Freeing the Muse

I've started using Life Balance again, and this time I really think it's
going to stick. Why? It frees my muse.

Over the years, I've done a lot of planning. Regular readers will remember
I've been doing advanced project planning for as long as I've had a Palm,
never content to rely just on plain to do lists. And at some point, all of
these systems, Life Balance included, have fallen by the wayside.

I've often wondered why. What eventually drove me away from things that
were supposed to make me more productive?

I've been able to figure out two possible culprits, and the answer is
likely a combination of the two. The first is that, on the surface,
planning feels like extra work. Intellectually I may know that planning
actually decreases the work I have to do by making me more efficient and
effective, not always rushing to get things done at the last minute, but it
feels like more work than doing everything ad hoc.

The other reason is that I dislike having a taskmaster, even it's me. A big
part of ditching planning systems has been my desire to be unproductive, to
throw off the yoke and say, "Dammit, I'm just going to lie around all day!
Ha!" I can be very active and determined about doing nothing.

Now part of the solution to this is to build time to do nothing into the
plan. In the past, I've tended to spend a great deal of time and effort
trying to maximize every bit productivity in my day. I've pushed myself too
hard and burned myself out. Recreation, literally, re-creating myself and
my energy, is vital to a successful plan.

As for the work thing, well, I have a new reason to stick with it. Sure,
sure, I know I have before. After all, who doesn't want to get more done on
the things that really matter? But that's very big picture thinking, and
how do you really know, right? That one's too easy to rationalize away.

But I realized something today that will keep me on this plan like Bernie
Kerik to graft. Planning, when done right, frees my muse.

Now to make this work, you have to do the full monty. According to David
Allen, the idea behind planning is to get everything out of your head and
into a trusted system you know you'll come back to later. This is what I'm
doing. I've dumped an enormous amount of "I should do"s into Life Balance
recently, building my outline. And the more I do, the more creative spark I
have.

I honestly didn't realize how much of my brain was given over to just
keeping up with all of my crap. But now that I don't have that to deal
with, I've been writing like mad, coming up with ideas that simply would
not have come to me last month. I'm sure some of that is stress level and
the fact that my fortunes are considerably less dire now than they were a
month ago, but I think the planning has a lot to do with it as well.

So that's it, then. Organized, smorganized, I need to keep writing. And if
planning makes me more creative, then plan away!

Income Streams

"But I'm feeling MUCH better now."
-- John Astin, "Night Court"

December was a rough month for me, and many, many thanks to those of you
that helped out. I was able to climb out of my hole and get moving again.
Losing your job sucks, let me tell you.

But you know what? I learned a really important lesson that you writers out
there would do well to take to heart. Diversivication isn't just about
investing. You need to diversify all your sources of income to have any
real security.

Most people only have one income stream. It's called their "job" and it's
where they get all their money. Most Americans are living paycheck to
paycheck from just one job, and if they lose it, as I did, they lose
everything. There is no job security in America anymore, anyone can be let
go. "Sorry, we just don't need your position anymore." If your job
disappeared tomorrow, what would you do? Where would the next mortgage
payment come from?

I'm not going to get caught flat-footed again. II have six "jobs" right
now, and expect to land a seventh in January. Only one, actually, the
forthcoming seventh, is a "40 hour a week" full-time job, but all
contribute to my overall income. My other income streams get me $25 here,
$100 there, $200 there, ranging anywhere from $25 to $800 a week. Some
weeks I work, some I don't. And one of those streams is royalties from my
fiction, which I hope will grow a bit once we launch Solo Media. But the
end result is my money comes from lots of different sources. If I lose one,
two, even three of them I'm still okay. Wounded, but okay. And I can
replace them fairly quickly.

My life probably seems like a patchwork nightmare scenario to many of you.
I understand. A lot of people rely on the routine of a 9-5 job for a sense
of stability. But that stability is an illusion, a rug that can be pulled
out from under you at any time. My income is actually far more stable now
than it was at CompUSA. I may not know exactly how much money I'll make any
given week or month, but I know it won't be zero.

Holographic PDA Displays

Holo projector for mobiles - vnunet.com: "Scientists have developed a holographic laser projector that is significantly more efficient than today's models and could be incorporated into handheld devices ? allowing you, for instance, to project snaps from a phonecam onto a wall.
It could also be used to replace the screen on a notebook or PDA."

More on UPCs

After reading Vidge's comments on her UPC, a Sony U750P, I got to thinking about why I'm still using a PDA instead of a UPC. After all, my recent trials with DTG/WordSmith/Docs would be moot if I could just use Microsoft Word.

However, UPCs need a few fixes before they'll take off.

1. They need to be cheaper. $2,000 is about five to ten times too much for a handheld.

2. They need to sync seemlessly with your "big" computer. Alternatively, they could sport big enough drives and fast enough processors (without sacrificing battery life) to serve as your sole PC, something they currently can't do unless your needs are slight enough to make you barking mad for buying a $2k computer. And of course, increasing the specs will inevitably increase the price. See the Catch 22?

3. They need to have a solid and easy backup system. Given that they're XP-based, PCs, a one-touch backup USB HD might do the trick, but now we're adding another $200 to the pricetag.

4. Someone needs to come up with an XP skin that works well on a small screen. This is possible with something like WindowBlinds that can change the look and feel of the entire GUI, but the default Luna UI is a poor user experience at 800x600.

Let me know when these things get fixed. Until then, I'll be getting work done with my Zodiac.

PDAs are NOT an endangered species

Tom's
Hardware has a news item claiming that the PDA in its "traditional"
form, ie one without cellular capabilities, is an endangered species in
today's market. They claim that voice is the "killer app" for mobiles, and
PDAs need cellular technology to be taken seriously. They don't know
whether smallish, cell-phone-like devices will take over, or if devices
more like Pocket PC Phone Editions will pick up where "unconnected" PDAs
(and they include Bluetooth and WiFi devices in this category) leave off.

