Technology 1, Plonq 0

[plonq]

I took my PDA with me when I went to the mall for lunch today.  I took it along to read the news that I'd downloaded to it this morning, but I decided on a whim to try out its remote Livejournal client while I was there.  I didn't say much since it was primarily a proof of concept post.

That post may or may not appear here, before or after this post.  The truth is, my PDA reports that it sent the post off to... somewhere, and it didn't get any errors back in the process.  Something at the other end of the connection was happy with the journal entry.  The only question remaining for me is, where did my post go from there?

If it never shows, I'm all for blaming ActiveSync (which may be the subject of a future angry rant).

Comments

[anthony-lion.livejournal.com]

InActiveSynch?

Please don't tell me you fell for the marketing crap and that you're using a iPaq or something?

WinCE didn't get functional printing OR dynamic memory-allocation before V3.0, and the synch is... just plain wrong...
(It's the only software known to be more unstable than Psion's Winlink 2.0 running on WinXP...)

Anyway, what kind of battery-life do you get on it?
Can it top the 30Hours on a pair of AAs my Psion S5 gives, or the 60hours on my Psion S3a?
(No, they don't have any multimedia, the screen is greyscale, and only one of them has touchscreen, but they both have usable keyboards and ha've been able to go online since 1995 or so... )

Me, rub it in?
noooo....

:-)

[leopanthera.livejournal.com]

Hooray fellow Psion user. :)

I went from a 3a to a 5. Both died eventually. (The 5 first!)

I'm now on a Palm Treo. It's OK. Certainly miles better than a PocketPC.

[anthony-lion.livejournal.com]

I got started on a S3a...

A friend who worked in a computerstore lent it to me over a weekend 'to see if I liked it'...
I spent that weekend in my tent on a camping-site near Trondheim(I'm in Norway), writing my first program for it...
On monday I bought the machine...
(The b@stard later admitted that everyone he lent them to bougth them afterwards)

In 1997 I upgraded to the S5(8MB model, of course)..
I soon added a PCMCIA-pod and a Nokia GSM-modem so that I could read email and surf the net with it (9600 is slow... very slow... but with graphics switched off, it was possible)

And then came the netBook...
I! Love! my! netBook!
32MB RAM, 190MHz StrongARM processor, large screen, network capable(with a PCMCIA card), GREAT keyboard.
Some time after I got the S5, though, something happened, and I now have one or more machine from EVERY generation Psion has ever made...
From the Organiser One, via the smalll Siena, the MC400 laptop, to the netBook.
I even have a few of the industrials, like a HC100 and a workabout Mx...
And a couple of crates of other machines...
(About 150... )

Oh, and my S5 really SHOULD have been dead, with both hinges broken, cracked screen-cable, bits falling off the shell...
But a new screen-cable and a new gold-painted shell made it all pretty again. :-)

I like to use my MC400 to prove just how badly designed a PC and Windows is...
It was released in 1989, and had a NEC V30 processor(8086compatible), 256KB RAM, B/W 640x400 LCD, touchpad, WYSIWYG wordprocessor and spreadsheet, 16bits Pre-emptive multitasking OS with a GUI that supports Z-order on windows(overlapping) and which can run for 20hours on a single recharge, or 60 hours on 8 x AA cells...
(Yes, those are real-world numbers. I use it for writing, so I know)

[anthony-lion.livejournal.com]

Oooh...

You're a fellow Mac user :-)

[leopanthera.livejournal.com]

I certainly am. Power Mac G5 and (Aluminium) PowerBook G4. :)

[atara.livejournal.com]

No, Plonq didn't fall for the "marketing crap."

It was a Christmas gift from his wife, who did a lot of fucking research before making the purchase - taking into consideration our home network, the stuff he wanted it to do, and reviews of the product.

You know... Any time that Plonq has a problem with a machine, he usually gets at least one message from an Apple user doing the whole "omg, I can't believe you use Windoze lolollerskatez" thing. When I see his friends having trouble with their Macs (which happens more frequently than I would expect, based on the propaganda spouted by the Mac community), do I see Plonq responding with, "omg I can't believe you paid so much for a doorstop lollerskates"?

NO.

Having some fucking courtesy. Both systems have problems. Both have advantages. If you have nothing useful to add, feel free to move along.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Having worked in a shop with the only Mac technician in the state who didn't live in Sydney, I can tell you that Macs DO break far more frequently than the User-hype would have you believe.

And, as a bonus, when they break it is often catastrophic and requires the replacement of parts that are only available from the nearest Apple distributer which in our case was in Sydney, 400 km away. Often the parts were unavailable and he had to wait for them to come from the US. Typical repair time for a Macintoy: 1 week IF the parts were available. If not, 2 weeks to 1 month.

Of course, I was just the dumb DOSbox techy who could hack Win3.1/3.11/95/98/ME/2K/NT/XP into shape. So what would I know about Macintoys.

It does work ...

[smrgol-t-kirin.livejournal.com]

I've used my Palm T5 and my Sony PSP to post to LJ over the web by wifi.
(Mostly while I'm sitting at the VW service center)