Alphasmart Software
About Secrest Secrest Resources has distributed a select line of learning and assistive technology products since 1994. We specialize in innovative hardware and software products, including Alphasmart keyboards, Wizcom scanning pens, and Earobics and textHELP software, for use in the classroom and in particular for students with learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, or written output challenges.
AlphaQuiz SmartApplet System – Design and store quizzes on a PC or Macintosh, administer the quizzes on a classroom set of AlphaSmart 3000s, and retrieve the results for automatic grading, reporting, statistical analysis, and exporting results to gradebook software. Co:Writer SmartApplet – High-quality word prediction. Jul 13, 2017. IssueNEO/NEO2 Downloads and Manuals.SoftwareManagement NEO Manager v3.9.3 - US OnlyPC-MacAdditional software that may be used with the NEO/NEO2.
These tools can also offer an ideal solution for students, writers, researchers and teachers who wish to ease the burden of repetitive and time-consuming tasks. At Secrest, we take great care in the selection process to ensure that our products are effective, reliable and cost-competitive. Our website, Secrest.ca, has been online for over 10 years, providing detailed descriptions of all our products.
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David Kadavy is author of the #18 Amazon best-seller,, & host of June 23 2015 – 05:00pm UPDATE (8/31/2015): I loved the form factor so much, I upgraded to an, which has a much nicer keyboard feel, and (regrettably) displays slightly more type 😉 Technology has made a lot of things about writing easier. You can save little scraps of information in Evernote, write and edit with ease, and you don’t have to go to the library to do research. But, technology hasn’t made it any easier to concentrate, and actually write. This doesn’t need explanation. Want to 4x your creative output? That’s why I invested $19 in this piece of junk.
It’s a little portable word processor, called the AlphaSmart 3000, that was made for use in classrooms way back in the year 2000. It’s been discontinued, but you can still. The things that are crappy about this piece of “technology” are the things that make it great for writing.
Productivity is all about, not time management, and this pile of plastic helps me keep my mind in the right brain state for writing – and writing only. 1) The AlphaSmart doesn’t connect to the Internet Sometimes, being able to jet your brain off to the far corners of cyberspace at a moment’s notice is a bad thing. For example, if you want to write. If the AlphaSmart 3000 is any kind of bike, it’s a “fixie” (with a banana seat and streamers). It doesn’t connect to the Internet, and that’s probably the best sucky thing about it. Albert King Tab Pdf File there.
When you are sitting in front of your AlphaSmart 3000, there is no Internet. There are only the thoughts in your mind, and the keys on your fingers. This makes it perfect for writing.
2) The AlphaSmart has a tiny, nearly useless, screen There’s no 27-inch Thunderbolt display here. Instead there’s a tiny LCD display that shows you four lines of your writing in a jagged-assed font. Additionally, this piece of shit screen is way down on the keyboard, so you have to crane your neck down to look at it.
It’s much better to just stare off into space, or close your eyes, either of which, for me, are better ways to write. This tiny little screen makes the AlphaSmart 3000 great for one thing: writing. You aren’t thinking about what you just wrote. You are only thinking about what you’re writing.
3) Editing on the AlphaSmart is a pain in the ass The AlphaSmart 3000 has a series of whack-ass features for editing. There’s the spell-check, which moves with all of the urgency of a snail with a head cold. There’s also the ability to select text, copy, and paste with all of the nimbleness of a mosquito encased in amber. These “features,” along with its tiny screen mean you aren’t editing shit on this piece of junk. The AlphaSmart 3000 sucks for editing. You know what it’s good for, though?
Editing is not writing. Only writing is writing. 4) The AlphaSmart doesn’t connect to the cloud.
(It hardly connects to your computer.) I hate to break it to you. Whatever it is you’re writing, your first draft probably. Even Hemingway supposedly said: The first draft of anything is shit. –Ernest Hemingway So, stop treating the words of your first draft like drops of water in. The most important thing that gets produced in most first drafts isn’t so much the writing itself, but the connections you build in your brain. You can sleep on them, and then the next day, go re-write the whole thing on your favorite cloud-based software.
