From: Rhonda Hyslop (0x7ff00025_at_paradox.homeip.net)
Date: Wed Dec 17 2003 - 11:09:37 PST
First, big thanks to Daniel Padilla for the Newton Notes word counter.
That made my NaNoWriMo project easier to handle because I could know
instantly how much longer I had to write on a given day :-)
Anyhow, I thought I'd share my thoughts on using the Newton for a rather
large creative project.
I write my entire NaNoWriMo submission on my Newton - 50,000 words of
fiction. It handled the heavy use admirably, with good text recognition
all the way through, although it made me realise my battery is starting
to go. I had to recharge every two days instead of every 5 as I did a
couple of years ago when I was making equally heavy use of my Newton
taking notes in class.
Unfortunately, it consistently failed miserably on the quotes around
dialogue. I ended up using the caret punctuation menu to open quotes the
majority of the time, because it turned out to be faster to wait for all
the pending words to be translated then hit the caret than trying to
write the quotes then go back and correct them when the Newt messed up.
It would interpret them as "11", "k", "K", or various other incorrect
letters, or a combination of the incorrect interpretation of the quotes
with the word immediately afterward which gave me completely nonsensical
words. Or sometimes it would interpret the quote as a double-tap, then
I'd have to pause, close the keyboard, put the caret back where it
belonged, and keep going.
If I do this again, I'll use the keyboard more, and the pen input only
when I can't use the keyboard, purely because of the quotes. They slowed
me down a lot, because stopping to fix them derailed my train of
thought. For copying notes in class, this wasn't such an issue because I
was, well, copying, but for creating new content anything that makes you
pause in the middle of a creative frenzy is a source of frustration. I
wasn't about to go back afterward and fix it either. In fact, I don't
think I've even read my story all the way through after I wrote it.
There was just no time :-)
Also, depending on your tolerance for slow response, notes become
painfully slow starting between 800-1000 words of content, with BigNotes
installed. (I believe this is larger than the allowed note size without
BigNotes, but I've had BigNotes for so long I can't remember.) I got a
few 1500-1800 word notes because I was so focussed on writing I didn't notice
the slowness, but I didn't do that often :-) Most of the time I started
a new note around 800-900 words.
Overall, though, it worked pretty well. Rather slower than pen on paper,
but not being tied to the computer and not having to type it all out to
get it posted online balanced that out for NaNoWriMo, since I didn't
want to do any editing anyway. (Normally I write with pen on paper, and
do the first round of editing when I type it up.)
I don't think I'll use the Newt for my non-NaNo writing though, at least
not primarily. I just like paper, and I just like handwriting. Plus, I'm
used to pressing very lightly to write on paper, so using the newton's
pen for extended writing sessions - on the order of 8-10 hours solid -
leaves me with a horrible case of writer's cramp, as I found out toward
the end of November while racing to reach 50,000 words...
As an interesting side note, I was talking to one of the fans I acquired
during November, and when he found out I was writing my NaNo on a Newton
he was very jealous and said he'd always wanted one but couldn't afford
it. Oddly enough, that same day (only an hour or so later), I ran into
a graphic designer I knew and he saw me acknowledge a meeting alarm on
my newton. "Is that a Newton? Do they still work? I've never actually
seen one being used, but when Apple was advertising them I really wanted
one..." It's funny, usually people don't recognise it at all, or think
it's a palm pilot or something.
-Rhonda
-- www.write-on.indy || www.write-on.org \/ http://history.ubcengineers.ca/ Discuss the art and craft of writing /\ UBC Engineers History Project That's the problem with world domination. Nobody is willing to wait for it anymore, work slowly towards it, drink more and enjoy the ride more. -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries List FAQ/Etiquette/Terms: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
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