After a three month wait, I received my new laptop - an HP 2510p. As I’ve mentioned before, HP doesn’t go in for sexy product names but it does, surprisingly, produce sexy products. (Full disclosure: Hewlett-Packard is a client but I bought this with my own money on its own merits.)

I had been writing about the benefits of mobile working for a long time but I simply wasn’t “living the dream” myself. My very old MacBook was slow and didn’t run all the programs I use everyday. It was time to get an upgrade.

Why the 2510p is cool:

• Built-in 3G mobile broadband. I can get online anywhere at about 1.5mb/s. At home, with just one pip showing in the signal strength, I get about 500kb/s. This is really extraordinary. I can browse the web, pick up email and access my home network anywhere I want. [PS speeds corrected.]
• Full disk encryption. I’ve lost a laptop before and the real loss was the information stored on it. Now I have bulletproof encryption. It took a couple of hours to set up and I’m not sure I’d recommend it for civilians but it really works.
• Fingerprint sensor. I don’t need to remember a million passwords any more. The fingerprint sensor and HP ProtectTools software means I can log into Windows, websites and other password-protected applications with a swipe of my finger.
• Lightweight. The thing weighs less than 4 lbs and it is smaller in real life than its photo suggests. (The same is true when it comes to pictures of me.) This makes it very easy to carry around and so I’m more likely to have it when I need it.
• Bluetooth PC Card mouse. I bought this little mouse with the laptop. It’s way cool. It folds up and stores away in the laptop’s PC card slot when not in use.

Why the 2510p is good for writing:

• Big bright wide screen. I can put two documents side by side and compare them. The screen is very clear and the light sensor adjusts the brightness to preserve battery life.
• Great keyboard. This is a highly subjective matter - I have been known to buy and throw away keyboards I didn’t like. But I like this one. Although the computer is small, the keys are plenty big enough to touch type and they have a satisfying action.
• Familiar software. After a long time using a Mac portable, now I have the exact same software on my main PC as on my laptop and it makes my life easier. This means I can concentrate on writing and stop trying to remember which button does what.
• Easy synchronisation. Vista’s Synchronisation Centre means that I can keep a local copy of all my work on the laptop and automatically synchronise changes. (A Gigabit Ethernet port and 802.11n wireless mean it transfers files very fast.)
• Scrollbar. The trackpad has a little vertical scrollbar on it. This lets you scroll up and down Word documents or web pages very quickly. It’s a nice feature.

A few caveats:

• The whole thing took a day to set up, including applications but I guess that’s true of any new computer.
• Some of the ProtectTools software, including the disk encryption, is not installed by default and there is no documentation to tell you how to get it (but HP’s technical support is excellent and pointed me in the right direction).
• HP QuickLook purports to boot into a mini-Outlook application in seconds but really doesn’t - it takes as long to boot QuickLook as it does to boot windows.
• You really have to buy the 2GB memory expansion to run Vista comfortably and this is not a standard option from HP so it costs a bit to do the upgrade and you need a screwdriver.
• No matter what SD card I try, I can’t get any of them to run fast enough in the SD slot to support ReadyBoost. I think the driver is a bit slow.
• Lastly, I had to wait a long time to get this particular model (with the 3G broadband).

This sounds like a long list but actually, none of these problems are big or long term. Several of them related to Vista not HP anyway. A different laptop probably comes with different gripes. Try changing the battery on a MacBook Air, for example, without sending it back to Apple.

Despite these minor snags, I think the 2510p is by far the best laptop I’ve ever had. If HP made it a bit shinier, gave it a sexy name and got someone as charismatic as Steve Jobs to unveil it to an adoring crowd of fanboys, it would be all over the papers today instead of the new Apple notebook and with better reason.

The StupidFilter Project plans to create a filter that will do for idiotic online content what spam filters do for junk mail.

You can’t download it yet and I wonder whether it is a bit of a spoof.  We’ll see. 

But I like their chutzpah, whether it is a fake or not.  Here’s an excerpt from their FAQ:

Isn’t filtering stupidity elitist?

Yes. Yes, it is. That’s sort of the whole point.

I’ve spent the last month or so working on copy for an HP website, known internally as ‘Happy People’. It’s all about the ways in which technology can make employees happier and more productive. The first element is ‘give me back my time‘ which recently went live. This has three sections:

• Avoid the commute
• Work where I want
• Better meetings

Overall, there are about 14,000 words on the site, some of which is product-focused, but much of it is classic Bad Language style tips and tactics. Enjoy!

I’m a fan of Moleskine notebooks. I use one as a journal. I also use a slim Filofax as a notebook. I thought I had all the angles covered, but I last week I saw someone using a Moleskine in a new way - in portrait mode across the bottom of a laptop keyboard.  I thought it was very cool - a way to get the best mix of analogue and digital.

