Newton Poetry

The idea behind One Thing Today (or the Touch version, above) is great: focus on completing one task every day. You get that done, you feel successful.

I’ve operated this way for years. “Tonight I’ll do the dishes, and tomorrow is my writing night, and Thursday I’ve got laundry to do.” As long as I do something productive each night, I don’t feel like a loser.

So Line Thirteen does an app for the Mac and an iOS app that puts all that in software form, where each day has some task and only one task. And as much as the app seems worth it for $9 (Mac) or $0.99 (iOS), it seems like you could set up a free version with iCal or a text file. Here’s an iCal version:

Here’s a text file in Notational Velocity that will sync to Simplenote on my iPhone:

If this is the way you think, there’s no reason you can’t make your own system. The benefit of One Thing Today is automatic scheduling and maybe a nicer interface – and I do think it’s neat that someone thinks the way I do and went ahead and made an app.

However, if I can do it myself with the tools at hand – especially sync-ability with NV and SimpleNote – why not give it a try?

Throw an MP2100 in there and your set to go.

[Via Draplin Design, via FFFFOUND!]

Take the iPhone form factor, marry it to the Newton’s stellar handwriting recognition, and you have the latest in PDA technology.

Well, kinda.

Above is a Notepod – a simple notepad shaped like an iPhone. For $18, you get three pocket-perfect notepads shipped from Australia. On the outside, you get a blank iPod Touch-like page, while the inside pages have grid-style paper for notes, doodles, or iPhone app ideas.

Maybe best of all, it recognizes your handwriting no matter how drunk you get – even if you don’t.

Or you can simply make your own with the Hipster PDA templates over at Active Voice. Whichever.

Via DIY Planner.

For probably one of the most fascinating explorations of every day uses for your Newton, visit the conversation kicked off by Chris C. at the NewtonTalk list (hit the “Next in thread” link to go from e-mail to e-mail), called “A Day in the life of…”

For a down-and-dirty view, see Don Zahniser’s story. He talks about running a small farm and using Dateman (for to-dos), Notes (grocery lists and garden yields), Works, and more.

Morgan Aldridge has a good breakdown, too, showing which apps he uses throughout the day – everything from PocketMoney to Bills To Pay.

The entire thread is great for discovering apps you’ve never tried out, and practical uses for them in day-to-day life. I found a few I want to try. Browse around the United Network of Newton Archives (UNNA.org) to download some of the apps.

Back when I used my Newton for personal information management (PIM) and notes management, I stuck to the basics like Notes, Dates, To-Dos, and a few games here and there. That’s what is nice about the Newton: you can pick it up and use it as-is.

[Via NewtonTalk.]

Author Peter Straub at his workspace, using either a G5 or Intel iMac.

The Where I Write project has a bunch of great sci-fi author photos taken in their workspace by photographer Kyle Cassidy. I always find it fascinating to see where other people do their creative work. How many Macs can you spot?

[Courtesy of Neil Gaiman.]

Riccardo Mori over at System Folder:

When your main system is capable of keeping multiple applications open, it’s easy to be distracted by incoming emails and updated RSS feeds. Not to mention the temptation to search the Web by following the spur of the moment — when that happens, the best case scenario is that I find myself two hours later digesting a lot of information I found following link after link, yet without doing anything really productive.

His solution? Write on a Mac Color Classic, or a Newton eMate 300 when away from home, to cut down on distractions.

“No browsers, no emails, no distractions: just me, my ideas, and the word processor,” Mori says.

It’s a brilliant (and, in a recession, cost-effective) solution to a problem a lot of us face every day. Why be productive when there’s another blog post to read? I’m working on my own, similar setup with my eMate 300.

Nice to see that Mori is getting something done on perfectly capable hardware.

Just a heads up: Eckhart Köppen posted a wiki on his site, 40hz, that describes the 2010 Newton problem and some possible solutions. He also posted a wiki on patching the Newton.

Köppen is a Newton developer as well, and has posted some thoughts on how to do GTD on the Newton.

The good news is there are really smart people working on the Year 2010 issue, and Köppen seems to think getting a patch up and running will require “less black magic than anticipated,” as he told the Newtontalk list.

Shawn Blanc, in his review of the Mac and iPhone versions of Things:

I don’t think the new spins on productivity software are because we have yet to witness the creation of the Ultimate App and Workflow. These unique and diverse apps are being written because people are unique and diverse.

Each of us has our own way of dealing with responsibility and our own expression of productivity. Tinkering and then switching is usually not the fault of the software. We’re not looking the best app, but rather the best app for us.

I use the desktop version of Things, and have since the 0.8 beta version, and I love it. I haven’t purchased the iPhone version yet, however, but plan to in the near future. Of all the things that are most Newton-like about the iPhone, it’s Thing’s sync-ability between the iPhone and Mac apps that most excites me.

Since Apple can’t get off its dead ass and provide iCal to-do syncing, leave it to third parties to fill the gap.

And Shawn is right: I’ve tried a few to-do apps, and none have really caught on. Things caught on, and I think it’s because it gloms onto whatever your style is. Hardcore GTDer? Scatterbrained lightweight? Things is for both of you.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Over at the NewtonTalk e-mail list there’s a great thread running about how people use their MessagePads. The whole thing was started by a 13-year-old Slovenian student who bought a Newton on eBay on a whim, got hooked, and started this project to compile all the messages into a Newton eBook for later reading.

The response has been huge, and there are some really great examples of how people use their Newton every single day to organize their life. Ryan from Vancouver says his upgraded MP2000 has replaced paper in his work flow:

Essentially, I am using it as a personal office assistant/tablet. It sits next to my MacBook Pro on my desk, and you won’t find any paper around here. I take notes on it, use it for To Dos and reminders, write articles on it for my blog, and am starting to use it more like a tablet PC. That is, reading eBooks and using it for analyzing spreadsheets.

Everything from reading the Bible to reading eBooks on the morning commute is mentioned. If you need practical ideas on how to use your MessagePad, this is a great forum to start with.

What about you? How do you use your Newton?

When Merlin Mann, GTD guru and author of the 43 Folders blog, invented the Hipster PDA, he probably knew the adaptability of a plain index card idea holder would be infinite.

Us Newton MessagePad users, however, might scoff at the idea. Index cards? Color coding? Binder clips? It all seems so…Office Max.

But maybe Mann is on to something. Why can’t we Newton fans adapt the idea of the Hipster PDA into something more, I don’t know, Apple?

That’s why I’m introducing the pNewton, a Hipster-style MessagePad that takes the best ideas of the Hipster PDA and makes them even better.

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