Amber you’re a genius.
Tried a newer USB cable and all is well. If ONLY I had known I could have saved a week’s worth of work. Nevermind, knowing I don’t have to just trash the little AS is comfort enough.
A thousand thanks.
Zoe
I myself was going to suggest that the Parental Snoop Scramble Defense (PSSD) unit had been engaged, but I guess it was just a bad cable after all!
–Greg
I have one… after I thought I lost my HPC
I looked high and low and here you go
sylvaniacomputers.com/products.php
Actual computer, running on Linux OS Ubuntu Distribution…
It is about the size of a DVD…
Found the HPC, still thinking of buying that for my birthday.
And I am sure that if you need the actual full size keyboard it will detect it.
InklingBooks, thank you so much for your post. I got an AlphaSmart Dana and I use it more than I do my computer. It’s wonderful.
That usually happens when you`re ratlegged Tch! tch!
$98 miniNote Laptop
Digg just had a posting about a $98 “miniNote” laptop from HiVision that’s supposed to come out in October. It runs Linux (or Microsoft CE) and has USB and WiFi. It runs Firefox, Skype (voice), and Abiword but not Flash. It can play movie trailers from online, although they’re rather jerky. Battery life is 3-4 hours, so this isn’t an AlphaSmart replacement. There’s not enough information in what I’ve seen so far to see if some trick, like a homemade external battery pack, might give it a longer life.
digg.com/linux_unix/98_Linux_Lap … in_China_2
More at:
gadgetreview.com/2008/09/the … aptop.html
Which gives these specs:
HiVision offers a $98 laptop that runs on Linux and features the Dragon MIPS processor, Wi-Fi, 1GB storage, 7″ screen, 3 USB ports, SDHC card reader, audio in/out, ethernet, and VOIP functionality. Not too shabby for a laptop that really does run under $100.
There’s more here:
techvideoblog.com/ifa/98-linux-l … -mininote/
Including these specs:
HiVision makes the worlds cheapest Linux laptop at $98 using a new cheaper MIPS based processor, WiFi, 1GB flash storage, it runs Linux, has 3 USB ports, Ethernet, SDHC card reader, audio in and out, voice-chat, skype, multi-tabbed Firefox browser support and Abiword for word processing. Automatic and secure online software updates. Their current model is running a smooth and pretty snappy Linux user interface. In this video, I got to borrow a review sample of the laptop overnight, and I try to show you all the browser and other software interfaces in this extended video review of this cheap MIPS based laptop. Embedded is the way that I hope that most cheap laptops are going to be based on in the near future, Google will hopefully make a great Chrome browser for this kind of Laptop and hopefully that OLPC soon will announce that they will work to improve Embedded Linux based laptops in the upcoming XO-1.5 and XO-2 designs.
The detailed 18 minute video review is at:
youtube.com/watch?v=bKQbN6tpYXw
You can find the manufacturer’s website at:
Although there’s not much information there at present.
It is small, so it should be great for traveling and at that price you’ll fret less about theft. At such a price point, quality could be an issue, so you might not want to be one of the first buyers. Also, the keyboard is smaller than standard, so that may be an issue with you, particularly if you have large hands like me. They also have pricier models in the $300 range.
–Mike Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
If you’re using an AlphaSmart, the speed at which it emulates keyboard typing may be set too high. Mine was set to “4: Fastest,” which seemed to work with my iMac. Today, I discovered that for my MacBook I need to set it back to “3: Fast (default).” If it’s too fast for your application to handle, gibberish is the result.
On an AlphaSmart2000 you set the transfer speed with a menu that appears when you enter Command-Option-S on the keyboard. For your model, look at the documentation or see if there’s a helpful label on the back.
By the way, the new iPod nano and iPod touch (September 2008) have a memo record mode that could serve well for taking notes about writing projects while on the go. I assume the resulting audio files can then be transfered to your computer. The only negative is that, if I’ve read the Apple information correctly, the stock earphones that ship with them don’t have a microphone. You either have to buy a $29 earphone with mike or a $79 high-end one. Still, $30 isn’t bad for a digital recorder. And if, like me, you almost always have an iPod with you, then you also have a recorder.
–Mike Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
WRITERS AND THE NEW IPOD NANO
Earlier I mentioned being intrigued by the idea of using the new iPod Nano (September 2008) as a voice recorder for memos-to-self or interviews. Here’s what the Apple manual has to say about the new feature. It answers almost every question you might have.
