By the time I submitted my novel for its final validation (the process by which the NaNo word counting bots verify that you have indeed written 50,000 words or more), that project had upwards of 62,000 words. I had written more than I had ever written on a single project in my life, and I was thrilled.

That project had been planned in my head for a long time – I just hadn’t found the motivation to put my fingers to the keyboard and actually write anything.

This summer, I signed up for the very first “beta” session of Camp NaNoWriMo. And today, I am again very pleased to announce my second NaNo win, with over 55,000 words in my document. This book was completely unplanned, too: I simply sat down at the keyboard and waited for a character to show up. And she did. Not only that, she brought a lot of friends and family with her.

Thank you, Muses. My next step is to write something that I might actually be able to publish…

When I first started talking about getting an iPad, rather than just internally musing on it while staring at blogs, Bloke asked me the question everyone really should answer before buying pretty much anything: do you really need it?

With the iPad, that meant thinking up scenarios in which I imagined myself using a tablet, and asking myself whether I already owned tools that would do the same job just as well. I use a Samsung NC10 netbook – a laptop-like device designed with portability in mind, and yet I still find it heavy and cumbersome to lug around with me on a regular basis. I’ve always imagined myself getting more writing done if I could easily move about, gathering inspiration from the places and people around me. Squinting at my iPhone screen, trying to write long passages on the fly, just wasn’t working out. The iPad felt like the perfect middle way.

Of course, I considered the opposing points of view, particularly those from people like Marco (of Instapaper and Readability fame), who hadn’t found the iPad useful for any sort of Real Work.

Gadget Zen
I pitched my final usage scenario to Bloke with my new philosophy of Gadget Zen. I’m finding these days that I don’t obsessively want every single new device on the market*. I’m mellowing, somehow, and actively embracing it.

Gadget Zen philosophy states that every gadget in your life must fill a hole in your workflow. It must justify its place in your life by fulfilling a need that is both identifiable and unique.

My puzzle called for an elegant, portable solution that would enable me to perform basic computing tasks on the move, with a long battery life and a good range of apps. The iPad fit the bill perfectly.

Why not another tablet?
I am not a fangirl by any stretch of the imagination. I strongly considered other tablets, including the downright gorgeous Samsung Galaxy devices, but it kept coming back to one sticking point, and it was one which both impressed and appalled me with regards to my reliance on… you guessed it, App Store apps.

My app collection
Owning an iPhone meant that I already had a library of software which would work on my iPad thanks to the magic of universal apps. The ones which weren’t universal soon pulled me into buying their iPad versions – I know what I like and when I find something I like, I stick with it. Awesome Note being a prime example here.

This is the kind of subtle lock-in that you don’t really think about until the decision is on top of you. If you’ve spent a good chunk of change buying apps for your iPhone and narrowing them down to your favourites, you might be less inclined to spend yet more money going through the Android app market to find the gems. Particularly when so many of your iPhone apps come iPad-enabled without any additional cost.

It’s not that I’m particularly wedded to iOS, or (Gods forbid) Apple but the apps? Yeah, you’ll have to pry Awesome Note, Reeder, Echofon and many others from my cold, dead computer.

I researched apps thoroughly, bookmarking the websites of those I thought might be the best. I read reviews. I watched video after video from app developers. My crazy research phase had really been going on since the launch of the first iPad, and I had made the decision in my head long before I made that trip to PC World, marched straight up to the sales guy and said: “I’ll have one of those, please.” All based on the apps. It is the apps that make the device so compelling.

But what about the writing?
This post was written on an iPad, using the snazzy little Blogsy app. MacStories has already done the gushing for me here, so I will simply point you in their direction. That’s blogging covered.

For other types of writing, I found myself rather spoiled for choice. My important apps are aNote for notes and stories (the Google Docs and Evernote support make this app my number one choice), and Apple’s own Pages for long documents in need of formatting.

There are others – ThinkBook turns my scruffy Guiding planning meeting notes into beautifully formatted minutes with special markers for questions and to-dos. Simplenote is simply seamless, syncing between my iPhone, iPad and the web any time I need to make a note available everywhere. And iFiles persists in being one of my most-used apps by letting me edit and manage files from a wide range of services.

