Part 1: Coronavirus: The Early Days

I do a weekly cartoon for the newspaper health section. It is a lot of fun and it keeps me drawing.

It’s easy to forget how early most of us knew Covid-19 could become a real problem.  Experts were downplaying it as a minor hazard compared to influenza.. Not until January 20 was there official acknowledgement the virus could spread from person to person. On that same day, I tried to buy face masks for our office and discovered a disturbing problem:  They were all sold out.  

Something was brewing.  But the public really was not following the epidemic. So, I made a general medical cartoon.

Yet, the news of Coronavirus was trickling into the media. Yes, the American Public was preoccupied with Democratic Primaries and impeachment hearings, but many were also aware of the new virus in Wuhan.  By January 23, I felt enough people knew of the threat to create two cartoons:

The second cartoon was done at a time when people were entering crowded DMV’s to get their new driver’s license which would enable them to fly in airplanes.  The lines were insane and the wait was many, many hours.

This one did not age well.  I thought it was pretty hilarious at the time and I got a lot of positive feedback.  Now, it looks…. kind of cliche and disturbing.

No, it did not age well at all….

Pen issues in Toon Boom and Fixes

Pen issues have plagued Toon Boom products for a long time.  By saying “a long time,” I’m talking about more than a decade.  

However, be assured you can make Toon Boom work on a variety of Windows machines and devices.  

This includes anything from desktop workstations hooked to Wacom Cintiqs down to low powered laptops with pen enabled screens.

The pen and ink problems cover a huge range of problems.  Sometimes the pens can work outside the program, but refuse to function at all in the Toon Boom program.  When it works, the ink may flow from the wrong spot on the screen.  There may be tremendous lag in seeing a drawn line.  The pen response may be intermittent.  The lines may look bad.  It can be bad enough to make you toss your machine in the trash.

Troubleshooting these problems can also make you insane and take a long time.  You need to be methodical.  Here is what I’ve learned:

First: Do not listen to the stock advice often given:

1. Your computer is not powerful enough.
2. Your video card is not powerful enough.
3. You are using a non-Wacom pen device.
4. If you’re using a Wacom device, it must be some odd standard.  

The harsh truth: Windows Pen standards are a mess.  Every device has drivers that are a bit different.  Even Wacom devices now include a bunch of different driver needs. Finding the solution to your pen problems is really hard and time consuming. Every machine is different and Toon Boom simply does not have the manpower to test every machine.  The program is targeted to Wacom tablets (especially Cintiqs) on high powered PC’s.

Yet, never fear!

I have been able to make Toon Boom products run and run well on even the most wimpy of processors with integrated graphics, using a variety of pen input devices from Wacom, N-trig, Microsoft, and even unidentified vendors creating generic tablets.  

This negates the argument of “not powerful enough” or “non-standard pen tablets so you need to just give up!”

Here is my process for making the device work.  This is all Windows and has NOTHING to do with Apple devices.  I am also not a programmer, so be patient with me.

Background: There are two main driver types of pen and tablets: RealTimeStylus (which seems to be all Microsoft) and Wintab.  There are also two main driver vendors: Wacom and everyone else (including N-trig, which is now Microsoft).

We are about to do some stuff which might wreck your operating system and laptop software.  Before you get adventurous, check out “Windows System Restore.”  Make sure it is enabled and make a restore point RIGHT NOW!

Also, check out a disk imaging software like Acronis.  If you own a Western Digital external drive, you can use it for free.  Otherwise, it is about $50.  It is worth your time and money to get it and image your machine’s main harddrive to an external drive.  Again: RIGHT NOW!

We will start off with easy non-damaging steps:

1. In Harmony, go to the Camera View and find the option for “Render View” and “Open GL View.”  Click to enable the “Open GL View”.  When the “Render View” is active, drawing is very slow because the camera view is constantly trying to render in the background.  This kills your processor.  So, TURN OFF “render view.”
2. Make sure your pen works on the non-Toon Boom screen.  In other words, when you are not in Toon Boom, is the pen functional?  If not, you have some basic troubles.  This is an obvious step, but critical.  Does the pen work in other paint programs?  If not, you have a hardware problem.
3. In Toon Boom Harmony, Look for Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Use QT Wintab Tablet Support (requires Relaunch).  