Personally, I think they're wrong, to a point. While phones are the next
great frontier, and the PalmSource/CMS merger should make small, cheap cell
phones with powerful organizer capabilities more common, their analysis
misses the mark because they overlook two points.

PDAs are more than PIMs. I'm a little surprised to hear something like this
from Tom's Hardware, but not too surprised. I regularly teach classes on
basic PDA use, and at the beginning of each class, I ask how many of the
students think of a Palm as an electronic daytimer. Over the time I've been
teaching, about 85% of the hands have gone up. PalmSource and Microsoft are
doing a piss-poor job of educating consumers on what these handheld
computers can really do. The truth is a PDA can do most of what laptops
actually end up doing (how many business travellers actually burn DVDs on
their laptops?). Add a foldable keyboard, and that "unconnected" PDA, which
gets much better battery life than a smartphone, can function as a cheaper
and lighter alternative to a laptop for a lot of executives.

The other thing Tom's Hardware misses is that people aren't limited to
carrying only one device. If you are only going to carry one device, by all
means, use a smartphone; they're better than basic or feature phones. But
having owned a couple of smartphones, I've found that a Bluetooth PDA and a
Bluetooth feature phone work better as a "solution" than one converged
device. My phone is small, pocketable and works great as a phone. My PDA
has a big screen, big battery, lots of memory and other enhancements that
simply wouldn't fit in the limited size of a smartphone. While it does
require carrying more gear, a Bluetooth PAN (PDA, phone, headset, GPS,
whatever else you want) is more flexible and longer lasting than any
converged solution.

So I think Tom's Hardware is jumping the gun here. Phones are going to be
big, but PDAs, especially those with Bluetooth and/or WiFi, are far from
endangered.

Better Battery Gauge

Engadget - www.engadget.com: "We?re quite sick of Windows XP telling us we have 30 or 40 minutes of juice left on our laptop only to have the system shut down unexpectedly just a few minutes later, so we?re quite excited to hear of Texas Instruments developing a system for an accurate battery gauge. The system uses two chip sets to continuously calculate remaining energy (systems now don?t take into effect the battery age and usage patterns) and could give users accuracy within 1 percent. The first batteries are set for notebooks in the middle of 2005, and if it proves successful, TI will move make them for handheld audio and video players, too."

To actually know how much battery life you have would be nice.

MobiSystems Docs 6

Finally, there's a new word processor in town.

For the longest time, the PalmOS word processor market has consisted of two 500 pound gorillas. One was WordSmith, and the other was Documents To Go. There were plenty of text editors, but if you wanted real word processing, you were going to go with one of these.

Neither was perfect. WordSmith was wonderful back in 2001, but now it's really showing its age. It still has excellent font rendering and supports some things no one else does (comments, footnotes), but it's missing one crucial feature. In this age of connected devices, the lack of native Microsoft Word or RTF formats is a killer. As great as it is, it just doesn't do any good to me if I can't share my documents with others until I get home and sync.

Documents To Go, especially with the new version 7, is very much like having Microsoft Office on your handheld. It has full support for Word and Excel files and can even read native Powerpoint. Sounds great, right? And it would be, if it worked reliably. Everyone I know that uses Documents To Go comments on its "quirkiness". On my friend's Tungsten T5, a device that ships with Documents To Go, it frequently refuses to open documents. On my Zodiac, it crashed so hard at the end of a find and replace operation that I had to do a hard reset to get the system working again. I'll forgive a lot a of software quirks, but data loss is where I draw the line. If you had a program on your PC that made you format your hard drive after doing something that should have been benign, would you keep it? Plus, I was always a bit resistant to Documents To Go because of its limited font rendering. If you're using anything other than Times or Arial, you're stuck looking at the stock PalmOS font. Feh. Georgia, Tahoma and Segoe UI are far more readable.

After the two 500 pound gorillas, we had one orangutan. Quick Office claims Office compatability, but Quick Word isn't really a serious word processor. While is supports basic RTF formatting, it has no support for paragraph styles or other advanced document features.

Fortunately, those are no longer the only options. MobiSystems has released Docs 6, a new word processor that compares favorably to the competition. This is the closest I've seen on PalmOS to the full-featured goodness of TextMaker on the Pocket PC. (or it will be; see below)

Docs 6 isn't actually new. It's a renamed update to MobiWord, a word processor that I put in the same "work in progress" category as Quick Word. This is a major update, and I expect Docs 6 to be my workhorse word processor in the foreseeable future (but not quite yet).

What makes Docs 6 so compelling? Let me count the ways.

First, it has full support for native Microsoft Word and ASCII text files. This goes a step further than Documents To Go in that while Microsoft Word is widespread, ASCII is universal. Microsoft Word format support seems relatively complete, including more features than Documents To Go (like page formatting, margins, gutters, etc.) and I haven't noticed it deleting anything, like Pocket Word on the Pocket PC.

Font support in Docs 6 has to be seen to be believed. TrueType font support in Docs 6 is easily as good as WordSmith's FineType, if not better. I've converted my favorite fonts and they look amazing on the Zodiac's half VGA screen. You can install as many fonts as you want, and you even get the bold, italic and bold italic variants. A friend of mine thinks I get too attached to font rendering, but it makes a difference if you want to see how your document will really look when you send it out.

Speaking of which, Docs 6 does something I haven't seen any handheld word processor do (maybe TextMaker, I don't remember). It comes with a full page preview mode. You can get a bird's eye view of your page layout on the handheld. And while the text is often too small to read in this mode, it's fully editable, so you can move paragraphs around until they look right on the page. Pretty nifty, especially if the next stop for the document is email or a Bluetooth printer.

