November 21, 2005
Dear Santa
I’ve been a good boy this year. Well, a bit good. Sometimes. But I hear you’ll be making deliveries in just a few short weeks, so I’d like to get my request in early as the elves may need to spend some time down in the lab to get my Xmas gadget ready.
Here’s my problem:
We’ve got an uncountably infinite number of Post-it notes on our study desk, most of which are scribbled items from phone calls. Can you help me escape sticky note hell?
What I want is a little digital tablet that sits on a desk, with a touch-sensitive monochrome screen. Wi-Fi enabled, and probably powered by a long-lasting chunky battery. Kind of like a Windows Tablet PC, but $100 for the whole thing, not just the OS.
At the side is a knob to turn to scroll for “more blank digital paper”. And maybe a wee thermal printer at the bottom to print out hard copy of the screen? Nothing fancy.
Perhaps if your elves aren’t too busy you could add another knob to select from multiple users? That’d be ever so nice, thanks.
When the phone rings, I can just scribble notes down on the pad using the stylus. It’s always on, unlike my PC. Notes are automatically filed against my call log, and are easily retrieved from my Skype client from anywhere in the world I log into the Net. The caller ID and time of call is, of course, attached to the note; a Google search is done to catch the most likely caller name, where possible. If I write a note whilst I’m not on the phone but while actively browsing the web, then that URL is used as an annotation too. Anything else gets queued as a tentative “to do” item.
Everything is searchable, especially since handwriting recognition is used. I can look at the original note image too when the recognition engine can’t quite grok my scrawl. Everything integrates with my PIM and personal productivity tools. If I jot down a phone number, it goes in my address book; I receive a reminder to fill in the rest of the contact details when I’m next at my PC. (I can replay that snippet of the call to remind me who the caller was if necessary, and get the number right.)
Who knows, maybe you could even integrate one of these into a Skype phone for me? I’ve been quite good, really I have.
Best regards to you and your helpers,
Martin from Edinburgh (aged 34½)
PS - We don’t have a chimney and the front buzzer isn’t working, so can you Skype chat me to be let in? I’ll be up until about 1am as it’s quiet when the kids are in bed.
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Hey, I use DayNotez for that and loads of other stuff. I type on my PC, then it's auto-synced to my Palm. That's how I can always tell what conversation did I have with my friends at a bar on any given day.
Posted by: at November 22, 2005 02:08 AMWhen you were but a boy, such a device existed. It was called the Newton 2100 and did most of that, bar the Skype.... Even now after it was killed off in the late 1990's its handwriting recognition is still way better than Windows Tablets and does those little joined up things you mention most current PDA apps simply ignore...
Simon
Posted by: at November 25, 2005 08:57 PM