MORE ON CODING PAGES

CODING PAGES

Well, it's been a couple of days, and now I have a few basic rules.

First, here's what I found.

1. Programming is fun (let's get that out of the way).
2. Programming is complex, even small tasks.
3. There's a tendency to analyze too much.
4. There's a need to be correct - make it work.
5. The urge to look something up should be avoided.
6. Fear of running incomplete code - to see what breaks.

PROGRAMMING IS FUN

There's something exciting, after having spent a lot of time to learn a programming language, to write something and see it work. Even writing stuff in Excel VBA can be very interesting.

Programmers tend to take the long way home, just because you can. Like motorcyclists, if you really love riding, then you'll take the long bumpy route.

So, in the case of Excel, given a column of numbers to add, it's easy to use the built-in Excel SUM() function, but then, once in a while, to remove the monotony and have a little fun, why not dive into the VBA developer's area and write your own sum function?

OK, not everyone does it, but for some people, learning a programming language, if it is fun can help in their jobs. I can quickly think of engineers, data scientists, and accountants. The numbers people.

For coding pages, a good limbering exercise is to use the Python urllib.request library to count the number of anchors on a web page.

PROGRAMMING IS COMPLEX

But then so is writing. You had to learn the entire alphabet, and learn how words, sentences and paragraphs work before you could write anything sensible.

With programming, the language is the language of logic. It's not difficult, but mistakes are frustrating since they are silent and not so obvious.

However the key item in the coding pages is to exercise a specific skill until it becomes something automatic. You don't even think about it. You can literally program in your sleep. And if you really like the programming language, all the better since basically, syntactically, many of them are similar. Where they differ is in the platforms and toolsets they provide to make your job easy.

As an example, I use Python and the Flask framework. And for the display part, I use Twitter Bootstrap. And for data storage, I use SQLite - and occasionally MySQL. Right there, I had to learn a lot of different technologies to write a simple tool that does nothing. But the more I practise using these tools, doing simple work (for example post a form and save the results) the better I get at more complex tasks. Because I'm not hindered by the simple ones.

It's sort-of like typing. If you're a touch typist, then the work of typing is easier since you can now concentrate on the content, and not stare at the keyboard. You can stare at the screen instead. However, if you cannot touch type, your focus is on the keyboard and you often look up, to make sure that what you are typing matches what your fingers are hitting. I've noticed people who finger type banging away at the keyboard and nothing is happening on the screen.

Coding Pages reduce the complexity by making sure that the simple basics are well covered.

ANALYSIS PARALYSIS

There are multiple ways to put up a form in Python Flask. You can use the <label> tag for the label, and <input> tags for the text boxes. You can also use a <span> tag with a bootstrap class to format the label. You can also use an <input> tag with the "submit" type to put a button on the screen to submit the form, or you can use a Bootstrap <button> tag to put up a submit button and check when it's clicked. You can also choose to write some validation code in Javascript before the entire form is sent to the server, or add some restrictions on the controls so that requirements are met.

All this can make you just stop doing what you are doing to think of the method, because you want to pick the right one. Analysis paralysis. Like a food menu that has everything under the sun. Ten pages of chicken dishes, twenty of beef, and an encyclopaedia with all the various vegetable dishes available. You spend more time leafing through the menu and even after you've placed your order waste even more time wondering if you ordered the best dish. Similarly with programming, you select a method, code, code, code and then go back still wondering. While the main intention of the coding pages is simply to type and move forward.

I'm organizing my coding pages by date, multiple exercise. Some are not complete because when I'm tired, even after 20 minutes, I stop. Working or not. And I don't come back to fix it. It's forgotten. An exercise to be thrown away.

THE NEED TO BE CORRECT AND MAKE IT WORK

In real life, of course it has to work, and it has to work most (or all) of the time. But with the coding pages, if you get stuck, this is not the time for new things. Really, this isn't the time for new explorations. You've simply overcommitted on the exercise.

For the past few days all I've been practising is setting up (manually) a Python Blueprint app. This is an App that is split up into multiple modules. Not very difficult, in fact, there's no need to do this manually, you can create a template once and for all, and whenever you need this feature, simply copy the feature.

Same thing with forms and other things, and I will get there. But the main point of the exercise is to stimulate muscle memory. The enjoyment and the productivity is in the doing and if you constantly looking at reference material, you'll never get the work done. So it's good to be good at some things and knowing these things has extended benefits. You will code more enjoyably when you are looking for things and you'll get over the habit of constantly stopping to check if you are right.

This is why we don't write a lot of code before we run the application to test it. But for small applications, this is a habit to be broken. You should be able to code a full blueprint app, with forms and a database without running it once. Of course it will crash due to silly mistakes when you eventually run it, but at least you're on the move.

Typing lots, and assuming that you are on the right path is key to these pages. Very similar to Julia Cameron's morning pages where she tells you not to stop writing. I think she actually tells you not to lift the pen off the page, but I stop and wiggle my fingers to rest them.

Last point. Ultimately you may run the app and it simply has too many errors and continually crashes. My advice is to move on. Close that chapter, there are lessons learned in moving along.

THE URGE TO KEEP LOOKING THINGS UP

OK, this one's a 50-50 thing. The Python find() function works on strings to look up substrings in them. Like many functions, it's an object function, so it works on it's object. You may forget if it's a function or maybe part of a package (like the string import), So you may be stuck and look it up.

The find function takes as an argument the thing (substring) you are looking for. So something like:

x = "my home is in Nairobi".find('Nairobi')

That expression will return the position of the word "Nairobi" in the string "my home is in Nairobi"

It's the same as:

s = "my home is in Nairobi"

x = s.find('Nairobi')

But you can also do:

x = s.find("Nairobi", 10)

This tells the function to start looking at position 10, but, but give you the absolute position of the substring, not the relative position from where you started.

So you're looking at find, and you may be tempted to keep looking up what does it really do.

My advise is just to guess, and then when your program crashes - as it may - you can figure it out later and then won't be in a pickle. Just keep coding.

When I was using the urllib library to scan web pages, I had imported urllib - and I knew that the method I needed was urlopen() under urllib.request. I just didn't import urllib.request. I thought that importing urllib alone was enough, since I could then use the entire path urllib.request.urlopen() to get the web page.

The program crashed and I learned.

It's mostly small things like these where I keep stopping. Like what's the correct way to specify a blueprint? And how about the blueprint templates, where do I put those? And how do I know that they are actually working?

THE FEAR OF INCOMPLETE CODE

This may be the toughest one. Walk away when you are tired. Don't have to finish. When you're tired, you've actually done enough. As long as you don't get tired in the first fifteen minutes. I say that a good exercise is about 30 minutes, and possibly top out at an hour. Don't spend more than an hour, that's too much time simply for an exercise.

Like going to the gym. Go. Do an hour. Three or four times a week. Getting better daily, not a destination, but a journey.

The coding pages are a journey, even if you don't see the results immediately, they're there. It's like the Morning Pages. They've had subtle but continuous influence and even if I don't produce high class, top grade, quality manuscripts, the work is there. And it's at least there in body, something that I can look at and tell that it's growing.