If you happen to write a magical first-draft, though, you can always, and “import” your writing. I’m warning you, though: It sucks. You have to sit there and wait while this piece of junk literally retypes what you’ve written into a document on your computer. It’s worth it, though. Because this piece of junk is great for writing.
Things that are just awesome about this piece of junk This thing didn’t earn a key spot in my creative arsenal on its suckiness alone. There are some things about it that beat your laptop: • It has INSANE battery life. Never search for an outlet in a cafe again. This thing gets a full year of heavy use on 3 AA batteries. • It powers up FAST.
Press the “on/off” button, and you’re writing within 5 seconds. • Your work is ALWAYS saved. You may find yourself habitually hitting “Cmd+S” on the AlphaSmart, but it doesn’t matter. Your writing is saved instantly.
You can power it on just to write a few notes, then immediately power it off and get back to what you were doing. I keep my AlphaSmart 3000 handy in my living room.
My most creative time is first thing in the morning, while I’m still groggy. I can grab it, sit on my couch, and be drafting my thoughts in a matter of seconds.
Best of all, there’s nothing to distract me. No browser windows open from the day before, no iMessages or Software Update notifications, no extraneous interface elements, and no temptation to check email. The distraction factor is so low, I hardly ever need to these sessions. Things that are just neutral, and good-to-know about this piece of junk are that you can save your work on 8 files, each of which are accessed by pressing one of the “file” keys at the top of the keyboard. Each of these files will hold about 12.5 pages worth of data, for a total of around 100 pages of work you can save. Considering buying a portable word processor? Here are some of your options.
The AlphaSmart 3000 isn’t the only portable word processor out there, but finding a good-conditioned one (I got mine from the seller “Kuombell2”) is the cheapest and quickest way to start enjoying the distraction-free benefits of a device that isn’t good for much but writing. My original intention was to use this cheap purchase as an “idea date,” to test out how I liked the form factor, then consider any that are out there.
The form factor has definitely proved itself as very powerful, but so far, I’m still happy with my AlphaSmart 3000, and don’t currently plan to replace it. There are a number of, and they don’t get much more expensive than about $60. If you know you’re serious about a portable word processor, and want it to back up to the cloud, there was, due out in September 2015. But, the price tag at the time of the campaign was considerably higher: $349. If you do get an AlphaSmart 3000, I highly recommend getting a for connecting it to your computer. If you go with a different model, be sure to do your research on whether you need a cable or not (the AlphaSmart 2000, for example, only has a serial port – no USB). If you want to go even lower-tech, my friend writes his drafts on paperusing a typewriter.
He marks up, then retypes into a computer while editing. 4 sucky things about this $19 piece of junk that make it AMAZING for writing — David Kadavy (@kadavy) Want to 4x your creative output? This post is filed under. I wouldn’t call pen and paper any slower, quite opposite, far faster than digital forms. While you might use some more time on jotting the first draft, you save on finishing the whole thing.
Editing is one of the most time-consuming phases and while digitalizing the written word, you can easily do the editing at the same time. You don’t end up with fiddling with words so much than before. Also, writing on it with pen and paper – with fuck-ups and crossed over words – helps you edit the text far faster than with mere digital form. Once it’s on paper, you have better grasp of the structure and better memory of the written text (because of the fuck-ups showing the way you think). That’s someing you can’t simply duplicate with digital form efficiently with the standard fonts and all. Was it the master piece of the century or just your daily blogpost, writing pen and paper does freaking miracles, when you want save time on better editing and polished finishing. I just read that Dean Koontz has the same idea as you – the prolific best selling fiction author, writes for 10-12 hours a day 6 days a week, hunting and pecking on an old school word processor.
