if that thing really works that good to be honest. Why can’t you find these things in proper onlinestores any more? So if theres a device that is really working and good quality please give me a link so I can convince myself :)

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