Inspired by Dan Roam’s annotated-in-real-time presentation, I picked up a Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch drawing tablet for portable use. I’ve got an upcoming talk (“Remote Presentations That Rock”) and I’ll need to deliver it from 3600 because of other appointments, so I can’t use my ever-so-wonderful Cintiq 12WX. I decided to spring for the multitouch tablet because I thought the extra buttons and multi-touch gestures would help me work as smoothly as I work on the Cintiq.

After some driver hassles, I got the new tablet working with drivers downloaded from Wacom’s website. The multitouch works better than expected, and I’ve been using it to scroll through webpages in Firefox. Zooming in and out worked with Inkscape, as does scrolling vertically, but scrolling horizontally or rotating don’t work.

I’m still getting used to looking at one surface while drawing on another, but that’s something I can pick up with practice.

Although a tablet PC would probably be an even more efficient way to handle all of this, I think my decision to explore the in-between steps was good. This way, I can add drawing capabilities to any of the computers.

Looking forward to sharing my experiences with you!