Do any of you use special input devices to write on the computer? I personally cannot write or draw using a mouse for the life of me. Tablets seem like a good option but they are a tad expensive on a student's budget. Any good suggestions out there? :)

I got a Wacom Bamboo on Amazon shortly after starting with Skritter:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000V9T2JA

It's worked pretty well for me.

Hi Matt,

I tried to use skritter at a friends house and had a problem you may be having. My friend has a gaming mouse which is extremely sensitive and doesn't smooth mouse movement. When I tried to use skritter with it the lines were slightly jagged and skritter struggled to identify the strokes.

I've recently ordered the same Bamboo tablet. I used Nick's Wacom and it worked really well, which sold me to spending money on one for myself. Bamboo is only about $60 on Amazon, and as a college student, I find it to be perfectly affordable considering I'll also be doing art with it as well.

It may be in your interest to try playing around with different mouse speed / smoothing settings. In XP, it's in Control Panel - Mouse - Pointer Options. I write better with it set pretty fast (and I have a highly sensitive gaming mouse), but George likes his much slower. Also, it'll probably make a big difference whether you have "Enhance pointer precision" checked -- that will probably make things smoother.

That said, there's a certain base skill with mousing that each person has. You get a lot better at it with a few hours of Skritter use, but there may be vastly difference mousing skill ceilings. The Wacom tablets are indeed the bee's knees if you don't like writing with the mouse.

I've just hooked up pressure sensitivity with Wacom tablets via a new browser plug-in that Wacom's testing out. It makes strokes look prettier, and later I'll turn on its angle sensitivity and everything and see how calligraphic it can get. Might even be able to get higher-speed drawing from the higher update rate of the tablet, which'll make recognition a bit better.

The plug-in is only available for Firefox and Internet Explorer (and potentially other browsers on a Mac), though. And I'm not quite sure yet how stable it is. But it's working in development, so if I can fix one crashing bug it's causing, you'll be able to install the plug-in and get extra zazz with a Wacom tablet. Cool!

Thanks for the help guys! I decided to order a bamboo (with a name like that...), will let you know how it works out :)