This is the fifth post of the 7-Day Video Review Challenge to Overcome Fear of the Camera follow up video series.
Today I am going to review the Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet.
I am far from being a graphic designer but I knew that for graphic creation I wanted to get something that felt a little bit more natural and comfortable than drawing with a mouse.
On a meeting with a friend of mine that makes a living as a graphic designer, he told me that doing graphics with a mouse would be as equal as trying to draw with a brick, to me, it did make perfect sense, what do YOU think about that?
Anyway, I don’t think I ever designed cool stuff before, I did make some logos and pretty simple basic stuff and honestly I think I never realized before that I was drawing with a brick OR a mouse!
If you’re asking why could I possibly be interested in such a device like a pen tablet, well it’s mainly because the endless possibilities that it will provide for your marketing needs.
Even if you outsource your graphics so they don’t suck that much or in case you just don’t have the time to do them yourself, a super strong reason to get one of these things is to be able to create your own digital signature AND sign digital documents as well.
If you still don’t know what I mean, have you ever went to a site where they say “good bye” or do the closing for an article saying something like “Sincerely, John Doe” in handwritten-like letters?
Well that wasn’t hand written at all, it’s a digital signature (most of the times) created with a handwritten font, turned into an image which they cropped, sliced, tilted, made a curve, etc so it kind of looked natural.
You can google for the keywords: “create signature online” you’ll be surprised it throws a huge almost 188 MILLION results.
Obviously, many people fall for this and even if you know it is just a font, some people seem to not care.
But being me, I don’t like that AT ALL.
I want to be me, I want you to be able to tell if my character is strong, if it’s weak, if I have conviction or not, I don’t want to mislead you with some software created signature that represents… ME! …EVER!!
If you’re thinking: “ok, am I going to buy one of these things just to create ONE digital signature and that’s it?”
Absolutely NOT!
If you have any kind of interest on web design or graphic creation, then these things are a MUST, simple as that.
However, if you’re NOT interested on discovering your inner creative self with one of these things, you should know that these are widely used in presentations for explaining stuff on video too.
If you thought about how-to’s, screencasts, power slide presentations WITH explanations, then you’re already on my wagon so welcome aboard!!
So after all of the shenanigans like some cool surfer marketer that many have come to love and hate (even at the same time) in the internet marketing industry, let’s get on with what this thing can do!
So what I did was I basically rushed to Amazon (as always) and started doing research, reading reviews, going on to the big G and doing the same there until I found this very affordable yet entry level pen tablet from the Wacom Bamboo Series.
It was selling for under $100 bucks, a very close friend of mine used this to create some very astonishing graphics and besides after all, I was sold on the reviewing comments.
I don’t like to be dropping any names on any of my articles so I’ll just tell you that I once saw this guy that has a very successful blog, and he was using a pen tablet for his presentations.
In all honesty, sometimes I just thought… “watching you draw that crap wasn’t even needed for your explanation” but I guess that sometimes we just let this inner child we have inside do his stuff on the outside, so I couldn’t care less about seeing his far from great drawing skills as I was getting ideas on my own.
Coming from the IT corporate world, if you grab a color marker to draw something for the room to understand your point, you better have something DAMN GOOD to demonstrate, otherwise you’re going to get bashed and in a very bad way.
It’s not that I don’t like the guy, it’s just that I come from a very picky world!
So without any further ado, I’ll try to show you just a little bit how this works.
Huge Disclaimer: I could NEVER possibly show you what its real capabilities are, as like I said in the beginning I could possibly be a horse race rider first, than a graphic designer (and I have NEVER got on a horse in my life before, although I did get on a “burro” once LOL)
Wacom Bamboo Tablet Video Review
Ultra nervous video, can’t really edit video, can’t really use Camtasia and I definitely CAN’T DRAW!!!
Will have to dedicate myself a LOT to learn all these skills I’m currently not only lacking but sucking at them so much!!
But oh well, there you have it!
I hope you did enjoy the video, if you think you can possibly do better with your mouse skills (which I’m pretty sure after the demo you can! LOL) and software generated signatures, then by all means do what you please!
Just remember that I’m showcasing what I am currently using or will be using in my marketing needs and that is all!
If you’re interested in knowing more about this Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet, I’m including my Amazon link (aff link) down below:
Please take care, have a great weekend and I will be looking forward to see you soon around here!
Sergio signing off.
Twitter: chattopatrick
says:
Well Sergio you have produced some really great contest for your blog fans once more…five home runs in a row and just two more to go now.
