But from my experience this is exactly how people are using touchscreen laptops in meetings.
I don't see the point of adding a sticker to your laptop when it already can be used as a whiteboard with the added benefits of digitalisation (backup, share, undo, search...)
A lot of people actually share this concern and you are right if you're planning on keeping what's written. I personally use it for practicing coding interview questions and brainstorming.
I bought a whiteboard 2 weeks ago for my home "office". Thinking about it, it would have made sense to buy a big sticker instead which I can stick on one of my windows. For sure that would have been much cheaper. Plus, I would not have needed to drill holes in the wall.
I hope by "whiteboard" you meant a 4x8 sheet of melamine bathroom/kitchen tile underlay sheet - and not one of the more expensive kind with the fancy aluminum borders (which, if you wanted to replicate those, you could find the parts in the hardware aisle of the home improvement store)...?
The 4x8 sheets of melamine backer board is cheap, cheap, cheap! Where I currently work, we have 80 linear feet of the stuff on our walls in our dev area (held up with nails and construction adhesive). It isn't fancy, but my employer believes more in results than being "impressive" (plus, we don't get any clients back here anyhow).
I think this is pretty neat and love all things whiteboard but the one annoyance is that I now need to carry around a whiteboard marker and eraser (if you don't want crap all over your fingers from erasing). Note: I don't think you can solve that problem.
And now I probably am carrying a backpack which makes paper + pen better. I think the #1 benefit of a whiteboard is the size. I can draw huge diagrams and everyone in the room can see and not have to huddle around a piece of paper.
Marker? No, you need that. Eraser? Kleenex is a good add to any bag – but you could also figure out some way of having a removable plastic overlay to preserve the diagram...
But, ultimately, your point about pen & paper was my thought too... And then I decided that ~$16 after shipping was cheap enough to try, even if I later decided paper was indeed better – so I ordered it.
> I think this is pretty neat and love all things whiteboard but the one annoyance is that I now need to carry around a whiteboard marker and eraser (if you don't want crap all over your fingers from erasing). Note: I don't think you can solve that problem.
I wish laptops had laptop-sized e-ink displays on the back of their normal displays. I mostly want that for reading, but since I'm wishing for things, I'll also now wish that these hypothetical displays are pressure sensitive, for writin' on.
Actually, this just gave me a crazy idea... what if laptop manufacturers included something low powered like a boogie board device on the outside of the screen, which could write / save directly to some small internal storage of the laptop, and then the resulting notes could be accessible via the laptop when turned on? Kind of like.. a poor man's tablet on the outside of a laptop? I wonder the cost of that vs. touch screens / digital pens.
I don't really see a problem with that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only moving parts in higher end laptops are fans. Nothing will break, so why not?
I mean, it's annoying to do I guess, and requires hardware to detect shaking, but it's not terrible.
I know it's low-tech, but I just keep a pad of sticky notes in my laptop bag. If I write a note, I can stick it to the screen when I close the laptop, and it's there to remind me when I get back to the office.
And my cousin is a sales rep for a drug company, so I have a whole crate of logo-ed sticky notes.
About $1000 dollars last time I checked. Add to that the cost of mental health issues associated with the use of Microsoft products and its a non-starter.
What experience do you have with using Microsoft products and resultant mental health issues? I'm guessing none, and it's just another throw-away remark that is anti-Microsoft, ignorant of the interesting and - in my experience at least - pro-good-mental health work they've been doing recently.
I feel like buying a Surface just to have drawing capabilities is expensive -- why not just make a screen ascessory that lays onto of your keyboard (or not) and plugs in via USB-C?
Rather than a screen accessory plugging into a laptop, this is what I got a Samsung Galaxy Tab A With S-Pen for. Retails for about $250 USD, it's an Android tablet that also comes with an integrated active pen, like the Note series of phones. You can share your drawings / writing with your laptop using Dropbox etc, at a fraction of the price of the Pencil-compatible iPads.
[I think you've been downvoted unfairly - although I think the Surface drawing capabilities are excellent & superior, they might be overkill for some use cases.]
I think it's a neat idea but personally, I'll stick to a legal pad. I use them quite a bit, but not enough to justify switching to something like this and then taking photos of my work.
And yet, the newer laptops require a USB hub to be functional, which means you have this thing dangling from your laptop like a condom that was freshly used.
Ive been using my laptop like this for years. I just bought some white plastic film you use to protect text books with and stuck it to the back of my Thinkpad. Works great for todo lists. I also agree that they should build a laptop like this where every free surface can be written on as a white board. It is surprising just how much I use this.
I think this is a really good idea, but if you look on eBay you can buy a 200cm by 45cm (~ 78.7 in by 17.7in) vinyl whiteboard sticker for $5. You could buy this, trim it down and use it on a handful of laptops at a significantly cheaper cost. There are lots of other listings for "whiteboard vinyl sticker" but here is the $5 one:
I like the suggestion for a fun experiment, but I think pklausler was referring to the fact that strong magnets tend to wipe spinning hard drives, making magnets a bad idea for non-SSD laptops.