1. This is an interesting setting and it can be found in Harmony and Storyboard (though the setting is in a bit different spot.  See your manual.)..  
2.  If you have a traditional Wacom setup, make sure this selection is checked (which is the default).  Shut down the program and then restart it.  See how it goes.  
3. If you are using a non-Wacom setup, uncheck it.  This includes Microsoft Surface and other pen-enabled devices.  
4. Devices which use Wacom are Lenovo, Fujitsu and sometimes Toshiba.  Thus, the “Use QT Wintab Tablet Driver” should be checked.  
5.  Devices which do not use Wacom are Sony, Microsoft, and Dell.  The “QT Wintab” driver should be unchecked.
6. Remember this setting.  If you change things or drivers, retest the program with this setting checked and unchecked.  Don’t forget this.  This setting is powerful.
7. Also, remember to shut down and restart the program every time you change this.  
8. If you are having trouble, it is worth trying each setting for the Wintab driver, even if you are convinced you have a Wacom tablet.

 

7.  Use your device in landscape mode.  That means the width is longer than the height. For some reason, Portrait mode can wreck pen function on some devices.
8. Scream at Toon Boom.  In some cases, they are in the process of testing a version which corrects the problem.  This is true for Storyboard 5.5.  If they do have a fix, they are very responsive to giving you an early download.
9. Let’s talk again about “wintab” which is the older interface and the issue of the Wintab preference discussed above.  Wacom uses it in almost all of their drivers.  But non-Wacom devices often also provide specific wintab drivers.  Microsoft Surface Pro makes a big deal of providing this driver as an option.  
10. My experience with non-Wacom pens: Don’t install the Wintab drivers.  If you have them installed, uninstall them.  Then de-select the Wintab driver setting in Toon Boom.   (Note!  Make sure you have a system restore before you do this!)
11. Go to “Device Manager” in Windows.  Look in “Human Interface Devices (HID).”  You may see touch devices, pen devices, or Wacom.  If you see Wacom, you probably have a Wacom pen…. Or you installed the drivers and they are just sitting there unused.  Make a mental note of what you are seeing.
12. Go to your tablet’s download page.  If you are using something like a Lenovo Tablet, visit the laptop download page.  Look for anything driver related that talks about pens, pointers, screen, Wacom, etc.  The various laptop vendors like Fujitsu and Lenovo do a decent job.  Avoid generic drivers at this point.
13. Avoid scaling your resolution.  I’ve personally not had trouble with this, but others report this.
14. When drawing, go to the Device manager>Human interface devices>HID compliant touchscreen and right click>disable.  This prevents touch messing up your art.  When done drawing, do the same and click enable.

 

Okay, time to do some serious damage.  If you’ve hit this point, nothing is working so far. 

From this point on, your machine may become unusable and you may not be able to figure out a fix.  If that happens, use “System Restore” or your Acronis backup.  This could get ugly.  You have been warned!

1. Go to “Apps & Features” and find anything that says Wacom, pen driver or wintab.  It may have other names which imply a pen and tablet.  Uninstall them all
2. Go to “Device Manager” in Windows.  Look in “Human Interface Devices.”  You may see touch devices, pen devices, or Wacom.  Right click and select “uninstall.”  Your pen will now be unusable.
3. Restart the machine.
4. Your pen may get “found” by Windows and be usable.  … or not….
5. If your pen is working, fire up Toon Boom and test it out. See what happens.  See how the line looks.  Do you have pressure sensitivity?
6. Go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Use QT Wintab Tablet Support (requires Relaunch).  Uncheck this option.  Shut down the program and then restart it.  
7. If it is already unchecked, check it and restart the program.
8. This may have totally fixed your pen issues… or not.
9. . If your pen is still not working at all or is not working well, install the original device drivers you downloaded above.  