I’m afraid if I go this route writing would turn into such a pain in the butt that I wouldn’t do it at all! So I’m happy writing in my ByWord application in full screen mode to avoid distraction.oh wait, I was just distracted by you email and now am waiting this comment instead of writing a my blog postdarn! That’s amazing! And his typing style is prettyunconventional? ( ) I’m amazed he writes that long. I just read “Daily Rituals,” and it seems most authors do little more than 2 hours per day of writing! To be clear, I don’t do super-developed writing on this thing.
It’s more for those nebulous thoughts that I’m not yet sure what I’ll do with, or to just get started on a blog post idea (though, I do use it from time to time to bang out a to-do list). ByWord looks like a pretty cool app. It reminds me of Scrivener, which has a FANTASTIC full-screen mode. I’m annoyed that Evernote’s full-screen mode spans the lines all the way across the monitor, making your own writing uncomfortable to read.
Good to see you hear, Ravi. Hope you’re getting some good hiking in 🙂 •. I’ve found the setting of ‘good defaults’ to be helpful for creating better habits.
Good defaults make the triggers and behaviors of negative habit harder to reach or reduce our exposure to them. I like how your use of AlphaSmart 3000 as your ‘good default’ for writing. Many native and web apps make an attempt at this, emphasizing a simple UI to remove distractions. However, most writing distractions, I suspect, are not inspired by the app itself or an additional UI widget or toolbar.
So, trying to correct for it in the app is neat and all, but likely best-serving people who are procrastinating, concluded that the writing app is to blame, and are now halfway down the rabbit hole of writing app research and comparison. I’ve been using an Alphasmart of one sort or another for writing since the days when it wasn’t a crappy device – and IMHO it still isn’t. You didn’t mention one of its best features: the fact that it has a full size, rock solid and extremely comfortable keyboard. Over the years I’ve owned more portable devices than you could shake a stick at and have tried writing on all of them, from folding keyboards attached to PDAs and phones, through netbooks and laptops of various types to desktop setups. The Alphasmart wins.
Throw it in a rucksack and take it anywhere. Take notes in a meeting unobtrusively. Be on your fourth paragraph while others are still fiddling about and booting up. I learned to touch type on an Alphasmart and have never looked back. Agreed — the 3000 suffers from “extreme sticky/quirky key syndrome”; the keys have to be pressed at a purely perpendicularly direct angle. Very frustrating.
Not so the NEO and especially the NEO2 which has a much nicer tactile feel. In fact a lot of people are using NEOs as full-sized external keyboards for their tablet computers. One important note on that score: check your tablet’s connectivity ports; you might need an adaptor to change the USB end of the printer cable (any one off the rack will do) to fit the smaller, more modern, tablet ports. They’re cheap and readily available on the internet. Download Free Software Visualmill For Solidworks Rapidshare Downloader more. Got mine at Amazon for about $5.00. Try the feel of the keys on the NEO and your 3000 will go into the nearest river.
🙂 Me go away now. Even better choice — the majorly upgraded Alphasmart NEO2. SIX lines viewable. Also, you can get a custom font-designer software program on-line (FREE!) to design your own (far better) fonts. 700 hours battery life; optional power cord, if you prefer; connects to any computer (that will accept a USB/Printer cable). Plus to quote a recent coffee-shop commentator: “That thing’s hipster as hell.” I’ve got five; get yours before they’re gone.
Stay away from the Alphasmart *Dana* model. The touchscreen is annoying, the back-lighting is a useless feature, and battery time is seriously degraded.) •.
I have a NEO–I agreeGREAT for writing. And I know the author of this article was just trying to be creative and make a point, but I would like to say this is NOT a piece of “junk”its durable, great for hiking and in its simplicity it is genius! GREAT for ethnography and international travel, not flashy or theft target, lightweight and did I mention durable! Nothing worst that dropping a lap top in the middle of writing an article–then your hundreds of dollars in the tank with no instant access to your work. The NEO is every writer’s best friend. Spread the word, maybe the company will upstart again.