I’ve a confession. I hate typing, I hate my keyboard, and I hate starting at a screen

If I could find a way to turn my backlog of analogue notes (read, lots of Europa No. 4 notepads) into a perfect digital format, I would. Sure, I could rip all the pages out, and scan them, one by one, but then I loose the binding, and that’s not something I’m comfortable with in the slightest. It sounds pretentious, but they mean something to me. These notebooks are the only link I have left to my late adolescence, and I’m scared of letting go.

It’s not that it was a spectacular time of life, but the links are there, and I’d miss them. Pen and paper seem to have a feel to them; digital media does not. Sitting out in the garden, I can easily look over old books and notepads and there’s no other requirement other than to have the notes; flick through at will. The concept of the digital shoe-box is not one that ever appealed.

And so, I have a choice. I’m letting go of some of my tech toys, devices surplus to requirements. I could go one of two ways; I could re-invest in tech toys, such as the palmOne LifeDrive or, something that’s far, far more suited to my new life living in a suit, a pen I have long coveted and wished for my own. Certainly, the pen collectors would pour scorn on me for owning such a bourgeois item, but this is something I’ve wanted for so very long. I don’t think I could pass up the change to own one. Maybe then I can start to take proper notes again. One will be obsolete in 18 months, the other should, if treated properly, outlive me. I just need to make sure I don’t drop the damned thing.

Besides; I have too many things going bleep at me already. Some simplicity would be most welcome…

Today, a new application has landed on my desktop; that application is Ecto, a rather snazzy client for updating the content of my little home on the web. Quite why anyone would ever want to read any of the tosh I put out is quite beyond me, but it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that if nothing else, people like and use my little iSync project. Free software puts a smile on my face. As do Google page ranks, but that’s beside the point.

Either way, it’s late, and Car Giant will no doubt be on the phone shortly, shouting that the launch went tits up has been unfortunately delayed due to unseen circumstances and that the HP iPAQs have all died spontaneously in the night. I suppose this means I’ll need to get some sleep before going to beat the ASP dev into a bloody mess with my Communicator.