1. Restart the machine.
2. Your pen may get “found” by Windows and be usable.  … or not….
3. If your pen is working, fire up Toon Boom and test it out. See what happens.  See how the line looks.  Do you have pressure sensitivity?
4. Go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Use QT Wintab Tablet Support (requires Relaunch).  Uncheck this option.  Shut down the program and then restart it.  
5. If it is already unchecked, check it and restart the program.
6. This may have totally fixed your pen issues… or not.

 

4. .  Look up “wintab” and your tablet or machine name on Google to see if there are separate drivers.  Sometimes, these help or other times, wintab worsens performance.  Again, on Microsoft Surface devices, I’ve found wintab actually makes things worse.  

If you find something, install it and try out the program with the Wintab preference checked.

5. If things are still bad and you have a Wacom, download the latest drivers for Wacom from their site.  In my recent experience, however, I have found these drivers can actually be worse than the older drivers from the laptop maker (Fujitsu, Lenovo, etc. ).
6. Intermittently restart the machine.  Windows can do a surprisingly good job of finding and installing the right drivers.  When you make a big change on your machine, do a full reboot.  When in doubt: Reboot.
7. Some makers, like Lenovo, have a program which automatically grabs and installs drivers and firmware upgrades.  Lenovo’s is very impressive.

8..  Speaking of firmware, search and install firmware updates for your machine.  I’m surprised at how many firmware updates are pushed out by Lenovo and Microsoft.

9. With every step, be sure to toggle and test each setting of: Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Use QT Wintab Tablet Support (requires Relaunch).  

10 Run Windows update many times.  Reboot and then run update again.

11. Now we are getting desperate.  Uninstall Toon Boom and then install it again.
12. Super desperate: Do a Windows refresh, but make sure you return your licenses because they will vanish.  This gives you a machine like you bought it.   Often, it is amazingly helpful, but your programs are all gone.
13.  At this point, if your pen is not working well, consider a hardware problem.
14.  Otherwise: You are doomed.  Time to buy a new computer.

 

Again: MANY OF THESE STEPS COULD RENDER YOUR MACHINE UNUSABLE.  MAKE SURE YOU USE “SYSTEM RESTORE” AND CREATE A RESTORE POINT PRIOR TO DOING DAMAGE.

BACK UP YOUR MACHINE TO AN EXTERNAL DRIVE TO SOMETHING LIKE ACRONIS.

MAKE NOTES OF WHAT YOU’VE DONE.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!  THESE STEPS COULD WRECK YOUR COMPUTER.  I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE!   

THIS IS NOT SOMETHING TO DO THE NIGHT BEFORE YOU NEED YOUR COMPUTER FOR A MAJOR PROJECT!  HAVE A BACKUP PLAN!

Having said that: Toon Boom Harmony and Storyboard are my favorite programs of all time.  When they work, life is wonderful!

 

The Ebola Czar makes for some fun animation

The Ebola Czar has arrived and the need for speedy animation was never more apparent. Thankfully, I was able to reuse some characters and scenes, quickly draw a hazmat suit, attach a deformation tool and then write the script. Unfortunately, things changed so fast that multiple scripts grew outdated within a few days. Finally, I settled on a more generic script and threw it together in just a few hours.

Surface Pro 3 and Toon Boom

The moment Microsoft announced the Surface Pro 3, many artists with Toon Boom asked the same question: Will Surface Pro 3 work with Toon Boom Software?

Three weeks ago, my i7 Surface Pro 3 arrived from the online Microsoft store. The short answer to the question is: Yes, with some qualifications.

A few days ago, I had this great blog post ready to go and then I did some last minute experimenting. My results for compatibility testing came out much improved. Microsoft had obviously updated some drivers in just the past two weeks. Since my results here are mostly good, I doubt there will be dramatic changes to come.

An overview:

Surface Pro 3 runs Windows 8.1 and has both a touch and an N-trig pen interface. Those of us familiar with tablets and tablet PC’s were very unhappy with the use of the N-trig pen compared to the Wacom pen. N-trig pens have traditionally not done well as artist tools. Microsoft insisted this version was going to be dramatically different. I found this difficult to believe.

