Re: [NTLK] Newtons and Palms together

On 4/20/06, Joe Anthenat <newtonlist@mailworks.org> wrote:
> there were the down sides, like itty bitty workspace, no HWR and
> absolutely no sufficient replacement for the Newton's Notes app (I'm
> beginning to think the Newton's Notes app is one of, if not THE, most
> useful app ever written, for any platform... period). And, of course,
> the OS doesn't have the natural ease of the Newton OS (but what
> does?).

Man, you hit on a tender spot for me. I am sooo very frustrated with
the Palm's complete lack of good note-taking abilities. Yeah, it has
Memos, but while it is useful for taking short notes, and having only
a few at a time, it's nothing like the Newton's Paper roll, and
without the intelligent Assist, it just sits there, all dumb-like,
forcing me to do cut and paste into the other apps. I found a utility
called "Slap!" which will move data to other apps, but I have to pay
for it, for goodness sake! And worse, there is no concept of
stationery on the Palm, no way to add into the Memo pad outlines, or
call logs, or graph paper, or the wonderful 2 column pad with
calculating abilities, which I found myself using all the time! And
without the Assist, again, the Palm just doesn't compare.

I have to agree that the Notepad was the killer App! What's so ironic
is that it was also the most underrated and under-used! How many of us
replaced it as the backdrop app? I know I did, but this is
counter-productive, in the end! The idea behind the Notepad is that
it's always there, just under everything. You need to jot a note, it's
always there. Somebody calls, it's there, and you can write your note,
creating a new one by simply drawing a line. Or, say you are talking
and need some numbers added up, but they are going to change?
2-columns, and you have a super, mini-spreadsheet. I used that one
constantly for comparisons, and restaurant bills, etc. I dreadfully
miss my Newton, and the Notepad is the one app that will get the
workout, just like before! I have notes on my Newton dating back to
1996 and 1997. They are still there. I can't see keeping that many
notes or memos on the Palm! It would just be too cluttered and
confusing to use the Memo pad! You have to purge it frequently! I
don't like that....

And don't get me started on Grafitti! I think the only way people
could find it acceptable is if they had never used the Newton's HWR.
However, I have known a couple people who tried the Newton's HWR, who
gave up and went to Palm. What I find funny watching them write is
that they make just the same number of mistakes and have comparable
problems with Grafitti as they did with the Newton.

I think the problem with Newton's HWR is conceptual. On the Palm, if
you mis-write a letter, you backspace and re-write it. On the Newton,
you write whole words, so people think that when you mis-write a word,
you have to re-write the whole word, either scrubbing it, or hitting
undo (and _that's_ another complaint about the Palm! No undo!!!) and
re-writing the whole word. I think that is a major mistake. The beauty
of newton hwr is that you write as fast as you can. As you go, you can
make mental notes of mistakes--wrong letters, etc. but don't fix just
yet. I only fix words that I don't think I will remember later--ones
that are either really bad, or too close to what I wanted. then, when
I'm done with my writing of the sentence, thought, paragraph or
notes--at a moment of pause-- I go back and correct only the letters
that need changing, by writing over them, and correcting spacing
issues (usually too many), and if a problem is bad enough, will select
the offending word, and re-write over it, replacing it. It works quite
efficiently that way, and you get the important things down.

Now, there is one advantage of the Palm's Grafitti--you don't need to
look at the screen. I can look at what I am taking down, even on a
bumpy bus, and write fairly quickly. With my Newton, I always had to
look at the screen because I'm filling it so fast, I have to find the
odd space to fit in the next word I'm writing, so I have to look at
the screen (another trick for you newbies--don't write one word at a
time. Just keep writing in any and every free spot you can find on the
screen, whether it's five lines above or below where you want it to
go. Chances are, the word will end up where you want it--at least in
the Notepad. If it's a page with fields (say, in the Address Book)
this won't work, but on free-form pages, or screens with larger text
entry fields, it works great!)

