Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
I am still pondering the sale of my iMac when I move next month. I can still get a large amount for it, so I keep thinking will I be better served by a different computer? If I do sell it I would need a DVD burner for my powerbook or some other solution. I would also want a larger flat panel screen for my desk at home since I use the 20″ most of the time.
Too many choices. Pondering continues…
I got a call from the cable company that provides service in the building I am moving to. They said that the management company sent them my name. I currently use Time Warner, and for the most part I am happy. This place uses RCN.
First impression is that they are more money for less services. I get 4 premium packages, digital cable and a cable modem for under $100. These new guys offer you digital cable, a cable modem, and 1 premium package for $101. I am loosing 3 premium packages. To get them, I need to pay $13 more per channel That is a racket. Extra cable box’s are also more money per box than I currently pay. The only plus side is that I can buy a static IP address for $4 per month. I don’t think I can do that now. Of course my current provider only changes your address if you leave your modem off for extended periods of time. I have had my same IP for over a year.
In a nutshell I think I am getting a worse deal than I currently have. Only time will tell, but as I like to say “i think this will end badly”.
I went the day without my Treo. I mean I didn’t use it as my cell phone, and I didn’t carry it around wherever I went. Here is what I realized.
The all in one device is a great idea. I found myself walking around with my Pocket PC fishing in my pockets for my cell phone when I wanted to make a call. Not everyone I know fit into my T610. I walked around with the Pocket PC since I keep my To Do list on that or my Treo. So I saved weight by only carrying a light cell phone, but ended up with my bigger Pocket PC in hand most of the time when I left my office.
This is a well known conclusion. A combined device is better if you DO carry around a phone and an organizer. I thought I would save on some weight by using the T610. For part of the day I was right, but for the rest of the day I was not.
The other point is that the screen on my iPaq 1945 Pocket PC is 10x better than my Treo. I would use that if the device wasn’t so dam big. yes I know that is the smallest pocket PC out there, but it is still big compared to my Treo. A Treo with bluetooth and a better screen would be nice. Please?
Tomorrow I will go back to my Treo. Actually as I sit on the train now, I ponder swapping my SIM card back into the Treo.
The only advantage the T610 has over the Treo is the fact it has bluetooth so I can use a wireless head set, and that the camera is better. it takes smaller photo’s, but they are clearer. Man can you tell the difference.
I did the unthinkable. I turned off my Treo today. I took the SIM card out of it and placed it in my Sony Ericsson T610. I am doing this for the day. Why you mask ask? Or you may not give a crap. I am wearing shorts today, and pocket space is limited. Carrying my Treo, & wallet it fells like I am carrying rocks. I have my new blackberry. It is big, but clipped to my belt. So for now I don’t need this huge phone. I still love it, and need it. I will leave it on my desk and use it as a palm when needed. But I want to keep my cell on me during the day. I can do that easier with the T610. This is the weight dilemma that I have always had. It is a bigger issue in the summer time when I have no jacket.
What I really need is the Blackberry software on my Treo so I don’t need this new big Blackberry I have. But this big blackberry is great. it has a nice wide keyboard, and direct connect. I am in technology heaven, but I now have too many devices. each one is great, but only does some of the things I need:( I need the pocket knife of smart phones, but it hasn’t been made yet. Come on PalmOne, make me a better Treo. I will buy it!
Several months ago I read that CD-R’s and DVD-R’s won’t last as long as most people orginally thought. The personally recorded disks may only be good for 3-5 years. No one knows. I have been using CD-R’s and more recently DVD-R’s as my only form of backup of my computer data.
I keep everything on the computer now a days so those backup’s are important. Knowing these CD’s “rot” I decided to take all my backups dating back to 1998, and put them back on a hard drive. I then backed up that directory to another hard drive. Drives are cheap so I figure if I keep all my crap on 2 drives I will be safe from problems. Or so I hope. I took some of the really old backups and destroyed the CD’s. I still have my recent DVD’s of backup’s for 2002-2004, but older stuff is getting destroyed since I don’t really need the CD’s with them back on disk. I use a Lacie firewire drive with 200 gig of storage space.
