Author David Hewson on his latest software set up

Posted by Hugh
Dec 10, 2012 at 12:34 PM

A word about David Hewson. It goes almost without saying that he’s not a typical technology user. This isn’t to criticise his advice, nor to say that the news of his re-conversion to Windows isn’t significant.

I’ve followed and quite often applied his recommendations on hardware and software since before he was an author, when as a journalist he wrote about technology for the London Sunday Times. He has at his finger-tips a wealth of knowledge and also a willingness to experiment and invest that probably rivals those of the most Crimpy of us here. As he himself says in his blog, he’ll tell us in a year his final verdict on his current tools.

For me, the most interesting of his current recommendations is the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 for annotating and editing pdfs - so much easier with long-form writing for the writer to be as close as possible to paper-free. The Galaxy Note 10.1 still remains (I think) the only pure iPad-style tablet with a digitiser under the screen, although Adonit are trying to achieve the same effect with the Jot Touch for the iPad, and I’ve heard that more (less expensive) tablets with digitisers (and probably Windows 8) will be launched in the New Year.

But for me, David Hewson’s most important words are the ones Alexander quotes above: effectively, focus on the ends - the work - not the means - i.e try to slay the Crimp dragon!