When I was starting out in the journalism business 19 years ago, I got a piece of good advice from my first boss, Poody Walsh, who was the editor of the Eagle Times in Claremont, N.H. Poody (yes, believe it or not, that's what everyone called him) saw that I was handwriting my notes while I interviewed sources on the telephone, and he urged me to get accustomed to typing the notes instead. But I just couldn't do it--typing seemed to require more brainpower than handwriting, making it difficult to concentrate on the interview. Two decades later I'm suffering the consequences: I am surrounded by looming stacks of legal pads that cover nearly every square inch of my disordered office.

Since the early 1990s computer makers have tried to wean me from my dependence on paper. Their solution was called pen computing: I could use a stylus to jot my notes on the screen of a portable PC, and the device's software would convert my chicken scratches to crisp, clear text files that could be stored on a hard drive instead of cluttering my office. Unfortunately, none of the first-generation pen computers--Go Corporation's EO, Apple's Newton and Microsoft's WinPad, among others--was successful. The biggest problem was that the devices' handwriting-recognition software did not work as well as advertised. Cartoonist Garry Trudeau lampooned the technology in a Doonesbury strip; when Mike Doonesbury scribbles

   
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