Meanwhile, the screen is very high resolution, though this can be easily dialed down to a lower resolution screen. The i7 hardware is powerful, though it lacks a dedicated graphics card, and the total weight of the device is amazingly low. Battery life is great for an x86 powered machine of such low weight. Fit and finish are great.

First: The N-trig pen
In previous years, combining N-trig with art software was a terrible experience. Pressure sensitivity was poor and “wintab” drivers usually did not exist. Wintab drivers do not come pre-installed on the Surface Pro 3. You still must install the wintab drivers from the N-trig site, but this is easy.

Pressure sensitivity comments have focused on the fewer increments of pressure for N-trig compared to Wacom. This is a false issue. The real issue is the pressure sensitivity curve, which is definitely less optimal in my hands with the N-trig pen. For me, this is not a big deal, but it may matter to others. There is a tool coming soon, according to press reports, which will adjust this curve.

There is also a phenomenon where pressure sensitivity disappears if you adjust the screen resolution. It is not absolute and seems to be dependent on the use of wintab drivers.

Toon Boom products allow you to turn off the wintab drivers in the preferences section of the programs. On a new Surface Pro 3, this was a very unsatisfactory experience. However, recent updates to the machine from Microsoft have turned this into a better experience. This was the surprise of my recent retesting. Some tools seem to work very well without wintab, while others develop strange artifacts. For instance, pencils seem to behave very well, while pens develop an unacceptable jitter.

Bottom line: I am keeping wintab drivers active in the program for the immediate future.

Palm rejection is very good, but not perfect. This is a problem in all tablets which advertise pen and touch sensitivity. Most such tablets have a software switch to turn off touch so you can draw without making extraneous marks or accidentally flipping between programs. After some searching, I found a work around: Right click lower left windows button>System>Device Manager>Human Interface Devices>Right click HID-compliant touch screen>Disable>click YES. You can then re-enable it using the same path. If you do not do this when drawing, you will go insane. This is both a Wacom and N-trig issue.

It would seem someone could write a small software shortcut for turning off and on screen touch.

The N-trig pen is extremely precise when calibrated.

 

Like Wacom, recalibration is vital if you make screen changes. If you change screen resolution, you need to recalibrate the pen. If you change from landscape to portrait mode, you need to recalibrate. This is easy, though, and is true for both Wacom and N-trig.

This N-trig precision is very impressive.

Wacom pens have a serious problem with edge accuracy. Rarely have I found a Wacom based tablet that does not exhibit this edge accuracy problem. With lower resolution screens, this is not a big problem. With high resolutions, however, the problem is intensely frustrating. N-trig beats Wacom in the screen accuracy challenge. I see no edge issues with N-trig. This is amazing. Because N-trig has such great accuracy, this makes it a particularly good match-up with the super-high-resolution Surface Pro 3 screen.

The N-trig pen sometimes seems to go to sleep when you pause with the pen away from the screen for certain time periods. Wacom never did this. This can be frustrating. It is not a big issue and once you know it happens, you quickly adjust your work flow to avoid surprise.

I love the feel of the N-trig pen. It has weight and substance. It also has some strange sized batteries (AAAA battery and coin batteries). It also does not have programmable buttons. They seem to be hard-programmed. This is a problem. The eraser side will also not act as an eraser. This is merely annoying. I find that I am working around these issues without a big challenge.

The responsiveness of the pen and drawing is great. I see no lag.

So, for Toon Boom drawing, the N-trig is a winner. It struggles a bit in Toon Boom Studio, though recent updates seem to have fixed this.

Compare to Wacom Companion:
I do not have the Companion but have researched it extensively. The biggest advantage to the Companion is the presence of programmable buttons on the screen. The Surface Pro 3 lacks these buttons. For many, this is a big issue. The Wacom pen interface is a much more established and proven technology in Toon Boom. When you leap to the Surface Pro 3, you are now on the “bleeding edge” and you may feel some pain.