So open your code editor. Think of something quickly - create a form with a few fields to store an encrypted message. Store the encrypted message and then retrieve it. That's not a lot of work, don't use military grade encryption. In fact, create a Caesar shift function, easily broken, even by a ten year old. The point is coding. The writing.

And even if it does not compile and work, but you've been at it for at least 20 minutes, it's time to move on.

SUMMARY

1. Think of something you know how to do in your programming language of choice. Something that takes input and gives some sort of output.
2. Create the folders, and empty files you need.
3. Write, write, write. Write everything and don't compile.
4. Compile
5. Take a few minutes to smile (if it works), or fix a couple of things.
6. Refactor, if you think you overshot the target (gave yourself too much work).
7. Close up, take a walk.

CODING PAGES

CODING PAGES

I must admit, this idea is not fully fleshed out. But in this morning's session of Morning Pages, I was thinking about the practise of writing. Writing is new, it's not something very ancient, even though it is ancient. If you go back far enough in your family's history, it won't take too many generations, in some cases just one or two, before you reach ancestors that could not write.

Having the skill, or simply ability, to write is something technical. It's not very natural. It's a skill from patient learning of how to hold a pen, and memorize the various symbols that make up the language in which you are writing. If it's Chinese, then I suspect that the learning period requires a lot more practice than the Arabic script of 26 letters.

And after you have learned the technical skill of holding the pen, making marks that are recognizable (not just legible) as letters you move on to the art of composing these together into words.

And all of this takes years to master. Once mastery is achieved, some people do go on practising. Taking the time to write daily, so that the hands become independent of the mind, and can write easily. They experiment with different pens, paper and other media. And ultimately learn to enjoy the simple act of writing.

WRITING IS NORMAL

Today, writing is normal. Those who cannot write are the exception. And we are steadily moving on to the next phase of this technological shift. From using pens and paper, we are using computers, tablets and phones. We are no longer mastering how to shape letters and how to hold a pen, rather how to tap on a key and make sure that the letter that appears is the correct one. 

We know the symbol, we just don't need to craft it manually. While some may argue that it's a different skill from writing using a pen, and of course, the media is different and the way we form the words is different, but I think it falls into the same type of experiential activity. Writing.

A DIFFERENT EXERCISE

The Morning Pages are an exercise I took out of two books, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg was the first book I read, and she talks about sitting down for "free writing" - I think that's the term she used. And then much later, years even, I ran into Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way, where she codified this free form of writing by specifying when (first thing in the morning) how long (3 A4 size pages) and the media (a pen and paper). She was absolutely adamant about this while Natalie, if my memory serves me right, was not.

I enjoy writing code. As a person who spent quite a lot of time with drawings and sketches, I am familiar with long sessions in front of paper, scratching and making legible marks whether it's drafting something, sketching something, or writing something. When my career shifted to software development, I taught myself how to touch type. Initially so that I could concentrate on the work and not constantly have my face fixed on the keyboard. I thought that the touch typing skill was very important for someone in that software development career, though I know some people who manage to live in software development who stare at the keyboard all day.

Just as the hand got used to crafting letters, symbols, on a piece of paper, and so you could now concentrate on thinking about the word, in fact the entire sentence, and not worry about what the shapes of the letters look like, touch typing frees you from thinking of the keyboard, and only concentrate on the word. My fingers know where the keys are and repetitive practise has made the act of typing fairly easy.

WRITING PRACTISE

In my Morning Pages, I now am able to simply move along, not worry too much about content, and simply allow myself to enjoy the feel of the pen as I make the strokes. Indeed, it is an enjoyable experience now, but it wasn't always like this. My initial exercises were fraught with anxiety, I did not know what to do. I was thinking of an audience to my writing, even though Julia Cameron states that this stuff is not for even my re-reading. It's just practising letting go, writing free form. 

It took a really long time to get to the point where I pick up a pen, open my Morning Pages journal, and simply start putting down letters. Of course I'm thinking and of course I'm writing legible sentences, but for the most part, it's not nerve wracking and I don't have to struggle with the content.

TYPING VS HANDWRITING

I think that the same exercise, with different experience, different outcome, can be done on a computer keyboard. After all, it's just a piece of technology, just like a pen and paper. Remember my paragraph above regarding the nature of writing, that it's not natural, it is learned? We have learned to use pens and write and in the same fashion, we can learn to use a computer keyboard simply as a mechanism for putting down letters and writing.

Part of the difficulty in typing is that when you it the wrong key, your hand automatically hits the backspace key and removes the misspelled word. This doesn't happen when you handwrite. Deleting mistakes is very hard, and also, fewer mistakes are made since handwriting is very slow. It is slow and it is tiring. And so when typing, practise needs to continue, just like Morning Pages, till there is a comfortable pace at which the activity is done. And the mistakes are fewer. This does not mean repetitively writing out words, as is the case when someone is learning to type (the same as when a child or adult is learning to handwrite), but thinking on paper - in this case, thinking on the screen.

Because typing is faster than handwriting, care needs to be taken because when fatigue finally hits the hands (as it will), the frustration level in typing can be much more severe than with handwriting. When you write with a pen, and your hand gets tired, you have no option but to stop writing till your hand is ready again. Not only is the fatigue discomforting, it is painful and very uncomfortable. The same may not be the case on the computer keyboard. Your fingers may simply now hit the wrong keys over and over, so your backspacing and deleting activity takes a lot longer and the writing becomes more frustrating.

You should remember at that time to stop typing and take a break.

NOW ON TO CODING

Having said all of that, I still have not gotten to the point of explaining what CODING PAGES are. They are similar to Morning Pages in the sense that it's a practise of sorts. But it's also a way to encourage and push software developers past the boredom of the comfort zone.

Let me try and explain.

Computer programming is a combination of learning a computer programming language as well as a bunch of other tools (sort of like other different languages) in order to build software systems. You may have heard of front-end programmers. These are programmers who know how to design user interfaces using tools like Twitter Bootstrap. On the other side there are back-end programmers, who write software to do some sort of processing, not necessarily visible to the person using the software, but calculating and providing results. There are database programmers who learn how to fetch and provide data requested by the software system. And so on.

Coding, computer programming, involves writing these instructions to the computer, using some sort of notepad, or advanced development tool. You sit down, and you type.

It also involves a lot of stopping, to think, and to lookup something you forgot. For example, in the Python programming language, which is what I'm going to be using as an example for these coding pages, there's are date functions that allow you to lookup dates as well as calculate the difference (in days, or hours, or minutes or seconds) between them. I never remember what they are, so I spend time, every time I need to do this, looking it up.

I know what I want, just that my memory isn't good enough to hold all of that stuff in storage.

Sometimes it's a simple thing. For example, in the Twitter Bootstrap library, there's an extensive collection of classes that allow you to do quite beautiful screen layouts. And I always forget something or the other. For example, how do I stripe the table, or allow hovering, or make the entire cell clickable?

