So I bought an AlphaSmart 3000 off of eBay. But my decision to actually get one is confusing me a little. Why exactly do I feel so certain that I want to buy such an odd piece of tech, when I have a laptop so easily available and am even looking at getting a G1 phone with a bluetooth keyboard that would work just as well?

I borrowed my friend's AlphaSmart 3000 during my vacation to do simple writing. I didn't want to take my laptop since I wasn't sure about the power situation but, more importantly, I didn't want the distractions. I find many other things more attractive than writing, like browsing, coding or solitaire, but usually far less satisfying. If I got rid of those "other things", I knew I would be able to concentrate more on what mattered to me; the writing.

This played out amazingly well during the vacation as I got a lot of writing done. I also found it's instant on / instant off ability very conductive to capturing what I was thinking. It was able to grab it, turn it on and be writing within seconds. Then when I was done, I just turn it off and set it aside.

Also, it's minimalism is a huge strength. It's basically a keyboard, a very durable and nice feeling keyboard, with a little LCD screen on it and some memory. It can only be used for writing, and that is greatly appealing to me. I write best by typing and have never been one to write with pen and paper. With an AlphaSmart, I finally feel like I've found my electronic "pen and paper" substitute.

Since its 3 AA batteries can last over 300 hours and it's case is very rugged with no moving parts except it's heavy plastic keys, it's a great take along when you're going some place that you wouldn't want your nice little computer to go. This could easily fit in a carry-on bag and it's not to big to be used in an airplane seat. It's also easily taken apart and clean so I wouldn't mind taking it to the beach or the great outdoors for fear of it getting dirty.

What it's really good for though is writing what Anne Lamott in Bird By Bird calls "shitty first drafts". You aren't going to be doing much editing on this thing with a small four line LCD screen and you can't see a lot of what you've already typed, but you sure can pound out the words. That simple fact has got me writing again and that's something that a lot of other devices just haven't been able to do.

I'm typically not a fan of specialized devices. I like to have devices that do more than one thing at a time like, say, a phone with a browser, camera, MP3 player, GPS and whatever apps I write for it. But the AlphaSmart does one thing and it does it well. Now we'll see how well I use it.

I got to play with an AlphaSmart 3000 recently and am actually going to be buying one of my own. One problem I was warned about was that it didn't quite work under Linux. Since the AlphaSmart just acts like a USB keyboard to the computer when transferring files I figured there was just some crazy little things that needed to be done to get it to work.

Well, I was right. There is a crazy little thing you need to do.

Here are the steps to get the one I was working with to work under Linux:

1. Turn on the AlphaSmart
2. Plug it into the computer's USB port
3. Turn on the Num Lock key on the computer's keyboard. You must do this before hitting any keys on the AlphaSmart
4. Try typing on the AlphaSmart keyboard to make sure it's transferring

After that works, you can use the AlphaSmart to transfer your files like you normally would.