In a previous post I talked about my old, now more or less retired Alienware M15 and its replacement, my Wacom Mobile Studio Pro. I've had that computer now for 9 months and I absolutely love it. However, I don't often use it as a "laptop", doodling away like it was a big, warm piece of 1cm thick paper. Instead, I mostly use it like a computer: staring at it, with keyboard and mouse, doing more mousy, computery tasks like CAD, interwebs, or consulty stuff. So I recognized pretty early that I needed a stand for it. A look on the internet back then and I quickly realized two things: my Wacom is a rare beautiful beast with few accessories out there suitable for its magnificence; and the stands that do exist are really damned expensive. There was one, nice as it was, that was over $200 US. Bespoke, even. The bourgeoisie can have their expensive, aspirational stands. I will liberate the masses.

Enter my solution. This li'l baby gets lots of oogly eyes when I work down at my local. Some have come over and fondled it in complete amazement. Even my local barrista - a tattoo clad, often immaculately dressed, hip young fellow named Steve, commented in amazement one afternoon when I set up my computer to do a wee bit o' worky work: "What. Is. That?! Can I copy that?" I thought he was commenting on the computer, slick as it is. But lo, he was commenting on the folding stand I had built for it. Other people have also come over and marveled at the material I chose to make it out of, as though it was some sort of space-age stuff. "Remarkable!", one commented.

Enough beating around the bush. I made this folding tablet stand using $0.50 worth of foam core. It took me five minutes.

It works perfectly. It's very light. It's very cheap. It folds up to almost nothing. It's softer than my computer so doesn't scratch or wear at its finish. OK, it wears out too. I'm well into my second version of this after 8 months of use. But given it takes me (or you!) about 5mins to make with an exacto knife and - once again - $0.50 worth of foam core, you can't argue with the economics of it. One coffee shop regular asked me if I was going to patent it. I might be able to, but why? I consider this the democratization of tablet stands; I am giving this away. Just go get your own foam core. Your welcome.