Bleeding edge of tech

[ksmith]

Several years ago, I took the PDA plunge and bought a Jornada 548, one of HP's entries in the tech wars. This was about a year after it first came out--I had read that folks screamed about the 16K color screen that really turned out to be much less distinct and colorful, but it could do email with a modem card and came with a Pocket PC version of Word, so I was happy. Bought a few add-ons--a folding keyboard, a GPS module (which I never used), and called myself a techie.

Then HP bought Compaq, Jornadas were killed in favor of iPaqs, and I was stuck.

This was of course one of the last models that came with the need-to-send-it-back-to-HP-to-get-switched-out batteries.

Over time, said battery went south, holding charge for less and less time until finally it quit holding a charge at all. Lost everything I had loaded into it a few times, which was a pain. But since I only made use of it at cons, and my con-going has decreased markedly over the last few years, I quit worrying about it.

Then recently, like *today*, I thought oh hell, why not see if you can get it up and running again. WFC is coming up, and a functional PDA is a nice thing to have. So I found a place online selling original HP batteries, and bought a couple. Even with shipping, it comes out to less than the going price of a Jornada 540-series, which looks to be about $35.

Needless to say, I did not pay $35 for mine three years ago.

Ah, tech.

UPDATE: Ah, tech, indeed.

There exists a program called PocketMac that enables Pocket PCs and Macs to work together. If I can find the USB cradle that came with my Jornada, I may check this out.

Oh, dear, they sell updated themes and everything...

Comments

[planetalyx.livejournal.com]

I've been having dreams of a newer faster Palmpilot with a few more hedges against data loss, but so far have resisted the urge.

[fancythat2.livejournal.com]

I am curious about palm pilots. Is it a small but real computer or is is an organizer?
If it is a real computer, what can it do?

[planetalyx.livejournal.com]

Mine's an organizer... but it's a very old model. And I've resisted looking too closely at the newest ones, because if they're computers it'll be harder to resist buying one.

It lets me type and edit text, though, which is all I need.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

One reason I was so excited about the Jornada originally was because of the Pocket PC capabilities--Word/Excel, plus an e-reader and other options.

Honestly, though, the screen is so small (2.25" x 3") that web browsing is difficult. I could never get the formatting to stick in Word, so that my paragraphs never indented. I don't recall whether underlining and such worked--I think it did, but it was a pain to activate.

But as a con calendar, you couldn't beat it. It saved my butt at ConJose and TorCon.

[planetalyx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like using mine as a con calendar too.

[fancythat2.livejournal.com]

I've been resisting temptation too. :-)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

If I start traveling more often, I'll invest in an upgraded something--whatever interfaces with a Mac and has the data loss safeguards. Maybe I'll go all-out and get wireless email, too.

What's better, Blackberry or Palm?

[planetalyx.livejournal.com]

I've heard Blackberries are awfully slick... I'd want a chance to try one out, though.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Yeah--I wish there was an easy way to take these things out on dry run before committing oneself.

[fancythat2.livejournal.com]

I just picked up a jump drive or flash drive today. It stores files/pix in it's brain so you can shuffle those files to another computer easily. it's supposed to be faster than disks. It's about the size of a...flat mini candy bar.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

My Jornada does have a slot for a flash card, allowing me to save important stuff to the card instead of the Jornada hard rive.

Not that I always remembered to do that...