Technorati Tags: Moleskine, notebook, GTD

Why I like Vista and Office 2007 for writing.

• Word count. I like Word 2007. In particular, I like the continuously updated word count in the status bar at the bottom of the window. This is probably the best single feature for professional writers. You can also drag a selection of text and it shows you the word count for that too.
• Document templates. I also like the new document templates which mean that I can make my documents look good without really thinking too much about it.
• I used Document Map a lot in Word 2003 and it works the same here. It’s a good way to navigate large documents using a hierarchy of headings. It makes structuring documents much easier - I haven’t used outliners for a while because I think this works better. I think Thumbnails are new - they give you a PowerPoint style visual overview.
• File compatibility. At first I couldn’t get anyone to open my files. The new .docx stuff only opens on Word 2003 if people install the compatibility pack. However, I discovered an option that automatically saved everything in the old Word format.
  
• Easy screengrabs. I haven’t got into OneNote 2007 (yet?) but I like the way it does screen grabs. Previously, if I wanted to clip a bit of the screen, I’d use Ctrl + PrtScn and then edit the image. Now I can use Windows + S and draw round the bit I want and paste it straight into a Word document. A small detail, but a big timesaver.
• Search in Outlook. I’m an Outlook addict. I have been using tasks since Schedule+ in the pre-Cambrian era and I have all my contacts and diary in it so it syncs up with my Smartphone. The main thing about Outlook 2007 for me is the integrated search. It’s much quicker to look up a contact or an email. I also like the way it puts the next three diary events and my to-do list up on the screen alongside my email.
• Desktop search. Vista is useful too. Desktop search isn’t new for me - I used Google search on my old PC, but it’s nicely integrated into the start menu now. I’ve downloaded the add-on that searches my server files as well so I can search across the network and locally. Very nice. It’s helpful for me when I’m on the phone to a client or interviewee and I need to find a file quickly.

It’s not really a writing thing but Flight Simulator X and Vista plus my shiny new nVidia graphics card and monster screen totally rock!

I’m not sure I would upgrade an old computer just to get these features but I would certainly miss them if they were taken away.

Full disclosure: I wrote four case studies for the UK launch of Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system (apparently, that is the ‘official’ name for Office 2007 - they’re good at software but lousy at product names). However, I use both products daily of my own volition and not because Uncle Bill made me do it.

Technorati Tags: Vista, Office 2007, Word 2007, writing, productivity, search

Thomas Carlyle, the 19^th century sage and writer, had the attic of his house in Chelsea sound-proofed. He couldn’t concentrate with all the noise of the house and street. You can still visit 24 Cheyne Row today.

My first proper computer was a Mac Plus (with a whole 20mb of hard disk space). It too was completely silent thanks to a fan-less design.

Put these two concepts together and you get the Chillblast Phantom System C2D. Which I bought yesterday. This custom-built PC is almost completely silent. Occasionally, you can hear the DVD drive doing its thing like a small mouse reading a newspaper but that’s about it.

I installed Windows Vista Ultimate and it totally rocks. It’s got a dual core processor, 2GB of RAM plus another 2GB of flash memory as a ReadyBoost disk cache.

It comes in an aluminium case (and regular readers will know about my obsession with aluminium) that is lined with soundproofing material. It has a low-noise hard disk, PSU and fan. The Geforce 7950GT graphics card is passively cooled with a giant radiator. I opened it up and the interior looks like something out of HR Geiger.

Silence is golden (and productive).

Technorati Tags: silence, productivity, Thomas Carlyle, Chillblast, computer, concentration

For the last year or so, I’ve been learning Dutch and trying to study for my commercial pilot’s licence.

When I was at school, I had the time but not the enthusiasm. Now I have enthusiasm but no time.

Surely, there are some neat tricks, technology and tactics I can use. This is what I’ve tried so far. If you have any other suggestions, PLEASE let me know!

