Happy Halloween!! My favorite holiday.

Well, October 31st isn’t just Halloween this year. It’s my 60-day anniversary of using my Dana. I thought some of you might want to know my thoughts.

Sorry Handspring, but if the Dana had been available back in 2002, I would have saved up my money and bought one instead of the Visor.

I am still impressed.

I use my Dana every day. For notes, writing, whatever. In those 60 days (and boy time has flown) I’ve turned my desktop on about once a week to hotsync (or more if I want to transfer something to the Dana.) After a couple of mistakes on my part (trying to transfer a .doc file to AlphaWord because I couldn’t tell the difference between .doc and .rtf on my desktop; realizing that the document doesn’t open automatically in AlphaWord; it has to be assigned an F key and opened) hotsyncing has been a breeze.

In fact, I’m using QuickWord for reading and AlphaWord for writing, except for journal entries, lists, and suchlike. The time lag on QuickWord is too annoying to write anything extensive, and my journal entries are almost never quickly typed.

I like the backlight. When I use it at night, I plug in the Dana so I don’t drain the batteries, and I haven’t had any problem. Of course, it helps if you have a plug near your bed (as well as one in your car! Vibes rock!) I actually find it very easy on my eyes, too. A lot better than the Visor’s backlight, to tell the truth.

I have had absolutely no instances where the Dana has turned on in my bag. Now, this may be for one of two reasons. I make sure to put the On/Off key upright when I put the Dana in my bag (towards the top, as it’s sideways) and I bought a bag that would fit the Dana in the case I made instead of trying to shove it in between the rest of the debris that lives in my purse. It’s actually a Healthy Back Diaper Bag that I purchased from Sierra Trading Post.com (http://www.sierratradingpost.com). I recommend this bag—or any one of the larger ones—heartily. There’s enough pockets to bring everything but the kitchen sink, and after my trek to the Huntsville (AL) Botanical Garden in mid-October, I can vouch for my healthy back. (Five hours at the Botanical Garden, and it was my shoulder that felt a bit strained. The opposite shoulder that the bag is usually on, mind you. I’d slung it across my chest for comfort, and it was a bit stiff that night, but other than that, heaven.) And, for what it’s worth, the front of the Dana is against my back. So you’d think if it was going to turn on, it would.

With a plug in my car, it’s usually fairly easy to charge the Dana whenever I want. I’ve not had to change the batteries to mundane ones yet, or even worry about running out of juice. I do tend to plug it in nightly, though, just to be on the safe side.

I love the features in AlphaWord—paragraph indent, wordcount, and font capabilities. The only thing I miss is the page break, which shows up when you transfer a document but there’s no way to do it in AlphaWord itself (or at least no way that I’ve discovered.) Of course, QuickWord is no better in that respect, having no capability for any of those. (Or, no reliable capability.) So I can live without page break, even though it would be easier.

I haven’t purchased any screen shields for the Dana yet. I’d just purchased two packs of shields for the Visor when I decided to get the Dana, and those were on sale for $1.00/pack. And yet, I’ve rarely had to clean the Dana’s screen, and I’ve not had a single scratch. (On either product. Or, I might add, with my digital camera’s screen, and we’re headed to year 4 for that and I regularly clean it with my t-shirt or something cotton.) My only bane is dust, and well, my house is full of dust, so I’m just going to have to live with it.

My only quibble with the screen is when I sit down at certain tables and have to prop the Dana up to get rid of the glare on the screen. Most of the time I fold the case I made in half and use it for the prop, because it just doesn’t seem like the Dana is tilted enough, I guess. (But that works, because I never forget the case somewhere.)

I have yet to purchase a memory card and try it out; I haven’t had to buy one yet. More thoughts on that when I find one cheap enough.

I don’t read fast enough for the line advance feature in QuickWord to work for me anymore. It advances too fast, and there’s no way to slow it down. I could flip the screen around, but I haven’t tried that yet. We’ll see. (Or learn to read faster… but I read pretty fast as it is.)

I have not been able to duplicate the combination of keystrokes that wiped out a day’s worth of work, which is a good thing, because I wouldn’t want to wipe out any more. But whatever it was, it scared me, and I’ve been trying to be careful. (I was in the kitchen eating lunch and typing away, when suddenly my fingers slipped and I lost a day’s worth of work. Completely gone. I tried everything I could think of to find it again, with no luck.)

I’m probably jinxing myself, but the Dana has only “crashed” once. I’m putting it in quotes, because I think I did something to make it crash (a combination of keys again) and I didn’t lose anything at all that time.