Is it? Either you're looking at the whiteboard or at the screen. If the laptop is open, you can push it closed if you write on the back. If it is closed, you don't want to press too hard lest you damage the screen.
Okay, is there some dissonance I'm not picking up on here in this thread? The item is sitting at 220+ votes, at the top of HN right now and looking at the timeline, it appears the only reason this is on sale is because people begged the author to sell them.
And in the thread... a bunch of people suggesting "Why not just DIY?", "Why not paper?", "It's useless on the back" etc.
This is obviously a popular item. Maybe some introspection?
But you bring up a good point. Should the primary point of these kinds of threads be about giving props and praising the startup/service/product or should criticism and skepticism be allowed in as well.
//
I actually like it as product to personalize your laptop, as opposed to something to help your productivity.
Not to mention that magnets cause even Macbooks with SSD drives to enter sleep mode. Try it with an iPhone or iPad, or any other device with a magnet (as others have indicated, don't do this if your hd isn't solid state).
Yeah, it seems to trick the mechanism that detects the lid is closed. It took me a while to discover why my work laptop would go to sleep as I was typing, when I had it stacked on top of my (closed) personal laptop.
When I had a non-unibody Macbook Pro, I would actually doodle with a dry-erase marker directly onto my (glass) screen. This was handy for making small annotations as I was pondering designs, PCB layouts, etc.
Unfortunately for my screen-doodling habit, new MacBooks have some kind of coating (AR? Oleophobic?) that causes the marker's fluid to bead up, ruining the effect.
> Unfortunately for my screen-doodling habit, new MacBooks have some kind of coating (AR? Oleophobic?) that causes the marker's fluid to bead up, ruining the effect.
I can confirm, my mid 2014 MBP screen is _ruined_. Tried alcohol, screen wipers (which actually made it worse)
I am this close to using a detergent (I know I shouldn't). Any suggestions?
I think it's a terrible idea. First, marker ink would be smudge all over backpack. Second, it's on the other side of the laptop! You wrote an algorithm on sketchcase and want to implement it. Well, now you have turn your laptop around every time too see it.
Calling this a terrible idea is such a typical garbage HN response. Its a cheap creative idea that someone put up for sale. Don't like it don't use it but I am sure it will sell to a bunch of customers that like it a lot.
There's a product called The Noteboard [1] that's relevant here. It's basically a 7x5 grid of index cards laminated to be a whiteboard that you can toss in your backpack.
I didn't end up using it regularly because the surface doesn't erase as well as a whiteboard, but still a cool product.
But there is a major problem with that "solution"... you would either have to remove the sticker every time you use the laptop, or you would instead have to choose not to use the laptop at all.
I don't use a backpack and after using this in the past I just wipe it clean after a meeting, nothing more annoying than when people leave writing on a whiteboard after a meeting!
Yes and that's when I walk out of your interview. Some time ago I did an interview with elementary coding questions, like 2nd year of university stuff. Was a developer with 15 years of experience. Rage quit. They're like oh, you got 100% percent on the stuff you attempted, here is a new link to finish it. And I am like no thanks, have contract work, please send it my way. Not interested at a job at a place that interviews like this.
While I dislike most programmer interviews for asking obscure or trick questions, what's wrong with them having a baseline set of coding questions? You might have 15 years of programming experience, but people lie on their resume all the time, and a lot of management positions in this space are hands off (and the manager's skills degrade/are for the wrong tech').
I certainly have a few managers with 20+ years of experience who cannot code a Hello World site in our primary technology. Their resume will still list them as "Senior Development Manager."
PS - My managers are actually very good at their respective jobs, they just aren't hands on anymore. I am just saying that if they moved jobs their resume would be "misleading."
A manager doesn't need to know how to write a Hello World. It can be useful for a manager to have technical knowledge but purely for managing wetware (i.e. humans/programmers) it isn't required.
I've met several 10+ years developers that couldn't code basic stuff, why instead of rage quitting you did not say "I don't want sound cocky but this stuff is really easy for me, do you have anything else?" by rage quitting I wouldn't trust you contract work, what would prevent you from rage quitting in a different scenario!?
I agree wholeheartedly. On the flip side, when I interview such candidates, I usually prefix baseline questions with "This is probably a piece of cake for someone of your calibre, but please bear with me because it's a part of the process we got to get out of the way"
I didn't expect to get any contract work out of that. I wanted to simply send them a message. Maybe they got it, maybe they did not. But I don't want to work for people like that. And this was the guy I would be working under testing, so if he thinks that this is a good test, then I don't think that this is a good job.
Developers complain all the time about these stupid tests. But they do nothing about it. Do something about it, maybe something will change. And they will stop testing stupidly.
Half of developers complain about these stupid tests. The rest complain about working with people who can't pass them. The industry is full of people who don't belong, and your record isn't meaningful unless your references are people I personally know and trust.
Whatever, businesses hire other businesses routinely based on a conversation and a handshake. I expect the same sort of respect from businesses I work for as an employee. They can find some other peon to work for them, I have standards just like they have theirs. Not trying to sound arrogant, but my best customers have been those that hired me on the basis above, as another business owner. People who think you are an employee treat you quite a bit differently.
