Well have joined the IPOD revolution

[nadinbrzezinski]

and there are some issues that bother me... as a writer that is

1.- Well would be nice to have the TAB for the keyboard. Minor gripe perhaps, but we have all gotten used to the damn thing over the years.

2.- Would have loved a true spell checker. Yes, my hand held PC had one. Alas this feels like I just went back to my Jornada c 1988

3.- Some of the APPS do not even use the primitive spell checker on it. See above.

4.- Syncing is by app, truly... not something the machine just does.

Now on the plus side.

Email on the fly... I love that.

Not the fastest of critters to roam the interwebs, but still a nice thing to have.

Contacts works especially well on this sucker.

Overall it is a descent little organizing tool, but I will say that yes, they still have some catching up to do with Windows Mobile... on the bright side... I have zero issues linking to my computer... unlike my win device, that is a nightmare to sync on a MAC, and yes the syncing tech was licensed from Microsoft.

By the way using quick office for word processing and indeed it is far less capable than the word processor I had on my Win machine... that would be Textmaker... oh this is actually worst than word mobile and lord knows word mobile was way behind the power curve. So hope that dataviz will do a better job. Also, for whatever reason it is not allowing me to use a doc file that has been touched by open office... so I will have to see if that is open office or these guys. I had to literally save the damn thing as a txt file.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Well opened the document in Text edit and saved in word 97

that seemed to do the trick.

Not amused... hope dataviz has less issues

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Oh and it is rumored one of my gripes, copy and paste between

apps, will be addressed in V 3.0 of the software for the pod.

Now I must also say I did find a work around in working on text files in two different apps... I just need a computer and a wireless connection.

[FreeState]

3. Copy and paste (as well as cut, select all and undo) is coming in 3.0

along with a host of other things. Im a developer and have used it and it works well. As for these:

1.- Well would be nice to have the TAB for the keyboard. Minor gripe perhaps, but we have all gotten used to the damn thing over the years.

No tab in 3.0 - not sure what you would use it for outside of a text document where you could set the tabs?

2.- Would have loved a true spell checker. Yes, my hand held PC had one. Alas this feels like I just went back to my Jornada c 1988

I agree here - it would be nice. It does auto correct but for me thats not enough LOL. Not coming in 3.0 that I know of.

3.- Some of the APPS do not even use the primitive spell checker on it. See above.

This is up to the individual app developers - email them and ask that they include it in their next update.

4.- Syncing is by app, truly... not something the machine just does.

Not sure what you mean by this? Do you mean contacts and Mail? If so that depends on your email provider - MobileMe is over the air, some of Googles services are over the air, if your using an exchange server its over the air. If your using something else its all up to the email server to implement it correctly.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Nah to work with a document on the mac

Wirtewroon uses over the air syncing

The other word processor, uses essentially a terminal setting, it becomes its own server. I probably prefer it if it just became a drive like the Nano... I liked that. Mostly from a security POV

Also emailing yourself the text and later on using it on the machine again is counter intuitive

As I pointed out today at the mac store, Newton did copy and paste... now they also did fairly descent hand writing recognition. Yes, a Newton was my first PDA. I miss it, for some things.

I'm a power user...

My bad.

So I tend to find out the good (media library and email is extremely good), the bad... and the ugly.

Now back to Vista install. Redmond has a hell of a sense of humor

A computer that is easy to use, and work with... damn they described my macbook...

[alfredo]

4. Can you access your terminal in the Touch?

If you can, see if it has Pico or Nano.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. no cannot say I can

thought the copy and paste issue will come on version 3.0 of the OS. That has been sort of confirmed by Apple

That will make it far more useful. That said, the on boar d dictionary is a joke. I'll have to give this one to MS Mobile... but that is because I use it to write on the road. THough for a chapter at a time it is fine. Nothing longer than 3K words though.

Hey, nothing like use WriteRoom's way to share the piece wirelessly, and that is what I have to do. After all emailing it to me does weird things that make it hard to work with over the other computer. And I know writeroom on the mac does not do that.

[alfredo]

6. I found there is a third party terminal. I was thinking that simple

word processing could be done in Pico or Nano.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Nah, would do this in the ever so popular writeroom, which

is the one that works the best in the Pod.

Truth be told, most kids these days don't have a clue what I'm griping about.

:-)

Hell my niece got hers a year ago to chat with friends but she'd never push any of these toys to the limit, and then some.

Perhaps I can get a job doing usability tests... from the writer POV, after all they will be needed for the power user who is getting a sucker like this as a PDA. Yes, Win 6.5 Mobile is far superior, but essentially dead.

Of course that one from Redmond was a stuck clock is right twice a day

[alfredo]

9. I am thinking about getting a iPod touch. Do you feel that it is adequate

for simple surfing and e-mail?

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. It is a little slow to be honest

but might be enough for the road,

Realize battery life with wireless on is short

Today I used it to write quite a bit... and had the wireless turned down and the screen dialed down, managed to get four hours out of it.

But battery capacity also depends on stupid shit like model. Apparently the larger the GIG drive, the better battery life. That said PDAs suck at battery life, and have for a long time. Been a while since I used one for three days straight... ah my first one, with integral keyboard and shit. That thing ran on two double As. To be exact twenty years...

Found it while doing cleanup. If I had a way to connect and sync I might have kept it... serious. You cannot buy that battery life... and yes monocrome, and did not have spelling... oh well.

Oh and the Newton also ran for days on end.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. How are your eyes? I just tried to add a post at my blog using the pod

forget it.

Too small

Readying DU is also quite ahem... panful

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Ok eyes might not be an issue alfredo

I found out you can use finger gestures to zoom into pages on the web, that makes them far more readable

Also rumor has it that OS 3.0 will be faster. Oh and it WILL have copy and paste, MY personal poison... err need it.

For the moment threw my back so I have been doing a lot of my work on the pod and emailing myself the actual documents.

AOL is being stubborn but that is what the hotmail account is for.

:-)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. I like mine a lot

The last time I traveled out of the area was to attend a convention in Orlando.

The conference organizers had arranged for free WiFi in the guest rooms for us, and I was considering taking my MacBook, but then I realized that I didn't have any actual work to do, and I didn't want to either check some of my baggage or take other items out of my carry-on.

The iPodTouch was ideal. I just laid it into the tray next to my purse during the security check. No laborious taking the MacBook out of its case, putting it in a separate tray, and then putting it back in its case at the end of the security line. On the way down, I watched an episode of The Sopranos and listened to some of my tunes. At the hotel, I checked e-mail once a day, and I'm glad I did, because I had an inquiry from a client who had forgotten that I would be away. On the way back, I was sleepy, having had to leave the hotel at 4:30AM to catch my plane, but I listened to more music as I dozed.

Later, I used it to watch episodes of The Wire while on the exercise bike and treadmill.

On a longer trip, I'd take my MacBook. For example, on the flight home from London in 2006, I downloaded and edited all my photos of England.

I've also done some work for Japanese clients while I'm in Japan. (They pay into my U.S. bank account, so the Japanese government never learns about it.)

So yes, for short trips and gym workouts, I love my iPodTouch.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Threw my back so even the win lappie was way too heavy

so been using the pod for ACTUAL work.

It actually works.

Got my summer adventure written on it, and the map for the how to create maps in the Stellar Clarion using an art app for it.

Also found a great outlining app that will work also on both the win and mac desktops... so I am set

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Well here is what I found... INote... syncs with googledocs

best tool for the working writer.

Hell this is how scary this is. I could potentially leave my lappie behind next time I go visit family and friends. Would not do that... as my mom's puter would be too busy... but I could. That is scary.