With Windows 8 soon-to-ship, a wise husband asked me what I want out of technology as an author. You know I’ll tell you. That’s what i do.
Here’s the breakdown of what I want from software and hardware:
- I don’t want to mess around with it. I just want to write. I don’t want to configure and optimize. That’s a programmer’s job. I want to turn it on and use it to rock my writing. I don’t want more login names and passwords either. I have more than 50 different accounts generated in the past year. Use my Google or my Microsoft information to log me in or whatever. I don’t want a newsletter unless you’re giving me free stuff and I definitely do not need another web browser toolbar. I don’t want to give you my credit card information and my blood type. I want to use the software to do what the software is supposed to do.
- I want touchscreen keyboards I can type on. I don’t mean hunt-and-peck either. I want to type like I do on my laptop keyboard on my tablet. I can’t do that now, so I can’t use my tablet for writing. If there was a device with adequate storage that I could type on and not have ridiculous miss-types and “b” instead of a space, I would trade in my laptop and tablet for one.
- I want voice-to -text that works. I don’t mean the expensive computer program either. We should be at the point technologically where we can say, “Kate’s log” and then say stuff that types out the way we say it, not with embarrassing and ridiculous interpretations either. I read the first few sentences of my book on Evernote (Sorry, sweetie! I still love you!) and it interpreted it as this: my name is Colleen Underhill I’m 18 and I have an enormous problems this isn’t as it appears on the day of my date kind of problem or even if looking at a biology kind of problems this is this the limit is way bigger than that. Not bad, but not good and useless for actually writing anything by dictating.
- I want more applications that can switch between my devices and store online. If you haven’t read it before, I love OneNote. But with Microsoft a competitor of Android, I can’t see any of my OneNote notes on my Android phone. I’m not going to buy a new phone just so I can use Windows 8 either. Sorry. Programs like Evernote, My Fitness Pal, and other gorgeous applications that I can use on whatever device I am using are godsends. I have to be able to write wherever the spirit moves me, even if that’s the bathroom at the mall. Paper and pen is fine if I can keep track of either or keep my kids from taking them. If I can’t have one device to rule them all, I’ll have one program to use them all.
- I want simpler programs that don’t hog my hard drive. Facebook for Android hogs my phone storage. Sometimes I can’t update stuff because Facebook has eaten too much space. (Yes my phone is cheap. Shut up.) Nook ereader software is crazy huge and doesn’t seem to work any better than the other ereader software. I just don’t bother with it. Google Chrome, on the other hand, is stripped down and darn sexy! Less is more, baby.
Kate Policani 