Another nifty feature is the file manager. Documents To Go and WordSmith both support storing documents on the card, but that's where they go: the card. With Documents To Go, all your documents end up in \Palm\Documents\ no matter what they relate to. If you're looking at them from Documents To Go you can separate them into categories, but you're looking at a jumbled mess if you pop the card into a laptop. In Docs 6 you get a tree view of all the cards in the system on the left or top of the screen (drag it where you want it). On my Zodiac, I see the system RAM, both SD cards and the internal "card". Instead of categorizing my documents, I created a folder tree for my various projects and dragged the documents into them. On my Zodiac, they're in the internal virtual card so Hotsync will back them up, but you can use external cards as well, and everything still syncs, or is supposed to. You can also drag folders to other folders or tap and hold on a folder to bring up a very Office-like copy/cut/paste/delete pop-up menu. Organize your documents any way you like, Docs 6 can handle it.

Spell check is amazing on Docs 6, nearly identical to Microsoft Word. Misspelled or unknown words sport a squiggly red underline, and spell checking pops up suggested corrections. If you're using a stylus rather than a foldable keyboard (ach!), you can even turn on configurable word complete based on the spell check dictionary.

Speaking of keyboards, Docs 6 brings its own. Command-k brings up your choice of keyboards, from standard QWERTY with big keys to a more crowded QWERTY with numbers and punctuation, Dvorak and regional variations to my favorite, a character map for those rare glyphs you forgot how to make in Graffiti.

All your standard formatting is here. Several different kinds of bullets and numbering, image and table support, highlighting, even the ability to create hyperlinks that will open in the Palm's web browser. Like any serious word processor, there's a word count feature and it works great. Find and replace also works very, very smoothly, easily accessible from the keyboard via command-f. Like Word on the desktop, Docs 6 supports timed auto-save, although I've found this is a little slow saving to a Word document on a relatively slow SD card. And yes, Mike, it has Go To Top and Go To Bottom commands.

Like Documents To Go 7 and WordSmith, Docs 6 supports full screen view, doing away with the title bar and/or the toolbar to get more text on screen. When I'm typing on my PalmOne keyboard, I tend to turn off the title bar but leave the toolbar on. You can also adjust how much text you can see by zooming in or out. Unlike the competition, which both give you just three preset view sizes, Docs 6 can zoom in or out anywhere from 10% to 200% actual size. 75% is the default, which is just about right for mobile screens, 12 point type appearing just about the same size as the PalmOS system font. When typing, I adjust it up just a bit to 80% which is a little more readable at arm's length.

The desktop component of Docs 6 is average, better than WordSmith or Quick Office but not as good as the Documents To Go desktop. You can add or remove multiple documents at a time, and it has a Word menu plug in to do much the work direct from Word. But it's not as easy to make changes to the category or file type to a group of files as it is in Documents To Go. But Docs 6's desktop is adequate, and seems to sync reliably.

Fantastic so far, right? Any downsides? Actually, yes. Docs 6 is a wonderful update to MobiWord, but it's still obviously a work in progress. It feels like a beta. A stable beta, but a beta, nonetheless.

For example, there are still typos in the help and in the system. When it's copying a file to the card, it brings up a dialog that says, "Coping to card". Okay, I'll cope.

While you can categorize documents in RAM just like you would in other applications, this doesn't work very well. Category names get truncated, and the categories aren't sorted alphabetically. Oddly, the documentation includes a screenshot of a category dialog that would allow you sort them manually, but the category screen in the actual software is the standard PalmOS screen.

Speaking of the file manager, however, I'd love it if it would remember my sort order, or just default to alphabetic sorting. As it stands now, it seems to sort in random order for each folder. A tap on the header by which you want to sort fixes this, but it's a pain. More vexing is that there seems to be a problem with folder support and syncing, at least on my Zodiac. If I install new documents from the desktop, they show up in RAM. I'm supposed to be able to just drag those files to folders on the card. I do, and they still have the little Hotsync icon in color. However, the next time I sync, the files show up in RAM again. It's like the conduit doesn't know they were moved to the card. This may be Zodiac specific problem, since I have three cards in my system, but right now between this bug and the zonky category support, I just have everything in one big list in RAM.

There is a strange limitation in native document handling. While Docs 6 can sync and save .mwd files anywhere in the system and can edit text and Doc files in internal memory, it cannot sync text and Doc files unless they're stored on a card. To determine whether a file syncs or not, tap on the HotSync icon next to it in the file manager. A gray sync icon won't sync, the familiar red and blue will. Word documents stored in RAM are fixed on gray, and will not change to red and blue. Hopefully this will be addressed in an update.

I should note while Docs 6 fully supports binary Word documents, it does not support RTF files posing as .DOC files. Open an RTF file with a .DOC extension, and you get to see the backslashy jumble that is RTF encoding. I think this is an artifact of Docs 6's ASCII support; regardless the file extension, it's recognizing that RTF files are just marked-up ASCII under the hood and displaying them as such. I'd like to see RTF support in future updates, especially since many in my writer's group are Mac/Linux users that prefer RTF mail attachments.

Another curious omission is support for PalmDoc files. These are ASCII text files compiled into compressed 4k record chains that PalmOS can handle. Every PalmOS word processor supports PalmDoc as a lowest common denominator format except Docs 6. That said, there are programs that can convert PalmDoc to ASCII and back on the Palm, so you can work around this, but would it have killed MobiSystems to have included PalmDoc support?

