Tag Archives: Writing Tools

iPad, You’ve Been Replaced

November 7, 2010

My iPad’s spot in my bag has been usurped. The new Macbook Air has taken its place, and my productivity has increased dramatically.

The iPad was capable of writing, but it got in the way. Either the software keyboard was too annoying to use for any lengthy writing, or the bluetooth keyboard was a bother. Lying on the couch and trying to write was very different on the iPad. Either you balance the iPad and keyboard, or you set the iPad somewhere else and type blind. I convinced myself I liked the freedom of typing without the distraction of the screen. In truth, I didn’t. In the end, the iPad became an obstacle to my writing, instead of an aid.

Enter the new Macbook Air. The 13 inch MBA I got is actually slightly lighter than the iPad, case and keyboard all together. Something of which I’ve been very fond since I hurt my back in the gym Tuesday. Of course, being a real computer, the MBA multitasks well. I can have my research and writing material on screen at the same time.

Writing anywhere is easier as well. Desk, bed, couch, bus, it doesn’t matter. It’s all one piece, so there is no juggling to do. And unlike other laptops, the MBA stays cool. No scorched red patterns in your legs after using it.

The MBA does have a shorter battery life than the iPad. Sort of. I carried my iPad and keyboard in a shoulder bag. As I walked, keys on the keyboard would be pressed. That woke up the iPad, and set the battery to draining. Not a huge problem at my desk, but when I’m on the go, the ipad is essentially on all the time, and battery life plummets. You can disconnect the keyboard, but that is very easy to do.

The 7 hour batter life of the MBA is plenty to get me through the day. If I were working in one place long enough to drain that battery, I’m most likely in a place where I can get an outlet easily enough.

The one thing that I will miss about the iPad was the easy access to the internet. However, I found a way around that. A little jailbreaking and I’ve got a mobile hotspot in my pocket. Sure, it’s not quite as convenient as just being online like the iPad can be, but it’s sufficient.

If the iPad works for you as a writing tool, then more power to you. Give me a proper laptop any day. With the Macbook Air, I’m not really missing anything the iPad had to offer.

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The iPad: Part 2

July 8, 2010

My wireless keyboard has arrived and it definitely improves the writing experience. Currently I’m typing away while lying on the couch. The iPad is propped up next to me. If I want to look at what I am typing, I can look over to see it. However, it doesn’t seem as if that is even necessary when you are on a roll. It’s more useful just to see what you have typed when you think you have made a typo or need to refresh yourself on what you just typed.

It goes without saying that typing with an actual keyboard is more intuitive than the software keyboard on the iPad itself. Most notably because of the quotation mark key. Having to shift the character set to get to the quotation mark key is very unnatural, when compared to normal typing. Any punctuation besides the period and comma are much easier to use as well.

One slight drawback to the wireless keyboard is that not all apps support it fully. Most every app will be able to receive text from it, but they don’t handle keyboard commands very well. My current irritation is that Quickoffice does not work well with my keyboard. The arrow keys and commands don’t work. For the moment, this seems to be a common problem across all the major office suites for the iPad. The keyboard works fine in Pages and other iWork apps, but my main computer is a PC. I need apps that will sync with MS Office. The creators of Quickoffice are working to support the keyboard, as are the other office apps I’m sure. Until then, I have to make do. At least Wordpress for the iPad does have full keyboard support.

If you have the money for the wireless keyboard, I highly recommend it. Good luck finding it though. Both of the Best Buys in my home town were sold out. A few phone calls to other stores didn’t turn any up either. I had to order mine from Amazon.

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Exploring New Tools: The iPad

July 7, 2010

And also, not exactly dead…

Today I’m typing out a blog post on a device I never thought I would own, a shiny new iPad. This may come as a surprise to anyone who knows me. I openly mocked the iPad when it first came out, as did a lot of geeks. I quoted most of the same weaknesses. “It can’t multitask. It can’t do anything my netbook can’t do. Etc.”

And so, I must recant. Mostly.

It is true that my netbook can do most everything that the iPad can do. And the iPad does still have it’s weaknesses. However, a few days ago, I noticed that my netbook doesn’t get taken out as often as I should think it would. I thought about why I don’t use my netbook that much. This, in turn, lead me to think about just what it was that I used my netbook for.

The one huge advantage the iPad has over my netbook, and the advantage that got me seriously thinking about getting one, was the instant on ability. If you have an idea or need to take a note, the iPad is ready in just a second or two. Getting the netbook ready is quite a process, with book times it can be measured in minutes. This lowers the temporal barrier between yourself and the task you want to complete. It’s the same reason that I will grab my iPhone instead of opening a browser to check my mail, and that convenience is worth a lot.

When thinking about what exactly it is for which I use my netbook, I realized that i didn’t multitask very much while on my netbook. Yes, my netbook is more powerful than the iPad, but I wasn’t using that power. Everything that i actually was doing on my netbook, the iPhone would also do admirably.

The one drawback that still concerns me on the iPad is the virtual keyboard. In landscape, I can mostly touch type, but the error rate is hi. Autocorrection helps, but not enough. This would be a huge pain if it were my only option (also, the temptation to leave my typos in to prove the point was terribly great. Be thankful i resisted).