Recording Voice Memos
You can record voice memos using an optional iPod nano–compatible microphone
(available for purchase at apple.com/ipodstore). You can set chapter marks while you record, store voice memos on iPod nano and sync them with your computer, and
add labels to voice memos.
Voice memos cannot be longer than two hours. If you record for more than two hours,
iPod nano automatically starts a new voice memo to continue your recording.
To record a voice memo:
1 Connect a microphone to the Dock connector port on iPod nano.
The Voice Memos item appears in the main menu.
2 To begin recording, choose Voice Memo > Start Recording.
3 Hold the microphone a few inches from your mouth and speak. To pause recording,
press the Menu button. Choose Resume to continue recording.
4 When you finish, press Menu and then choose “Stop and Save.” Your saved recording is
listed by date and time.
To set chapter marks:
While recording, press the Center button whenever you want to set a chapter mark.
During playback, you can go directly to the next chapter by pressing the Next/Forward
button. Press the Previous/Rewind button once to go to the start of the current
chapter, and twice to go to the start of the previous chapter.
To label a recording:
1 Choose Voice Memos > Recordings, and then choose a saved recording.
2 Choose Label, and then choose a label for the recording.
You can choose Podcast, Interview, Lecture, Idea, Meeting, or Memo. To remove a label
from a recording, choose None.
To play a recording:
In the main menu, choose Voice Memos and select the recording.
You won’t see a Voice Memos menu item if you’ve never connected a microphone to
iPod nano.
To sync voice memos with your computer:
Voice memos are saved in a Recordings folder on iPod in the WAV file format. If you
enable iPod nano for disk use, you can drag voice memos from the folder to copy
them.
If iPod nano is set to sync songs automatically (see “Syncing Music Automatically” on
page 28) voice memos on iPod nano are automatically synced as an album in iTunes
(and removed from iPod nano) when you connect iPod nano. The new Voice Memos
playlist appears in the source list.
All in all, it seems like it would be a quite handy tool. Particularly if you’re carrying an iPod with you anyway, the record function saves you the bother of carrying yet another gadget. I’m not completely sure if I’d like the auto-removal when the recorded files are transferred to a computer. I’m the safety-first type, but it does remove the hassle of getting rid of those files manually.
The ability to mark chapters is particularly nice. When taping lectures, it lets you set when different people speak. For classes it lets you set markers when a new major point begins. For interviews it lets you mark particular points of importance.
The microphone they mention is part of a combination earphone mike that is fine for memos to yourself. You’ll look like you’re talking on a cellphone rather than a crazy guy who talks to himself. But that’s no good for taping interviews or lectures. Hopefully, someone else will come up with mikes better adapted for those purposes, perhaps a tiny mike that becomes part of the iPod and an adapter that lets us attach an external mike or line input with a place to plug an earphone.
That’s it. I still wonder if I’ll be too self-conscious to record these memos-to-self when they come to me, but it’d certainly be easier than stopping, pulling out a pen and notepad, and writing things down, particularly when what’s to be recorded is more than a few words.
ADDED LATER: You can find more about the audio features of the new iPod nano at:
appleinsider.com/articles/08 … tml&page=3
Among other things, it can handle stereo input through the dock connector.
–Mike Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
P.S. I couldn’t find anything about memo recording in the manual of the new iPod touch. I imagine Apple is letting third parties develop recording functions that might be more full-featured than on the iPod Nano. For instance, there doesn’t seem to be any way to set the recording level with the iPod Nano.
PC Advisor Just posted a lengthy review of OS X running on an MSI Wind U100. Their purpose is stated this way:
The article begins at:
pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=112535
It draws some less than faltering conclusions about using a Hackintosh:
–Mike Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
Cheap laptop= One A4 spiral-ringed binder with lined pages and box of No.2 pencils. Nuff said… 
I highly recommend upgrading that laptop to the maximum allowed lead. It can really bog things down when you run low on it.
