TOOLS OF THE TRADE

This column began with a question. I don’t remember what it was, but it was one of many from journalists asking for information or advice about various forms of technology or its effect on their jobs and the manner in which they worked.

Over the last few years I’ve attempted to answer some of these questions (with varying degrees of success) but one I don’t think I’ve answered enough is what tools can help us in our daily work? I hope this installment of Tools of the Trade is a first step toward correcting that oversight.

We take the pen for granted. It’s the basic tool of our trade.It’s a symbol of our work.And it’s relatively unchanged since the introduction of the ballpoint. Pen manufacturer A. T. Cross has been trying to change that and has been winning industry and design awards not only for aesthetics, but for its ground-up reconstruction of that familiar implement.

One of its award-winners, the wide-barreled Cross Matrix, is most easily described as a Swiss Army knife of pens.Its anodized aluminum cylinder houses a pair of ballpoint pens (red, blue or black ink), a stylus for a personal digital assistant (PDA) device such as a Palm or PocketPC,and mated to the obverse end of the stylus module, a rollerball or fountain pen, depending on which version you choose. Both versions include a second stylus/highlighter module.And it’s light.

Following a bout of crippling carpal tunnel syndrome a few years ago, I had to relearn how to write.That ordeal also taught me to appreciate the value of a good pen. I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the Matrix but even with my personal bias against rollerballs, I found it was welldesigned, both technically and functionally, and it was easy to switch ink-colour on the fly when I wanted an important interview point to stand out in my notebook. I still haven’t decided whether this is the ideal reporter’s pen (owing mainly to my anti-rollerball bias) but I can say I’m pleasantly surprised by it.

Another item that’s been an object of my skepticism for years has been the PDA. I never saw any reason to switch from my paper day planner to an electronic version. Still, I’d been considering getting one for some time,if only for the perceived convenience of having several of the items I carry in my reporting kit in one small package. But I resisted the switch since the feature I expected to use
the most was the day planner. Here’s why: For the first while after I get a new planner I update it diligently. But it’s not always convenient to carry around, so I get a pocket schedule book... which I then have to reconcile with the one on my desk.

Inevitably, that time-saving convenience-builder suddenly becomes a time-consuming pit that hinders rather than facilitates productivity. I’ve been surprised to learn that there are a lot of others who feel the same way. I still get an agenda book every year but experience has informed me to rely more on my memory than on that book and it’s become second nature... which brings us back to
why I was skeptical about what PDA could do for me.

What I found when I began using a Palm m130 — a plastic-shelled device with a colour screen, 8 megabytes of memory and a memory card expansion slot — was that it was much more convenient to update,move appointments and store
memos, contact and to-do lists.The automatic task prioritizing function made it much easier for me to keep track of incomplete items and interview subjects who were slow to return my calls. And its physical design — styled differently from previous models — made it easy to carry in my jeans or throw into my reporting kit without fear of scratching, scraping or otherwise damaging it.

PDAs aren’t great for taking interview notes (they’re a tad slow for that) but you can write articles on one using an add-on keyboard,which I do.In fact, the Palm saved several articles I was working on — including this one — after my computer suffered a major crash, I discovered the data in my backup files had been corrupted and the only intact versions I had were on the Palm.

The keyboard I used most to write stories on the Palm was made of fabric — the Logitech KeyCase, a durable,wrap-around case that protects the PDA itself and uses circuit-imprinted fabric from German manufacturer ElekSen to make a functional takeanywhere keyboard.What I liked most about it was the ability to use it on irregular or curved surfaces, something that rigid folding keyboards
have a problem with since they move with each key press on anything but a
flat surface. The KeyCase’s versatility and fact that you don’t have to worry about it breaking if you drop it suffer rough handling inside your luggage, makes it ideal for travel.But I regard it as more of a convenient utility than a deadline-driven reporter’s tool.While the technology employed by ElekSen works well, the keyboard is just shy of being fast enough to keep up with a fast typist.

Another keyboard, the PockeTop by the Vancouver company of the same name, takes a different approach to its redesign of the PDA keyboard — it’s wireless.It uses a PDA’s infrared port as a bridge between the keyboard and the PDA,
making it possible to set your PDA some distance from the keyboard — convenient if you don’t have enough space to rest your keyboard somewhere. Its
clamshell design and sculpted keys make it easy to carry and use, and despite its compact size, the PockeTop feels the most like a solid,standard desktop
keyboard than any I have used.

As I mentioned earlier,I was afflicted by the topranked occupational health hazard for journalists — repetitive strain injury — a few years ago,which made it impossible to type or write. I tried to write using several voice recognition software programs at the time but found them exceedingly frustrating and inaccurate, even after “training” them to recognize what I was saying. The new version of IBM’s ViaVoice is a vast improvement. I skipped the training mode and was pleasantly surprised to find that even without training the program, it was surprisingly accurate and almost as fast as typing manually.I used it to write this paragraph with little effort.

The space available doesn’t allow me to go into detail about any one of the items I’ve mentioned above,and there are others that I just couldn’t include. For a more detailed look at all of them,visit the Web page listed below.