And so, even though I've done this stuff repeatedly, I go back too often that my productivity suffers and I'm not interested in starting new projects.

It's almost like forgetting what a few of the letters in the alphabet look like. Oops, I've forgotten what a lowercase "H" looks like, so I have to look it up. Not the same as spelling since that can be resolved quite quickly, but a real challenge looking up something which is not commonly found.

So in these CODING PAGES, I go into a simple exercise, to be done often. Daily. Taking up about 30 minutes of your time. I think an hour's too much, and fifteen minutes too little to get anything done, so 30 minutes seems about right. And the exercise is fairly simple. It's actually a typing exercise with a goal in mind. To exercise specific skills in some of the things programmers do. And to build something from end to end. This is so that some of the routine items become automatic, like this writing.

RULES

1. You can use any of the software development platforms that you are used to. However, a plain text enabled environment makes things easier.
2. You should be able to do three things:
1. Build a screen with a form - even one box.
2. Create a database with a simple table - to put data in the form.
3. Write some code to collect the data from the screen and put it into the database.
4. Write some code to take data from the database and put it on the screen.

Now, a couple of clarifications:

1. The database can be a simple file - say a CSV file.
2. The screen does not need any formatting, you can start with a simple HTML <input> tag at the start, or a <textarea> to type stuff into.
3. I'll be using Python, but you can use anything.

EXAMPLE 1

Here are three files.

• input.html - this file has the HTML input to type stuff into a box.
• display.html - this file has the HTML to display a table of what's in the file.
• data.csv - our database file. A file with sample information about people, names and emails.
• app.py - the Python program to take data from the input.

IMPORTANT

I'm using a framework called Python/Flask. There's a setup required but the important pieces for this exercise are:

1. Python installed on your laptop / desktop.
2. Flask installed (in Python)
3. Knowledge that the web server is part of Python/Flask - there's a small command to run the server

So, here's input.html

<html>

    <head>

        <title>Input Form</title>

    </head>

    <body>

        <form action="/putdata" method="POST">

            <p>First Name: <input type="text" name="firstname"></p>

            <p>Last Name: <input type="text" name="surname"></p>

            <p>Email: <input type="email" name="email" placeholder="email@domain.com"></p>

            <p><input type="submit" name="submit" value="Put Data"></p>

        </form>

    </body>

</html>

Now, that's not formatted at all, but the main thing is that I know what those pieces are and I don't have to look them up.

1. I know the general format of a HTML page and the main tags that form the header part <head> and the body part <body>
2. I know what the form tag <form> looks like and some of the parameters it takes - like where to send the form when the submit button is clicked.
3. I know how to put a text box inside the form.

I could write forms all day, and for the first few days, I'll just play with this. Forms by themselves, forms inside tables, forms horizontally (I think we use <span> tags and not <p> tags). And so on.

Now let's write the data file that we will be putting data in, and reading from.

This is data.csv

Tony, Mwai, tony@email.com

Jack, Johnson, jack@home.net

Mary, Mary, marymary@musicstuff.com

Evan, Watt, ew@gross.me

Judge, Jordan, jj@coolhouse.or.ke

That's done. Data can be in any format and later on, I'll switch to using a file database called SQLite that I absolutely adore.

Now, onto the file that's going to display all the data. For this, there's another technology that I'm going to use inside this template HTML file. Jinja2 - which I know. So it's best to keep within the scope of stuff that you know how to use. The Jinja2 templating language allows for variability inside a HTML file. This allows you to alter the data that's displayed based on the data, or other conditions. The Jinja2 programming language is not difficult to use. Together with Twitter Bootstrap they form a really useful framework for designing user interfaces.

Here's that file - display.html

<html>

    <head>

        <title>Data Display</title>

    </head>

    <body>

        <table>

            <tr>

                <th>First Name</th>

                <th>Surname</th>

                <th>Email</th>

            </tr>

            {% for row in data %}

            <tr>

                <td>{{ row.firstname }}</td>

                <td>{{ row.surname }}</td>

                <td>{{ row.email }}</td>

            </tr>

            {% endfor %}

        </table>

    </body>

</html>

That's it. That's what a HTML table looks like. The tags at each end <table>...</table> signify the scope of the table. The data between each <tr>...</tr> is a single row. And the data between the <td>...</td> tags is a single cell.

The Jinja2 programming part has some special tags also. It's inside the {% ... %} tags. That part needs some programming knowledge. There's another way to do this inside the code, but that will be a coding pages for another day.

Right now there's only one thing left. The actual application code. This is also not too complex, remember I'm trying to keep this exercise down to 30 minutes at the most, on a daily basis. So far we've written 38 lines of code, of which 4 lines are the data itself. And some of the code are single words (like <tr> to start a row).

Here's the program code in a file called app.py

from flask import Flask, render_template

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/input', methods=['GET','POST'])

def input():

    return render_template('input.html')

@app.route('/display')

def display():

    f = open('data.csv', 'r')

    data = [] # we'll keep the data in a list

    item = {} # each item is a dictionary.

    for line in f:

        line = line.strip().split() # this removes the newline

        item['firstname'] = line[0] # these remove any spaces end

        item['surname'] = line[1]

        item['email'] = line[2]

        data.append(item)

        item = {} # need to clear the dictionary.

    f.close()

    return render_template('display.html', data=data)

if __name__ == "__main__":

    app.run(debug=True)

And that's it. Another 20 lines of code.

Honestly, there was a tiny bit of debugging at the end, so writing this post took way longer than I anticipated. But writing the actual code was possibly much less than 30 minutes, including any debugging.

Here are screenshots of the HTML pages.

INPUT.HTML

DISPLAY.HTML

So that's the end of this coding session.

Of course, that's not a full application, the input.html part doesn't even work. If you type in it, nothing happens, but that's for later.

Motivation

MOTIVATION

I collect quotes. Words are powerful, they can and do drive you to action when you are stuck.

The general at the bottom of the hill wants his, or her, soldiers to charge up the hill. Not only are they outnumbered, but have a disadvantaged position.

This looks like a no-win situation.

We've seen the movies, the inspirational speech, the soldiers get fired up. There is purpose now. There is desire now. And there is an internal strength borne solely from words.

I may have a few inspirational books in my bookshelf, not too many. Most of them on leadership, some of them on creativity. I don't know if reading any of them has ever worked. I may have ended up exactly where I am by not reading any of those books at all.

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INSPIRATION

But I think it's important to keep inspired. Inspiration fills an important part of existence, filling a gap to drive purpose.

If not solely for the purpose of finding the basic necessities of life, food and shelter, inspiration makes the activities meaningful.

To be inspired does not mean to be constantly in awe, on edge. But to have this sense that what you are doing is in sync with your being and feels great. Inspiration makes you feel satisfied. Full and complete. It makes you want to do and act, not to sit and sleep. And mostly does not wait for affirmation from others to tell you that what you are doing is right.

