| PhatWare's Calligrapher v8.5 - Windows Mobile Utility
This software review is on PhatWare's CalliGrapher which has to be on the "must-have" list of utilities for any serious PDA junkie's collection. Setting aside the Casio B.O.S.S. I used only briefly, I consider my first handheld to be the Apple Newton MessagePad. What was the big attraction of the MessagePad device? It was its handwriting-to-text translation, the earliest ancestor of today's CalliGrapher. The inventors of that software was not Apple but actually some creative Russian programmers and the company they eventually formed called Paragraph International. CalliGrapher was and still is a revolutionary piece of software, well ahead of its time in terms of ability but lacking the hardware at that time to adequately support its functionality. Here was a utility that permitted you to actually input data via handwriting versus a keyboard which up to that point had been the only accepted method of input beyond the early punch-cards method or teletype machines front-ending those DEC/IBM mainframes.
Language studies pay off during student's Japan trip
Learning to communicate with people from another culture opened a new world for Quincy teenager Jane Hayashi. The Quincy High School graduate recently returned from a year in Japan as an exchange student with American Field Service. She attended high school and lived with two host families. "Learning a foreign language is one of the most interesting and rewarding things I could possibly do," Hayashi said. Speaking Japanese helped her form friendships, understand their customs and break down some of their stereotypes of Westerners. She also gained a new appreciation for the Spanish she had learned since junior high. "I didn't feel very good about my command of the language at all," she said. When she found she could make herself understood by a Venezuelan, another foreign exchange student in Japan, Spanish "became sort of our secret language because no one else could understand it," she said.
Photographer spotlighting the historic panorama in Rockport
Cape Ann photographer Leslie Bartlett will discuss the theme of panorama when he returns to the Rockport Art Association for a lecture on Wednesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. He will focus on three renowned quarries and discuss how the forces of time and space are altered and expressed in extended format.
Bartlett gave his first lecture at the Rockport Art Association last fall, highlighting the historic panorama and its development in England and Europe. He discussed the subsequent economic and artistic influences the panorama has had on the Hudson River School painters, many of whom visited Cape Ann.
Next week's talk will continue the theme of the panorama for the painter and photographer. Bartlett's talk will cover the Bibemus Quarry in France, Bethesda Quarry in Wales, and Babson Quarry at Halibut Point State Park in Rockport.
Life’s Work Sharing Practical Truths, in Child-Size Measures
I RECENTLY had a chance to speak to a cafeteria full of high school girls at the Lincoln School in Providence, R.I. Each had been asked to invite a woman she admires, and most brought their moms, making it the first time I spoke to an audience of mothers and daughters. .
Having faith in women
Chicken Little was wrong. The sky isn't falling, but the glass ceiling appears to be. In February, Harvard announced the appointment of its first female president. The month before, Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) was sworn in as the first female speaker of the House of Representatives. Bigger still, Sen. Hillary Clinton " /> Hillary Clinton is the Democratic front-runner for the presidency. In politics and academia, women are finally getting their due. .
John Kaizan Neptune
He speaks as a professional musician of 30 years' standing. Having studied the bamboo flute, he brought to it his background in jazz, thereby earning a reputation for versatility and "a technically sophisticated melting pot of sounds." He said, "Mine was a natural process. It was really interesting, and took me quite a while. I forged my own path, created my own little niche. I really feel good about the things I am doing." Born into a musical family in California, Neptune as a boy was passionate about the trumpet and drums. Whimsical and high-spirited, he was also passionate about sports and chose to go to the University of Hawaii because of the allure of surfing there. Beginning the study of ethnomusicology at the university, he wanted to learn the Indian tabla. Instead, he turned to the Japanese bamboo flute.
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