Pen Freak

Yes, I'm a pen freak. I'm that guy at the pen section, mumbling about pen tip sizes, gel inks and barrel design. It's been an addiction of mine since grade school days, when Parker Jotter retractable ball pens were all the rage.

In high school, I became a fan of Flair pens for drawing and writing. I used to eat through those pens, drawing, writing reports and for everyday use. I read somewhere that Quentin Tarantino uses Flairs to write his scripts.

In my college days, when I was introduced to fountain pens. My design and drawing instructor, Mr. Bonifay, was a total sketch freak, toting his huge 12 x 14 bound black sketchbook with hundreds of drawings in it. Odd thing was, he religiously used a simple, black Sheaffer fountain pen (something like this one, but black plastic) for sketching, which further blew me away.

I bought one of those fountain pens myself and sketched with it, and you know what? It wasn't bad at all. I adapted to the quirks of a fountain pen for sketching. The old pen is now broken (pocket clip broke) and is in need of a trip back to the factory in Iowa for lifetime warranty repairs. (Note to self: send that Sheaffer pen in!)

When I began getting back into sketching and journaling with Moleskines a few years ago, I found my interest in pens reviving. I tried the ol' Sheaffer, but the Moleskine's paper couldn't handle the scratching of a fountain pen tip, nor the ink liquidity.

Next I bought some Pilot G2s on 0.5 and 0.7 widths, as these were so often mentioned by Moleskine users. I loved the gel ink — its density and the pen shape. However, after several months of use, I began to experience some issues with the G2. I disliked that the flow was not totally smooth on my Moleskine pages. The ink would flow nicely and then abruptly, thin out on me.

I put up with this for a while, until my most recent trip to Office Max, where I bought several pens for home and work use (I do a quite bit of sketching at work). One of the pens I took a liking to was the Sanford Uniball Signo 207 gel pen. It looked and felt very much like the Pilot G2, but the ink flow was much better. I bought one and have now switched over to the Uniball.

But the story goes on — my pen freak revival brought to mind yet another über-favorite pen: the Niji Stylist 100. This unassuming black plastic pen had a smoothest tip for sketching, never skipping on me. Apparently it has a unique plastic tip construction which makes it durable. All I know is, these things rock.

This weekend I hit the local art store and found the Niji Stylist 100, and immediately appreciated the smooth flow of ink it provided. I've been enjoying it so much, I've started carrying the Stylist around everywhere, using it for work and personal sketching, notes, my diaries and more.

So what are your favorite pens? Any suggestions for this pen freak? Please feel free to leave a comment — I'm always on the lookout for great new pens to feel my addiction. :-)

Happy Zire 72s Owner

This past Monday was the last day my Tungsten E acted as my daily driver, as a gently used Zire 72s Special Silver Edition arrived by UPS on Tuesday morning to replace it.

You may recall a post here a few weeks ago, asking for help locating a new Palm device for my broken Tungsten E. Well, we received many wonderful offers, and in the end chose a Zire 72 for Gail. Since her 72 arrived I began checking it out, and I liked what I saw.

One of the offers tendered by blog readers was from Mark, for a special edition Zire 72. He wanted to pick up a Sony UX50. I considered the offer, partly because Gail and I have always had matching Palm PDAs — for practical and not only "aww, that's cute" reasons. Matching devices means we can share peripherals, like cases, or styli, or what have you. It's a practical thing. :-)

After some thinking, I decided to sell both of our working and broken TEs to a friend, and buy the silver Zire 72s — which turned out to be a wise decision.

Here are some impressions of the Zire 72, following a few weeks observing Gail's blue 72 and almost a week living with my new silver 72.

Graffiti Actually Works!
I was quite surprised by the improvement in Graffiti recognition on the 72 vs. the TE. After restoring my Graffiti "Classic" libraries, I found I could actually use the Graffiti area and enjoy the process on the 72. It was as good as my old Sony N610 or Visor in recognition quality. This is significant, as bad recognition on the TE had forced Gail and I to use Graffiti Anywhere (a wonderful free utility) to make our TEs even usable.