Sometimes, most of the time, quotes articulate the obvious in witty and intelligent ways. For example, Wayne Gretzky is quoted to have said, "You miss 90% of the shots you don't take." Quite obvious really. And why would it be motivational? That quote specifically has a challenge that has to do with the fear of failing. If you are afraid, then you don't act. When you don't act, well, it goes to say nothing happens.

So act.

The shoe company Nike has a good one too - "Just Do It."

WHAT I DO

I have a collection of quotes that I like, and I'm constantly building up my library. I have also written a small Python/Flask program to send me two of them daily. One at 6am early in the morning, and another at noon. I collected them and I know them all, but I still find it inspirational to be reminded of them.

A Word about Morning Pages

MORNING PAGES

The term and the practice was coined by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way. It requires you to write three A4 (or letter-size) pages in the morning before you get your day going. Of course, she says it's OK to have a coffee, but the idea is that these three pages must be done in the morning before you do anything else, and that they must be done longhand.

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WHY

Quite frankly, I don't think there's any reason that wouldn't sound like woo-woo. Many have tried to explain the intellectual, creative, experiential reasons, but at the end of the day, at least for me, it comes down to doing something enjoyable. The rewards are difficult to articulate but not complicated. For me, it comes down to holding a fountain pen, felt tip pen, gel pen, and sometimes a ballpoint pen, and letting words come out even if they don't form complete ideas. It's not about the content, but more the context, the place and the act. Like putting on a jacket, stepping out to my backyard, and walking up and down aimlessly. It's not specifically for exercise, but that I like the motion, to keep moving, one step at a time. And so I do enjoy just writing, or drawing lines, or drawing shapes and seeing what will happen.

If you don't like it, don't do it. It's quite that simple. And when we explore some of the things that Julia asks you to do, it will apply there also. There are some things that the book tries to codify which isn't meaningful for everyone, but has utility in trying to understand what the action, or direction, is trying to achieve.

I enjoy journaling, writing on a piece of paper, notebook, with a pen and paper. And so the Morning Pages come naturally to me. The fact that they are in the morning is because I'm fresher. And it's super quiet, especially since I'm up at 5:00 am. There's nobody about and I can sit and think quietly. Not so quietly since I love to listen to instrumental LoFi or classical guitar strumming.

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LONGHAND

Tricky question. Julia insists that you have to do this longhand, but I don't agree. I do it longhand, but I think that there are valid cases for enjoying the morning pages typed.

Here's why.

Julia says that there's a closer connection to the words when you handwrite them. And this may be true for some, and it may be the case, sometimes, for myself. I have since come to understand that I think on paper. Which means that I like the act of writing down something that I'm thinking of, and then looking at the same thought, but now on paper. And when I write things down on paper, they are part of the thinking process, not the result of the thinking process.

Here's an example of something that I could write.

... should leave early, say 7am, get on the highway, but last time I was on it, got stuck, so perhaps 6:30am may be better, I really should be keeping track of this traffic thing if I want to get anywhere, is there any rush to getting there early? Work backwards, let's see if wasting a couple of hours on the road ...

You can see from that blathering, it's something that could have been going on in my mind, didn't need to be written down at all, but I have notebooks upon notebooks with stuff like that, and sometimes, rarely though, I go back and I can now understand better my thinking process.

SPEED

This is the first consideration when handwriting. When I handwrite, it's slow. It's very deliberate, that's a good word to hold on to - deliberate. The act of putting each word down is very conscientious. There's no going back with backspacing, so there's a greater sense of commitment, of permanence. And of moving forward. But it is slow.

But the brain is fast. By the time I've finished handwriting the sentence, my brain has had a couple more thoughts which I've already forgotten.

FATIGUE

Handwriting is a physical exercise, so your hand gets more tired than when typing - for the same amount of text. Granted, if you type a lot for a living, then your hand will eventually get tired even typing and you may get to the point where you are making tons of mistakes. But typing Morning Pages isn't (or should not be) one of them. Even typing slowly, you can hit the mark of 750 words (which seems to be the consensus is 3 handwritten pages) fairly easily and quickly.

ART

Typed pages are uniform, sterile almost. Handwritten pages are artistic. The same handwritten word doesn't look the same anywhere on the page. And if you can get lost in the "craft" of handwriting, the feel of the pen in the hand and how each stroke is being made, then writing gets close to art.

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TECHNOLOGY / TOOLS

Let's not forget that like a computer, the pen is a piece of technology that was also invented at a point in time. It's quite an amazing little thing that you can carry around an instrument, together with a parchment (paper) that you can record what is going on, for review later.

This is essentially what a tablet, or laptop, can do as well.

Those who say that writing is "more natural" aren't being honest. Writing is as natural as typing. The alphabet that we use, the letters that we make with a pen are all symbols created and when we use a brush to draw something, we are also using technology.

A pen, a computer, a piece of paper, a wall, the back of a napkin, it's all good.

It's all a learned skill and each generation comes up with tools to do things better. There are some novelists who find it more creative now to write their novels on the tiny keyboard of a smartphone. Go figure.

And so the directive to handwrite (or longhand as Julia refers to it) should not be an absolute must. Perhaps in your own way, you find that hitting each key on a keyboard gives you the same connection with the letters and words, that someone holding a fountain or ballpoint pen would.

---

THREE PAGES LONG

Finally, a word about quantity. I have a problem with this blog, I can normally get started on a piece, because I have something to say, and then get bogged down in the details of articulating it and never finish. 

You'd be surprised at the number of drafts that I have started that have never been finished.

Julia says that 3 pages is about the right size. 3 A4, or letter size, pages. That's a lot of writing, that's a full article, every morning. Even though you're not really writing for publication, and content should not matter, it's difficult to write without thinking. You must think and so the inner voice must have some sort of content in mind.

Claims online that this should take 20 to 30 minutes seem exaggerated. Unless, of course, the handwriting is so big that you can whip off a page in 10 minutes. But writing a page of A4 is not so easy. I can manage close to 10 minutes on the paper size I use (possibly an A5 (10" x 7")) but that's in a real rush, and that's not enjoyable.

My own comfort zone is about 15 minutes per one page of roughly 10" x 7".

Someone online wrote that Julia's direction to write 3 pages equates to 750 words. Many people seem to think this is accurate, and so I counted some of my pages. I average about 320 words on a page (10" x 7") so 2.5 pages should do it for me. But there are some days I've gone to four, the most frequent though was 3. That's over 900 words.

Am I overdoing it? I don't think so. For the most part, I'm really not concentrating at all, I'm writing quite slowly, massaging each letter and word and feeling the stroke from the pen on the paper. I figured that trying to get to the end would spoil the enjoyment in the middle, so I really, really, really try very hard to simply concentrate on making the word that I'm writing count.

Count in terms of experiencing it. So when I write the word "actually" in longhand, each letter gets a musical expression, the a - the - c - the - t - the - u - the - a - the - double - l - and - the - y. By the time I finish writing the word "actually", I have had an "actually" experience.

It's slow.

It's purposeful.

It takes time.

And I don't watch the clock.

I think 2 pages is the right amount of time to get this right, and for it to mean something. Otherwise, it is possible to get to the end quite tired, and a little frustrated.

