Ask Dominic

[klott]

Originally Posted by dmaricic

You can buy new tablets for $1200. Price is not that big of a difference anymore. It used to be. But not anymore.

Thanks Dominic, the one I used was a Toughbook, I was told it cost about $3000.

[James E. Braun, CMI]

And very heavy to carry around.

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Yeah the toughbooks are huge. Honestly I'd rather have a TC1100 which weighs next to nothing or one of the newer HP Tablets. Especially the ones that separate from the keyboards. Those are great as you can walk back and enter things in later or just use the handwriting recognition or the virtual keyboard while you're walking around.

[Brian E. Kelly]

Originally Posted by dmaricic

Depends on the software you're using and whether your printing on site or at least entering data on site. Guys using a tablet PC can perform their inspection onsite at least 20% faster using a tablet as you can just tap your way through the entire thing. I watch guys tap their way through like theirs no tomorrow. Memorizing all the locations. The interactive touch screen is a huge plus.

At least 20% faster????????? Faster than what?????????

It does not matter on the software, laptops have more power, period.
If we were talking about cars it goes like this,"There is no replacement for displacement".

You can tap you way through a report on a laptob with either a mouse, touchpad or keyboard.

The interactive touch screen is ok but sliced bread is probably better.

Nice try though Dom.

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Originally Posted by bkelly2

At least 20% faster????????? Faster than what?????????

It does not matter on the software, laptops have more power, period.
If we were talking about cars it goes like this,"There is no replacement for displacement".

You can tap you way through a report on a laptob with either a mouse, touchpad or keyboard.

The interactive touch screen is ok but sliced bread is probably better.

Nice try though Dom.

Brian, I'm not sure what you're talking about. There is no speed difference between tablets and laptops. Tablets ARE laptops, the only difference is they stick a swivel screen on them and make them touch screen. At the most you might find a laptop .3ghz faster than the fastest laptop because they want to make them lighter and need to worry about heat dispersion. That just makes no sense. Maybe you're thinking of UMPC's like the Samsung Q1? Yes, those are slower, but still fast enough that you would never notice the difference with most inspection programs.

Think about this. For example, in our software, you're shown a list of 50 comments for a section (other programs work similar). With a pen you simply tap on the comments you want. With a mouse you have to drag it from one comment to another. You can't jump around as quickly.

When I'm talking about tablets being faster, I'm talking about a person like Russ Spriggs walking around the house tapping quickly through the program. There's no way that dragging a mouse around, especially a touchpad or joystick is going to be faster than tapping on the screen. I'm not making a pitch for my software here. I'd say with the majority of the software out there, tapping as you walk around is faster. Even if I'm sitting down with a tablet I can tap faster than I move a mouse (and I'm a person who will control a mouse in his left and right hand to work on 2 computers at once).

I've followed along on A LOT of inspections, with guys using tablets and guys using laptops. There's just no comparison.

If you're talking about someone who goes home and does the report there, then yes, it isn't going to make a bit of difference.

[Brian E. Kelly]

No speed difference between the two? Post the fastest tablet and the price Dom. I believe that MAC toy was over 2 grand.

It is all about CPU speed, small tablets do not have it, and for the price I would rather have a screaming fast latop for 2 years or so then get a new one, as opposed to shooting all of my computer resource wad at once and having it 4 years.

As for walking around carrying a tablet, I am definetly faster leaving the laptop in the kitchen and entering the data there then carrying around another LARGE FRAGILE tool that I have to manipulate between observations.

As for the pen being quicker then just dragging a cursor over all of your pre, selected comments, just not true. Neither is handwriing faster than typing on a keyboard.

Now if each time you do an inspection you have to start over from scratch and pick each and every comment over from the beginning, well then I can't help you, you are going to be at the inspection a while no matter what you do.

[Russell Spriggs]

Hi, Guys!
I saw my name pop up here, so I thought I'd chime in . . .

Bri, I've seen you work. I know you have a lot of "similar" houses in your area, meaning your home & the insp I was with you on are not that dissimilar. And, a lot of the developments look pretty standard regarding size, layout, open feel to the home, age, etc.

And, I've seen you work - you do an area, come back to the centrally located kitchen couter, & add things in. For you & your environment, I can see that what you do makes perfect sense.

Compare that to this area; I can be doing a 100 yr old farmhouse with a crawl in the AM & an '05 tract home in the afternoon. World of difference! I can spend a lot more time even on the exterior than you would on the entire plumbing & utilities. So, speed of the machine means little or nothing to me. Speed of entry means everything. Tap 6-8 comments on gutters & roof alone, before I even lower my eyes to the eaves.
My tablet is great for that, better than using the touchpad of the laptop side of it.
And, since we have such a wide variety, age, climate, etc., there are really very few comments that stay canned - many must be mofified.
I may be different ( ), but it's often easier to simply swivel the screen around & type rather than tap the changes.