Iain Broome at writery blog Write for Your Life found much the same thing – it comes down to picking the perfect apps for your way of writing, and finding your syncing sweet spot. Although I am actually a a pretty fast typist on the iPad, and it isn’t all down to AutoCorrect… I just have tiny fingers and boy, they can move when Stick Muse is behind me with that cattle prod. Carrot Chocolate Muse helps a lot, mind you!

Other little tricks I’ve discovered include swiping up quickly on the !/, key to produce a ‘. Swiping up on ?/. gives a double quotation mark like so: “

I have a Smart Cover, and the slight tilt really is needed when I’m typing for any length of time. If you’re going to be setting it down on a flat surface to type (hello, fellow cafe writers!), I recommend the Smart Cover or any other type of case that can give you a tilt.

Fun, fun, fun, fun
Obviously, it isn’t all work and no play (even if writing is definitely play when it is going well)! I’ve already mentioned Reeder and Echofon as two of my non-writing essentials. The iPad brings with it a new world of procrastination and joy. Including the fact that YouTube looks purty. Bring on the cat videos!

I’d heard so many rave reviews about Flipboard that it was the first “unknown” app I downloaded to the iPad, and I have been extremely impressed. I’m reading news and other content from so many new sources I didn’t know even existed, and sending links to Twitter and Facebook is wonderfully simple. Seriously, if you own an iPad and haven’t at least tried Flipboard, what on earth have you been doing?

Speaking of Facebook, they haven’t exactly been moving their asses on the iPad app front, despite all the rumours. So, enter MyPad (formerly FacePad), which presents you with the important Facebook information in a lovely interface. If Facebook rips this off – sorry, is inspired by this app – my only surprise would be that Facebook have actually got round to making an app at all.

The major UK free-to-air channels (BBC, ITV, C4 and Channel 5), have also released iPad apps for their catch-up services. Lovely stuff, but go armed with bug spray. While we’re on the subject of TV, put a bookmark for TVCatchup’s iPad interface on your home screen, fold up that Smart Cover and enjoy live telly on your iPad. Not the best resolution in the world (very blocky, actually, especially when you’ve seen their normal stream).**

There are, of course, many other apps that will delight you and suck you into that time vortex ::coughcoughangrybirdscoughcough::, but I’ll leave you with just a few gems, lest this turn into a really, really long post.

Gadget Zen achieved?
On the whole, I’d say yes. My biggest frustration so far, in owning two iDevices and no Mac, has been stumbling across so many great apps that have desktop counterparts for syncing and advanced functionality, and having no way to run them on my Windows machine. So, my next computer purchase is likely to be a Mac of some description, but I’m going to have to wait a while before that is on the cards. As I’ve said, I am not and never will be a fangirl.

I think I will always need a ‘proper’ computer, particularly as I start to dip my toes into the world of web development, but the iPad has definitely filled a gap for me.

I must say, I’m rather relieved I have managed to find a use for it. That would be a pretty big dose of buyer’s remorse had it proved to be little more than a glorified YouTube player.

—-
The Footnotes…

* By the way, why does the iPad think ‘market’ and ‘mark’ should always have a capital M? Is there someone called Mark working on the AutoCorrect team who has been playing a practical joke on us all?

** You’ve got a TV licence, haven’t you? Good.

How-to use – tips and ideas

• Print on demand
• Print and laminate to use with dry-erase markers
• Blow up to A3 size and laminate for an impressive addition to any noticeboard!

Note: I have included two separate dates for “Badge Tested” and “Badge Awarded” as we have all had those meetings where a badge is tested… and there is no badge in the badge box after all…

So, welcome to the brand spankin’ new One Girl Revolution, a blog about geeking, Guiding and Paganism!

This utterly gorgeous theme is my first step into the world of paid-for WordPress themes. It has been put together by the team at Elegant Themes and tweaked a teeny little bit by yours truly.

But the ramblings, Aeryn, the ramblings!?

The old days of the net!

It’s been hard for me to pull away from my old ‘personal journal’ style of blogging. After all, I’ve had a personal website in some form or other since I was 13 (on Freeserve’s ISP webspace… ah, those were the days!). So, I’m not abandoning the personal journal format altogether. I am currently working on setting up a separate page for my day-to-day writings, and of course, there’s my Twitter account.