Like other applications that roll their own UI (nothing about Docs 6 looks very much like PalmOS), Docs 6 doesn't interoperate with non-standard system extensions very well. While it supports the PalmOS (lousy rotten stinkin') 1K clipboard, it does not support CutPaste5, a prefs panel I use to copy and paste up to 32k of data. This means while I can attach a document easily to an email message, I can't easily copy the text from Docs 6 into the body of an email to post to the blog (for which I'm sure some of you are thankful, since you don't have to deal with blog entries with hard returns). I'm betting a lot of the tools in pToolSet wouldn't work well in Docs 6 either, but I'm hesitant to try since pToolSet is generally quirky on the Zodiac as it is. Why can't someone just write an OS5 extension that changes the system clipboard to 32k rather than adding new clipboards? But that's a rant for another time.

On the whole, these are trifling issues in an excellent word processor. It's not Microsoft Word, but it's not running on a $2,000 tablet, either. For handheld writing, Docs 6 is a good fit. As for me, I'm sticking with WordSmith for a little while longer, and I'll have to just copy and paste my text into emails for now. But I'm keeping my eye Docs 6. This is going to be big.

SD Card Doubles as USB Flash Drive - Everything USB

SD Card Doubles as USB Flash Drive - Everything USB: "Taiwanese-manufacturer Digimaster has released the first SD card that doubles as a USB flash drive, or vice versa. One end of the card has the connectors of a regular USB 2.0 interface while the other end has the same interface of a regular Secure Digital, making it compatible with many digital cameras and PDAs. The Double Card is touted as the perfect storage for eliminating the need to bring along a SD card reader. Initially, 128MB version will retail for $880 (Taiwan New Dollars) and 256MB for $1280."

I Didn't Know These Were Still Around

Well, standalone ebook readers are still here. I'm not sure I've ever heard of eBookWise, but looks like other tablet ebook reader I've seen. I'll stick with my PDAs for ebook reading, thank you!

The Next Interesting Device

Okay, We've seen the cool Sony U devices. We've seen the OQO. Now we have the Clio NXT. This device runs WinCE 4.2 rather than XP. Check the link for more. Compliments PPCT.

Tom's Hardware on the OQO

Tom's Hardware Guide Mobile Devices: The OQO: WindowsXP in the Palm of Your Hand - What Is It Good For?: "The OQO attracted a lot of attention during our testing. Dozens of people walked up and asked us what it was and how such a small device could run Windows. After showing them the device, the most common statement was, 'Ok, it's cool, but why do I need it?'

The OQO is a cool device, but is it practical for most people? Today, laptops and PDAs are extremely powerful and quite inexpensive. For the same price as an OQO, you can purchase a decent laptop AND a PDA.

In certain limited applications, such as PowerPoint presentations or wireless hacking, the OQO can work well. The portable nature of the device ensures that any data is always kept with the owner (assuming the owner doesn't lose it). A more rugged and robust version could have military applications.

The OQO is a marvel of technology. The makers should be applauded for cramming a CPU, hard-drive and WindowsXP into such a small device. If this device had come out two years ago, we have no doubt that it would have gained a huge following.

If you have money to spare and want the smallest WindowsXP computer, the OQO represents a decent first try. For everyone else, it doesn't make sense."

Look at the OQO

So while Connick is gushing over his new U750 and Vivian is awaiting hers, here's a look at the other one: the OQO, on Tom's Hardware. Check it out.

New Avantgo Client

Saw this over at Mobile Read: there's a new AG client available (based on the latest version). Click on link to download.

AG has finally recognised that there are hi-res, wide screen Palms out there. However, on the Zodiac, the screen is filled only in portait mode, and not in landscape. Also, there are still the graphics artifacts where some graphics look strange.

I've just downloaded and started playing with it, but I don't see me giving up Plucker anytime soon in favour of the new Avantgo!

I totally saw this coming...

Amazon.com: Electronics: HP iPAQ RZ1715 Pocket PC

Amazon has dropped the price of the lackluster iPAQ rz1715 to $199. This puts it head to head with the PalmOne Tungsten E, with which it compares fairly. Frankly, I'm surprised this sold at all at $280, but at the same price point as the E, it's not a bad Pocket PC.

dottocomu: Tokyo University's wraparound scanner

dottocomu: Tokyo University's wraparound scanner: "Tokyo University's Quantum-Phase Electronics Centre has come up with a scanner in the form of a flexible plastic sheet containing organic diodes that can be placed against an object to scan it. This makes it possible to get a perfect scan of both pages of old and fragile books without mauling them, for example. It also doesn't require the amount of light needed by a conventional scanner, as the organic photodiodes pick up reflected light from the object being scanned, though you do need the object directly under a fluourescent light to get a good image"

White Castle screens coming to a Pocket PC near you

Handango just sent this out to developers.

"Handango is preparing a special marketing program for applications that support the new square screen Pocket PC. Are your Pocket PC applications screen orientation aware? If so, please send a quick email to [deleted] with your company name and a list of your screen orientation aware Pocket PC applications."

Is this a sign that more Treo-like thumbboard Pocket PCs are on the way? The downside to devices like the HP 4300 and 6300 is that the thumbboard and QVGA screens make them too long to be easily pocketable. This might be changing soon. Pocket PC users, would you accept moving from 240x320 to 320x320 if it made the screen physically smaller?

Get your blogs by voice (Voblogging?)

Saw this at PocketPC Thoughts... Text to speech software that will turn your favorite blog into speech, in case you'd rather listen than read. See it here.

Publishers harvest bloggers

It could be that publishers, reported in the New York Times, are beginning to see the advantages in first-time authors who self-publish their work. For instance, no longer will an editor really have to guess whether a new novel or social commentary will strike a chord in a number of readers; they could get a head count of people who visit a blogger's page. Imagine that, blogging as the minor league affliate of The Show.

