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Remote notes into your PIM?
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Posted by jimspoon
Nov 13, 2007 at 05:27 AM
How do you make notes when you are away from your computer, and then get them into your PIM? There are many possibilities.
Remote Data Entry Devices - PDA, Cell Phone, Laptop
Remote Data Formats - Text, Voice, Image
Destination Programs - Desktop PIM, Web-Based PIM
Transfer Methods - Email, Bluetooth, Web-App, USB Sync cradle
Text entry is awkward and slow with the PDA and cell phone. Text entry is quick and easy using the laptop, but you can’t take a laptop everywhere. It’s easier to record data into voice notes than text notes, but after the initial recording, text notes are much more useful than voice memos.
For me voice notes aren’t very useful until I get them into text format. I have Via Voice for speech-to-text, but I haven’t really tried to do that with remote voice notes. I have transcribed some voice notes to text using a freeware program called Express Scribe. The whole process is quite complex, but it works well.
My Palm PDA has text memos, calendar, task list - these sync with Outlook, but the Palm doesn’t support all the data fields that Outlook supports. My Palm also has a voice memo function, which syncs with the Palm Desktop application. I’ve long used Ecco for most of my notes. It will sync with my Palm but I’ve never set that up.
I have been looking more and more into web-based solutions. This alleviates the complicated problems of synchronization of data on different devices. It also opens up the possibility of sharing data with other people more easily. But I haven’t used my PDA or cell phone to send data to a web-based PIM. The cell phone data plans seem very expensive. Lately I have been getting around that problem by taking my laptop to places with free WiFi hotspots - that’s not always a possibility though.
So, I’d like the easy data entry of my laptop, the portability of my cell phone, the ease of using a web-based PIM from any place I may be, and automatic conversion of my voice notes into text. Is that too much to ask? :-D
Seriously though I’d like to hear how my fellow PIMmers are making data remotely and then getting it into their PIM solution.
Posted by dan7000
Nov 13, 2007 at 06:18 AM
I do this constantly, using two methods:
1. My logitech io pen totally rocks. It’s a pen that stores everything you write with it, for later usb synch to your computer, with or without handwriting-to-text recognition.
I use it constantly throughout the day. I keep a small memo pad in my back pocket and use a larger legal pad for detailed notes. Because I work in an environment where laptops are often barred or inappropriate, I sometimes need to take lots of notes without a laptop around, and then get the info into the laptop. I also use the pen for short notes about new tasks and calendar items for my pen. It has programmable gestures that let you create Outlook tasks and calendar items. Notes I take on a legal pad go right into OneNote.
2. I have been trying jott.com lately and it works amazingly well for a limited amount of information. You call the number on your phone and say your note to yourself and it does voice-to-text conversion and then sends the text to your email. You can also send emails to others this way. Because I like my pen so much I only use this when I’m in the car or doing something else where I don’t have 2 hands. (I know, technically I shouldn’t be on my cell phone in the car either.)
Posted by jimspoon
Nov 13, 2007 at 07:09 AM
dan7000 wrote:
>I do this constantly, using two methods:
>
>1. My logitech io pen totally rocks.
Super! I found a link to it:
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/digital_pen/devices/408&cl=us,en
Here’s another “digital pen” product - I don’t know how it compares:
http://www.flyworld.com/
> Notes I take on a legal pad go right into OneNote.
As text or as a bitmap image?
>2. I have
>been trying jott.com lately
Thanks, sounds great. I’ll check that out.
While I’m at it - here’s the link to Express Scribe, the transcription program I mentioned earlier. There are easy keystrokes to move through voice sound files while you type the text into the PIM of your choice. Not as easy as speech recognition, but reliable.
Great ideas! How about the rest of you?
Posted by jimspoon
Nov 13, 2007 at 07:14 AM
Another thing - often when I am out shopping I will see a product that I am interested in buying, but I want to go home and do some more research on the web. So often I will make input some text into my Palm, or make a quick voice note. Often I will use my cell phone camera to take a picture of the package, or of the store card that displays the price and other important information. I do that at Fry’s, even though they told me not to. :-D. When I get home I can just type in the text whereever it needs to go.
Posted by dan7000
Nov 13, 2007 at 02:46 PM
>> Notes I take on a legal pad go right into OneNote.
>As text or as a bitmap image?
Right now it comes in as both: a bitmap with recognized text underneath. The handwriting recognition varies greatly depending on how careful I am when I write. If I write carefully, it’s good enough to use - I end up making about one correction per line. But if I am sloppy, the recognized text is useless. Often, I don’t care much about having the recognized text anyway.
Oh - another toy—- er, tool—- I use while away from my laptop is my wizcom infoscan pen scanner. It holds text that I scan from books while I’m away from the laptop and then I can sync the text back into my laptop when I return. It does OCR on the fly, and stores just the text. The OCR is very accurate - much better than the IrisPen I used to use. And unlike the IrisPen, it can be used away from the computer.