Color & Casing
I really love the silver metallic finish, compared to Gail's Gummi Bear blue goo finish. I understand this blue jelly tends to scrape off of regular Zire 72s (a floor model we saw at Best Buy was completely wiped clean). I'm a big fan of silver objects, so the smooth matte silver finish fits my personality quite nicely.

I like the rounded, organic case better than the TE. I was surprised that the 72 is about the same size as the TE, since I had the idea the 72 was a larger device. The smooth edges make it feel even smaller in your hand than the TE. Oddly enough, I found my black leather Covertec TE case works with the Zire 72 pretty well, except that the camera lens is covered.

I'm still adapting to the vertical placement of the buttons, as every device I've owned so far has always followed a horizontal format. However, I do like the 72's D-pad better than the TE, so maybe this is a tradeoff I'll just need to adapt to.

Camera & Voice Recorder
I've not yet made good use of these items, but I do plan to. Gail has already been snapping shots of Nathan, and recording him doing or saying things with the video camera or voice recorder. I like the idea of a quickie cam on the 72, to capture moments, and since I'm an audio-minded guy, I think the voice memo feature will be useful, once I adapt to having it.

Slots & Ports
I like that the 72 uses the mini-USB port like the TE, since the peripherals we already have will work with it. I actually like this feature, since it's easy enough to locate USB cables should I ever be in need of one. Plus, it's nice to charge off the USB port at my desk while workiing. However, I do find the 72's SD card slot less friendly than the TE. It's very difficult to press an SD card in enough to seat release it. Not sure what palmOne was thinking here.

Stylus
While the stock plastic stylus for the 72 is quite weak compared to the TE's metal one, I really like the pen-stylus Mark sent along with our package of goodies. The weight of it is good, the soft rubber tip is even better than that of the TE, and the cap hides a nice ball-point pen, for emergency use.

Bluetooth
I've not had a chance to try out the 72's Bluetooth capabilities, but I hope to soon. Once I have a Bluetooth adapter for the Powerbook, I'll experiment with HotSync, Sync Buddy and some email/web/rss stuff via shared network connection. I think my Bluetooth experience may be another article entirely. :-)

Overall Impressions
I'll start off by saying that I really like my Zire 72. I've got the feeling the Zire 72 may be my favorite Palm handheld yet. It feels well made and solid. The screen seems similar to the TE, with better video performance. The device feels very snappy and responsive. Battery life seems roughly the same as the TE (as far as I can tell so far). Size is good, shape is good, features are excellent. I can't find many knocks against the Zire 72... yet.

It's interesting to consider how much PDAs have changed since 1997 when I bought my first Pilot 1000. Back then, any portable device seemed like a revelation. Even my use of PDAs has shifted over the years, from being an input, reading and "mini PIM" device to a reading and listening "media" device of late.

However, seeing the Zire 72's decent Graffiti recognition, voice recording and camera/video options, I may be doing more input than I have for many years and I'm excited about that!

Clean Inboxes are Addicting

This week I've started re-reading David Allen's Getting Things Done this week. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through the book, yet I've found it very satisfying. I'm happy to report that for the first time in my memory, I had a completely empty work and personal email inbox on Friday after work.

Actually, I this is my first real 'reading' of GTD — in reality I'd only scanned the book the first time. After my initial scan, I took a few ideas and sort-of made use of them, but not fully. Last weekend I finally got to the point of feeling the need for something to help me better manage all that I had to get done. I saw GTD on my bookshelf and resolved to really read it this time. So I started reading again...

Wow!

While I've not fully sorted out the whole 43 folders idea just yet, nor have I completely integrated the principles David suggests. But rather than wait to complete the book, I decided to take one overarching idea away from my 2nd reading — to turn as many inputs as I could, into 'next action' tasks, then file those inputs for later reference (if needed).