Simplicity in a complex world

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well.

Life used to be much simpler. It's getting complicated. Mastery of a craft is something that's next to impossible now, because everything is too complicated.

And there's little, to no, time.

Apprenticeship, the passing of a skill from a master to an apprentice is no longer practical. No apprentice has the years it takes to mastery. And most crafts are now automated.

And in that automated world, mastery is fleeting. You are an expert for a short time, because the thing that you are a master of is soon superseded by something superior.

You're obsolete before you know it.

One career in a lifetime is almost impossible. My parents had a single career. Their parents also. Our generation may have had one, most multiple.

I was trained as an architect and worked in an architectural firm at the start of my career, out of college/university. Then I worked with an engineer. Then I went back to school, learned software development and then worked at a school teaching computer programming. Then teaching computer networking skills. Finally ended up in a pension fund, working in technology, first as a developer, then a manager of the entire technical team.

How many careers are those.

And let's not forget what I'm doing now. I'm working in my dad's business, farming and real estate. But after a lifetime in technology, specifically software development, my heart is still there.

I love coding and I do it for fun. To relax and learn.

My favorite programming language happens to be a popular one. This is purely accidental since I could have opted to stay in the C/C++ world since I don't really have to work as a programmer for a living. However, Python is a fantastic general purpose scripting language. It's used for data management and AI, but it can do anything really - except really low-level stuff.

But as I was learning Python, I was losing my C++ skills. They're non-existent now. 

As I was learning Python, I was looking around for web development frameworks and ran into Django. I dislike Django a lot. But then I found a friend in Flask.

Python and Flask were built for each other and if you have a small business doing small business stuff and have a knack for computer programming, this is for you. Add a lightweight database, like SQLite and you're off to the races.

Of course, MySQL is still around for the heavier work, but for small desktop stuff, Python, Flask and SQLite are very powerful.

But there's always something new and shiny around the corner with promises of more fun, more productivity and more enjoyable to use.

I've fallen into that trap. Oh, I should learn Angular, I should learn Node.js, I should learn more JavaScript, I should learn SQLAlchemy. Oh, let me tell you about SQLAlchemy, why bother with small applications - the ones that serve only to keep me busy. It's a learning curve that's not necessary, especially if you already know SQL.

So, for the past five years, or so, I've kept my focus on learning Python and concentrating on Flask.

And I think I'm quite good. I'm no expert, of course there are people who are super experts, but I know enough.

And I'm happier to leave the rest of the stuff to the rest of the world. I don't have to go out there and build the next best thing on the planet.

I just have to write beautiful code to store beautiful data.

Keto Experiments - Part 2

I started a hard-core ketogenic experiment on November 7, 2023. Hard core because I actually removed nearly all sugar-related carbohydrates from my diet. I left dairy, and truth be told, lactose digests to glucose, so there's still some glucose, even though it's a tough one to digest.

It's May 13th, over six months have passed, and I have dropped a ton of weight, albeit positive, it's only part of the story. The real story is the health benefit, a story told by measured results also, with one distracting measurement.

So, here are the real positives.

• Weight stabilized to a healthy weight.
• Mental clarity
• Joint pain all gone
• Energy levels raised
• Sleep much, much better

Apart from the second one, mental clarity, the rest are physically observable results. Like the weight. I wasn't really heavy, not even obese on the BMI scale; however, I had noticed that since stopping my marathon training, I did gain weight, irrespective of any diet. I had tried everything that has been written about, from a pure whole food (nothing processed at all including oils) to a vegan (not a single animal product) in my life. If it's been written about, I have tried it.

GLUCOSE

Removing glucose from the diet let me to a study about metabolism, and I'm surprised, ashamed, that I did not think about this sooner. Given the breadth, and wealth, of diet advice, mostly from those trainers who train movie stars, I should have clued into this one much, much sooner.

Biochemistry - it's all about biochemistry. How your body processes food and what happens when you eat. This, coupled with activity, tells the whole story. And there's nothing else.

When you eat carbohydrate that you don't use it is converted to fat.

When you eat fat that you don't use it will be excreted.

When you eat protein that you don't use it will be converted to whatever building block your body needs.

Carbohydrates are nothing but glucose chains.

Worth repeating.

Carbohydrates are nothing but glucose chains.

When you eat carbohydrates, you are eating glucose.

Worth repeating again.

When you eat carbohydrates, you are eating glucose.

Whether it's a complex carbohydrate (and the word complex is used very, very loosely here since there's not much coming out of our farms that is not genetically modified) then perhaps it takes stomach acid to reduce it and so better for slow processing, or whether it's a simple one (like a fruit) the result is the same. It's glucose and if you don't use it it's going to be stored as fat.

FAT

Fat is interesting. Your body stores fat as a storage mechanism for later use. Fat is used when you don't have food. There's no argument about this from anyone, doctors or those pseudo-types that masquerade as nutrition experts.

And HUNGER was a normal state in our ancestry. Not famine, per-se, but real hunger. We didn't have the three-square-meals per day thing going on, but fed when food was found and did not eat when there was none. And the human condition was simply eating and procreating - much like every other animal. Because we are animals.

But hunger is eradicated and there's now farming and plenty. And we can afford to eat every single day and without being hungry. So, everything is now converted to fat for storage.

But when you don't eat food, the body then takes the fat that you have stored and uses it for energy. This is the natural state. Not eating and using fat. However, it's not the body's preferred method of energy usage. At the top of the list is, as expected, glucose. Glucose is quick and easy to metabolize. In fact, when you eat carbs, the body starts working on them as soon as they are in your mouth.

UPDATE - 30 MAY 2024

For the past couple of days I have been able to get out and do some long exercise - no carbs were involved. While I was not able to jog because of knee pain, I did a really long walk yesterday, over 2 hours, and didn't feel the sugar shock I would normally feel when I bottom out, run out of carbs. However, I paid for this exercise the rest of the day, up to this morning. My stomach feels really strange, nausea and that feeling of vomiting - or close to vomiting. This was bad yesterday so I came off the no-dairy and had some yoghurt, and coffee with milk. That helped. My stomach settled enough to allow me to sleep, but when I got up this morning, once again the feeling was there.

What does this mean? Does it mean that I cannot do cardio exercise?

Or when I do cardio, I really need to consider adding sugar to the mix? I don't think that eating carbs is something to start doing right away, not given the gains that I have seen so far. However, I should get back to the hospital and get my blood tested again, and as soon as I get back.

What sorted that feeling out was some Earl Grey tea, with milk. Whole milk, not skim or anything like that. So I bought a small bottle of milk and will have a couple of cups of tea before we head out for the airport in an hour, or so.

My New Bike - KTM 390 Adventure

My first bike, a Kibo K250, taught me to ride.

Gave me confidence as I learned to manage the bike.

I thought that it was a heavy bike, at about 160 kg (350 lbs) but I now understand that in the world of bikes, that's not really heavy.

Took it on long'ish rides from Nairobi to Mombasa (once) and many times to Kirinyaga.

