Opinion

What’s Within?

This post contains a breakdown of how I use a computer, laptop and phone. I’ve made some significant changes over the last few years due to worsening health hassles. Everything here has been iterated over time in order to create a compute environment that makes my life easier to manage. Especially when my my health hassles are at their worst.

Feel free to borrow ideas, adapt things and generally use the contents of this post as you see fit. As always: this is a highly individual approach to computering. Take what works, leave the rest.

It would seem I’ve regained the ability to write more frequently and regularly despite my health hassles

My Preference

Normally I write posts for this blog by hand using a pen, Tomoe River paper and a clipboard. Sadly, my health hassles make this approach to writing very difficult and I do not have the capacity to write using analog methods regularly or reliably. Over the last few years I’ve had to patiently wait for windows when my health hassles doesn’t interfere with my writing. With analog I have to slowly write blog posts over the course of weeks and sometimes months. It’s quite frustrating but I enjoy writing and refuse to give it up, even if frustrated by my health hassles.

What’s Within?

This post lays out how I research topics. I’ve struggled with “research” in the past and, thanks to a friend, finally figured out a methodology that actually works for me. This post goes through my methodology, how I use it with success and the details needed to recreate and/or adapt it.

Table of Contents

What / Why / How

Important Context

Over the years I never really figured out how to research a topic properly. Basically if I needed to research anything I just sort of went digging around the internet, read books, read published articles and similar but didn’t really take notes or create summaries or similar. At best I’d catalog very basic snippets that I could turn into something actually useful at a later date.

What’s Within?

Within is a walk through of all things analog and digital that I put together to be effective with notebooks and organizers. Things I’ve cataloged, setup, used, tinkered with and more. It even includes the how and why of my personal needs, preferences and opinions.

In short: it’s a very long breakdown of everything that actually works for me as well as many things that didn’t work for me. Think “Kemo’s Notebook & Organizer Autobiography”.

Editors note: KemoNine wrote this post before realizing they had already written Digital Writing Tablet Mini Review 3 ish months ago. Some information below overlaps with the prior blog post but the core of this particular post is how KemoNine is using a drawing tablet day to day for handwriting.

Prelude

Let’s get this out of the way up front: I am a pen and paper human at heart. Despite being labeled a ’tech nerd’ I use pen and paper as a default medium. I do have some health hassles (read: serious, chronic health issues) that prevent me from using pen and paper with the frequency I desire and, arguably, need in order to stay on top of daily life and more.

Prelude

I’ve used rugged phones and other rugged electronic devices since ~2009. I’ve worked in the trades as a career. I’ve worked truly Dirty Jobs. I used to write custom firmware for rugged phones including the Samsung Rugby Smart, Samsung Rugby Pro and Kyocera DuraForce. I’ve been hired to work on Android firmware for rugged phones by companies creating Android phones (OEMs).

My resume is deep and I do not fuck about when it comes to ‘rugged phones’.

This post is about 2 different writing tablets. The Wacom One and XP Pen G430S. Both are very small drawing tablets.

I bought both of these recently to help me with note taking on my computer. For my $dayJob I do a lot of implementation work and I regularly receive PDF specifications that I need to annotate. I’m also a remote worker (work from home) so I can’t just print the files and use a pen to annotate. I also can’t ‘break the glass’ in terms of moving data between my $dayJob environment and personal environment so I need some kind of drawing tablet so I can annotate PDFs as part of my job duties. I also need competent note taking software with a focus on handwritten notes as well as a tablet that has enough precision to allow me to write in cursive or printing within my chosen note taking application.

For a few years I’ve wanted to replace a synthetic fleece blanket with a natural material. After a bit of research I settled on replacing my blanket with a large linen sheet I could fold over on itself. Why?

Linen is an excellent, durable material that breathes well. It’s similar to cotton but has a bit more of a texture, is more durable, is less absorbent (good for my sweaty skin) and when ‘doubled up’ has a similar warmth to synthetic fleece.

TLDR

The Mi Band 7 should be a top consideration for anyone considering a smart watch or a fitness tracker. The only potential ‘problem’ is the software can be fiddly to setup but works incredibly well despite setup hassles.

For full details and thoughts, continue reading.

The Hardware

The device itself is setup to look more like a bracelet than watch when worn. It has a similar look to the bracelet styled fitness trackers. The screen takes up the whole device face and is very ‘smart watch’ in style for the UI. It’s also got a few built in apps and tiles that make using the device feel more like a basic smart watch than simple fitness or health tracker. It’s a wonderful midpoint between a simple bracelet fitness tracker and full smart watch.

Prelude

Awhile ago I spent some time reviewing how I read books, news and random internet articles day to day. My goal was to bring a Kobo Clara HD back into regular use as I greatly prefer e-ink displays for reading. As with most things in my life, a “straight forward tech rework” was just the beginning of something far bigger.

I read a lot: an average of one hour plus per day with some days being over four hours of reading. I also cannot listen to audio books due to some speech processing and memory issues. Nor do I watch much video as it can cause me to turn into “a lump” that’s borderline catatonic. Video also does not relax me or help me unwind, recenter, or similar. It’s a pure time killer that has zero benefit for my physical or mental well being on the whole.