No matter how wired and mobile-techie you are, if your job
requires you to capture, process and make decisions using a lot of information
every day, there will be times when you have to write some of that information
down on paper rather than in some digital format that would make it easily
useful later.
I’ve been dealing with that particular problem for a while.
Taking and keeping notes on my laptop makes everything searchable and easy to
create reminders of deadlines or appointments, while also ensuring that I can
find most of what I need as long as I back it up often enough.
Taking notes on paper is unavoidable, but adds another whole
set of chores -- either retyping the notes or scanning and OCRing them in the
hope you don’t miss something critical.
The Iomega
Mobile Digital Scribe looked as if it would be an ideal solution. It
records your pen strokes, syncs with your laptop easily, and doesn’t require
the expensive special paper most pens of this kind do. But in practice, it
didn’t work out so well.
On the other hand, Livescribe -- a really smart smartpen
that records both pen strokes and audio, and can run apps on the pen itself -- looked
like an overengineered, expensive and potentially intrusive product. People
don’t always react well when they realize they’re being recorded, especially by
a stranger.
Barring that, though, Livescribe turned out to be a pretty
effective little tool -- simple and mostly intuitive to control, able to
capture images of notes, record audio only on command, and able to bring along
custom dictionaries or other files you could read on the pen’s tiny display
window while taking notes sans PC.
Like other smartpens, Livescribe does require special paper,
but the desktop app that comes along with the pen has templates that make it
easy to print it yourself. That makes it harder to use throw-away notebooks and
forces you to keep track of individual sheets of paper. Eliminating the need to
buy expensive, special prints more than makes up for that.
The commands on the paper are simpler than I expected as
well. The pen records every penstroke while you’re writing, so there’s no need
to turn it on. The audio recording comes on when you touch the Record spot on
the paper.
The best thing about the audio: it syncs with the notes file
so you can look at your notes and listen to the audio without having to search
through the audio file. Microsoft’s OneNote is the only one of the digital note-taking
software I’ve seen that syncs audio and text; that single feature almost makes
up for OneNote’s proprietary storage format, weak search capability, and
idiosyncratic UI.
In a pen, it’s a huge benefit. Most students catch about 10
percent to 20 percent of the information in a lecture on paper notes, according
to Livescribe spokespeople. Audio boosts that as much as 400 percent.
Anoto inside :-)Posted on: 02-04-10 | By: Ebba Åsly FåhraeusHi!
Glad you like this special deployment of Anoto technology - Livescribe has done a great job with the apps and features. For more info and videos of other applications of the underlying Anoto technology check http://www.youtube.com/user/Anotogroup or www.anoto.com
/Ebba Åsly Fåhraeus
Anoto AB
Love it...Posted on: 02-04-10 | By: davegI've had mine for about 4 months as my notetaking tool for my return to school. I love it. Its quick and easy to use. Slipping it into my pocket between classes means its one less thing I have to carry. My note taking has been useful and meaningful and allowed me to easily share entire lectures to classmates that missed the class...The entire lecture notes and audio.
I have found the desktop app to be cludgy at first and recent updates have really improved its performance. I think the upload feature to the online storage needs work but I am sure it will improve.
A user comment on this articlePosted on: 02-02-10 | By: AnonymousI have tried it, but the fact that all the files are in a proprietary format was a deal killer for me. There is no way I can convince an Institutional Review Board (IRB) that I have my interviews under my control as required by our Human Subjects regs when the files are on the vendor's servers somewhere. Back to paper and audio recorders for me
A user comment on this articlePosted on: 02-02-10 | By: Sal SalamoneI love this type of gadget. And I too have been frustrated with how poorly previous versions have worked.
The audio grab with this pen is an interesting twist.
