On note taking and other important stuff

I'm in grad school working on an MS in EE and for note taking have found that nothing beats plain white copy paper. It's cheap ($2-3 per ream) and with a 3-hole punch and an inexpensive 1” 3-ring binder is very versatile. I have one binder for each course. I like the 1-1/2” wide binders because I can easily fit 2 or 3 in my bag. I have tabs to divide syllabus and course schedule, notes, handouts, and blank paper. Other tools include a good ol' Pink Pearl eraser, a Z-Grip 0.5mm mechanical pencil, and Pilot G-2 0.7 mm gel pens in red and blue ink and a Pilot G-2 Pro fine point in black ink. With these tools I can quickly capture notes and diagrams. The only things that I type up are homework assignments and lab reports. In my computer, I have files for each class and sub-files for homework, labs, and lecture notes (PowerPoint presentations and PDFs supplied by the professors). With my trusty Moleskine pocket squared notebook to keep track of my deliverables and other stuff I am able to leave my Dell Latitude D520 notebook computer put away until I get to the library.

Discontinued - Your kidding?

I just found out that my trusty TI-86 has been discontinued. So I'm using a relic. Hmmm. Well, anyway, everyone knows that real engineers use HPs. I bought the TI before I knew better anyway. Let's take a look at what they've got.

Wow. Look at the HP-50. Nice!

Oops, $149.99?

Um, the TI still works great, and besides, it's not the calculator, its the skill of the operator that counts.

Ya, that'll work.

Getting Things Done

I finally got around to buying David Allen's book (I bought it from Amazon along with one of the textbooks that I need for one of my grad courses). So far it is a pretty easy read. The book organizes a lot of what I know and have learned from working in industry for 18 years. I'll need to get through it all, digest it, and read through it again before I decide on what it can do for me. At this point, two thumbs up. I just need to put it down and get back to my textbooks occasionally.