Laugh at me all you want young lady. Laugh, laugh laugh! But I know it’s what you want, and when that next royalty check comes in it’s what you’ll get, unless of course you get this which is exactly what you want, (I had one once) but is no longer manufactured.
You do realize my “royalty checks” are generally under $200, and that after I’ve spent several thousand on photo reproduction rights? I’m writing about Vernon & Irene Castle, not Harry Potter!
Data capacity shouldn’t be a problem. Even the basic model Zire 21 has 8MB of RAM. I don’t do much writing on my Palm, but I once had the complete text of the Lord of the Rings in my 8MB Palm (and read it all!). Actually it may only have been two books of the trilogy, but I’d imagine that’s enough for you. However you probably need a third-party software if you’re going to write a lot - the built-in memo utility is extremely limited. The Writing On Your Palm columns have tons of information.
The easiest way to get data off the Palm is through a USB connection. A Palm is not designed to be a standalone computer, but an extention to a PC. When you come home you put the Palm in a cradle and push the HotSync button, and all the data will be synchronized. The program I’ve used that comes closest to your need is ShadowPlan, a Palm outliner program. I’ve purchased a licensed copy of both the Palm and Windows versions (less than $50 total, IIRC), which also come with a “conduit” (software for synchronizing third party application data). So any memo, list or text I enter on one will be transferred to the other every time I HotSync. I can then cut-and-paste from the Windows version to another Windows software. There may be other software which suits your specific needs better.
If you want to use e-mail directly, you need to connect it to some kind of a communication device (modem, wireless card, cell phone interface, etc). There are a few models that come with communications capability built in, like the Handspring Treo (cell phone and Palm PDA combination).
The Dana is just a Palm-compatible PDA with a big screen and keyboard, so the above comments all apply. They also make one model with a built-in wireless LAN.
You mean you have to write your notes on the back of a shovel with a piece of coal?
Oh, Jesus, this is all way over my head . . . I’m still trying to figure out how to download my Microsoft Word articles onto a CD, from my Toshiba Satellite laptop. I’ve tried and tried and nothing seems to work. I have a CD labeled “Drag ‘n’ Drop CD-R/RW Writing Software.” Would that help me save documents from my hard disc onto a CD?
Hey. I grew up with manual typewriters, my pore brainpan takes awhile to absorb all this.
Any burning software will let you do that. I’ve never heard of Drag N Drop, but all you are doing is moving some files, so that should be good enoughgh (If you’re interested the best Burning software is Nero).
What did your CD burner come with (you do have a CD burner right?)? I’m not sure what the big deal is, intall your software, or look through your start menu to find your burning software, run it, and from there it is really quite user friendly. With Nero Express, it guides you with Wizard that makes it all but impossible to screw up.
What operating system are you running? Windows XP or something else? Assuming it’s XP you can do it automatically without the need for a separate program. If not XP then a CD buring program of some kind like the one you referenced will be necessary.
Here’s how to copy any file to a CD with XP
First put a blank writeable CD in your CD drive.
1: Save your document. If it is still currently open in Word, close it.
2: Use the Windows Explorer tree (icon that looks like a magnifying glass in top of a folder) to go where your docs are (usually “My Documents”)
3: Right mouse button click once on the file you wish to copy. A menu will pop up. Choose “send to” and then choose the device you wish it sent to (assumedly your CD Drive letter). This will place it in a temporary system folder as a file you wish copied to the CD.
4: Using the Windows Explorer tree go to the CD drive and left button click on it . A list of files to be copied to the CD will pop up. You can remove any or all of them if you wish using the right click mouse button menu once you have selected the file. If the list is correct leave it alone.
5: Right click on the CD drive this time and a menu will pop up. One of the choices will be “Write these files to CD” - choose that and the files will be written to the CD by XP.
One quick clarification: the scanner pen scans as much as the page as you need.
AFAIU, if you only scan portions of a page, then you can scan more pages than 100, since the “pages” you will save will be only sections of it.
I use a palm Vx and the Palm V(Vx) keyboard. I’ve seen the Vx for as little as $60 and the keyboard I bough off of ebay for less then $14. It seems like what you need. It ‘syncs’ to your main computer and you can cut and paste what you typed into word or excel easially.
I dunno. I thought I smelled something burning, but it was just the hillbillies cooking out back. I installed the Stop, Drop ‘n’ Roll CD, though, and I think I was able to copy documents onto three blank CDs (I always keep two at home and one at work for safety).
I’ll print out some suggestions (Palm, BlackBerry, Alphasmart Dana, GoType, etc.) and ask our IT Boy at work. I don’t need it to do much, but it has to be Idiot-Friendly.
