Being back in school has made me re-visit the whole note-taking issue. There are really very few choices. Either you go the old-fashioned route, or bring a laptop with you… until now. Digital pens are finally getting a bit interesting. In anticipation of Livescribe releasing their new digital pen that records the lecture as you write, I thought I would first take a look at Iogear's Mobile Digital Scribe to see how it would compare.

Livescribe’s pen records audio and syncs it to what is written. So if you take notes with it during a lecture, and then either can’t read your writing or weren’t able to get it all down, the pen can play the audio back to you at the part of the lecture where you stumbled. This lets you retrieve everything that was being said, even if you lost track during the lecture – great news for day dreamers and slow writers. Once back home, the recordings can be uploaded to your computer along with the text input. You can even share your writings and audio files on your blog or MySpace page.

Meanwhile, Iogear's Mobile Digital Scribe is the only digital device ever to capture natural handwriting from any surface, and store it in the receiver for future use. In English this means that it uses regular ink and paper; it captures the information, stores notes, memos or drawings for future upload to your computer. If you use the pen while it is hooked up to the computer directly, what you write or draw is seen immediately on the screen. Another option when the Mobile Digital Scribe is connected to your PC is to swap in the included inkless cartridge and use the pen as a stylus mouse.

So how does your computer recognize the data? My Script Notes 2.1 Lite optical character recognition (OCR) software comes bundled with the pen. (Mac users take note: it does not work on a Mac, so for now, you’re out of luck).
 
To use the pen, I simply clipped the receiver to a piece of paper in my notebook and started writing. It was easy enough to do. I did have some trouble with the OCR software, but I don’t know if I can blame the software or my less-than-stellar, doctorish handwriting.
 
If you attend a lot of conferences, write a lot of patient notes away from a computer and want to digitize them, or if there is a student in your life, this may be something to consider. It doesn’t record what’s going on around you, but it doesn’t need special paper either.

How do you see yourself using a digital pen? Do you feel it’s worth the time it takes to convert your words to on the screen?