Fine, I’ll live without your ramblings. Pah. So, what’s this about GGP?

One Girl Revolution has a new direction: writing about geeking, Guiding and Paganism. It’s an unusual mix, I grant you! Look out for Guiding resources and printables, geeky things I’ve discovered and musings about my religious path. Thanks to the joy of categories, you can safely ignore anything you’re not interested in!

We’ve all probably had the girls who bring cakes or biscuits in to the meeting, but can’t tell you how to correctly hold a knife or pass over a pair of scissors.

These worksheets have been created to send home with girls who are doing the Cook and Cook Advanced badges. Since implementing the worksheet scheme, testing the Cook badge has been much quicker and it is easier for the parents to confirm at-home clauses have been completed.

Although girls do not need the Cook badge before moving to Cook Advanced, the Cook Advanced worksheet asks for one more answer in the first few clauses in order to emphasise the ‘advanced’ nature of the badge.

I’ve seen a huge uptake of the Cook badges since creating these worksheets, so I hope they are just as helpful to the wider Guiding community.

As the badge clauses have been written by GirlGuiding UK, I cannot claim ownership of  the content for these badge worksheets. You are free to redistribute these worksheets, but I would ask that you give me credit.

You will need a PDF reader such as Acrobat Reader or Foxit PDF Reader to open these files.

I’m not a staunch adherent to the GTD system, preferring a more free-flowing way of managing tasks, so when I came across Cultured Code’s Things back when I first got an iPhone, I swallowed hard and coughed up the £5.99. This was the app I had seen on the home screens of so many tech writers, designers and developers. And oooh, it is so pretty!

Things icon. Mmm... pretty!

Seriously. Look at it. Even the icon looks like it belongs on the home screen, and that is one of the things I take into consideration when picking my apps (I am also slightly shallow in my shiny-hunting).

But the development of this app has been slow and features seem to take a long time to show up. Recently, I was overjoyed to see that Things has finally implemented repeating tasks on the iPhone (I have no Mac to sync repeating tasks from), but it doesn’t get away from the issue of ubiquitous access to my tasks. For that, I have been using Remember the Milk.

The flexibility of Remember the Milk is both a boon and a drawback. For those of you with tweakaholism, enter with caution. This nifty little service can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. For me, the tweaking became a quest to recreate my favourite features of Things in Remember the Milk, namely, the Next and Someday lists.

My Things-inspired RTM system

The Basic Setup: Things You Need to Know
If you’re already skilled in RTM, this may well be all you need to know.

Areas in Things = Lists in Remember the Milk
Today in Things = Smart List in Remember the Milk with criteria due:today OR dueBefore:today
Next in Things = Smart List in Remember the Milk with criteria due:never NOT tag:sm
Scheduled in Things = Smart List in Remember the Milk with criteria ((dueWithin:”1 month of today” OR dueBefore:today) AND status:incomplete)
Someday in Things = Smart List in Remember the Milk with criteria tag:sm

If you’re a complete RTM novice and have no idea what Smart Lists are or how to use them, Remember the Milk has a handy official guide which can explain them far better than I would be able to.

Three Easy Steps to Setting Up Your Things-like System
First, create your ‘Areas’ (short for Areas of Responsibility), which in RTM will be represented by the standard, grey-coloured lists at the top of the screen. I have lists for Personal, Home & Garden, Study, Guiding and Work, but yours may vary.

When you add tasks to RTM, pick the appropriate list.

Second, have a look at your tags list. Yes, that giant cloud of words on the right of your screen needs tidying up. Go on a blasting mission, clearing out tags you no longer use and adding ones you think you will need. GTD contexts make good tags, so make sure you’ve got an @errands tag and a @calls tag at the very least.

Create a tag called ‘sm’ or something similar. You will be using this for your Someday/Maybe tasks.

But what about Locations?
Remember the Milk has a Locations feature which shows all your tasks on a map according to where you need to do them. Go right ahead and add @Home, @Work, @School, etc. locations instead of tags if you like the look of that system (I do… I warned you about my Shiny Things addiction).

Now you’re ready to create your Smart Lists.

RTM by moutzouris

Perform searches for the following terms, and save those searches as Smart Lists. Call them anything you like! I like to keep my Smart List names short, so I’ve got ! for Today, N for Next and ? for Someday/Maybe.

