While I was sitting here waiting for Snoopy to be delivered by an Animal Control officer who had never been to my house, I had to text her some directions to my house, and it occured to me to add a snap of the map of my house to the cluster of images on my phone that I keep permanently. Over the last few years I have come to depend on the little camera in my smartphone for nearly all my note taking needs. But first I had to UNLEARN myself from the idea of what a note is… Evernote is good for that whack on the side of the head. and I had to start thinking of images as something completely temporary. I may be just snapping an image that in a few days, minutes or hours it will become just a dead post it note headed for the trash can icon.
I am not all that impressed with the camera on the Iphone 3 for creative or permanent work. Once in a while it may take something worth keeping but not when I want it to.
But I do use it to replace my failing memory and a pencil. Why write something down, when I can just take a picture of it? why keep track of that post it note or the back of a business card, or whatever I happened to scribble something on to. (there’s no way for me to escape ending that sentance in a preposition)
It took me the while to make it my FIRST response whenever I get a scrap of information, but now I just shoot it: phone numbers, emails, apppointments, directions…business cards… I snap it and hand the it back to the person, instead of waiting until I find it crumpled up in a wet ball in the laundry. Sometimes I will save the image as a ACTUAL NOTE by forwarding it to Evernote or emailing it to myself.
If I walk by a poster I want to remember, a flyer for a yard sale, concert, lost dog, the hours of operation, a recipe in a book, a book cover or bar code, the model number of a device, the ingredient label on a food item, the shelf tag on a grocery product, the price tag in a store, the label on a piece of clothing, a call number for a library book, and the list goes on. If i need to pick up a specific part at home depot, I am just as likely to either snap a picture of the packaging or call it up on the web and send the screen grab to my phone, so I can just hold it out and see ‘THIS IS WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR.’ Not to mention snapping images of things i can’t quite describe…

I have this piece i have to replace from a bracket of a patio umbrella. i know what it does, but i will need to show it to someone to find out what it is…

Most recently I am shooting my odometer when I get in the truck and get out, thus elminating the need to write down my mileage. With this phone you can snap a ‘print screen’ by hitting the ‘enter’ button and the ‘on/off’ button simultaneously, which I find wicked convenient, I can look up something on the internet while using WIFI and then snap it, and won’t have to burn data plan minutes while I am elsewhere.
A couple of ideas I picked up from hacking sites were : take picture of your parking garage location, i would take it further and shoot your license plate, registration, license, insurance info, utility bill account numbers, and so forth. I am forever sending my license and birth certificate images to people with a W-9 and other forms. There are apps, that let you LOCK images on your phone so they can’t be retrieved by others. I embed them in notes in an Awesome Notes app, and then code lock just that notebook.

There is no music or ringtones and or even games beyond tetris…so there’s a room for more images on mine – the Yankee in me won’t let me upgrade until this one stops working…..over the couple of years i have had it…i’ve kinda figure out which sort of ‘picture’ pictures remain undeleted. Those snapshots people used to carry in their wallet…….you can even snap a photo of another photo if i don’t have it already. Myself, I tend to keep photos of anything i bring up in conversation: photos of rescued animals that are still up for adoption, animals with a good rescue story, pets i have worth talking about, photos of the covers of books I have published and so forth. (my children ha!)

Besides the little map, and the 100 year old picture of my house and a picture of a meet up spot on the river that comes in hand to direct people. A clever photo is well worth 140 characters.