In other words, a Wacom based tablet is more likely to work “out of the box.” The Surface Pro 3 needs some massaging and tweaking. It is good to be comfortable getting into the settings of Windows.

Third: Is the hardware up to the challenge?
You should get the i7 device. I got the 256 GB SSD, which is fine for my purposes, though many want a bigger hard-drive if they do a lot of video editing. I believe the hardware is amazing for such a light device.

Toon Boom tech support emphasizes for all of these portable devices: You do not have a dedicated graphics card, so you may have problems with more complex scenes.

The Windows 8.1 issue:
I am not a Mac guy. Windows 8.1 can be a bit of a challenge for long term Microsoft users, but it’s not bad. Windows 7 is getting a bit old and drags. Don’t worry about 8.1. You’ll be fine.

One gripe: The “charms” reappear at the most annoying times if your pen drifts off the screen to the corners. I hear the charms are disappearing in Windows 9. Good riddance.

The issue of high resolution screens:
This is not an issue specific to the Surface Pro 3. Laptop screens have advanced quickly. High resolution screens are becoming the new normal. The Surface Pro 3 has crazy high resolution. This is both good and bad.

The Good of high resolution screens:
You get a lot of screen real estate for menus. Older tablet PC’s had limited working space.

The Bad of high resolution screens:
Older folks have a hard time seeing the tiny features on such screens. That includes me.
Pen accuracy becomes critical for small menu selections. This is when the N-trig’s superior accuracy becomes important.
Example: The Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro 700t has a Wacom interface on a similar size screen with 1080p resolution, which is much poorer resolution than the Surface Pro 3. Yet, Wacom’s screen accuracy issue makes hitting the correct buttons really difficult. When at the edges of a Wacom enabled tablet, menu choices can be difficult. If you had these screen calibration issues on a higher resolution Surface Pro 3, the experience would be horrible.

You need a lot of hardware power to push around so many pixels. In other applications, this is a problem (specifically One Note). Theoretically, this slows responsiveness.

The work-around if you believe resolution is “too good”: You can adjust screen resolution. This kind of works. It seems to improve some of the hardware issues, though not as much as you might expect. On Toon Boom products, it creates anomalies in pressure sensitivity and seems to kill the wintab drivers. I need to experiment more with Toon Boom and resolution changes as far as using wintab and not using wintab. It definitely helps the eyesight issues. Yet, it also introduces some odd artifacts in the screen. You also need to recalibrate the pen, which is not difficult.

Use the Microsoft Store to make your purchase.
They offer a money back 30 day guarantee. After the first few days, I was a bit frustrated and almost returned my Surface. Now, I am happy after finding the work-around for a couple of issues. It is an expensive device and there is always a potential for “buyer’s remorse.” I will keep this Surface Pro 3, though.

Specific Programs:

Toon Boom Harmony runs well.
Toon Boom Animate and Animate Pro are also acceptable.
Toon Boom Storyboard seemed to run nicely.

Toon Boom Studio is a different matter. Studio uses a different interface for the pen drawing experience. It plays well with Wacom and extremely well with an external Wacom pad or Cintiq. It does relatively well on a Wacom enabled tablet. On the other hand, “out of the box” it is not an optimal experience with the N-trig pen and drivers for the Surface Pro 3. The drawing shows a tendency to lag behind the pen. Recently, this improved. The default for the program’s install is to use “wintab.” This can be disabled and the program now works rather well with the latest Microsoft updates. There is still a bit of drawing lag, but far less than previously noted.

I am not extremely comfortable recommending a Surface Pro 3 for Toon Boom Studio users. The compatibility seems more challenging.

Always remember: You are better off getting a Cintiq for your desktop PC or Mac which has a powerful NVIDIA graphics card (yes, Toon Boom mentions this card especially). Tablet PC’s. Surface Pro’s , and Wacom Companions are great for animating “on the road,” but are vastly inferior to a desktop Cintiq. The tablet-pen combination options are for portable use. Sometimes, I find I do my best cartooning when in a boring conference, lecture or sitting in a park under a tree. Thus, the tablet is my friend.

It also helps that I need portable tablets in my day job as a physician.