Doc Searls on the Future of Media

The Doc Searls Weblog : Tuesday, December 14, 2004: "See, I think the future of periodical publishing, and of journalism itself, will be built mostly by individual bloggers and indivdidual blogs, and by a new breed of publishers who harvest and republish (and, yes, pay for) goods from the wide open ranges where bloggers roam, and post, free. The day will come when the top print publications will be comprised of prose and pictures provided by blogs and bloggers.
The same thing will happen with television. And music. Movies too. (Although the rights-clearing mess is a huge hold-up there.)"

Bloglines - Hack your way out of writer’s block

BlogThis!

Bloglines user JeffKirvin (jeff@writingonyourpalm.net) has sent this item to you, with the following personal message:

Some great advice here...

---

43 Folders A bunch of tricks, hacks, and cool stuff.

Hack your way out of writer’s block By Merlin on Tricks I recently had occasion to do some…errr…research on writer’s block. Yeah, research. That’s what I was doing. Like a scientist. I found lots of great ideas to get unstuck and wrote the best ones on index cards to create an Oblique Strategies-like deck. Swipe, share, and add you own in comments. Talk to a monkey - Explain what you’re really trying to say to a stuffed animal or cardboard cutout. Do something important that’s very easy - Is there a small part of your project you could finish quickly that would move things forward? Try freewriting - Sit down and write anything for an arbitrary period of time—say, 10 minutes to start. Don’t stop, no matter what. Cover the monitor with a manila folder if you have to. Keep writing, even if you know what you're typing is gibberish, full of misspellings, and grammatically psychopathic. Get your hand moving and your brain will think it’s writing. Which it is. See? Take a walk - Get out of your writing brain for 10 minutes. Think about bunnies. Breathe. Take a shower; change clothes - Give yourself a truly clean start. Write from a persona - Lend your voice to a writing personality who isn’t you. Doesn’t have to be a pirate or anything—just try seeing your topic from someone else’s perspective, style, and interest. Get away from the computer; Write someplace new - If you’ve been staring at the screen and nothing is happening, walk away. Shut down the computer. Take one pen and one notebook, and go somewhere new. Quit beating yourself up - You can’t create when you feel ass-whipped. Stop visualizing catastrophes, and focus on positive outcomes. Stretch - Maybe try vacuuming your lungs too. Add one ritual behavior - Get a glass of water exactly every 20 minutes. Do pushups. Eat a Tootsie Roll every paragraph. Add physical structure. Listen to new music - Try something instrumental and rhythmic that you’ve never heard before. Put it on repeat, then stop fiddling with iTunes until your draft is done. Write crap - Accept that your first draft will suck, and just go with it. Finish something. Unplug the router - Metafilter and Boing Boing aren’t helping you right now. Turn off the Interweb and close every application you don’t need. Consider creating a new user account on your computer with none of your familiar apps or configurations. Write the middle - Stop whining over a perfect lead, and write the next part or the part after that. Write your favorite part. Write the cover letter or email you’ll send when it’s done. Do one chore - Sweep the floor or take out the recycling. Try something lightly physical to remind you that you know how to do things. Make a pointless rule - You can’t end sentences with words that begin with a vowel. Or you can’t have more than one word over eight letters in any paragraph. Limits create focus and change your perspective. Work on the title - Quickly make up five distinctly different titles. Meditate on them. What bugs you about the one you like least? Write five words - Literally. Put five completley random words on a piece of paper. Write five more words. Try a sentence. Could be about anything. A block ends when you start making words on a page. On the other hand, remember Laurence Olivier. One day on the set of Marathon Man, Dustin Hoffman showed up looking like shit. Totally exhausted and practically delirious. Asked what the problem was, Hoffman said that at this point in the movie, his character will have been awake for 24 hours, so he wanted to make sure that he had been too. Laurence Olivier shook his head and said, “Oh, Dusty, why don’t you just try acting?” So, when all else fails, just try writing.

Library Patrons: Listen To Your Favorite Book

The King County, Washington Library System is the first in the nation to offer audio books for download to its patrons. Publishers will allow the library to hold a certain number of "copies" and DRM will let each one timeout and disappear after 23 days, similar to the library's regular titles.

Here is the library's website.

Google to scan books from five major libraries

USATODAY.com - Google to scan books from five major libraries

Google is trying to establish an online reading room for five major libraries by scanning stacks of hard-to-find books into its widely used Internet search engine.

The ambitious initiative announced late Monday gives Mountain View, Calif.-based Google the right to index material from the New York public library as well as libraries at four universities — Harvard, Stanford, Michigan and Oxford in England.

The Michigan and Stanford libraries are the only two so far to agree to submit all their material to Google's scanners.

The New York library is allowing Google to include a small portion of its books no longer covered by copyright while Harvard is confining its participation to 40,000 volumes so it can gauge how well the process works. Oxford wants Google to scan all its books originally published before 1901.

.mobi new mobile domain?

My Way News: "The Internet's key oversight agency gave a preliminary nod Monday to new domain names targeting mobile services and the jobs market.
Sponsored by leading mobile phone and technology companies, including Nokia Corp. (NOK), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and T-Mobile, the '.mobi' domain would set apart Web sites and other services that are specially designed to work around the limitations of cell phones, including their smaller screen size and data capacity."

Sure would make the mobile friendly versions of your favorite sites easier to find.

If you have to think about bringing it with you...

I spent some time at the Harvard Cooperative Bookstore this weekend, and stumbled on a book called The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms. At first, I thought it was filled with short stories about these places and machines, but it was really a book filled with short stories for readers to pass the time. I don't know if this anthology would sell; even for readers who prefer pulp over electrons, the collection may seem too random. I carried a book with me at all times, even when I didn't have a PDA. Actually, I carry books with me now, although I have a decent sized library on my PDA. That a publisher would offer a book with shorts he feels would help someone pass the time suggests that the honchos think the book would sell as a novelty item (like the Bathroom Readers) or they have misunderstood who their market is. The high brow audience who reads the Paris Review likely have a great deal of books at hand; since the journal reeks of class and distinction, some may find that pretensious and avoid the collection. Can't win, I suppose.

