updateded 4/30/2025
Proudly WEB 1.0 (with CSS)
I started out with an Alphasmart Neo 2 in 2007, when I bought it new shortly after its release by Renaissance Learning. It revolutionized my writing experience, giving me a great deal of focus. It allowed me to draft 5 novels and a large collection of short stories. It was, and still is, a remarkable Writer Deck more than 10 years since it was discontinued.
I wouldn't have found the Alphasmarts without the helpful people on the Alphasmart-Writing Tools Community on Flikr. It started with someone who came over to the long gone Brighthand PDA forum I frequented to talk about the Dana, and that sent me to the Flikr community. They answered all my questions and more and were so helpful with both the tech and the writing over the years. The community still thrives, and this is another way to pay forward all the help I have received by helping others with what I have learned.
More recently, there has been an eruption of new Writer Decks being produced. While I still have my Neos, I have fallen in love with the Micro Journals created by Un Kyu Lee. There is also the Zero Writer, BYOK, and the US version of the Pomera 250, all of which I have backed. Plus there are the various Astrohaus smart typewriters (I have the Alpha, but in general I don't like Astrohaus for reasons I may explain in passing somewhere). I'm not trying to be a completeist (Haha-- really), but if I am really drawn to a Writer Deck, I want to put my support behind the folks trying to serve this niche. So I will have pages here for any device I own and have experience with. I may post about other devices, but will make it very clear when I don't own them and don't have direct experience with them.
This is a new site. The Neo and Dana help pages have been around for a few years as separate pages on another domain I have, but have now been placed here and updated. Everything else is new and all of it is evolving, so I'm not sure what all I will end up doing here and there may be lots of fluidity while I figure it out.
It is important to note. I am not anyone special. I write. I love to write. I have been published some, but not a lot. I have self published, but it hasn't ever paid the bills. I am lucky enough to be retired and write because I want to, not because I need it to take care of my mortgage. I am not a great technical expert, neither for software nor hardware, though I have experience with both and learn things as I go. I'm just a Writer Deck and keyboard enthusiast and writer of stories. The point is, there is nothing special about my opinions or evaluations of any of these devices. I am not an "influencer." I am old, and stubborn. There is no compelling reason to listen to me. But I hope you enjoy what I have to say. I'm trying to be helpful, not clever.
No fancy web technology, just a good old fashioned Web 1.0 web site (with a little css) for providing reviews, documentation and links to information and downloads relevant to various Writer Decks, past and present. This is not intended to be some kind of complete wiki of information on Writer Decks. I have neither the time nor the web skills for that. This is just helpful resources for people who have or are interested in the various distraction free writing devices I have. I may also provide information and links for writer decks I don't have.
I don't use video for my reviews. I don't have the skills for that either and, probably because I'm an old guy, I much prefer writing and reading.
Hope this site proves useful. Feel free to contact me at the Flikr group I linked above.