Well I DID get an Asus… yes it IS a laptop… yes it does have the limitations of a laptop, and yes it RUNS XP Pro… (ran better on Linux but wine will not play well with liquid story binder, my windows poison of choice for plotting et al and would not run Scriv… and yes shhh I know some folks who have installed OS X on lappies, but you didn’t hear it from me)…
Here is the HUGE advantage. When I go visit parents abroad I don’t get everybody and their cousin looking at me when I bring that thing out in a cafe. Why? IT LOOKS cheap and IT IS cheap… but for 200 dollars or less… hey it is what it is supposed to be, a glorified word processor with a gerbil for a processor. And it does that well.
There is another… If you travel to the US… I hate to point this to you, but at times your neighborhood Border Protection gets a little too zealous in their work and decide to keep it… perhaps for months, perhaps for ever. Well, I can replace that 200 dollar piece of gerbil and memory… the macbook is a little more expensive, even when refurbished.
Now on the plus side, I just figured out HOW to use them files I have produced in LSB in scrivener. Time intensive perhaps, but I can… and truth be told LSB is a god send for the windows folks, while scriv is a godsend for the mac side of the house. In concept they are somewhat familiar as in similar.
Oh and no, LSB will not play well with … crossover, or at least not yet.
So yes, while the Alpha is ideal… not when you got to deal with those fine folks… not at all. And trust us, last year we took a trip to CANADA, and wished we didn’t take the macbook… call it paranoia. So yes, if you need a word processor, that can actually go on the web… I will give the vote to the Asus… and yes if Mac decided to produce a 300 machine wiht the exact same capabilities, I am there. I just don’t expect them to do such. Oh and the Macbook air, IS a lappie, at least in my view, ok.
Yes, it has Pad in the name, but the QuickPAD Pro is nothing like Apple’s new iPad beauty. Instead it’s much like the AlphaSmart, a recording keypad with a modest LCD screen and long (50 hours plus) battery life. You can find the full specs here:
quickpad.com/Item.asp?id=5&c=2
I recently got a chance to play with one and compare it to my AlphaSmart 2000.
Similarities
- Similar size and weight.
- Both use AA batteries, alkaline or rechargeable. QuickPAD Pro gets 50-100 hours off a set of batteries. The battery life of the AlphaSmart depends on the model and can run to hundreds of hours. In either case, battery life is so long, it’s a non-issue.
- Both have screens usable in direct sunlight, which beats laptops.
- Both have unlighted screens, so you’ll need other illumination after dark.
A Comparison
- The AlphaSmart was common in schools about a decade ago, so used models are easier to find for $10-50. The latest version of it, the Neo, retails for $169. Designed for kids, it also strikes me as a bit more rugged than the QuickPAD Pro, although neither is fragile.
- The AlphaSmart PRO was designed for “mobile professionals” who see a laptop as too great a burden. It’s probably harder to find used and the price new runs from $289 up. For that price, you can almost get a far more powerful low-end netbook that you can use for more than writing.
- The AlphaSmart was designed almost solely for writing, so it is very easy and simple to use. A couple of keystrokes and you are writing again.
- The QuickPad Pro runs a stripped down version of DOS, the operating system that PCs used before Windows. That gives it more flexibility, but it’s more clumsy to use. You have to start it up, select Word Processor, and then find the file you want to edit edit from a list. That means you can be working on more files than the AlphaSmart’s limit of 8, but it takes longer to get to them though a clumsy File Manager.
- With the AlphaSmart, what you get is all you get, essentially writing plus on some models a typing tutor. Since the QuickPAD Pro runs DOS, it is possible to run DOS games and even (with limitations) full programs such as Microsoft Word 5.5. You can find more information here:
victor-notes.com/qppro/sw.html
- Because it was designed for grade school kids, the AlphaSmart can’t hold much text, roughly a handful chapters in a book. Designed a bit later, the QuickPAD Pro has far more memory space, with 2 meg of flash memory built in and the ability to plug in external CompactFlash cards up to 128 meg. The latter could hold years of novel writing.
- AlphaSmarts transfer files by acting like a keyboard inside a text application such as Scrivener. Unfortunately, the older, cheaper models have sockets for the older PC and Mac keyboards rather than the modern USB keyboard. You can get an adapter to convert them to work with USB, but that’s another hurdle to cross.
- The more modern QuickPAD Pro has a USB port that emulates a USB keyboard to dump text straight into an application. With a bit of playing around, I got it to work with my iMac. No adapter needed.
