leap@gol.com writes
>If you find Curt's sarcasm a bit over the top,
"Curt Sampson" <cjs@cynic.net>Å@
>
>> Oh, now I'm starting to get it. Sometimes it takes me a bit of time to
>> catch up to a Consultant of Michael's caliber
>
Gentlemen, gentlemen, fear thee not! Allow me to reassure - you are both
of excellent caliber!
why - "double bores" at least....
------------------------------------------
There are two distinct situations here.
One is getting data into your keitai that already exists in written form
but where you do not have to relate/retrieve the data in complex ways.
Taking a snapshot with a camera is fine for that. (The data may be pretty
"inert" - but I would rather take a photo of my fridge door, on which I
have written my shopping list - than type it all in to my handheld. ) This
kind of data is typically fairly "disposable". It may just be an "aide
memoir". We are probably not worried about relating the data (the elements
of my shopping list) to other data in the handheld - or in complex search
and retrieval. Before you pooh pooh this type of data, think how often we
carry snippets of paper around with little globs of information that are
referenced briefly then thrown away.
There are MANY MANY situations where we do this in ordinary, non-business
life.
The second situation is the "entry into a database in searchable form"
situation. This is more often (though obviously, not exclusively,)
encountered in the business situation where we are wanting to
relate/retrieve the data in various ways. This involves either typing or
OCR or some form of stroking.
The point is, we should not become so fixated on the second situation that
we ignore the first. Indeed, a paper address book has such limited
organisation (by letter of the alphabet, but not sorted within that,
usually) that it is more akin to the first situation than the second. But
it is still useful.
I actually think that for certain forms of data it DOES make sense to
write it down on a scrap of paper and then take a snap of the paper. It
is flexible, for one thing. Drawing something onto a graphic screen with a
stylus ( the graphic equivalent) is all very well but it is not visually
rich in the way a quick snap is - and thus can carry far less data.
So - for some types of data, yes, I can imagine preferring to jot it down
and snap it than laboriously type it in. (I do this currently with a
digital camera so that I can get stuff I see on explanations in historical
building translated later. Or, if it is English, to extract the details
from at my convenience.).
We handle data in different ways according to need - and if one does not
need to relate and retrieve in a complex way, a snap is fine.
Nick
Received on Tue Jan 8 18:26:44 2002