Speed of entry is important to me, while being able to carry (laptop, tablet, pen & paper, whatever) around. I did p&p for years before the tablet, could never see the weight value of carrying a laptop in & out of a house, and too may things have to be noted in our area to trust it to (my) memory. I'll have dozens of comments just on the outside. And, I would not even dream of trying to be able to deal with a little PDA. I don't trust mechanical things I can't see (voice recorders, etc), so it's p&p or tablet as a choice. If I had clean cookie cutter homes, I'd probably use your technique.

All different strokes. I use a Toshiba Portege 3500 with HIP & I'm happy. Refurb $400, ebay, 18 months ago, several years old I'm sure, works fine . . . for me!

Anyway, hope all's well with you, Brian!

[Brian E. Kelly]

Originally Posted by rspriggs

Hi, Guys!
I saw my name pop up here, so I thought I'd chime in . . .

Bri, I've seen you work. I know you have a lot of "similar" houses in your area, meaning your home & the insp I was with you on are not that dissimilar. And, a lot of the developments look pretty standard regarding size, layout, open feel to the home, age, etc.

And, I've seen you work - you do an area, come back to the centrally located kitchen couter, & add things in. For you & your environment, I can see that what you do makes perfect sense.

Compare that to this area; I can be doing a 100 yr old farmhouse with a crawl in the AM & an '05 tract home in the afternoon. World of difference! I can spend a lot more time even on the exterior than you would on the entire plumbing & utilities. So, speed of the machine means little or nothing to me. Speed of entry means everything. Tap 6-8 comments on gutters & roof alone, before I even lower my eyes to the eaves.
My tablet is great for that, better than using the touchpad of the laptop side of it.
And, since we have such a wide variety, age, climate, etc., there are really very few comments that stay canned - many must be mofified.
I may be different ( ), but it's often easier to simply swivel the screen around & type rather than tap the changes.

Speed of entry is important to me, while being able to carry (laptop, tablet, pen & paper, whatever) around. I did p&p for years before the tablet, could never see the weight value of carrying a laptop in & out of a house, and too may things have to be noted in our area to trust it to (my) memory. I'll have dozens of comments just on the outside. And, I would not even dream of trying to be able to deal with a little PDA. I don't trust mechanical things I can't see (voice recorders, etc), so it's p&p or tablet as a choice. If I had clean cookie cutter homes, I'd probably use your technique.

All different strokes. I use a Toshiba Portege 3500 with HIP & I'm happy. Refurb $400, ebay, 18 months ago, several years old I'm sure, works fine . . . for me!

Anyway, hope all's well with you, Brian!

I am with you Russ, and all is well. I just thought that Dom was giving short shrift to laptops and embellishing the merits of tablets.

I have a 1925 dandy Thursday am and it still will not take too long, can you say templates.

Once you do an older home with a crawl, gutters, whatever, it becomes easier and quicker if you create a template. I have had this discussion before with other HI's that claim that a template is not possible because all the homes they inspect are different. Impossible for all the homes to be that different.

My brother just sent me an a Buck autograped Buck Knife.
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[Bob Elliott]

After reading the above ,I wonder how you guys feel about this baby I found today.

http://www.oqo.com/

[Brian E. Kelly]

Originally Posted by relliott

After reading the above ,I wonder how you guys feel about this baby I found today.

http://www.oqo.com/

Too small and slow for me.

[Bob Elliott]

1.6 GIG MGZ

That is something you can carry in your pocket and it comes with a docking station.
Not slow at all.
Have you tried it?

[Bob Elliott]

I have thought about laptops on the inspection and would sure not wish to be running up and down stairs to enter data.

Tablets are not much better and to bulky.

I would never do the full report on site , but would like to have a punch list ready.
HIP is perfect for that, but opening and closing a 3 or pound object along with carring my camera and tool bag is not for me.
A micro computer or ultra mobile looks great right now.
If you plug in to a flat screen res is the same at 1280x700

[Brian E. Kelly]

What's with all this "did you try it" crap. I can read the tech specs, and know from my own personal experience that it will be toooooo sloooooow and toooooo smaaaaaaallllllll for me to like it.

I might as well dust off my old PONG console, or maybe my MAC Plus.

You know Robert you could always do the downstairs, then take the laptop upstairs to do that part of the report. But then again, you might enjoy the excercise.

[Russel Ray]

I would not be where I am today if I had not learned templates and style sheets in Word way back in the 1980's.

I have a great variety of homes out here, and the templates, as well as Word's Organizer function, Outline function, Autocorrect function, and Hidden Text make things go very smoothly. It's the margaritas, Star Trek, The Beatles, etc., that slow things down for me.

[Russell Spriggs]

Originally Posted by relliott

After reading the above ,I wonder how you guys feel about this baby I found today.

http://www.oqo.com/

Double the size, maybe . . .