But the fact that someone would publish a book geared for people who don't want to waste a moment encourages me about the eventual mainstream acceptance of e-books. Someone out there recognizes the usefulness or want to have something on hand, whenever the mood strikes. How best to translate this into a prostyletizing proselytizing tool?
If the Paris Review thinks it worthwhile for readers to have some reading material on hand, why don't we see more publishers push the same angle? Why shouldn't Border's or Barnes and Noble dispense e-books in eReader kiosks?

***

The way in which a reader would use this book also matches some of my thinking about the value of PDAs. As soon as someone has to decide whether he should take a gadget/book/something with him, that object has lost value, if the point of that object was mobility. I don't think people realize that, no matter how useful a mobile gadget is to them, if they don't bring it it is worthless. A laptop or tablet PC will not be a handbag gadget. It sure as hell isn't a pocket gadget. One must always make a choice whether to bring the computer with him or not. Usually, I think that choice is affirmative only if he has decided he needed to work at a location other than home.

That the laptop is more powerful is besides the point; even if you do keep your appointment calendar, notes, and contacts on it, it takes too long to access the data. And it's too bulky. The lag time from when you decide to enter or find information is crucial. There's too much lag for a laptop. The work that requires a laptop's computational power is few, and most often, that work can only be performed in a "stable" environment, where one will camp for a bit of time.

But there is a second component to portability. If the first means that one can take the work with him, the second is akin to on demand information. Here's one example: I've been thinking about what to do in an emergency. If a hit-and-run accident occurs in front of me, how soon can I record the necessary information for the police? Something as simple as license plates, car make and color, and location would be useful. I've decided that the fastest I can input information is through the voice memo ability of my cell phone. I flip it open, hit a button, and off I go. Of course, that doesn't guarantee I'll have the presence of mind to do it. But at least I know I don't have to fumble around. My Zod (and formerly the iPaq 2210) vexes me; both these machines took too long to let me get around to doing what I need. On looking back, I think Slap! is a really useful approach. I've come around to Jeff's view that there needs to be a dedicated "hodge-podge" recording program. However, text entry remains slow; I have to check if my Fitaly taps or my Graffiti writing produced the letters I want. The runner-up to the phone in terms of speed and fidelity of information is a pen and pad.

What is germane to this discussion is that I have my phone with me, and not a pad of paper; if I had to decide everyday whether it's worth it for me to bring it, then the phone wouldn't work as a "mobile" phone. Since I don't bring pen and paper with me, it's a non-issue whether that works as a better note taker or not. If I had to decide if my Zodiac goes in my pant pocket, then it probably isn't truly useful as an on-demand information entry/retrieval device. I think with a laptop, it will always be the case that it has a large lag period. The PDA allows for micro-time segments of usage.

Tablet PC top 10

Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005: Top 10 Benefits of the Tablet PC in Education

An interesting list of why to buy a student a Tablet PC. I'm thinking a PDA can do most of this, and is even more portable. So here's my responses.

1. Use One of the Most Advanced Microsoft Operating Systems

You don't need the bloat of XP to get things done on a PDA.

2. Work from Anywhere with One of the Most Mobile PCs Ever

A good PDA and Keyboard are even more portable.

3. Take All Your Notes Electronically

PDA's have been doing this for years, you can either use a stylus input or a keyboard.

4. Use Ink Anywhere, Anytime

OK, this one we lose a little ground, the ability to annotate MS Office documents with your own handwriting is a step above what most PDA's can handle.

5. Record Lectures and Presentations Using Linked Audio

While you can record the audio, you can't sync it to the notes so easily, another one for the Tablet PC.

6. Personalize Your Experience

PDA's are extremely customizable, you can use a keyboard, graffiti, fitaly. Those are just a few examples.

7. Let Your Voice Do the Work

Voice commands aren't quite there yet on most PDA's then again, talking during class usually isn't encouraged.

8. Get More Done in Less Time

Productivity is what PDA's are all about. The ability to do work anytime anywhere. With the increased portability, I'd have to say PDA's win out here too.

9. Help Protect Critical Data

Security is a huge concern on PC's. PDA's are an entirely different story.

10. Deploy and Manage Easily

Not an issue with a PDA, even if it's Wi-Fi enabled it's not a PC. It doesn't need managed by the schools IT department.

That's 8 out of 10 of the reasons the PDA is as good or better. At one quarter the cost I just don't see the tablet PC as the solution. Unless you've got money to throw around.

I'll admit if you've got the money to spend the abilities of One Note and digital ink are nice. I just don't see it as the be all end all for students.

As for the digital ink part of the problem, if someone really wants the freedom to write whatever they want and transfer it to their PC. The new Logitech IO2 pen is very nice.

Nextel, Sprint Close to Merger (washingtonpost.com)

Nextel, Sprint Close to Merger (washingtonpost.com): "Nextel Communications Inc. and Sprint Corp. reached a tentative agreement to merge, a deal that would create the nation's third-biggest mobile-phone company and could bring significant changes to Nextel's Reston headquarters.

Sources familiar with the deal said it would create a company called Sprint-Nextel with 39 million subscribers. It was unclear yesterday what a combination would mean for consumers, although analysts said some customers might eventually need to get new phones as the companies combined their technologies."

But I like my phone!

USATODAY on Podcasting

USATODAY.com - Podcasts meld MP3 players, RSS in radio fashion: "The idea behind a podcast is simple, yet brilliant. Instead of using portable MP3 players such as the iPod only for listening to music, new software called iPodder allows one to download prerecorded radio shows onto the devices.