In all honesty, I bought the Dana to act as a portable word processor, and that’s what I’ve used it for, almost exclusively. In the 60 days since I got it, I haven’t really loaded any other programs on it, so I can’t say I’ve used it to its full potential. But… for what I use it for, it works great.

Would I recommend the Dana to others? Certainly. But before you buy, I recommend researchine the market and choosing whatever you decide with a modicum of information behind your purchase.

Okay, so my posts aren’t showing up again? What gives?

Testing, Testing…

It’s almost the end of October, already. Sheesh. Time is flying by!

I ran out of yarn for my last scarf last night, so my dear sister Bekah is picking some up for me tonight. Yay for Bekah. (She was already going to WalMart anyway, so it’s not out of her way, even!) So after I get done with that, I’ll have one doll to make and then I quit. I’m a bit at a loss for the moment, craft-wise. I thought about making some paper towel angels before the craft show, but then I decided not to. I’m tired, and this time change is not helping. And anyway, I mapped out my table yesterday and it looks like it will be nicely full. Which is a good thing.

Let’s see. I’m currently working on the edits for NL, which I hope to have done by the end of this week. I’ve also started rereading PoS, then I will read LiS and BiS to see if I left anything out or forgot to add anything. I also need to remember to let Vicki read all three–she’s more likely to pick up problems than I am.

It’s my week to review, and I’m reviewing a very… interesting book this week. It’s a bit of an escape from my usual genre, let’s just say.

The Apple Pie tasting/Mary Kay party went well! I think everyone had a good time. Of course, I forgot to bring the extra pie to work today, but I will remember tomorrow.

Let’s see.

Done:

50 beaded chokers

5 crocheted hats

1 crocheted scarf

30 25-cent bracelets

1 doll

10 copies of the first 3 chapters of TNG

5 copies of the first 3 chapters of PoS

3 copies of the first 3 chapters of SC

Need to do:

2 or 3 scarves (matching)

1 or 2 dolls (probably 1)

1 rack or something for the hats and scarves

I’d like to have everything done by the end of this week. Is that possible? Probably. But we’ll see. If things work out and I get everything done, I will spend this weekend cleaning my room (with time off to go to Deb’s non-housewarming party.)

Because next week (not this week) is the craft show. And I’m off from Friday-Tuesday, which means a nice five day weekend again! I could get used to these.

I also still haven’t gotten done with the edits for NL. They aren’t bad, it’s just time-consuming to check and correct (or ignore) every one.

By Saturday, I will have two official WIPs: Scarecrows and Counting the Stars. It would be nice to have them both done by the end of November, but we’ll see. If that happens, then I should be able–or, rather, we should be able to finish Trapped in time for a Christmas serial. And then I might just take a week off or so before the New Year. We’ll see.

We’re having the Mary Kay/Apple Pie Tasting party today. I think we’re up to eight different apple pies and one cherry. Mom has always wanted to have an apple pie tasting party, and this seemed a good time to do it!

Of course the weather is rather yucky; it’s been raining since last night. But other than that, it should be a good party.

Bracelets are done, one scarf is done, and I’m going to go start something else. Maybe a hat.

Scarves are boring.

Okay, ’cause I promised some pics, here’s Ethan’s hat:

(actually, that’s Ethan trying to take off his hat!)

I told myself that if I got the edits for NL done, I’d go to the Meet & Greet for NaNoWriMo last night. Well, I didn’t get them done, and I only have 12 days until the Wednesday before the craft show, so I decided that getting some stuff done in that respect was more important.

So. What did I do? Started on a Christmas present. Sheesh.

I did, however, get a great idea for my NaNoWriMo novel, which is now currently titled Counting the Stars. It is a paranormal romance. With vampires. (Of course.)

Lots of stuff to do today, ’cause Mom’s having an apple pie tasting/Mary Kay party tomorrow afternoon, so we’ll be cleaning house. But in between cleaning house, I’m going to crochet.

Goal for the weekend: (including Monday since I’m off)

Get all crochet finished for the craft show.

That would leave me with the dolls and some 25-cent bracelets, and that’s it. Should be doable.

I’m back! It was a lot of fun. I will write up a report tomorrow, but here’s a few things to tide you over:

1. While I hit no deer on the way home, everyone else almost did.

2. I left my vintage silk chinese jacket there. Called the library, and they’re going to mail it to me. Yay for the library!

3. My dishes came!

4. It only takes one hour and fifteen minutes to get to Waynesville.

5. I really should finish that paranormal romance.

6. My fellow authors were great, and I loved meeting everyone! And the chili cookoff was wonderful… #4 won, and it was my favorite.