Faster text entry on a Palm Pilot. The use of a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) such as a Palm Pilot can add great value to a personal knowledge management strategy. But one of the key inhibitors is the speed at which text can be input.

Palm's use Graffiti, a form of stylised writing. Although effective, it is not as tolerant as our ability to ignore errors in handwriting. That is, slight errors in Graffiti writing often leads to the wrong letter being displayed. Continual backspacing and correction reduces efficiency for large amounts of text. Longer words also tend to use infrequent letters for which remembering the Graffiti is difficult - slower again. Further the letter stylisations are different and tire you easily if not used all the time. Portable keyboards are available and quicker but one more thing to carry (and buy).

This entry is being written using a tool called TextPlus. Like pre-emptive text for SMS on a Nokia phone, TextPlus suggests words based on the first few letters. It suggests phrases as well, saving even more time.

In line with an approach to trialling software, over the 30 day trial I will use TextPlus 'in anger' to determine its worth. So far it has saved time and contributed to a longer article. Time will tell. "dcb" [thought?horizon :: non inferiora secutus]

Well, self, take a look at this before springing for a keyboard-enabled PDA
3:13:37 PM    

New Scientist:  Lorenzo's Oil proven to work.  Wow. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Once in a while, I like to see the visionaries and the desperate win.
2:49:05 PM    

WiFi Trek Style.

WiFi Trek badges. Brian sez: Vocera Communications has developed what is essentially a Star Trek: TNG-style lapel communicator device that uses WiFi to transmit voice across networks.

The Vocera Communications System consists of Vocera Server Software, residing on a customer premise server, and Vocera Communications Badges, which operate over a wireless LAN (802.11b). The badge - which weighs less than 2 ounces - includes a microphone and speaker, LCD readout to display text messages, and an 802.11b wireless radio. It can be clipped to a shirt pocket or collar, or worn on a lanyard.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Brian!) [Boing Boing Blog]

Want one. [Brett Morgan's Insanity Weblog Zilla]

Yes, indeed: my boss is looking at these, apparently. (From all I've overheard...)
11:11:10 AM    

Relocation. America's decidedly weird. Even the light switches are upside down. I keep forgetting left and right (especially when those road... [Hugh's ramblings]

Sit down, relax; make a cup of tea with your new kettle. You are not in "America", you are (I believe) in New England, in the Boston area, I believe. God help you.

Lights flash there for reasons unknown to the rest of the USA. You can get yellow and red lights together at the same time: they mean "Walk". You may see green arrows—which everywhere else mean that the oncoming traffic has a red light—that mean that you may turn that direction, if you like, at your own risk, but that some other direction is probably forbidden you. Green arrows mean, "Accidents happen frequently here for some reason".

Boston (or New England) isn't responsible for the light switches being "wrong" (although putting the switches outside the bathroom door so your child can leave you sitting there in the dark is a regional curiosity). But my wife and I still wish we were back there, sometimes. Enjoy your stay.
10:08:10 AM    

JIRA does RSS, so cool!.

Oh man this so rocks!

I'm now have Radio subscribed to a feed coming out of my liveTopics JIRA project.  I get an RSS item for each change that happens, i.e. someone adds a new issue, someone adds a comment, it's all there.  This is *so great* for project visibility.

Unfortunately it does kinda point out the weaknesses in the Radio aggregator interface.  It was probably fine when you only had a dozen or so feeds but I'm up to 58 and some of them are really big.  I need a tabbed interface that lets me organize feeds the way I want.  I need keyword prioritzation, I need the ability to delete all items from a specific feed at once.  I'd like them outlined to save screen real-estate.  [Actually John Robb's just pointed out that I can delete all the items at once, using the magnifying glass icon - must check that out]

Damnit I want aggregator Mark 2.

 

[Curiouser and curiouser!]

I see that JIRA is free to non-profits (like my company). I'll have to give it a try and see what I (and the bug-discoverers whom I frustrate) have to think about it.
9:46:55 AM    

I re-post for myself, for my friends...
3:03:38 PM    

Technologies Become Obsolete, Ideas Don't.

Today, we'll be slightly more *intellectual* than usual. We'll take a look at why devices and tools can always be improved and why ideas can't.

Matthew Herber will be our guide.

...

Source: Matthew Herber, Forbes.com, September 10, 2002

[Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends]

See Roland's summary if you are in a hurry, or the original if you have the time.
2:42:44 PM    

Ouch. I'm already paying my ISP $50/month and they've no option to upgrade the amount of webspace. They're willing to sell me a completely different package, but as far as I can tell it would mean a new domain name. [Steven's Weblog]

Yes, I've run up against them, too. Same ISP, same limit...thinking of moving everything back to the default Radio site, keeping my site with my ISP for the occasional FTP user...
2:38:09 PM    

Fonts in Public. Fonts are part of our computer lives and we don't always think about it existing off the screen. Public Lettering proves there is beauty of fonts on buildings. The site... [meryl's notes]No time now, but this [image-rich] site (Public Lettering) looks well worth the visit.
2:34:33 PM    

Wired.  Clay Shirkey with another stat on how things are accelerating.

The ITU estimates that there were 689 million landlines in 1995 and a few more than 1 billion by 2001. This amounts to an average annual growth rate of slightly more than 7 percent. Put another way, half as many landlines were laid in the last six years of the 20th century as in the whole previous history of the world.

[John Robb's Radio Weblog]

How about just putting it clearly:

Put another way, [almost] one-third of all the world's landlines were laid in the last six years of the 20th century.

10:25:26 AM