And, of course, it's my hop over to the coffee shop, or run for groceries.

But there's the new KTM 390 Adventure, the 2024 series, that's about to come into my life.

Full of electronics, ride-by-wire, ABS, and speed. Yup, speedier than the K250.

The K250 would often struggle on Thika Road, at even 100 kph. The throttle was wide open and it would max out at 105'ish - refusing to give me more speed. And complaining all the time.

Some K250 owners claim an easy 120 kph, I don't believe it. My throttle was wide, wide open.

So now, I can get a comfortable ride to Embu, to Kirinyaga, and even to Nyeri without feeling as if I'm pushing the bike beyond its capabilities.

I'll probably sell my K250, only if the price is right. If not, it can happily stay and take me on the occasional ride to the outback. I trust it's off-road capability.

Stop taking diet advice

It's no wonder the health and wellness industry is worth a trillion dollars, and when you add the fitness industry, you can now see what all the nonsense is about.

There are so many speakers, YouTubers, podcasters, writers, salesmen (and women) clamouring to get a piece of that industry and the confusion that ensues is truly breathtaking.

From full on vegan, raw food, diets, to carnivorous ones, and everything in between, you can get any advise you want. And there's no consensus on what the truth, if there is a truth, is.

While our most trusted experts, the doctors, who are supposed to know this stuff intimately, are also arguing amongst themselves. They understand the biochemistry and so are placed in the best possible position to tell us the effects of overindulgence in one thing or another.

Oh, there is some consensus. Over sugar for sure. Everyone says it's bad for you, only some say stay away from it, as you would from cyanide, and others say, it's OK just to have a little bit. So what is it? None or a little? 

We need to be clear.

The various biochemical processes that take place in the body are well known. They've been studied up the wazoo and it's clear what happens to your blood sugar (blood glucose) when you eat certain foods. Our lab researchers have done all of this on mice and told us that this food will make you fat, and this one, well this one seems to make mice fat, so you may also get fat if you eat it.

There are vegan doctors just as there are carnivorous doctors. There are medical vegan doctors as well as holistic vegan doctors. And these vegan doctors tell you never, ever, ever to touch meat. It's a carcinogen, it's got all kinds of hormones and you can find better alternatives for the good stuff meat has in plants.

And there are also medically trained carnivorous doctors as well as holistically trained carnivorous doctors. They'll tell you the bad side of plants. All about the lectins, alkaloids and phytotoxins. And that plant proteins are not wholly usable for the human body.

So then, who do you listen to?

I've almost tried them all, and the final one was the Keto diet, a relative of Atkins. Low carb and restrictive. I think they have the right idea, especially in this day and age of sedentary lifestyles. I was a vegetarian for a couple of years. I found that I simply didn't have enough energy for the amount of training that I was doing. Maybe I was doing something wrong that I couldn't find enough energy even though I consumed carbs without caution. And I wasn't fat.

Keto asks you to limit the sugar (which are essentially carbs) that you're eating. And the Keto advocates are nice enough to give you a number. Some say 20 grams, some say up to 50 grams. But you get the idea. Stay under 20 grams of carbs, and you're OK.

The only problem with this is now you have to start counting carbs. And it's mentally excruciating. Reading all the labels to see how many carbs, or checking carb values online for fresh foods. Then trying to remember how many you've consumed so far, so that you can check out your carb balance for the day. Like a bank account that limits you to spending twenty dollars a day without a rollover plan.

So I decided to dive into the biochemistry, learn what my body's doing with all that food. When I eat glucose chains (otherwise known as starches), what is the chemistry that goes on. And when I eat proteins, what happens.

It's not a surprise that eating carbohydrates initiates insulin which ensures that the sugar in your blood stays within a certain concentration. Excess glucose, if not consumed by cells, gets shuffled away as glycogen, or as fat. Your body's smart enough not to chuck it away. To keep it for when there's no food. Because when there's no food, your body can burn that glycogen first for energy, and when the glycogen's finished, burn the fat.

But in real life what happens is that when the glucose from the starch is all gone, your body asks for more food - it intentionally makes you hungry. So that you can eat more food. It doesn't want to consume the glycogen or fat that it saved up. Why oh why?

It's left up to you to determine that the hunger is not real, and then fast. And when you fast, your body then reaches out for those stores.

But fasting is tough, requires will power. And while you may be willing, in today's world, where food is cheap and full of glucose, its rather easier to grab a burger than try to coax your body into burning this morning's breakfast.

So I figured that the carnivores may have landed on a solution for this. If we want the body to burn fat, then give it fat, not carbs. It so happens that your body cannot distinguish between the fat in the cells in your body and the fat that you ingest.

So a couple of things happen. Your body switches from carb burning to fat burning. And all of a sudden, you're burning body fat. The reverse process of the fat storage takes place. Instead of storing glucose as fat, fat is converted to glucose. And miraculously, without eating carbs, you get the glucose your blood needs for sustaining you.

I can attest to the fact that it works, though I'm not sure it's a solution for everyone. I'm certainly not going to join the millions of health and diet wannabe experts and tell you this is a safe choice, and I wouldn't even advocate for veggies either. It's a complex subject and everyone needs to explore it on their own.

For myself, I'm sticking very close to the carnivorous side of life, with small exceptions in the vegetable world, very, very small.

Keeping to-do lists

When you have a number of things going on at the same time, stuff at home, stuff at work and personal stuff to do, lists are an essential part so that you don't fall behind.

This is especially important if you manage a cross-functional team, where you're not the expert.

In my old job, I managed software developers and computer network installation and support teams. The skills required are not the same, though to anyone not in the business, a computer guy is a computer guy.

Now I manage a couple of businesses. One dealing with homes and tenants. The other with farms and crop production. I'm no expert in either, and to be fair, most of the actual team members don't have a global outlook, but are good within their swimming lanes.

There are many small things going on. Rent collection, home repairs, working with surveyors, lawyers, auditors, the tax agency. Working with suppliers, contractors and other consultants. And on the farm side, casual labourers and unskilled workers. Agricultural products suppliers. Managing crop cycles and monitoring farm health.

It's nothing like the computer world that I was so familiar with. And so lists and note taking have become my world. Not only so that I don't forget to keep track. But also as a mechanism for learning.

THE ONE BIG LIST

In my old world, it was easy to keep one list of everything that's going on and what everyone was doing. The same list contained what I was supposed to do with respect to the budget, as well as who was working on what bug in whatever software product we were looking at. The main problem with this list is that it grew exponentially. Stuff could remain on the list for months, and because it was literally a manual list, in an A6 notebook, I had to keep flipping back and forth. If an item dropped more than a few pages back, I brought it to the front of the list.

There was no concept, back then, of assigning a date to a list item. It was just a to-do item. I didn't even put dates on when some of the stuff was supposed to be completed.

The point was simply not to forget it.

So that's a start, but the main problem with the big list is once it starts growing. From a few items, to a page, to two pages and so on. Some items are so old, they seem like they'll never be done, but I can't take them off the list for fear of losing them.

