It's hard to maintain a blog when you get told to spend less time staring at a screen for health reasons. Some might call that bad timing! But with the M.E. having been worse lately, I really can’t stare at a laptop for hours on end (or certainly shouldn’t be).
A Solution?
However, I may have found the answer. I have written the bulk of this entry on an e-ink notebook tablet.
“A what?!” I hear you cry? Think of it like a big Kindle that you can write on, with a pen shaped stylus, which can then turn your words into typed text with electro magik! Or something… Pretty cool idea!
When it works (ahem…).
Ultimately it takes some getting used to but does start to work pretty well. And writing on this is much clearly better for the eyes than staring at a regular computer screen. It's just a question of me avoiding my usual bad scribble and giving the device at least a fighting chance of deciphering my writing…
I can also edit on the device, although prodding an onscreen keyboard with a pen or my finger is only good for quick edits really. Exporting out to a text file, you can then polish it up on a computer. Editing afterwards is sensible - after an hour or so, accuracy on this device getting my words right AND in the right order is probably about 70-80%. Which saves a lot of computer time.
If you're not fussed about turning your scribbling into text, or you’re in a hurry, you can just use it as a regular notepad and scribble away, without asking the AI to convert into text. Or you can use it for plans, sketches and draw on it (if you can draw - I clearly cannot).
Or perhaps a daily task list?
Or you can use it to annotate documents - collaborate on work files for example. Let someone send you a document and you can scribble rude things all over it and send it back. Larks!
And of course, you can also…read books. Yes, most e-notebooks can also function as e-readers (ie just like a Kindle); they’re not just for writing and drawing. This one even loads the Amazon Kindle bookstore.
E-ink is far and away much more relaxing on the eyes. They’re not for everyone but if you need to write, or plan, or draw and want to stay away from computer screens more, they’re ideal. As a productivity tool and as a device to read books and newspapers on (magazines too work just fine - just remember you will only see them in greyscale), they are excellent.
Mind you, having spent a while writing on this, I have come to realise that unless you're used to writing, you might find your hand starts to cramp up surprisingly quickly! Just like mine is starting to do now! So time to close. More scribbles from me next time!
PS
And just as a PS, this last paragraph is being dictated a day later into the tablet and turned into text automatically! Which to an old farty like me does seem like witchcraft. So that's one more extra feature which is going to make this so so useful going forward. Although talking to a tablet a few inches from my face and not feeling like an idiot (any more than usual, at least) is going to take some getting used to…
Apologies for any typos by the way - tablet’s fault, not mine (cough cough).
You really do forget how to write these days and with auto correct you no longer know who to spell either
I had a teacher at secondary School who would return my work unmarked if he could not read it, I had a lot of work returned!
For someone such as yourself it is brilliant but you do wonder just how lazy we are all going to get as technology moves on
Already forgetting pin numbers thanks to tap and go
Can I have my slate back please