I bought a slate-style tablet pc for school last summer in an attempt to keep organized notes after my note-taking mess of last year. Similar to Apple's upcoming iPad, it has no keyboard or touchpad, but instead, users interact directly with the screen. Even though it was built in 2003, it has roughly the same specs as a modern day netbook, in welcome addition to the same price point being seven years old. To be entirely unambiguous, "Bella," is a Motion Computing m1400, running Windows 7 after a minor RAM upgrade.

Going into Engineering in Fall '08, I expected everyone to be taking notes on their computer. I felt ready for it, having gotten a new computer over the summer break, with Microsoft Word 2007 looking all shiny and bright. Sitting down in AMAT 217, I was immediately overwhelmed with Matrices, Derivatives and Limits- nothing Word allows you to create quickly!