- For both the AlphaSmart and the QuickPAD Pro, the ‘act-like-a-keyboard’ transfer is one way, meaning only to your Mac and not vice-versa. But the CompactFlash card slot on the QuickPAD Pro (and a CompactFlash reader on your Mac) will let you move files in both directions and transfer files faster than the fake-a-keyboard method.
- Finally, although the models vary, an AlphaSmart typically only displays 4-6 lines of 40-character text. That’s fine for taking down thoughts in a hurry, but it doesn’t work well for editing. In contrast, the QuickPAD Pro screen is much larger and can display either 16 60-character lines or (in large type mode) 8 60-character lines. If you intend to edit in addition to writing down words as they flash through your head, you’ll probably be happier with QuickPAD Pro.
And in the end, either provides a hassle-free way to ‘just write’ and, if you can get one used, a cheap way to do that. And unlike laptops, both work at a sunlit park or beach.
–Michael W. Perry, Seattle
I used a Psion for this purpose for many years (and still do occasionally). The 5mx had a twenty hour battery life on a pair of AAs, and of course one could carry a spare set or two of rechargeables. That allowed one to use it away from mains indefinitely, given that the machine could be turned ‘off’ and ‘on’ at the press of a button–actually an instantaneous sleep mode–and it consumed almost no power meanwhile. This meant one could turn it on to write a sentence and turn it off while one thought of the next sentence, so in reality that 20 hour life translated to nearly a month between battery changes. The keyboard was pretty good, but when I wanted a better one I could use the Psion netbook, which also had a nice colour screen, but a rechargeable battery, which meant only 8 hours or so before a recharge and no possibility of carrying lightweight AA replacements. Thanks to the instant on-off, that would translate into a weekend of working away from the mains. Working outside in sunlight the 5mx black and white screen was a bit better than the netbook screen. But the 5mx was small enough I could actually carry both and use whichever was most appropriate to the lighting conditions. For simple text entry these were great solutions.
The netboook only had a 640 x 480 screen resolution, if I remember correctly. But it used that space efficiently, and one never felt short of space. This was one of the big let downs of the (recent, non-Psion) netbooks I sought to replace them with, I thought. They have 1024x600 screens and feel much more cramped thanks to a very inefficient use of that screen space–loads of space wasted with menus and window frames and whatnot.
So why do I only occasionally use these now? There are two things I can’t do with my psions. One is enter unicode characters. I want to be able to type Greek and Georgian and while I could use a program called fontbook to produce Greek and Georgian fonts, I had to use one of the old character encodings, not unicode. This was a bugger when trying to move text to the PC and/or Mac and Linux, all of which use different encodings for non-ANSI characters (as far as I can remember). The other thing is I can’t run two programs that I really like to have handy for my academic writing: Scrivener and Zotero (a firefox plugin that manages bibliography).
Psions can still be found second hand, and there are enthusiasts providing repair solutions for them. (The 5mx screen cable tends to break after a few years; I had mine replaced a couple of years ago with a redesigned cable solution provided by an enthusiast here in the UK, and am waiting to see how long it lasts–so far so good.)
Funnily enough I think the smartbooks that are due to appear this year (though they keep being delayed), may finally provide something capable of equalling and exceeding some of the functionality of the machines Psion stopped producing six or seven years or so ago. I hope someone here may get one when they begin to appear and let us all know how they work as writing tools.
All the best,
Ian
I’ve been a AlphaSmart Neo user for many years. My children both had AS 3000s, which I considered barely adequate for my own needs, but the Neo is nearly perfect. I’ve even figured out how to write properly formatted screenplays on it, with the ability to go back and forth between the Neo and both Scrivener and Final Draft 8 (with an intermediate stop at the Mac text editor TextMate).
Portable writing devices have long been a holy grail for me, and I’ve played with a lot of them, including the legendary Tandy Model 100, the Sinclair Z88, and various PDAs. I flirted with an Apple Emate for a time, but the difficulty of sending information back and forth with a PC, and the tendency of an internal cable to break, eventually ruined that device for me.
The older (pre-Neo) Alphasmarts required add-on software to move text from the PC/Mac back into the Alphasmart; the Neo come with the software. Many people regard the Alphasmarts as rough-draft devices only. While they are hard to edit on, it’s not impossible, and being able to dump text from my laptop is as important as going the other way.
There’s a very active Alphasmart discussion group at Flickr: flickr.com/groups/alphasmart.