So they stay.

And the list becomes unmanageable and useless.

MANY SMALL LISTS

In my new world, I keep many lists. A list for groceries, a separate list for each business, and within each business, lists for various things. There are even lists for each employee. Lists of stuff I've asked them to do, so that I don't forget it. And of course, there's a list of my plans, my projects and even this blog.

And how's that working out, you may ask?

Decidedly better than the single list, but not great.

Now I have a table of contents, which lists my lists, and reminds me to check each of the lists. And so frequently during the day, I pull out my Smartnote tablet, in it's small A6 size, and run through each list, taking note.

One of the single most important aspect of the list is following up. When someone promises to deliver, or when I promise to deliver, it goes on a list. And this time, the list item has a deadline. And because of the deadline, most of that stuff now gets done.

I've written about perfectionism before, and these lists are now culled very often. Items that age too much get removed unceremoniously, without fanfare, quietly. It's as though they were never there. They don't even leave a mark, or a whisper. And the list stays pristine and current.

On today's list was writing this piece, and then move on to some program refactoring (boring I know). Again, that's where a distraction free environment, like my BOOX Note Air 3 (not the C version, but the black and white one) come into play. No YouTube distractions, no Netflix distractions, no side-visits to check out Snapchat or WhatsApp. Just writing and a little browsing - for example to check out the spelling of gluconeogenesis. Even a simple excursion to check out a spelling (online) or to use the online thesaurus could get you into trouble, down that rabbit hole they call social media.

But anyway, to-do lists, while annoying, and boring, help structure a day.

And there's something satisfying about crossing things off your list.

Keto Experiments Part 1

The Keto diet aims to help manage weight by controlling the carbohydrates you eat. It's a low-carb, high-fat diet. The aim is to switch your body from burning glucose for energy to burning fat.

Depending on what sources you read, the total number of grams of allowable carbs are somewhere between 20g and 50g. This means that you have to carefully check the foods you're eating to make sure that you stay under the allowable grams. It's quite a task. One slice of bread, for example, has around 13g of carbs. So if you're targeting the 20g limit, one slice is over half the allowable amount of carbs.

Somewhere late 2022 till early 2023 I tried the Keto diet, thought it would be better for my health since I was slowing down on my jogging exercise. I couldn't afford too many carbs, and my mid-section was starting to complain.

But counting carbs proved to be more of a challenge than I originally thought. Carbs are everywhere! In milk, in every vegetable, and loaded in fruit. For my challenge, the Keto direction proved to be impossible. So I decided on a very tough approach, removing all but green leafy vegetables from my diet. No wheat, no rice, no potatoes, absolutely no starch and very little fruit.

But that was also a loosing battle since when I counted up the grams at the end of the day, truly counted them, including the greek yoghurt and milk in my coffee, I was somewhere in the mid 40g range.

Is 40g Keto? Depends again on what you're reading, but it's definitely borderline and bound to spike insulin levels, but perhaps not enough to push you out of ketosis.

Somewhere late last year, I decided that counting grams of glucose (a.k.a., carbs) was a time-consuming, challenging and marginally successful way to lose weight. And I ran into the carnivores.

The carnivore diet is a type of Keto diet which reduces the carb intake to near zero levels. In fact, you don't count at all. You simply avoid any foods with carbs. Which means, avoiding all vegetables, fruits, nuts and so on. The mantra is, if it comes from an animal, then it's OK. If it does not come from an animal, then it's NOT OK.

As usual, I did my Internet research, watched hours and hours of testimony in favour of the carnivore diet, and lots of vegans quite against it. Doctors on both sides. And supposedly health professionals on both sides.

Each camp of the argument very well equipped, and eloquent.

The vegan camp absolutely adamant that you can do 100% without meat products and talking about the risks of lack of fibre and vitamin C, both of which you cannot get, in sufficient quantities, in a carnivore diet.

And the carnivore camp saying. that plants have toxins (such as lectins) and other defence chemicals, as well as the all encompassing substance of all fat - glucose - which is absolutely unnecessary since the body can make its own from the animal fat and proteins.

And it seems that the answer is somewhere in the middle.

But I decided to kick the gram counting and dive into meat eating so that I wouldn't care about the carbohydrate problem. And I have incredible results to report. Within the first six weeks, I lost more weight that I'd lost in the last 6 years.

Every year I seemed to gain a pound, which means that I returned back to my previous 10-year weight, something that I had in my 30's and 40's also. I completely erased all the weight gained in my 50's in one stroke, and took my body back to my late 20's.

You'd have to try it to believe it. And I wasn't even on very strict carnivore since I spiced up my steaks with questionable spices, ate tons of yoghurt (plain Greek) and drank milk in my tea and coffee. And also drank Coke Zero which most studies seem to indicate does nothing to blood sugar (since it has no sugar) and also does not trigger an insulin response.

The cephalic phase of insulin secretion by the pancreas happens in preparation for a boost in blood sugar. The body tastes something sweet in the mouth and then prepares for a blood sugar spike. This spike is usually small, but it's there.

Surprisingly, most of what I read is that aspartame, the sweetener in Coke Zero, doesn't contribute to the cephalic phase, bur some of the other sweeteners, like saccharin might.

CONCLUSION

Where do I go from here? Well, it appears that I may be onto something that will help me for the longer term. I've never felt better, but have some concerns from some of the arguments from the other camp. Like lack of fibre and it's effect on gut bacteria. And the lack of vitamin C, found in very small quantities in meat, but larger quantities in organ meat.

So it looks like a small injection of some plant food might be worth experimenting with. So I'm bringing back moringa (in its powdered form). Low carb, packed with vitamin C and fibre. A single element which is the perfect way to single out whether or not it will have any side effects.

I'll report back when all of this is done.

I've cancelled my NordVPN subscription

NordVPN is among a host of VPN providers. Their VPN is considered one of the best in the industry.

The purpose of a VPN is to secure your connection to the internet. This is what keeps you safe when you're using the unfriendly internet. Say you're sitting in an Internet cafe, connected to their free (and super slow) Wi-Fi, you can fire up your VPN software, which will make sure that the Internet cafe's free Wi-Fi isn't listening (or peeking) into what you're doing.

The other thing that you can do with a VPN is hide your location. Which is good when you need to access services which are not available where you are. Some Netflix content, for example, is only available if you are in specific countries, so different countries see different content.

This can be frustrating if you're away from home and you need to get something from your home provider, whether it's Netflix or whoever.

I'm Canadian, and I have content I bought via Google which I can only see when I'm in Canada. So when I used to travel, I'd switch on my VPN (in this case NordVPN) and then see my home content.

NordVPN was affordable when I first got it, must have been that 2-year low entry fee trap. But then it quickly doubled. The first year was $89 for two years, so that's roughly $45 per year. Now it's $115 each year.

And all I use it for it login to a couple of servers (a provider who I have since ditched) and see some of my Google content.

Other than that, it's quite good for protecting me when I'm out and about using my laptop, or my iPad or my iPhone.

