Okay funky new boxes to type in, don't know what this one does so lets jump down to the next shall we?

There we go.

I know i haven't put anything up for a while but thats not because i haven't had anything to put up. I've got literally hundreds of sketches and stuff i could scan and throw up here but then i need to tear them out of the pads scan them then risk losing them later. Also i've been playing around with charcoals, i usually shy away from stuff that messy but my mum bought me them and some kick ass pads for christmas so what the hell. If i'm honest i'm finding it a lot of fun but i have no clue what i'm doing with this stuff so i need look up some techniques etc, no doubt i'll be making a trip down to an art shop to ask for materials which i know exist but the guy who supposedly sells them will have no clue what i'm talking about.

On the digital front i've hit a series of annoyances which are stopping me from getting anything done. The biggest one is of course the install of Windows Vista (ultimate 64). Now i don't have any problems with vista in general, its a 64 bit operating system which has enabled me to use that 64 bit processor and have more tha 2gb of RAM. All my software and hardware works fully with Vista and i can finally use some of the hardware i have to its fullest (8800gtx). My problem with vista isn't stuff which it doesn't do, its stuff that i don't want it to do which has been bundled in.

Now if your into computers and follow the industry to the almost sad extent that i do you probably would have seen some coverage of D5 that happened last May. If you didn't basically its a conference the subject of technology past and present where they have key speakers and special guests to offer up their opinions. Last May at D5 the star attraction was Bill Gates and Steve Jobs on the same stage at the same time for the first time in over 20 years.

Listening to them talk they made it very clear that they believe that mobile computing and post pc devices is where the next big technological movement is. Steve Jobs obviously is looking more to post pc products due to the success of the iPod and iPhone and why wouldn't he. Billy Boy on the other hand is leaning more towards mobile computing in the slightly more traditional form of pocket pc's but more specifically tablet pc's.

See where i'm going with this now?

Thats right folks, Vista comes complete with its very own tablet drivers to intergrate your tablet seamlessly with windows Vista. Why do i get the feeling that anyone reading this that didn't already know has rolled their eyes and sighed? maybe even slightly cringed? probably because anyone reading this will be an artist.

As artists our tablets are our tools, much like i have my favourite mechanical pencils (0.7 Pentel QE517 for those who care) i have my favourite tablet, a Wacom Intuos A4. Now i don't think its a stretch to say that if you are an artist and you have a tablet it'll be either a Graphire or an Intuos, there may be a few Cintiqs and the new mini-cintiqs around but whatever the model, it's a Wacom. The reason its a Wacom is because when you sought advice on what tablet to buy you found that 99.9999% of the people you spoke to simply said "Wacom".

The reason they said wacom is because Wacom have been at the forefront of this technology for 25 years, they know everything to know about tablets because they pioneered most of it, they know what we need what we want and as such have cornered their market. Wacom tablets are to tablets what mechanical pencils are to crayons.

However, with windows vista your mighty tablet can still be reduced to little more than a childs play thing when microsoft at some point force their own crayola drivers onto your machine. My pens bottom side button no longer right clicks, it just clicks. Remember the way you could turn the pen around and use the other end as an eraser, well thats gone to and as for the buttons and strips on the tablet itself...i don't even know what they were doing.

Now i think i have expunged this new "function" of windows my tablet just doesn't feel quite the same. It seems slow, sluggish and quite frankly a chore to work with. I could work with it, but digital painting is one of those things where your best work comes when everything just kind of flows and you sort of day dream while your painting.

Thats not possible if whats happening on the screen is out of synch with what your doing one the tablet.

Anyway thats my little bitch session done, I'm working on getting my wacom working as intended by wacom and not microsoft again so as soon as i do i'll be posting again.