Tools for professionals
to take along on the road

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If you have ever said, “Computers would be great if I didn’t have to type to use them” or “Is there any way I can make entries into a computer–without the computer?” then this column will be of interest to you.
A few months ago, we covered tools for mobile professionals. Since that time we have had the opportunity to work with some products that are just a little bit different.
Are any of these products right for you? If your business life takes you away from your computer, you may find them very helpful.
Personal information devices like the Palm III and Windows CE-based units have become very popular. Although they share data with desktop computers, they are still very much computers on their own. But they are not designed to work like old, familiar business tools–in particular, yellow legal pads and dictation machines. They also are too big to be thrown in a wallet.
Is there something that does work like tools of old? If you are looking for an automated legal pad and dictation machine, two recommendations would be Cross Pen Computing Group’s CrossPad Portable Digital Notepad and the Olympus D1000 Digital Voice Recorder. If you are looking for the utmost in portability, check out the Rolodex Rex-Pro5 PC Companion.

Automated yellow legal pad

Do you prefer taking notes by hand?
Although many computers now accept handwritten input, some people prefer to write on a standard yellow legal pad. The Cross Pen Computing Group’s CrossPad is the best way to use a standard yellow pad and ink, untethered to a PC, yet have a means of quickly adding all of your annotated notes to your computer.
The CrossPad Portable Digital Notepad (www.cross-pcg.com, $337.95 street) lets you take 50 to 100 pages of notes on a traditional notepad while capturing your handwriting and drawings to the CrossPad’s internal memory (separate from your computer). When you are back at your computer, you can transfer your notes and drawings to the PC.
The CrossPad (legal-sized) and CrossPad XP (6 x 9) are like armor-plating behind a traditional note pad. You insert the cardboard backing of the notepad into a slot on the CrossPad, turn the unit on and use the special pen that both writes with ink and sends signals to the CrossPad.
A small LCD display helps you keep your written pages and the CrossPad-tracked pages in synch. The LCD also offers prompts of the various menu options and offers feedback to let you know that your writing is being received by the unit.
However, the display does not let you review your content. That task is reserved for the software on your PC during and after the upload.
You can use the CrossPad to identify special key words for easy searching after the upload–the software will do handwriting-to-text recognition immediately on these entries. You can also connote “bookmarks,” which make it easier to find important sections.
The Windows-based software is user-tolerable, and you can use the software to identify larger portions of handwriting to convert to text. You also can export selected portions of the notes into standard graphics files.
If your files are filled with lined pages of notes and sketches from meetings, the CrossPad will let you divert new notes to your PC for easy storage and retrieval. The CrossPad is also somewhat less intimidating than a computer for situations where a meeting might be interrupted by the presence of a PC or palmtop.
However, the need to keep written and CrossPad pages synchronized and the lack of a review function may make the CrossPad unsuitable for some tasks or users. The LCD screen also turned out to be far more fragile than we had hoped, rendering our unit useless. However, Cross did offer to send a free replacement.

Computer-integrated dictation machine

This next machine is small–4.7 x 1.81 x 0.091 inches–and light (six ounces including batteries). You talk into it wherever the muse strikes you, and then transfer its internal memory card into your computer for automated transcription of your musings into text.
The machine is the Olympus D1000 Digital Voice Recorder, and at first it may seem expensive for a dictation machine ($200). But with the bundled customized copy of IBM ViaVoice Transcription software loaded on a PC, this unit turns speech from conferences, meetings and commuting time into documents quickly and fairly cleanly.
The D1000 is easy to use, and the lack of moving parts helps to minimize battery usage. The machine works much like any other voice recorder and includes a built-in microphone, along with play, stop, fast-forward and rewind buttons.
Unlike tape, each individual message is numbered, dated and stored separately, and switching between recorded messages is easy using the LCD screen as a guide. In addition, you can edit speech, including insertion of new speech within an previously recorded section. You can delete individual messages or protect them from being accidentally overwritten.
The bundled two-megabyte memory cartridges store approximately 15 minutes of speech that can be used by ViaVoice. (A long-playing option is available for twice the time, if automated transcription is not desired.)
The SCVA mode also can make recording more efficient by pausing the recording during times of silence. Additional four-megabyte and eight-megabyte cartridges also are available for longer recording times.
The Olympus D1000 is an excellent tool for anyone who needs to capture speech away from the desktop and turn it into text. Even if you already use voice recognition software, you may enjoy using the Olympus instead of a headset.

Tiniest information manager

The Rolodex Rex-Pro5 PC Companion For Notebooks from Franklin Electronic Publishers Inc. (http://www.franklin.com/rex/, $167.95 street) lets you easily take computer information with you. If an incredibly light and small personal-information device will help you keep in touch, the Rex is your dream come true.
Rex carries all of your PC organizer data–up to 6,000 entries–in a credit-card-sized organizer. It might be more appropriate to say it is the size of a Type 2 PC-Card–also known as PCMCIA–because that is exactly what it is.
You enter your contact information into your PC using the bundled Starfish TrueSync Desktop for Rex, Starfish Sidekick, Microsoft Outlook & Schedule +, Symantec ACT!, or Lotus Organizer. Then you insert the Rex in your computer’s PC-card slot. An optional docking station can be used, which plugs into the serial port on any computer, if your computer lacks PC-card slots.
Rex’s amazing LCD screen gives you access to your calendar, phone list, to-do list, memos and other features. (The Rex screen is very readable from almost any angle–it almost looks painted on.)
Rex-Pro5 offers data entry and edit capability, relying on six small buttons and an onscreen list of letters you scroll through for input. Rex is not designed for adding information quickly in the field; however, the marvel of miniaturization lets you easily synchronize data and then access it anywhere.
A rugged version of the Rex, called the StarTac Mobile Organizer, will be available soon to let users scroll through contact lists and, with the push of the button, automatically dial a number on a StarTac phone.
In prior columns, we have discussed two primary alternatives–the Timex Data Watch and the Palm Pilot. The Timex also can track people, appointments and to-dos, although it tracks much less information about each item. The Timex also does not permit data entry. It does excel at information at your fingertips … well, a few inches away, anyway. The Palm III is more expensive and shirt-pocket sized, but it is far more flexible, customizable and easier to enter data into.
Whether you want to collect handwritten notes, speech or just carry around your vital information with you–without a computer–there are tools that can meet your needs.
(Eric Cohen, a CPA, owns Cohen Computer Consulting, which helps growing businesses cope with and benefit from information technology. He is the author of the “Accountant’s Guide to the Internet” (John Wiley & Sons Inc.). His home page is at www.computercpa.com.)

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