In fact, I've noticed in the past year, I probably only used it once or twice. So I'm really not getting value from it. When I'm out and about, I use a personal hotspot from my mobile phone provider, who is more secure than free Wi-Fi. And clearly I don't miss my Google content.

So goodby NordVPN, I'll use my $115 somewhere else.

How to use your technology

I have two laptops, a Linux laptop and a Macbook Air.

I also have this iPad that I'm posting this note on.

I have a number of Raspberry Pi devices, an iPhone a separate digital player (for my purchased music as well as for streaming music) - all because I don't want to burden my iPhone with the job of doing music as well as all the other stuff it does.

And all that tech is expensive, really expensive.

And because of that, I rarely carry it around.

Take this iPad for example, before I bought it, I had ideas of major productivity. I could see me sitting at a cafe, latte next to me, small pad and paper for the ideas I didn't want to escape and writing and coding productively - or is that profusely?

None of it ever materialized. The beautifully expensive iPad with it's similarly expensive Magic Keyboard mostly stay in my home office. They get transported to my work office occasionally - but not needed, and used when I feel guilty about not using it too much. Oh, they also get used to stream my Netflix movies when I'm on my elliptical machine - a few hours a week.

Incredibly, my paper notebooks are taken everywhere, and get written on constantly.

That's a Cambridge Executive, around an A6 size, and I write using a Pelikan Inky pen. Small and light.

So, my tech is really not productivity tech, it's treated almost like you'd treat jewelry. Delicately and tentatively, lest I drop it and it breaks.

But when I bought my Supernote E Ink tablet, I decided that enough was enough, no more babying this tech. And that device goes everywhere with me.

It is white, with a white pen, and it already has scuff marks, the mark of being active and used. The technology is not new, but I've adopted it really quickly. And I'll write more about that in a later review, but for now, I'm enjoying having it to pen a thought at any time.

It' snow 2:06 AM on Wednesday (7 February 2024) as I write this, on my iPad, having one of my bouts of insomnia. I'll get to sleep soon, I have my ADV Sound 500's (tiny earbuds) playing my Top Songs of 2023 playlist from Spotify streaming from my HiBy digital player.

Eeesh!

But another thing, this iPad will be getting out more, it's gotten fat and lazy and enough of that.

Supernote Writing

I have a Supernote A6X2 tablet. It's the best thing, and we're slowly getting to know one another. It's only a few days (well almost a week) old, and already it has a few dirty patches on the cover (which was white and clean when I bought it) but that's OK. We're friends.

I'd read that this tablet had the best writing experience of all the E Ink tablets out there. And in fact, I'd originally bought a BOOX Note Air3 C, which I returned for reasons given in another post. But this one's a keeper since I've discovered the secret of getting quality handwriting, handwriting that looks pretty close to my handwriting on real paper.

Here's a sample - written in the evening, when I was tired, which is the best time since it does really show how my writing looks like when I'm not even trying.

Supernote	My Notebook

The faintness of the left image is the pen that I chose, but pressure also works.

So, while the feel isn't exactly like paper, and there are very few tablets that can simulate paper, there are a couple of things you can do to make the experience better - even on an iPad.

1. Get a good pen, or change the nib. If the screen is glass, get a soft rubber tip for the stylus.
2. If the screen is glass, consider a screen protector.
3. Apply some pressure when you're writing. Unlike paper, the plastic, matt or glass surface isn't really being written on, there's digital magic under the screen, and so the pressure is only there to stabilize the pen in your hand.

With the Supernote, and specifically the Supernote with the FeelWrite2 screen protector from Wacom, pressure is your friend.

Buying an E Ink tablet from Amazon

Last year, early December, I bought an E Ink tablet from Amazon. A BOOX Note Air 3 C. I used it for about a day. Really used it. Then promptly repackaged it and sent it back.

It's been more than a month, and as I try to remember why I returned it, a couple of things come to mind.

1. I was looking for a tablet that I could write on, something that simulates pen (or pencil) on paper.


2. Something light.


3. A device with tons of battery life - measured in days, not hours.


4. With an easy navigation and file management system.


5. And perhaps, some integration with Microsoft OneDrive, or Google Drive.

Not much to ask eh?

Well I bought a BOOX Note Air3 C. About a week later, I returned it. I paid close to $800 for it. About $500 for the device, additional money for the cover, plus an extra Steadtler stylus. And then shipping and customs charges to Kenya.

The notetaking was OK. The feel wasn't really pencil on paper, more like a gel pen on paper, the surface of the tablet was quite smooth, even though BOOX has tried to make it scratchy by applying a screen protector at the factory.

After some effort, I got Microsoft Office installed, but I have two accounts - work and home. I didn't know it at the time, but there's a way to install a separate copy of Office accounts. So I was able to get the work tools working, but the home tools wouldn't connect.

But that's not the reason I returned it. Excel wasn't as smooth as on my iPad. Neither was OneNote - a tool I use extensively. I'd planned to keep using Excel and Word on my iPad, and then use OneNote on the BOOX, along with the handwriting notebook. I also wanted to move my reading tasks over to the BOOX, so I installed Libby and the Kobo reader.

Both readers were excellent, and in fact, Autodesk Sketchbook was surprisingly good.

But you must agree, for Libby, Kobo and Sketchbook - and handwriting notes - $800 is a bit on the high side.

So I returned the BOOX Note Air3 C and continued my search. I came across a different company, Supernote. Their products don't have the Google Play store, so they are limited in features, but YouTube reviewers all agree, the note-taking ability of these tablets is super.

And I found just the right one. My regular notebooks are small - around the size of an A6 (which is 4.1 x 5.8 inches). Not for drawing out huge plans, but very portable, pocket and knapsack (or backpack) friendly

On the left's my regular notebook - and the Pelikan Inky felt tip pen that I really enjoy writing with. And on the right, the Supernote A6X2, the latest as of 4 February 2024, and its basic pen. The Standard Push-up pen. The pen feels like a gel on paper with Wacom's FeelWrite2 screen protector which is factory installed.

My Notebook	Supernote

The Supernote is exciting technology. So far, I've created a number of notebooks to keep track of work in the office, as well as jot down thoughts during the day. Because of its size, I carry it everywhere. The retractable pen fits in the holder and because the nib (ceramic) retracts, there's no fear of damaging the nib should the pen fall down.

And this notebook was much cheaper at $300 for the tablet, and about $130 for the pen and cover. As usual, I had to pay about $70 more to get it to me, but I wasn't asking for too much this time. Just a great small notebook that I could enjoy using.

Today I ordered the latest tablet, released in December 2023, by BOOX, the black-and-white Note Air3. No colour. No BOOX Super Refresh technology. And 10.3 inches in size.

The tablet and cover cost $400 and $50 respectively. But because of the reduced specifications, I'm hoping this time I'll be able to get better battery life, get OneNote working (both for work and personal accounts), get Libby and the Kobo reader and anything else will be icing on the cake.

I'll carry both of them, because that's what they're for!

Here's a photo of the small size of the Supernote - so lovely

Supernote A6X2