I’ve always been fascinated by network node diagrams and seeing how things are connected. This is my Facebook network generated by an application called Nexus.
Connections
Gadget quandry
So with the demise of PalmOS and related Palm gadgetry, I now find myself forced to make a decision regarding my future handheld gadgets.
What do I get next when my T3 dies?
8 years ago when I got my first PDA, a Handspring Visor Platinum, I didn’t think I would be using it for much other than keeping track of the occasional appointment and contact info. It didn’t take very long for my Visor to become a pretty integral part of my daily routine and for me to become more than a little dependent on it. The dependency only grew when the Visor was replaced with a Tungsten T3.
Now all of the handheld form factor gadgets out there are some kind of cell phone type device. I’ve survived this long without a cell phone and really don’t feel any urgent desire to get one. I really don’t need another monthly bill right now either.
What am I looking for in a handheld device? Basically something that will do everything that I can do with PalmOS 5. PIM apps (calendar, to-do, contacts, notes) are a requirement. Some kind of simple database app would also be very nice. Has to turn on quickly and have good battery life (5+ hours continuous use). When I first got my T3, I poo-poo’d wireless, but now I’m thinking it might be nice to have in a handheld.
There’s the UMPC world, but those things are pretty freaking expensive and they’re not really geared toward what I want out of a handheld device. Plus I’d probably be stuck running some variant of Windows and having to use Outlook for the PIM functions that I want. gag.
I suppose I could cruise EBay and gather up a stockpile of T3s or T5s to keep me going for the next few years. I could possibly be convinced to consider an Apple iPod Touch too. Maybe it’s time I entered the cell phone world?
HP 28S: 21 years of calculating and still going
I was crunching some numbers with my calculator when it suddenly dawned on me that I’ve been using this calculator for 21 years now. 21 years! I know people who weren’t even born when I bought it!
My HP 28S, purchased sometime around 1988 when I was just a lowly undergrad student in my first year of school (could have been 1989, which would make it only 20 years old and me in my second year of school) .
I think it was actually the first purchase I ever made with my very first credit card. I remember one of my engineer friends had one, and after playing with his for a bit, I decided I needed one too. It turned out to be probably the best $280Cdn that I ended up spending during my school years.
These days it doesn’t get used nearly as much as it used to and the calculations it does get used for aren’t nearly as complex. It’s still pretty reliable though and does everything I ask it to.
HP 28S circa 1988 serial number 2933A03136. I even have the manuals for it too.
No, you can’t have it.
120GB in the palm of your hand
The new hard drive. It still amazes me that something this small can hold as much as it does, and it’s not even the largest capacity drive available. Quarter presented for size comparison.
Laptop refresh phase 1
Phase 1 of the laptop refresh project (replacement battery and new RAM) has gone off mostly uneventfully so far. My initial test of the battery gave me a bit of a surprise when the laptop shut itself off after 30 minutes and 86% capacity. For a while I thought I had a dud battery until I realized that it was probably the laptop power profile setting that caused it to turn off. Resetting it to a different profile that didn’t automatically hibernate or shut down gave me much better results, with the laptop running for about 3 hours doing distributed.net work (with the CPU throttled down to half speed on battery power). After a couple of tests, I’m much more confident in the battery now.
The added RAM has done much to improve the performance of the laptop. No more green disk like blinking on constantly while Windows shuffles memory pages in and out of virtual memory. Althought Windows still acts pretty dog slow, it’s much better than it was.
The new hard drive arrived today, so phase 2 can begin any time. Probably won’t do anything until the weekend though. The so far plan is to:
* remove the existing drive and place it into an enclosure
* install the new drive
* create two 60GB partitions on the new drive
* install Windows on one partition
* install Linux (either Fedora 10 or Ubuntu) on the other partition
* restore data from the old drive and reinstall applications