And businesses routinely get ripped off for that kind of recklessness. I've had to deliver the bad news to management about a body shop who obviously hadn't learned C++ yet because their deliverables were full of syntax errors they were asking us how to fix.
Cool idea, but you might want to revise your messaging:
"I could make one for them but making them by hand is REALLY time consuming."
"Handcrafted by Charles Han"
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 241 ms ] threadAnd Google and microsoft have note taking apps that makes your hand writing searchable.
Edit: wow, some people on HN really dislike touchscreens...
I don't see the point of adding a sticker to your laptop when it already can be used as a whiteboard with the added benefits of digitalisation (backup, share, undo, search...)
Very expensive and very popular I've been told.
The 4x8 sheets of melamine backer board is cheap, cheap, cheap! Where I currently work, we have 80 linear feet of the stuff on our walls in our dev area (held up with nails and construction adhesive). It isn't fancy, but my employer believes more in results than being "impressive" (plus, we don't get any clients back here anyhow).
Wipebook (http://www.wipebook.com) did a short video comparing correctable vs. dry-erase vs. non-permanent pens:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m-hE6VDAG_I
It demonstrates their resilience to accidental erasure.
And now I probably am carrying a backpack which makes paper + pen better. I think the #1 benefit of a whiteboard is the size. I can draw huge diagrams and everyone in the room can see and not have to huddle around a piece of paper.
I still think it is interesting....
But, ultimately, your point about pen & paper was my thought too... And then I decided that ~$16 after shipping was cheap enough to try, even if I later decided paper was indeed better – so I ordered it.
I wish laptops had laptop-sized e-ink displays on the back of their normal displays. I mostly want that for reading, but since I'm wishing for things, I'll also now wish that these hypothetical displays are pressure sensitive, for writin' on.
I mean, it's annoying to do I guess, and requires hardware to detect shaking, but it's not terrible.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2604775/intel-pastes-se...
And my cousin is a sales rep for a drug company, so I have a whole crate of logo-ed sticky notes.
It's kinda exactly what you need.
The Surface is a great machine and Windows 10 is a good OS.
[I think you've been downvoted unfairly - although I think the Surface drawing capabilities are excellent & superior, they might be overkill for some use cases.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_SideShow
http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/intel-second-screen
http://www.ebay.com/bhp/lenovo-x230t
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x230t...
http://transnote.info/
But this one is much better, because it occupies the entire laptop!
You can even recycle broken laptops by painting the screen!
http://www.target.com/p/devine-color-by-valspar-1-quart-chal...
http://the816.com/wooden-macbooks/
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Vinyl-Wall-Sticker-Removable-Whi...
Also, I wonder if a "whiteboard magnet" would stick well to a mabook or aluminum bodied portable - wouldn't leave any residue: http://www.ebay.com/itm/17-x-11-Dry-Erase-Magnetic-Refrigera...
Is it? Either you're looking at the whiteboard or at the screen. If the laptop is open, you can push it closed if you write on the back. If it is closed, you don't want to press too hard lest you damage the screen.
Why not just use a piece of paper?
And in the thread... a bunch of people suggesting "Why not just DIY?", "Why not paper?", "It's useless on the back" etc.
This is obviously a popular item. Maybe some introspection?
But you bring up a good point. Should the primary point of these kinds of threads be about giving props and praising the startup/service/product or should criticism and skepticism be allowed in as well.
//
I actually like it as product to personalize your laptop, as opposed to something to help your productivity.
And they even include a marker...
http://www.Writeyboards.com
(IOW: I think it's a cool hack that fails to consider actual implications outside of the immediate problem solved.)
Unfortunately for my screen-doodling habit, new MacBooks have some kind of coating (AR? Oleophobic?) that causes the marker's fluid to bead up, ruining the effect.
I can confirm, my mid 2014 MBP screen is _ruined_. Tried alcohol, screen wipers (which actually made it worse)
I am this close to using a detergent (I know I shouldn't). Any suggestions?
Apple is replacing the affected screens for free, I had mine replaced few months back (late 2013, 13" Retnina Macbook Pro).
https://9to5mac.com/2015/10/19/staingate-retina-macbook-scre...
Did a bit more digging and found a site [1] which has a gallery of affected MBP, showing the different levels of "staingate"
[1] http://staingate.org
I had mine replaced for free a few months back as well :)
You can come up with holes for any product. I think this is pretty clever and I bet people will buy it.
I didn't end up using it regularly because the surface doesn't erase as well as a whiteboard, but still a cool product.
[1]: http://thenoteboard.com
You can probably use the sticker to cover the screen instead, that should put it on the correct side. :)
Otherwise it's a good idea.
Write the algorithm, take a photos of it, win.
devlos melborP
I certainly have a few managers with 20+ years of experience who cannot code a Hello World site in our primary technology. Their resume will still list them as "Senior Development Manager."
PS - My managers are actually very good at their respective jobs, they just aren't hands on anymore. I am just saying that if they moved jobs their resume would be "misleading."
Developers complain all the time about these stupid tests. But they do nothing about it. Do something about it, maybe something will change. And they will stop testing stupidly.