Though several radio stations have begun podcasting shows, the medium's most visible impact has been empowering DJs like Klass to broadcast their own homemade radio shows with just a microphone, a computer, and a dash of brio."

Weblog Reading And Writing: Always Unfinished?

Read/Write Web: Weblog Reading And Writing: Always Unfinished?: "I wonder if weblogs are making our reading and writing habits temporal and 'always unfinished' (to twist the term 'always on')? Having written an article for Digital Web Magazine (and I must get around to writing another one), I can confirm it takes at least a couple of weeks to 'craft'. Whereas with my weblog, although generally I write carefully crafted long-form posts, it's still of-the-moment and a lot of times it's an ongoing theme I'm exploring (ie it's not 'finished').

I would probably write more 'finished' articles for my blog if I didn't feel so much (social?) pressure to continually update my RSS feed. As it is, I only write an average of 3 posts per/week anyway, but still...

And same goes for my reading. To participate in the blogosphere you have to keep up-to-date with the RSS feeds in your circle of influence. Which leaves less time for reading 'professional' and finished articles."

Another View of Linux on Palm

I seldom read PIC anymore, but happened to drop by today and saw this article by our friend Mike Cane. Let's just say that Mike brings his own unique perspective to the issue. Check out the link.

China, Linux Could Put PalmSource in the Catbird Seat

China, Linux Could Put PalmSource in the Catbird Seat: "That hopeful spinoff of Palm Inc.—which came to life only a year ago—has had a tough infancy. But here's a move that promises to position PalmSource as a formidable contender in the emerging mobile market.

If you think that sounds like the same line that PalmSource president and CEO David Nagel put down to the media and analysts in his announcement Wednesday, you're right. I'm buying it—and not because Nagel said so."

Nextel Said to Be in Talks With Sprint

The New York Times > Technology > Nextel Said to Be in Talks With Sprint: "Nextel Communications is in advanced talks to merge with the Sprint Corporation, according to executives involved in the negotiations. The deal would form the third largest cellphone company in the nation, with 39 million wireless subscribers.

A deal could be reached as early as next week if the talks continue apace. In the meantime, the talks may bring to the game a third player, Verizon Wireless, which held several internal conference calls yesterday to discuss the possibility of making a run at Sprint, executives close to Verizon Wireless said.

Whatever the outcome, the industry appears ready to shrink once again, just six weeks after Cingular's acquisition of AT&T Wireless formed the largest mobile phone provider in the country with 46 million subscribers, surpassing Verizon Wireless with 42 million. The talks between Sprint, currently No. 3 in the market, and Nextel, No. 5, are also in part a response to Cingular's move, which forced other rivals to reconsider their competitive positions."

Britons growing 'digitally obese'

BBC NEWS | Technology | Britons growing 'digitally obese': "Gadget lovers are so hungry for digital data many are carrying the equivalent of 10 trucks full of paper in 'weight'.

Music, images, e-mails, and texts are being hoarded on mobiles, cameras laptops and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), a Toshiba study found."

Moved to Sprint Just In Time...

Top Technology News Sponsored by Audi | Reuters.com: "CEO Robert Dotson said T-Mobile USA, the fourth- biggest U.S. mobile provider, would delay building a high-speed network based on a technology known as UMTS until it has enough wireless airwaves to support such a service.

'I don't see that happening in the next two years,' said Dotson at a CSFB investor conference. He did not give a specific time plan for the services, but noted that T-Mobile USA has a 2 billion euro ($1.32 billion) budget for buying additional wireless airwaves.

Mobile providers around the world ar"

Maximum Geek Fans Untie

No that's not a typo, it's a joke. Maybe not a good joke, but a joke. Anyway, we just added Maximum Geek to Podcast Alley. If you like MG head over there and vote. Also tonight there will be a new episode of Maximum Geek. That is all, you may return to what you were doing.








No seriously get back to what you were doing.

Print On Demand Publishing - Costs, Sales and Profit for Lightning Source POD Book

Print On Demand Publishing - Costs, Sales and Profit for Lightning Source POD Book: "People who have worked in the publishing industry in any capacity are often dubious of the claims made for the print-on-demand publishing model, because it violates the 'rules' of publishing as they know them. Our best answer to the critics is to start off with a case study of a year in the life of an actual POD book, published by the author through Lightning Source, including the actual sales, profits, and trends. It's important to get an overview of the whole process and costs at the outset. If you have trouble following the discussion the first time through, just keep an eye on the dollars."

Morris Rosenthal has an interesting breakdown of using Lightning Source's POD service versus a traditional publishing contract.

FeedSpeaker

I've listened to Phil Torrone's Engadget podcast; he introduced FeedSpeaker, a program that takes an RSS feed and encodes an MP3 of a text-to-voice trans... audition? Transliteration? (If transcription is a text-to-text copy, what would be the equivalent of text-to-voice?) I've included a sample of a converted, recent Slashdot feed, and if the link doesn't work, try finding it on the WOYP group at Yahoo Groups. The program uses the .NET 1.1 framework and the native Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) in WinXP. Don't worry, links are provided at FeedSpeaker to get all the packages.

Thoughts? I like it. It worked surprisingly well for Slashdot, PPC, and WOYP. The voice is a robotic sounding Microsoft Sam (think Stephen Hawkings.) As a matter of fact, I realized PocketPCThoughts already posted about FeedSpeaker only when I heard it after a conversion.

UPDATE: Oops. I guess I was listening to a PPCThoughts news entry about Dragon Speech and not about FeedReader. Sorry if people got confused looking for it at pocketpcthoughts.com.

Zodiacs On Sale For The Holidays

Tapland - Tapwave Zodiac News: Zodiacs On Sale For The Holidays: "Tapwave's Senior VP of Marketing, Byron Connell, gave me the heads-up that there are some new prices 'for the holiday selling season' in effect today. Because these price drops may be temporary, you should get in on them while the getting's good.

