I ordinarily type my columns. But since this column is about tablet computing, I decided to compose it in longhand on the Compaq tc1100 tablet computer that Hewlett-Packard lent me earlier this year.

For people who never learned typing, or for those who find it a painful chore, writing on a computer's screen and having your words turned into beautiful text must be a liberating experience. I'll never know: I learned to type when I was in ninth grade and can easily crank out 120 words per minute. Still, Microsoft's Tablet PC edition of Windows XP has a handwriting recognizer that's nearly flawless. This computer was able to recognize my weird mixture of printing and cursive the very first time I picked up the stylus: neither I nor the computer required any training. The tablet PC could even recognize my seven-year-old daughter's handwriting-misspellings and all! In fact, it corrected each word as she went on to the next.