Anyway, I recommend the Surface Pro and it works well with Harmony, Storyboard and Animate. On the other hand, if all you use is Toon Boom Studio, it is not quite as optimal due to the pen driver issues.

Again, the level of support from Microsoft with machine specific driver updates is impressive.

Good animating!

Steven Mussey, M.D.

An Ultrabook for Animation

If you want a portable tablet pc for Toon Boom animation, here is very interesting option: The Samsung Ativ SmartPC Pro 700T.

First: This is not designed to replace your desktop PC with a Wacom Cintiq or tablet interface. You will always need the horsepower and precision of a good workstation with a high quality graphics and drawing tablet.

But what about being away from your desk? What if you want to sit on a shaded porch and draw? Perhaps you are killing time in an airport or doctor’s office when a moment of inspiration strikes. If you need something for those moments away from your desk when you want to produce material instead of simply consuming content, this is the machine for you!

The basics: This is a 1080p resolution tablet that inserts into a keyboard or runs alone. The operating system is Windows 8 on an Intel core i5 processor. The surface features touch AND A WACOM SURFACE WITH A PEN!

When inserted into its keyboard, it looks and feels like an Ultrabook or a slightly heavier Macbook Air.
So, here is the bottom line:

Why is this great for Toon Boom animation?
1. Wacom screen and pen allow you to draw directly into Harmony or Animate software.
2. The Samsung 700T is the only detachable tablet with “wintab” drivers to allow you to use other drawing software. (Note: Harmony and Animate from ToonBoom do not require these drivers.)
3. High resolution screen gives lots of workspace even for a small space.
4. Decent pen accuracy. Some have complained, but I see no issues.
5. Compact and 5 hour battery life (I got a bit more in my use).
6. At $999 you will not find anything like this on the market for animating.

Why would you pause and be unsatisfied with this?
1. ToonBoom Studio does not work well on this machine.
2. Earlier models had a finicky keyboard attachment which seems to be fixed in current models.
3. A high resolution screen requires more graphics power. Complex scenes in Harmony with complicated backgrounds or sets had to be “dumbed down” to do lip-synch and action refinement. This is easy to accomplish, though it reminds you the device is not a powerful desktop.
4. The pen is small and should be used only as a backup. Spend the extra $35 and get a bigger Samsung pen.

Other considerations:
1. Windows 8 is less frustrating on a touch screen, but is still a tough transition from Windows 7 or earlier.

Other models to consider

1. Surface Pro from Microsoft was actually the favorite from the Toon Boom staff. The included pen is better and they reported better accuracy. Note that other reviewers have disagreed on the pen accuracy issue. Surface Pro does not have “wintab” drivers, which is not a Toon Boom problem. Surface Pro is a bit more expensive.

2. The Fujitsu Tablet PC’s are good (T902), but have lower resolution and are a lot heavier. The Lenovo X230T tablet PC is also excellent, but is heavier, more expensive and has poor edge accuracy with the pen. In general, traditional tablet PC’s without a detachable screen can cost twice as much as the Samsung or Surface Pro.

When the Macbook Air and later Windows Ultrabooks were introduced, my comment at the time was: Very cool! It still needs a pen, Wacom screen and more robust graphics to be perfect.

The latest release of Intel integrated graphics is now sufficient to run Toon Boom software. Now, the Ativ Smart PC Pro 700T from Samsung and the Surface Pro from Microsoft finally adds the Wacom screen and pen.

A decent portable animating platform has arrived!

Addendum:
Additional work with Toon Boom Harmony and Studio has revealed a work around for much better performance on this Samsung tablet. This should work for Animate and the other Toon Boom products, too.

First, go into the Toon Boom software preferences and uncheck the box for “wintab” support. Close the program.

Now, you have two choices: Temporary or “Permanent.” You want to disable the Wintab drivers from Wacom. Both are reversible. Do not let the “Permanent” label frighten you.

