Eric Mack On-Line

As a continual learner, I read many books; many of them are big and heavy. I've tried reclining on my bed or the couch with the book propped up in front of my face so that I could be more comfortable while I read. Perhaps you've tried this, too. This arrangement usually works fine for me for a few minutes, at least until I'm woken up by the sharp nasal pains caused by big and heavy book falling on my nose.  

After encountering this situation on one too many occasion, I decided to do some observation and study into its root causes. I concluded that the problem was that there was no way to easily turn the page from this position; this in turn led to boredom [continually looking at the same page]  which lead to a relaxed state of being, [while waiting for the page to somehow turn by itself] which led to slumber, which lead to a near-broken nose while studying.

I did many repeat experiments under similar conditions to validate my findings (which is why there's no photo of my smiling face with this blog entry).

A few years ago, I determined that I should do something about this problem.  As a robotics enthusiast, I decided that there must be a way to build a stand to hold my book with an automated page turner. I scoured the Internet for ideas; I even wrote to The Christopher Reeve Foundation to ask for ideas and to offer to share mine. Surely I was not the first person with this interest/need. My initial searches & inquiries returned nothing.

Well, that was a few years ago; I eventually did find a mechanism that would automatically turn the page of a book; I found it in a medical supply catalog for patients with disabilities. Unfortunately, there were approximately 3,950 reasons why it might not work for my application.

A few months ago I purchased Tecra M4 Tablet PC. This allowed me to scan in my text books and other materials that I wanted to study and read them on the tablet from a relaxed position. Once again, I thought back to my book stand/page turner idea. With the Tablet PC, I didn't need the robotic page-turner. I could used timed page turns or use a a Bluetooth mouse or Logitech cordless presenter to let me control the turn of each page. This was great.

But it wasn't. I soon realized that I had another more serious reading hazard to contend with...

A Tecra M4 Tablet PC falling on my face could kill me

Not one to be easily discouraged by technical problems - even in the face of life-threatening risks such as these, I renewed my search for the ultimate Tablet PC stand* - one that would allow me to [safely] read in any position, no matter how relaxed I got.

If you're still reading this far, you'll be delighted to know that I recently found my ultimate Tablet PC stand.*  I do not have one - yet- but I've sat in front of one for several days now, and I'm inspired to think about getting/building one for myself soon.

Still interested? Let me know, and I'll post some pictures soon.


* I thought about calling this UTPCS, but I didn't want to torture Marc Orchant and James Kendrick with Yet Another Acronym, so for the time-being, no cute name.