But the real problem for Grafitti is it's utter lack of editing
abilities. There is no double-tap of words so you can capitalize or
uncapitalize, no strokes for inserting spaces, returns, etc. No decent
on-screen editing like the Newton excels at. I've tried a coule
third-party apps that supposedly add some things, but nothing has
worked for me, and most are hacks from the OS 3 days, and just don't
work at all on Palm OS 5 devices. argh.....

But this isn't pushing my original thought forward.

Has anybody found hiccups in beaming information back and forth? My
biggest need will be, I suspect notes, but also names, and the
occasional event or task. How well do they interact this way. I doubt
I will be syncing my Newton with the desktop (unless NSync gets
fixed), and will probably be depending on the Palm to keep my Newton's
addresses up to date. :-)

Are there any Mac-based apps that you use to help?

> handheld computer (currently the T5) as "your Newton"... And I still
> haven't been able to bring myself to unsubscribe from this list.

In my case, it's _me_ who keeps calling my Tungsten my Newton. And
then my family all shouts back at me, "It's your PALM!" Talk about
rude awakenings! ;-)

Overall, however, I have been surprised at how well the Palm fits into
my work. I've been able to replace my Newton for most of what I use it
for--names, dates, tasks, financial recording (using the free
MyCheckbook) However, some of them are cludgy, like the financial, I
have to export the transactions to the Memo pad, open the notes in
Palm, and save as a text file with a QIF extension, and then import
into Quicken. Since I don't use it much, it works, and since I
couldn't use Wildcat on OS X with PocketMoney, I'm still one step
ahead.

I have to be honest, when I upgraded to OS X, and Now Contact 4, that
_killed_ much of my Newton functionality. Ever since then, it's become
more and more of a stand-alone computer. It's fine for daily tasks,
and occasional phone calls, and for notes, etc. but as an integrated
piece, it just all fell apart with OS X. Sometimes I wonder if I
gained more than I lost, but, in the end, I have to say, that yes, I
did gain, but it is frustrating to have this wonderful device which
replaced my computer for several years, sitting, not getting its full
use! It is still my "diary" and notetaking beast, and it's a mean
machine for that! I write sermon outlines on it, and will continue to
do so. It beats the Palm for such things! and doesn't need a keyboard.

However, with the Palm I have access to things I could never do with
the Newton. Sorry, but Palm Bible software just blows away TheMessage.
I have about 100mb of stuff on my Palm--just for the Bible, and it all
integrates as well, if not better than my desktop software. Also, I
have a Polish-English dictionary that is just tops! Nothing like that
on the Newton. And I have almost a gig of music on the Palm, and it
plays in full stereo, straight from my desktop 190bps, good quality
mp3s without any having to re-encode downwards to mono, low bitrate,
and no weird freezes like MadNewton gave me, and far more than just a
handful of songs. These things just prove to my poor Newton that it's
showing its age.

So, it will be relegated to a secondary role still further. When I
find a handheld that can duplicate or even better the Newton's
abilities where it shines, then maybe I'll retire my Newton, but not
before then. And when I don't use it, I have three kids clamoring for
it! They want the word processor! They love to write, and their 120s
just don't cut it for them any more! (greedy, aren't they!) So, I'm
not at all worried about my Newtons gathering dust! ;-)

BTW, I found a couple of wonderful eBooks for the Palm, on the Palm
that really helped me grasp the "zen of Palm" and how to use it to its
fullest. They are "The Palm Business Book" and "Lose the Laptop," both
by Larry Becker. The Palm Business Book, in particular has a time
management system that uses only the built-in apps that is just
marvelous for its simplicity, yet comprehensiveness. I think it
wouldn't take much to modify it for Newton use. I keep telling myself
that I'm going to get it all in writing someday soon. Hopefully I will
be able to share it on this list--and maybe add it to the wiki--so
saying it's legal. I mean, it will be my words, etc. Only the basics
behind the plan will be Larry's because it will need some significant
modification in some areas (tasks in particular, as the Newton doesn't
have categories for tasks--I may have to use the Notepad's checklist
function for todos--which is mainly what I did in real life, anyway) I
will need to get my Newton running again first, of course. ;-)

Well, I'm enjoying this thread guys! Thanks for the replies!

--
 -Jon Glass
Krakow, Poland
<jonglass@usa.net>
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