But Apple has a wireless keyboard that is compatible with the iPad, and is supposed to be quite light and portable. One of these keyboards is winging its to me as we speak. I would have gotten one at the store, but they were sold out. When it comes in, expect an update on how this keyboard hopefully transforms a solid piece of hardware into an excellent mobile tool in almost all respects.

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Dvorak and Writing: A Love Postponed

February 12, 2010

My courtship with the Dvorak simplified keyboard layout has come to a sad end. I was Dvorak only for most of a month at home. I hated it. Typing was painfully slow, and I made many typos. Going from 70 words per minute down to 8 is more frustrating than I though possible.

Most annoying was feeling slow of thought. I think quickly. I’m sure I’m not alone. Neither my mouth nor my fingers can keep up with my thinking, which results in strange typos and misspoken sentences. Slowing my typing down also slowed down my thinking. I had to mentally back up and repeat things constantly because my hands had no hope of keeping up. It made me feel slow, thick and stupid. That feeling frustrated me more than the actual slowness of typing.

Then, I began to get better. I could see how Dvorak could be more efficient. I could type entire sentences without my fingers ever having to leave the home row. I became eager for more. In the evenings, I practiced typing exercises.

During the day, my job continued its constant demand for correspondence. And reports. And status updates. I set up my work keyboard for Dvorak as well, but I wasn’t getting everything done. I would have had to work double shifts each day to write everything I needed to write, if I continued to use Dvorak at my current speed.

So at work, I used Qwerty, and at home I used Dvorak. Both suffered. My typing at work was slower because the newly forming muscle memory for Dvorak clashed with Qwerty. And my progress on Dvorak slowed dramatically because I was reinforcing the Qwerty habits more than I was the Dvorak.

Dvorak will have to wait for now. Perhaps when I have a vacation, or a slow time at work, I can take it up again. The time to relearn how to type is a luxury I don’t have now.

Here are a few things you should consider before making the Dvorak plunge yourself.

  1. Work – The one thing I saw coming and the one thing that brought this to an end. If your work requires a lot of writing, then finding the time to devote a month to Dvorak may be very difficult for you. It may not even be possible at work, depending on the applications with which you have to work. Older operating systems and applications may not support Dvorak without a Dvorak wired keyboard, and those are expensive.
  2. Gaming – This one I should have seen coming. A lot of game functions are based on the position of keys, not the letter on the keys. Pressing ‘I’ for inventory is no harder in Dvorak. Using WASD for up, left, down and right becomes impossible. There are numerous workarounds, but none I tried were very elegant. Changing the keys in every game you play would be too much trouble. Setting them to default to Qwerty works, but then you have issues when you have to “Press ‘C’ for character info.” A friend recommended I try an AutoHotKey script to manage keyboard layouts for applications. I didn’t get to this before giving up on Dvorak. I may try it next time.
  3. PC sharing – My learning Dvorak was a pain for my Amy. If you share your computer, then switching to Dvorak becomes a bother for anyone else using it. I set the PC so it could switch between layouts, but it still caused her problems. Individual profiles would help, but someone will always be forced to use a keyboard with a mismatched layout.
  4. Smart phones – Once you’ve adjusted to Dvorak, the Qwerty keyboard on smart phones will trip you up. My iPhone doesn’t support a Dvorak layout. I expect it isn’t on the upcoming iPad either. This may be a problem on other smart phones as well. I expect it’s not supported on Blackberries with physical keyboards.  Something else to keep in mind if you are a gadgetphile like me.
  5. Confused looks – Be ready to explain to a lot of people why your keyboard looks so funny and why you are trying to learn a new one. A surprising number of people in my tech company were totally unaware of Dvorak. Even among those who knew what Dvorak is, many saw no point in learning it.

I’ll write on this again when I get the chance to take up Dvorak once more. In the mean time, if you’ve taken the Dvorak challenge, share your insights in the comments.

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Call It a Moral Victory

September 29, 2009

I run Ubuntu on my netbook. I wanted something lighter than windows Vista since netbooks don’t have much power. I’m also a proponent of Open Source / Free Software.

For most of my needs, Ubuntu works out just fine. It does all my email, web browsing, tweeting, etc. like a charm. The big problem I was running into was no decent blogging software. I had started using Live Writer on my desktop machine, and really liked it. I wanted something like that on the laptop as well.

Unfortunately, most of the blogging software for Linux is less than stellar at this point. I admit I didn’t try them all, and I’ve heard some good things about Bilbo Blogger.

However, today I was struck by the blindingly obvious. Use Live Writer in Linux. A little homework showed that it wouldn’t work in WINE, the compatibility layer Linux uses to run some Windows programs. But it will work in VirtualBox.

VirtualBox seals off a small portion of your computer to run another operating system at the same time as your main operating system. In this case, Linux running a small copy of Windows as another program. That copy of Windows is what I use to run Live Writer.

A little more tweaking, and it my desktop looks like some Frankenstein’s Monster of operating systems, with both Windows and Ubuntu menus at the same time.

I’m a little disappointed that I had to resort to a non-free solution. At least my computer is still running under a free operating system. It’s a victory in principle if nothing else.

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