Ok it was a little disappointing that you were not actually on camera today but once I got over that disappointment then I settled into watch some really great content.
Actually blog readers I must take some blame here because yesterday I had a massive technical problem with my blog which I was unable to solve on my own. In fact I didn’t even know where to start. I was utterly clueless and I needed help.
So I asked Sergio to help me and he literally dropped everything to come to my aid so I know that as a result he did not have as much time as wanted to produce this post today.
First of all today, as always, this review has given a huge amount of written information about the product with useful background and personal details which makes these posts so much more than bog-standard product reviews.
Each time I read one of these reviews I feel that I am both learning new stuff about the product and about Sergio.
Also it is brilliant that Sergio takes the time to carefully select products for review because that is important to build up trust between reviewer and blog reader/viewer.
I am also not a huge fan of the fake signature font which almost everyone uses. It is not a signature – just another font – and this is so obvious when so many people all use it.
But one additional tip here if you are using the Bamboo tablet to create digital signatures…it may be a good idea to create a different online signature to the one you use to sign the back of your credit cards or to sign your cheques!
Finally as to these videos being too long well I would like to disagree with people who say that.
One must remember that this blog serves a dual purpose – to help Sergio overcome his fear of the camera and to deliver great content to the blog reader/viewer.
So if Sergio needs to take longer than he normally might on his videos to help overcome his fear then there is nothing wrong with that.
I have noticed a steady progress in Sergio’s confidence as this challenge has progressed and I can see that being in front of the camera is something which can, and should, play a big part in Sergio’s future marketing career.
Sorry for such a long comment here, sometimes I find myself rambling on far too much.
Onwards and upwards.
Patrick.
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Hey Patrick,
What an amazing comment my friend, as always, a super big THANK YOU!!
I agree, I had to choose whether to appear on camera OR record the screen.
I had plenty of technical issues and with the span of time I had at the moment I just had to make up my mind and I decided to go with recording the screen as that’s far more interesting than looking at me and the pen tablet itself! LOL
Like we said earlier on twitter (you can follow us at: @chattopatrick & @ITSergioFelix) there’s a great idea coming up on redoing all the stuff once I become better at video editing (or once I actually LEARN better said…) and that could be showcased here for everyone to see that maybe the learning curve is not that big and if I can do it, then everyone can!
About the digital signature I agree completely, I’ll give you guys my rockstar signature! LOL
On the video duration, it’s funny because I rather be for long time on video than in small bursts as I can see what my mistakes are, when I feel comfortable what am I saying or doing, you know, an analysis of myself, and that has helped quite a lot to tweak a little bit what I identify as I go.
I have learned a lot of ideas and strategies, about how am I going to drive traffic from YouTube, but all that information is going to be delivered as we go.
And last but not least, don’t EVER worry about rambling here man, I treasure all the time you take to write these amazing comments and analysis of what I’m doing so please, write away, you can pick this place as your OWN scenario!
Take care and have a great weekend!!
PS. About yesterday’s support call and all the time spent, I would NEVER leave a friend down for a fun to do challenge that I imposed myself. A blog is your property, it can be your work! Can you even imagine what the big dawgs (huge bloggers) would go through if they had been in your situation? So it was all my pleasure to help, I learnt a lot too, it was fun communicating so much time back and forth and well hopefully that just shows that we could actually work together in a stressful scenario.
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Twitter: IMarketerLinda
says:
Sergio,
Another great review – I do happen to know how to make graphics, but I cannot draw with my mouse exactly….I think I am just as good as you with my mouse…hehehehe.
You can take classes to learn how to do all this online with software – I use PaintShop Pro – which is very similar to Paint Shop….I have met a lot of wonderful people through tutorials with this type of thing. I started many years ago and most of these programs have 30 day trials where you can test things out.
But, anyway – this looks very similar where you can practice offline? instead of being tied to a computer.
Have fun with it and thanks for the review – never knew there was anything like it.
Have a SUPER day!
Linda
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Hey Linda,
That’s great advice, thank you!!
I think I’m just going to be playing around with doodles for a little while on paper and then take that to the ‘drawing board’ later… (no pun intended! LOL)
I have never used PaintShopPro, I kinda used to be good at Photoshop but honestly I don’t even recognize the software anymore, it has SO many things!!
Thanks for stopping by and I will definitely create a few more videos when I don’t suck so much at it! ;-)
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