Pens or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)?

[barny]

Fact: We are all fountain pen user's here.

 

Almost everything is now digital, cellphones the internet, pda's etc. How about your daily tasks? do you still use your favourite fountain pen and a paper (Organisers) or a PDA for organising things?

 

I remember reading an article about a writer mother who have a six year old son who is proficient in computers and seeing her mom with a pen, he told her "ma, whats that your holding?''. She summarised her story stating that the pen is an obsolete prehistoric tool which I beg to disagree and emailed her my reactions.

 

 

Fountain Pen all the way...

[YorkshireCaviar]

Pen and paper for organising everything. I only use the computer at work for emails.

[Songwind]

I use PDAs for organizing, pens for all my writing, both literary and correspondence.

[Wolf]

no cellphone, no television, no organiser, no diary, only fountain pens, paper and a computer to write a few emails and check information on the internet.

 

I'm a young non-technologist

[Splicer]

Address book in PDA, calendar and to-do lists on paper. I've never found a digital calendar and tasks application simple enough to be useful on a moment-by-moment basis and flexible enough to handle a variety of types of tasks and statuses. I've found one of those two attributes, to be sure. There's a lot of good software out there. I've just never found enough of both until I gave up the decade-plus search for an electronic calendar and tried doing it on paper, one small page per day.

[PAKMAN]

Tried the paper organizer route, got tired of keeping it up. Tried the PDA and didn't get much use out of it. So now I have the phone numbers I need in my cell phone and let Outlook remind me when I have an appointment or meeting. Paper notes are great to remind you of things that aren't time specific but can't audibly remind you when it's time for a meeting. However, I am thinking of getting a Blackberry type phone next time.

[WhosYerBob]

Fountain Pen all the way...

Same here. Fountain pen all the way. I've used most of the PDAs that made their way to the market and always found them wanting, compared to the paper-based system I've always gone back to.

[Pippin60]

Both, all my writing is with a fountain pen, but my schedule is usually so busy, that I use a blackberry.

[scribe75]

Prefer pen and ink, but "Crack-berry" insinuating its way into my life. C-berry good for quick emails and calls to office call list. Otherwise, calendar on paper so I can "see" the month(s) ahead. Computer and PDA do not allow that. Notes and to do list all in pen and ink.

[freznow]

I've tried using a PDA before. But I have similar experiences to scribe75. In a PDA, the information is... buried, and I have to dig it out to find it. With paper, for some reason it seems more available to me.

 

I keep addresses written down in a little journal. Numbers can go in my phone because I like using those for speed dial. And email I find helpful for fast communication when necessary. But for all my needs, pen and paper always seem to work out the best.

[DrPJM1]

What's a PDA?

 

FP's for everything.

[HelzBelz]

FP and Filofax for most things, computer for email, internet and essays (although first drafts and editing are done on paper). Phone numbers stored in my phone, but also in the filofax (because phones get put through the washing machine, but the Filofax, being too big to fit in my pockets, never has).

[Lefthander]

yellow 'stickies'

[Paddler]

I tried using a PDA for address book, to do list, suspense file entries, etc. I found it a great time waster. By the time I learned all the functions and go-faster bells and whistles, I had used more time than the thing would have saved me in years.

 

And then it crashed. Everything was backed up on the Mama 'puter, but Mama was fifty miles away. I went back to pen and paper. If I forgot a meeting, someone would call me. If nobody called, my presence was not needed anyway.

 

I used a handheld computer to take procedure notes and to write down sequences. It used an abbreviated form of MS Word. I could upload my notes to Mama and have a file ready for editing with no intermediate steps. That was a time saver.

 

A computer saves time and effort with only a few of its "applications". About 90% of a desktop computer's applications are solutions looking for problems. A PDA pushes 99%.

 

Paddler

 

[satrap]

No PDA; I love FPs and nice paper.

 

 

[piembi]

Pen and paper for organising everything. I only use the computer at work for emails.

 

Nearly the same.

Only exception: at the office I use the email-system to send an alarm previous to an appointment. Makes it easier to be on time ....

[dcwaites]

Address book in PDA, calendar and to-do lists on paper. I've never found a digital calendar and tasks application simple enough to be useful on a moment-by-moment basis and flexible enough to handle a variety of types of tasks and statuses. I've found one of those two attributes, to be sure. There's a lot of good software out there. I've just never found enough of both until I gave up the decade-plus search for an electronic calendar and tried doing it on paper, one small page per day.

For a brief moment in time there was the Newton, which you could synchronise with Now-Up-To-Date and Now-Contacts, using LocalTalk networking. Ahh, bliss...

 

As well, you could use the Newton to beat muggers to death with. Try and do that with a Palm Pilot or Blackberry. :roflmho:

 

 

[tmenyc]

ah, the PDA dilemma...been there.

As a confirmed fp user, I've also been pretty digital for a long time. Got a TI gadget around ten years ago, then migrated to Palms, went through all of them as far as a Treo 650, then, having changed jobs and no longer needing to be on call 24/7, went back to a plain Palm E2 and a cell phone. So I know this one. I also am a very active digital person, and now synchronize my calendar via my assistant's outlook calendar and google's calendar, to my home computers. At work, we synch with each other via my palm, although that's soon to happen via google.

For me, the PDA route has never been perfect, although the Treo came very close while it worked. Version issues abounded, constant synching was annoying, and somehow it never caught all the changes and events. I have, throughout this time, also carried index cards, and write lists and notes on them (with my walkaround pen), rather than in the PDA. When Palm's graffiti language was king, i really tried to be cardless for some months, but always seemed to end up with cards in the pocket.

Now, the PDA is a real backup only. Everything I need is in a computer somewhere, most is in google online services. It's possible that the PDA may disappear from my life soon. Also, there are very few of them left to buy! There is the Palm, but the Palm operating system is almost dead, a real loss (don't get me started on Microsoft please; I still use it at work, but at home either use a Mac or my used-to-be-PC-now-linux box). Beyond that there is the iPhone, which is beautiful, but only for ATT customers, and I live in Verizon land here in NYC. The Ipacs are, friends tell me, not terribly reliable. Don't know of any others.

[thefsb]

i got a palm pilot once. didn't like it. seemed like an awful lot of work just to make/keep it useful. and i got tired trying to "sync" the cell phone they gave me at work with the computer. now i just have a motofone f3. it's great. all it can do is phone. $40 unlocked gsm. it's not because i don't know my way around computers; i do -- i've designed them and programmed them professionally -- i just never liked using pdas or smart phones. if i'm going to need a number while i'm on the go i'll write iot down or occasionally i'll punch it into the phone. i never have a more complicated schedule for the day that i can't write out in a couple of lines in my journal. so i just do all the "pda-like stuff" on the main computer.

 

there's a lot you can do with a pocket journal and a pen. these days i'm using a wee orange "markings by c r gibson" and my nakaya wild strawberry -- it may be a while before i can leave it in the cigar box and take some other pen instead.

 

i keep pieces of thin card cut from a calligraphy pad tucked into the journal. with a pen you can write anything on them (in my amazing pseudo-cursive) and hand them to people. try that with a iphone.

Edited June 17, 2008 by thefsb

[wvbeetlebug]

I have two PDAs and don't use either one of them. I prefer my trusty Far Side Desk Calendar. I've been using that for the past three years. I use Yahoo to keep track of my addresses, phone numbers, etc.