FIGURE D

TealEcho is exactly the tool to get the feedback you need to improve your Graffiti skills.

TealPoint Software, the creator of TealEcho, also makes a lot of other great software for the Palm device, including other tools to help you enter text into your Palm device more quickly and accurately. Be sure to pay them a visit at http://www.tealpoint.com or link directly to their software page at http://www.tealpoint.com/software.htm.

Take all your notes with your Palm device
There will come a point in time where you'll have to go cold turkey and start taking all your notes on your Palm device. Sure, you might miss a few notes when you're first starting out, but think about how seldom you go back to read your old-fashioned notes now, either because you can't find them or because they're not handy when you want them. At least this way you'll always have access to every note you've ever written whenever you need it. And you can easily share these notes with others as well.

Until you get to the point where you make a commitment to take all of your notes digitally, you won't be able to truly become a Graffiti writing demon. Remember, the real competitor of the Palm device isn't a laptop or a desktop computer but paper itself. So stop buying and/or using paper notebooks to take your notes and start using your Palm device exclusively.

Use it or lose it--keep your Palm device handy at all times
If you don't have your Palm device handy at all times, you're simply not going to use it. I've actually taken to wearing only shirts with pockets in them so I'll always have a place to store my Palm V at the ready. My Palm V has helped me contribute to charities by making me give away a lot of my unused T-shirts and polo shirts. And no, I've never had a problem with it falling out of my pocket like another PalmPower author has. But if you're worried about it, you can check out his article at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199905/velcro001.html.

If you don't have a Palm V and a convenient shirt pocket, think about getting a leather belt-clip case or something to keep your device handy. You might look as geeky as Al Gore, who wears his Palm V this way, but that's a small price to pay for being on the cutting edge.

Determine your WPM
After following the tips above and practicing your brains out, you might want an objective measure as to how fast you're writing. I've got just the program to help you do this. It's called WPM from DDH Software, which you can see in Figure E. To download this program, go to http://www.ddhsoftware.com/ddhwpm.html.

FIGURE E

WPM is a free program from DDH Software that tests your words per minute speed.

Other related articles from previous PalmPower issues
Perhaps one of the best tips I received when I first started using Graffiti on my Palm device was to improve character recognition by writing the characters larger in the text input area of the screen. I got that tip from a PalmPower article published way back in February 1998. Here are links to that article as well as to other PalmPower articles that have discussed better ways to input text into your Palm device.