The Dana isn’t the only think AlphaSmart makes. They also produce the AlphaSmart 3000 ($199) and the Neo ($250). They’re targeted at kids, but I understand that journalists use them fairly often, too. Go to the alphasmart web page and click the “K-12” link to get to these.
I bought the 3K a few months ago for a similar reason: I needed a text-entry device with a real keyboard that I could take into places I wouldn’t risk a laptop. Frankly, I love it.
They keyboard is either full size or so close I couldn’t argue. It takes a few AA batteries and runs, so far as I can tell, “forever” - (the batteries that came with it are still showing 99% after 2-3 months). It has 8 “files” selectable by buttons along the top, each of which holds about 25K of text (about 8 pages in Word’s default settings). It comes on in a couple seconds, has no “save” function – everything you type is remembered. Best part – it weights about 2 pounds, and it’s rugged, so you can take it pretty much anywhere. (The Neo has larger files and a larger display, I think. I bought the 3K just before the Neo came out…)
It’s not a computer, it’s more of a “keyboard with memory.” (This is the main distinction between the AlphaSmart/Neo and the Dana models, which have a PalmOS computer in them). When you’re ready to move data onto your computer at home, you hook it up with a standard USB cable (comes with it, surprisingly enough), open any word processor you like on the computer, and hit “send” on the AlphaSmart – it literally types the document for you, acting as a USB keyboard (you can use it as one, if you’re desperate). Works on any computer that can handle a USB keyboard, certainly all Mac/Windows machines of the last few years. Small enough that I’ve used it on airline tray tables in coach!
The downside is that there’s no formatting; it’s just storing text. If you’re using Word, you can use the underscore for italics and asterisk for bold tricks to enter simple formatting*, but anything more complicated you’ll have to do as a post-transfer-to-computer step.
- Word’s autocorrect (if you’ve got it on) will apply italics to words typed surrounded with underscores and bold to words type surrounded by asterisks – I use this occasionally because I find it easier to type than the control sequences; it just turns out to be a useful trick when using the AlphaSmart.
Considering all the OP wants to do is basic word processing, there’s no need for him to buy a top-of-the-line laptop. It wouldn’t surprise me if he could get some obsolete model very cheaply somewhere. He might get some snickers from the kids when he sets up his Pentium 60 cinderblock, but once he gets home, he can network it to his better computers for file transfer, or just save them to floppy.
Sounds good–pretty much what I need!
This frightens me a little, as I have no idea what a USB cable is, where to hook it up or what ti do once it is hooked up. What is a USB keyboard?
No problem there–have to do so much cutting and pasting that “words in the right order” is all I need.
Uh, reverse that.
Oh, it’s been done, dear.
[QUOTE=Eve]
This frightens me a little, as I have no idea what a USB cable is, where to hook it up or what ti do once it is hooked up. What is a USB keyboard?QUOTE]
USB is the “new” (since about 1998) connector for computer peripherals (mice, some keyboards, cameras, printers, etc. etc.). It’s a little connector that’s basically a 3 mm x 12 mm rectangle of metal with a plastic “tab” to make sure it only connects one way. The icon on the case will look like a little pitchfork with uneven tines. Since 1998 or so, all Macs and almost all Windows computers have at least two of these connectors - on a modern Mac, everything connects with it, on a Windows machine, your mouse probably does.
If you don’t have enough USB ports left, a very cheap ($15) device called a USB hub will split one into many. (If you need one of these, get a “powered hub”- one that plugs in to an electrical outlet, too. It prevents compatibility problems when you get a lot of devices hooked up.)
A USB keyboard is just a keyboard that connects via USB rather than the older, round, “PS/2” connector. Other than how it connects to your computer, it’s just a keyboard (and yes, you can have more than one keyboard attached to a computer).
That about cover it, or did I somehow manage to avoid the actual question in all these words?
Bletch. Two posts without previewing, two mistakes. Oh, well. If a mod happens by and wants to correct “think” to “thing” and add the extra bracket to the quote, I won’t sue them.
Y’know, what I may do, in order to keep from bolloxing things up, istake the little dinkie to work, have someone with brains enter it into my office computer and e-mail the text to myself at home. I have a feeling if I tried to do this myself, there’d be another East Coast power blackout.
I have printed out the half-dozen that look best for my needs, and will e our IT Boy to ask if he can see me for a few minutes to make suggestions (he might even be able to get me a deal!).
Then I have to call Lincoln Center and make sure they’ll let me bring it into the library!
He just e’d me, “Want to borrow an iBook or a smallish Dell laptop?”
Will someone explain to me what those are and what their capabilities are, so I don’t make myself look a total prat in front of IT Boy? Can I e-mail text from either of those (my preference) or would I save text onto them and download it to my computer? Are they wireless, batteries, what?