I also decided to buy a new Firewire drive every year for backup’s of crap. I realized that I bought my 200-gig drive less than a year ago and I have only like 50-gig’s left. It is cheaper to buy a new drive than to worry about removing crap off the existing one when it gets filled up.
I still have some more archiving to do, but I am getting things cleaned up virtually and physically before I start packing to move!
I have said good things about CallShield before. I will say more good things. It filters calls to my Treo 600. So if XYZ person calls and I don’t want them to call, I can send them to voice mail, or refuse the call or hang up on them right away.
The hang up function is great. I have some old lady who keeps calling me. She is so old and or retarded she keeps dialing my number instead of whoever it is she really wants to get. So I programed my phone to hang up on her. I see in the phone log that she calls like 8 times trying to get through. People are stupid.
The reason I am praising the software again is that she tried to call last night at like 1:30AM. I didn’t know this until this morning since the software worked as advertised. My only problem is that I wont want to switch to another phone since I won’t be able to do this kind of filtering on a normal cell phone.
OK I am having issues with my snapper mail. Not sure if it is the software or my IMAP server but I cannot connect to one IMAP box I want to get to. I can get to others. Not sure if it is because this box has a ton of mail in it. I am going to empty it out and see if it works then.
Besides that the software seems great. it does the sync between the imap server and my Treo very quick compared to versa mail. I don’t use versa mail because it is so slow. Also because you cannot schedule send and receives.
I just downloaded Snapper Mail 2.0 from their website. It is a beta of the latest Palm mail client. I purchased their version 1.9x back in December. it is great, but it didn’t support IMAP. The enterprise version of the new 2.0 does support this feature. I tried it out yesterday and have 60 more days on the demo. So far it looks awesome.
I switched over to the IMAP server that my company uses, versus the second POP account I setup just for my Treo. Now what I read at work will be read on my Treo, and vice versa. I can see what I am doing on both devices. It is great. I use IMAP mailbox’s at work and personal already so this was a great addition for me. Now I can use my Treo, Mac, Work laptop or anywhere and get the same mail. it is the best thing short of Exchange.
So far I am down with buying this upgrade to an already great product. I want to give it a few more weeks to see if I have any major issues. First looks, look great!!!
Sunday I got the OS back on my Thinkpad. Today was spent getting all the other applications on it. Throughout the day I had people come and ask for stuff. I would say, dam I need to install that. I would spend the next 20 minutes doing an install to get 5 seconds of information for someone. Hopefully this will be done soon so I can resume my normal work schedule routine.
Most importantly I still need to put on the VPN and Wireless software on the laptop, so I can be remote when I am in Kingston tomorrow. That is on my agenda for first thing Tuesday.
I finally gave into the desire. I just got finished backing up all (i hope) of my data on my IBM Thinkpad T-40. As I write this I am running the IBM rapid restore function. Basically a hidden partition on the hard drive has all the settings and software that the machine had when it was bought. I am just returning it to the factory fresh setup.
I do this every once and a while. I may have done it once or twice before on this particular machine and I have only had it for 11 months. When I had more free time I would do this almost every 2-3 months. Now I don’t have the time, so it is a big pain in the ass to do, but it does wonders for the performance of the box.
I was having issues with the machine freezing up and then begin to work again after 30 seconds or so. I also realized how much crap I had accumulated on the machine. Now I am going to put Windows XP (pro), all the security patches and a few other pieces of software. Everything else I need I will put in a VMWare Virtual Machine. I will put VMWare workstation 4.5 on my machine. I just downloaded the free upgrade from 4.0. I want to keep this laptop as clean as possible. I know deep down that it will never happen in reality, but at least I will try.
I will spend the next week installing the main pieces of software I will need. I will spend the next month after that installing other miscellaneous pieces of software until I am finally happy with the setup.
Whenever I do this I always hope I remembered to back everything up. I almost always forget something. Sometimes important stuff, but usually something stupid, that will just take me time to get again, or I say goodbye forever to it.