Temporary Method:
1. Go into the “Task Manager.” You can get in by hitting “Control-Alt-Delete”

2. Enter “Services” tab

3. Find “TabletServiceSD” and “TabletInputService”

4. Right click on these two items.

5. Select “stop”

The disadvantage with this method is you must repeat this every time you start up your machine.

Permanent Method: Again, this can be quickly reversed if you need Wintab drivers. This simply uninstalls the drivers from Wacom.

1. The Samsung “SW Update” lets you manually save the drivers on your hard drive. Manually save the “Digitizer Driver.” This is in case you change your mind and want to reinstall the drivers.

2. Go to program uninstall and uninstall the drivers that have the Wacom name.

3. Restart your computer. Do not panic when you realize your pen is dead. Once you have the restart, your pen is back with the Windows drivers working.

4. Now all Toon Boom programs, with Wintab disabled, work great, great, great! Incredible pen accuracy! Amazing responsiveness!

5. To reverse the process, just reinstall the Samsung Digitizer driver.

Additional points:

1. Do not rush to the Wacom website and try and install the newest drivers. They are not optimized to work with the Samsung device and my experiences have gone badly with these.
2. Samsung SW Update will prod you to reinstall the digitizer drivers. Don’t do it if you like how things are working.
3. Interestingly, Surface Pro from Microsoft made no effort to provide Wintab drivers. This explains why Surface Pro cooperates better with Toon Boom out of the box. Samsung, in its efforts to provide better service, actually made the Toon Boom products malfunction.

Oh, well…..

Something I hope not to see…

There is a lot of stuff here at CES.  Hopefully, this is not part of the “innovation.”

LG talks about the Smart Life!

LG makes washers, dryers, refrigerators, televisions, smartphones, stoves, and other devices.

LG will make your smartphones work with all of your appliances: Your LG stove, your refrigerator, your television, your washer and your dryer  and will make connectivity easier to let you live “the Smart Life!”

…but only if every appliance and smartphone in your home is from LG.

Sorry iPhone, Motorola and Samsung phones!

Dang!  I knew there was a catch!

Honestly!  Where do these company executives come from?  People cannot simply swap out phones every few months!

“I had no idea!”

Hearing aids are not waterproof.  Apparently, some make claims to being water resistant.

Unfortunately, you still cannot swim in a hearing aid.  You cannot step into the shower with a hearing aid.  If it rains on you, you must hide your hearing aid.  You cannot even sweat too much while wearing a hearing aid.  The water wrecks the electronics.

Siemens won honors in Design and Engineering at CES for creating a hearing aid that is totally waterproof.  You can swim in the device and do any water activity without fear of wrecking the electronics.

As an added feature, they have an attachment that allows you to listen to any mp3 music player.

It is called the Aquaris Hearing Aid from Siemens and it is available from your Audiologist if you ask.

Toon Boom Coming to CES!

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a huge electronics show held annually in Las Vegas.  For the third year in a row, Toon Boom will be there.

This time, however, the company is also going First Class, showing their products at the special show “CES Unveiled.”

This will be huge!  Check out typical CES events in this composite “Best Events of CES.”

Windows Surface is Doomed!

Microsoft is doomed. This is the popular cliché. However, this week, I saw something that made it all so clear.

Our annual Christmas office party was this week. Those attending can best be described as grandmothers and older mothers. Someone brought their iPad. The entire group was thrilled when they saw the iPad. You would think someone just brought out pictures of their new grandchildren. Actually, the pictures came later, courtesy of the iPad. Those without iPads talked excitedly about their plans to buy one this Christmas.

Though they use computers regularly, they merely tolerate them. For them, computers are simply an ugly necessity.

Yet, this group loves their iPads. They are not at all intimidated. They are genuinely excited, even weeks after their purchases. They “love” their iPads in the same way technology addicts like myself “love” our own shiny new computers or gadgets.

While geeks like me debate the merits between Android versus Windows RT versus iPads, this group of technology-phobic people know only one thing: They love their iPad or they want one now. They do not know the meaning of the word “Android” and they have no idea what Windows RT or Windows 8 means. They are not even interested.

Microsoft lost this segment of the market. It is too late. The race is over. The iPad won.