The 128MB equipped Zodiac 2 can now be had for just $349.88 (that's about a $50 savings from the old price) and the 32MB Zodiac 1 for just $269.88 (about a $30 savings)."

Is That a Penguin In Your Pocket?

Okay, now that I've had time to read and digest all the hulabaloo, let's
dig into this PalmOS for Linux thing.

First things first. This is not a replacement for Cobalt. Despite rumors to
the contrary, Cobalt is not in trouble. PalmOne doesn't show much interest
in it, but other PalmOS licensees (PalmOne is far from the only one) are
preparing new devices. PalmOS for Linux (can we get a better name, like
PalmOS Tux?) is a new product in addition to the two flavors of PalmOS
already out there. PalmOS Garnet, PalmOS Cobalt, PalmOS for Linux. All
co-exist.

Second, PalmOS for Linux will fully support both PACE (the Palm Application
Compatability Environment) and the newer Protein APIs. That means that
well-behaved Garnet applications will run with no modification, and
Cobalt-specific applications will be able to run on PalmOS for Linux with
just a recompile. PalmOS for Linux doesn't mean than PalmSource is
abandoning Cobalt or that developers should ignore Cobalt technologies.

Third, PalmOS for Linux will support native Linux drivers and applications,
as long as they don't use the GUI. This means Linux drivers and system
daemons should run unmodified, opening up a whole new world of "hacks" to
enhance devices.

Now, with that out of the way, let's look at the fun stuff.

I don't know how soon PalmSource is going to make this available, but the
sooner the better. Why? To retrofit Pocket PCs, of course. There's already
an effort underway to port Linux (the Familiar distro, I believe) to the HP
hx4705. I would love to get PalmOS for Linux on that thing. It would be
just about the perfect PDA for me. I want it now!

And why limit this to just PDAs? I'd love to see something about the size
of the Sony VAIO U75 running PalmOS for Linux. This would be the Ultimate,
as far as I'm concerned. 60GB hard drive, 800x600 screen,
touchscreen-enabled down to the BIOS. Running PalmOS for Linux would mean
it would have all the benefits of an ultralight running Linux with the
pen-friendly and intuitive PalmOS UI. More to the point, I could use
Documents To Go 7 instead of the far more expensive Microsoft Office, and I
could regularly sync/backup my data to my bigger desktop PC. My biggest
problem with ultralights and UPCs is that they're not designed to sync like
PDAs, but too limited to function as your primary PC. With a U75 running
PalmOS for Linux, all these problems go away, leaving me with a device that
at once eliminates the need for a PDA, laptop and iPod. W00t!

Also, I'd like to spend a moment to reflect on the lost half of this
morning's announcement. In acquiring CMS, PalmSource nearly doubled their
development staff, and the new people are mobile phone experts. PalmSource
has pledged to meet Symbian head to head by porting the PalmOS UI and core
PIM applications to lower-priced "dumbphones", making the core PalmOS
functionality and data compatability universal to all cell phones
down to the entry level. No one's talking about this, but this is huge.
Basically, the phone you get for free when you sign up with a carrier will
soon have the functionality and the interface of a Zire 21. With this one
move, PalmSource has positioned themselves to surpass not only Microsoft,
but also Symbian in the mobile phone space and become the "standard" for
wireless communications devices.

Think about that. This is the same logic as why Apple pushed so hard for
the education market. Get people to grow up using your platform, and
they'll prefer it as adults. It didn't work out so well for Apple because
their adult customers had to adapt to using the PCs they used at work, but
mobile phones are far more personal. Get a bunch of teenagers used to
keeping their schedule and phone numbers in PalmOS, and they'll stick with
that interface. When they go to college, they'll get a PalmOS for Linux
laptop. This is a daring strategy, and it breathes new life into the PalmOS
platform.

Fitaly for VGA PPCs

I first saw this at Windows Mobile 24/7, the PocketPC counterpart to Palm-centric PDA24/7. Textware Solutions let loose the release candidate for Fitaly. I'm jealous. Perhaps this is the one thing that would make me buy another PDA before the Zod1 dies on me...

PalmSource to base future PalmOS versions on Linux kernal

An open letter to the Palm OS community: Second, we intend to increase the rate of innovation in Palm OS, and the range of potential licensees, by making it available on Linux. The Palm OS user interface and the PalmSource PIM applications you know will remain, as well as the advanced features that we've built into Palm OS® Cobalt's software frameworks. Properly written Palm OS applications will also be able to run on Palm OS for Linux.

We're making this change for several reasons:

Linux is intensely popular among electronics companies, especially in Asia, which is becoming the center of mobile device manufacturing. We think providing a Palm OS® solution for Linux can help bring in more licensees.

* The rate of innovation in Linux is faster than anything a proprietary operating system company can do on its own; in the future, we think getting things like device drivers and support for new chips and components will be much easier. This change won't be directly visible to Palm OS users, but over time we think it should mean faster development of new types of devices.
* Providing solutions for Linux will allow our engineers to focus on improving the Palm OS interface, PalmSource™ PIM applications, and advanced software frameworks -- exactly the sort of user-visible innovation that many of you have been asking us for.
* Many corporations broadly deploy Linux on servers. Palm OS for Linux will let companies leverage that investment to support and deploy Palm Powered products to their employees.

Overall, by teaming up with the Linux community, we think we can build a mobile alliance with the scale and resources to compete globally against even the biggest mobile operating system companies.

This is good news, folks. Keep in mind that the PalmOS UI and applications aren't going anywhere. You next Palm won't look like KDE. But by moving the microkernal to an open source project with Linux's development base, hardware support is going to get a lot better very quickly.

Thoughts on this? Join the discussion in our Google Group.