Today: due:today OR dueBefore:today
Next: due:never NOT tag:sm
Someday: tag:sm

Erm, Aren’t You Forgetting Something?
You may notice from my Next list criteria that my Next Actions do not have due dates. In Things, items with dates go in the Scheduled list.

To create a Scheduled list, a search string along these lines should whip one up:

((dueWithin:”1 month of today” OR dueBefore:today) AND status:incomplete)

Obviously, if you want to display tasks due within two months, a year, a week, etc, just change that search string. You could also exclude tasks in the Today list by adding NOT due:today to the end of the string.

Experiment with this one to find out just how far ahead you want to see (remember, typing nothing in the search field and hitting enter will return a list of all your tasks). My Scheduled list is, quite simply, S.

Why I Have No “Next Action” Tag
Remember the Milk’s task editing system bothers me. It takes multiple clicks/taps to edit a task, and so I have come to the conclusion that removing ‘na’ or similar from every task I want to get to soon is too much hassle. Tasks in the Someday list, however, probably won’t be edited as frequently. Taking a single tag off there still requires multiple steps, but due to the nature of Someday/Maybe tasks, it doesn’t bug me as much.

Using the System
OK, so you add a task “Pick up the milk” to Remember the Milk. You decide that as the milk is for the whole household, it will go in your Home & Garden area, so you send it to that list. It is then given the tag @errands and possibly a location of @Supermarket. You’re not sure when you’re going to be able to pick up the milk, but you know it won’t be today, so you don’t set a due date and fire the task off into the ether.

Now what?

Well, you decide to have a nosy through your Next list to see what you’ve got left to do. You spot the “Pick up the milk” task and decide you can do it today. You change the due date to today, and hit save. The task now shows up in your Today list.

When you bring the milk home, you notice that the kitchen door is getting a little bit loose. But it’s not too bad, so you don’t need to get round to it in the near future. It’s a good candidate for the Someday list.

Create the task “Fix kitchen door” in Home & Garden and give it the ‘sm’ tag. It doesn’t need a due date, as you don’t know when you can do it (that’s what Scheduled is for, remember?). Now, when you save it, it will go into your Someday list. When the door starts getting a little wobblier, moving the task to Next is as simple as removing the ‘sm’ tag.

Limitations – Projects
Ah, projects. A bit of a sticky topic, seeing as RTM is flatly refusing to acknowledge the problems caused by a lack of subtasks by claiming tagging and list creation is enough. But, you know, not all of us want a screen full of lists for every project, or a cluttered tag cloud. RTM really needs to admit it is in the wrong on this one. I tried using Toodledo to escape the lack of projects, but the interface is disappointing and clunky…

But in the meantime, we’re going to have to use tags, and prefix those tags so they float to the top of the tag cloud for easier access. I use the . (period/full stop) character in front of my project names.

If you’re going on vacation, create your .vacation tag and put that tag on all the relevant tasks. Things displays project next actions in the Next list, so if you want a cloned system, you can leave your Smart Lists exactly as they are now. If that method annoys you, change your Next Smart List criteria to due:never NOT (tag:sm OR tagContains:.) to exclude project tasks.

Limitations – No Separate Start/Scheduled and Due Dates
In Things, you can set a task to show up in your Today list before its due date. Say I want to print off a new sheaf of Cook Badge worksheets for my Brownies. The due date will be the date of the next meeting, but I want to do it before then so I’ve got it all set and am not left shouting at the printer because I’ve got to be out of the door.

In Things, I simply set the due date to one date and the Scheduled date for an earlier date. I cannot do this in RTM, and it bites hard for tasks like this. So far, I set the due date to the day the task is actually due, then dig through my Scheduled list looking for tasks I can check off before the due dates. There are several ‘workarounds’ on the RTM forums that might be better.

The Logbook
And finally… if you want a Things-style logbook of your completed tasks, simply create a Smart List for status:completed.

Now you can pat yourself on the back more efficiently!

The Final Finally…
This system is far from perfect and probably has more than a few bugs or things I haven’t considered. But it’s an evolving, ever-tweaking work in progress, and who knows – this system might be exactly what someone is looking for.

[image credit: awesome 'Milk' carton by ~moutzouris at deviantART]