Program recommendation: Xournal++

[Frank Cox]

https://xournalpp.github.io/

This is a very cool program that I started out using for the purpose of annotating pdf files (you can use it to write or draw directly onto any pdf file and then save the result as a pdf file, which is a very useful thing to have available) but I've lately started using it for other things like notes and calculations and diagrams and general "figuring".

The webpage gives you an idea of what it can do. Simply stated, its a blank piece of virtual paper and you can write on it, type on it, draw on it and paste stuff on it.

[Mike Blakesley]

That's really cool but I'm trying to do less handwriting, not more!

These days everytime I go to a convention or a meeting, I'm sure all the presenters think I'm texting through their presentation, but really I'm using my phone to take notes. I can type up something (and keep it readable) much easier than I can handwrite, these days. Aging sucks. (Although I guess it's better than not aging.)

[Frank Cox]

You can type on your phone? My phone typing is click... click... click...

I can type like nobody's business on a real keyboard, but the phone keyboard is too damn small.

I see kids typing on their phones and you can barely see their fingers move, though. I have no idea how they do it.

[Harold Hallikainen]

On a phone, I can type faster using Morse code: https://support.google.com/accessibi...form%3DAndroid

[Ryan Gallagher]

The trick to being fast on a phone appears to be the two thumbs technique... perhaps an easy transition for those that were always two finger pecking on a keyboard... but those of use that learned otherwise, my left hand refuses to contribute to the phone typing for some reason.

It doesn't help that most of my phone typing is technical... and auto-complete is utterly useless... if not more of a burden... so I leave that feature off.

[Frank Cox]

I keep a stylus on my desk for typing on my phone. Which is fine when I'm sitting at my desk but not really an option if I'm standing on the street.

The young fellow who's now my plumber was here the other day and he sent someone a text; "clickyclickyclickyclicky", so fast I could hardly believe it. I guess that's a skill reserved for the under-30 crowd.

[Frank Angel]

Before the speech-to-text feature became a thing, the only thing I used a cellphone for was a phone, as much as I hated the egonomics of the thing. Come on, a flat piece of plastic? A PHONE is supposed to CUP your EAR...bring a microphone curved around to your mouth, hence a MOUTHPIECE, and HANDLE so that you can hold it in your hand. How's this flat piece of plastic supposed to fit your face? Bottom line, from day one, I held these things in contempt and though there was a phrase that apply described them: "Designed by idiots, executed by monkies."

Now at least I can speak text messages, careful to double check and correct the mistakes it makes; I will concede that if I were trying to actually type with my fat thumbs and add in my dyslexia into the mix, I'd be raising the error level of my texts to about tenth power. Good luck to anyone trying to decipher them. Now there simply no way I can use the phone to do more complicated things like email or even maneuver around the internet. Give me a computer screen, a keyboard and a mouse, or give me Xanax...lots of Xanax.

[Jim Cassedy]

<edited> Before the speech-to-text feature became a thing,
the only thing I used a cellphone for was a phone, - - - - A PHONE is supposed to CUP
your EAR...bring a microphone curved around to your mouth, hence a MOUTHPIECE

One thing that frequently annoyed me while working at one venue, is that my boss
had a tendency to call me while he was eating at a somewhat noisy restaurant. All new
phones have pretty good, and very sensitive electret microphones, which may be good
for recording and face-timing, but which also pick up waaaay to much background noise.
Whenever my boss called me from whatever restaurant he was at, his microphone picked
up not only him, but also anyone else at his table who was conversing, as well as the noise
from the restaurant. It took a lot of effort to hear him. I wished they had designed the phones
with a software filter that emulated the old carbon button mics that were in telephones for
over a century.They could have programmed the software to emulate one of the old carbon
button mics when making a phone call Because of the way they were made, those old
carbon mics naturally filtered out other noises 'automatically".