The Ultimate Touchpad(s)

Not that I did so much myself concerning IT lately. However, there is always stuff to discover.

Lately, I bought a Wacom Bamboo Pad (the wireless version). The initial plan was to have a graphics tablet to go along with the HP ProBook 4540s (the one with OS-X on it) for photo editing, i.e. retouching.

The Bamboo comes at a price comparable to Apple's Magic Trackpad. The Bamboo, however, has a huge bonus over the Magic Trackpad, it comes with a stylus, which is really helpful for retouching photos.

The silver-ish design of the Bamboo nearly matches the ProBook's looks.

Hooking the thing up to the computer leads to instant functioning as tablet w/ a stylus. Don't stop here! Install the latest driver from Wacom, your tablet will now function as a touch-pad.

The interesting bit about the Bamboo is that it functions in two different modes.

1. When using it with fingers (touch) it reacts relative to the input, just like expected from a touch pad.
2. As soon as the stylus is used for input, the tablet reacts in absolute mode, i.e. the position of the stylus determines the position of the cursor on the screen.

Having used the Bamboo for a while and really enjoyed it when working on photos, I decided to also buy the Wacom Intuos, to pair up with my workstation. Although I have not yet done a lot with it, I love the eraser option on the far end of the stylus! Really cool when working on masks in GIMP.
The Intuos does not seem to work a priori at all. Installing the proper driver is mandatory. However, with the driver installed, an entirely new world for controlling a Hackintosh arises!