I decided on Monday to first focus on email. I resolved to go through any open email in both my work and personal email clients and do one of 3 things:

1) Reply to the email. David Allen suggest that anything which takes 2 minutes or less can be dispatched immediately, so I followed this advice. I even dealt with some emails that took longer, just to trim down the list of unanswered emails.

2) Turn relevant info into next action tasks. I've recently switched from Palm Desktop to Apple iCal and really like the simplicity if offers. I created several new contextual categories suggested in GTD, and created many, many next actions. It really felt good to put those things into a solid place like iCal (synced to my Palm).

3) File processed emails. Finally I filed away emails I processed, and deleted or filed emails which really shouldn't have been there in the first place. It felt so good to see my email inbox shrink as the week progressed!

By the end of the day Friday, I had successfully emptied out both of my email inboxes. What a great feeling it is having an empty inbox! Even better was knowing that all of the latent tasks embedded in my emails had been turned into tasks in iCal.

Actually, using the GTD approach at work was very smooth, even though I know I've not yet got my head fully around all of the GTD principles. I felt productive and active without the nagging feeling that I was 'missing' something.

I'm looking forward to finishing the remaining 2/3 of GTD in the next few weeks, taking notes in my Moleskine notebook for books I've started as a result of Bren Connelly's How to Read a Business Book postings. I'm finding that taking notes with books really helps me crystalize the concepts and better ingest them.

So, if you've considered the Getting Things Done approach but haven't taken steps to give it a full try, I recommend it. Even taking some of the principles to heart could positively impact your stress levels and work style.

For an interesting interview with David Allen on the concepts behind Getting Things Done, check out Richard Giles' Gadgets Show Podcast (39 min @ 13.6 MB).

Have a great weekend!

SyncBuddy 2.0 for Mac OS X

Received some great news over lunch today, which I wanted to share — Florent Pillet's SyncBuddy has been updated to 2.0 for Mac OS X!

I used to absolutely love Sync Buddy when I was an OS 9 user. I could plug my Palm handheld into my Mac and mount its internal RAM or removable card (back then, a Springboard module), just like a hard drive, with files and folders. It was excellent for quick backups, installation of new apps or copying single files to or from the Mac.

Not only was it quicker than HotSync for many activities, Florent had converters built into the tool, enabling on-the-fly conversion of text to Palm Doc format, simply by dragging a text file into Sync Buddy.

For its time this app was cutting edge on the Mac or PC, but eventually it fell out of my regular usage patterns once I migrated to Mac OS X. Now, with version 2.0 released, I can have my Sync Buddy back again!

Even better, the new version supports export of pictures from a Treo or Zire, and features transport over USB, WiFi or Bluetooth. As I'm soon to be the proud owner of a silver Zire 72, I'm becoming more interested in Bluetooth and WiFi support.

Sync Buddy is $25, though Florent is offering special pricing options for past owners of Sync Buddy and iTreo. If you are the owner of either application, look in your email for details, or contact Florent at his website.

Just Do It!

It's a dark Saturday morning, and I'm up early to get ready for a conference. In my morning email, I read today's quote and it reminded of the power of doing things now, figuring things out as you go along.

Do not wait; the time will never be 'just right'. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. — Napoleon Hill

This week I came to the realization being complete expert is not the requirement for doing things — rather it's by accepting and admitting my limitations that I'm able to make a step toward becoming an 'expert' in what I do.

There is something freeing about admitting to yourself and others "hey, here's where I am, I'm not perfect, but I want to learn and grow." I'm coming to see that this honesty with self and others takes the stumbling block of needing to "be an expert" out of my path, letting me become more of an expert.

Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If you wait around for permission to "know" something before starting, you might never begin. Give yourself permission to start something you have no idea about, and the permission to become an expert in that thing, if you like.

Just do it!