• Index cards. I don’t use a so-called hipster PDA but I quite like the idea of using old-fashioned index cards to capture the key points to memorise. I did this when I was at university and again for my instrument rating exam. It works for me because the information has to go into my brain before I can write it out again. The cards are also portable so easy to use when revising. Big tip: don’t leave your cards behind in a bagel shop as I did in 2004.
• Smell-coding. Taking a hint from Proust and his madeleine, when I was at university, I used to smell code my different card decks with aromatherapy oils. Lavender for medieval history, lemon for 19^th century culture and intellect and so on. When I went into each of the seven exams I took in my third year, I’d dab the appropriate smell on my sleeve and the contents of the cards came flooding back. I came across the cards in December when I was unpacking after moving house. The little oil stains were still there but the smell had gone but to this day the scent of lemons gets me thinking about Ruskin, Darwin and William Morris.
• Reinforcement and repetition. One of my teachers at school told me that if you review material the next day, a week later and a month later it is much more likely to enter your long-term memory.
• Flash cards. I was never so good with these. Writing one thing per card seems somewhat wasteful to me. I use cards with 10 words of Dutch vocabulary on them but I write the translation and ‘het’ or ‘de’ by each one so I can use it as reminder not a quiz. I do like The Flashcard Exchange, which has a Dutch vocab deck online but also other interesting sets of cards.
• Linkwords and visual association. I bought a bunch of books in the ‘How to improve your memory’ category. Frankly, I found them all a little impenetrable. More along the lines of religious mysticism than practical handbooks. However, the link words idea, where you associate an image with a word or name, seems quite helpful. There’s an online vocabulary version, which I have tried. Also, it kinda works with names at a party. My big fear is that I’m going to call someone Mrs. Albatross or something and give the link word not the real name.
• Mind maps. These are great. Tony Buzan is the great exponent of the idea. More on Wikipedia. I find them useful for brainstorming but less so for note taking. However, when I used to go into an exam, I’d draw a very rapid, five-minute mind map for each question that would form the structure of an essay and recall all the data I had memorised on my cards. For me, at least, they are more useful as an aide to recall than an aide to memorisation. I’ve used ConceptDraw MindMap occasionally and one of my editors does lots of work with it. Also, check out Bubbl.us, a free online mindmapping program.
• Chunking up big tasks. Learning Dutch is a big, long project. My CPL training will take most of the year. However, the studying can be broken down into ten-minute chunks. A few words of vocabulary every day. A module of the excellent (if chirpy) King Schools Commercial Pilot Interactive CD-ROM course every day.
• Daily habit. I’m using Joe’s Goals to track daily habits and I’ve added entries for ‘learning 10 words of vocabulary’ and ‘complete one CPL module’ each day. I can’t recommend this programme highly enough.
• Quizzes. One of my flying instructors had the habit of asking me difficult questions from the course at odd moments during our flights together. In part, he was trying to simulate distractions as an examiner might, but it really helped me remember things. Recalling something seems to reinforce the memory in my mind. Similarly, my wife runs through her lines with me (she’s an actress). She has memorised them well enough but she needs to know so intimately that they seem like her own words. Having to recall them spontaneously seems to help.
• Multimedia. I think that we remember things with different parts of our brain. There’s a visual memory, a procedural memory, a sort of muscle memory and so on. I use books and computer-based training for flying. For Dutch, I have a tutor and I use The Rosetta Stone multimedia course. No one thing seems to be perfect, but the combination is better than any single method. A medical student at college pasted all her notes up on the walls of the loo in our staircase. I don’t know if it helped but I had a pretty good idea what happened to the notes after she passed her exams!

Although not really memory sites, I have to say thanks to Nederlandsewoorden.nl (a Dutch online dictionary) and Everyday Dutch (a personal site of useful words with, thank you, MP3s for pronunciation).

Technorati Tags: Memory, learning, Dutch, mind map, Flash, cards, index

Phil Harrington built a website version of my Oblique marketing strategies. It’s very cool. Thanks Phil!

Technorati Tags: Oblique strategies, marketing, inspiration, writing

I saw Scrivener reviewed on 43Folders and clicked through to the company that made it, Literature and Latte (cool name!). It looks like a word processor designed by a writer not a software engineer. It has great features for planning and structuring plays and novels and a good full screen mode.

Although I have a Mac, I use a Windows PC for my day-to-day work and I really don’t want to have two systems just to use a new word processor. So, hey, come Literature and Latte - how about a Windows version?

Technorati Tags: Writing, software, Scrivener, 43Folder

Since I moved house in December, I have been slowly upgrading my office and IT systems. The latest addition is the Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP 24″ display.

The name doesn’t do it justice. It should be called the Awesome Wall-of-Screen.

It takes up most of my desk and its 1600×1200 display means that I can have email, calendar, web browser and Word open at the same time without alt-tabbing through them.

There’s evidence (see references in this from Jakob Neilsen, for example) that large monitors improve productivity. None of the research mentions how much they improve video games!

I was going to buy from Dell direct but they put the price up over Christmas so I ended up buying from Chillblast, a Bournemouth company that specialises in custom and silent PCs. It saved me about £150. As soon as Vista launches, I’m planning to order a silent workstation from them as well.

Technorati Tags: Monitors, productivity, GTD, display, Dell, Chillblast