Data Loss

I lost my pda data again. This used to be a very regular event. It's been ages since I restored this thing. Anyway, has me wondering if it's time to upgrade to something with non-volatile memory and physical buttons. The proliferation of touch screens is something that really annoys me. Does nobody try to use portable devices in moving vehicles anymore? The loss of tactile response also makes things like touch typing impossible, not that the buttons are big enough. This brings me to another annoyance about portable electronics, the qwerty keyboard. It's a familiar horizontal layout, but the device feels most comfortable held vertically. A vertical keyboard layout seems to make the most sense for quick and accurate data entry. I don't expect to find something with a vertical keyboard outside of graphing calculators and those tend to be a tad on the large side.
Ramblings aside this seems to be a good time to reconsider my accounting practises since I now have a gap in my records. Other than that, I can't think of anything too important that's been lost. Pretty much everything else hasn't changed since last backup, but I'm sure I've bought a few things and got paid at least once between then. I'm going to try not tracking every penny for a while. I'm sure life will go on without being able to view my account balances in three taps of the stylus.
Do I want to associate sales tax with the item purchased and group it in with the price?
I'm not sure if it's really useful to keep a running tally of how much I spent on sales tax. Though it is a pain to split taxes so that they fit in the appropriate categories.
It seems to make sense starting with gross pay and recording my payroll deductions rather than starting with net pay. That's not going to change.
One change I think I'll make is start classifying expenses as either being essential, could be cheaper and non-essential.
While I'm pretty happy with the software on the PDA, I also want to start recording things on my computer as well. So time to try some different software, figure out exactly how I want to do things, then go back to tracking my income and expenses.