The limits of my Geekiness are almost miniscule
I'm a gadget-fanatic, trapped in the body of a ham-fisted Luddite who hates having to throw away his old routines and learn new ones. Except when pushed, either hard, or in the right direction. This post is a bit of a lament for a lost toy, because I broke it at the beginning of this week, and although I've now got a new gadget, it's different from the old one, and I'm still missing the comfortable ways of doing things I had learnt.
I spend my life doing something new every 18 months, on average. This means that I have to have a strong set of routines to guide me through the shocks and upsets of each new contract. It is a paradox that this regular change in work means I have become a creature of very strong habits, which I cling to like the contents of a life-raft survival pack. I sometimes hold a muster to make sure that they're all still there and in good working order, and I won't let friends borrow them, not even for an afternoon. I'd rather they took my tools. I change my habits when they've got so worn that I can no longer keep myself from falling through the holes in them. (I've just checked to be sure that I haven't confused my habits with my socks and pants).
But sometimes something new comes along that just screams to be taken on board, even though the life-raft is almost awash. A shirt-pocket computer? That just *has* to be in my survival kit, doesn't it?
This started a few months ago when I had to give my mobile to my partner because she had just given her mobile to her daughter who had given her mobile to someone she had met in a club and for some reason hadn't been able to give herself to in order to get it back. I didn't use the mobile all that much anyway, all I seemed to do was say to it "I'm sorry, I'm driving at the moment, can I call you back?"
I was due a replacement phone on the terms of the contract I had, and was getting tired of the standard type of small screen and teeny button layout. So I got something that a couple of friends had already got; a palm-sized computer that happened to have a phone built in.
It also happened to have an excellent camera, took videos, recorded sound, and played music files. The screen was the size of a credit card and it had a slide-out keyboard. It could connect to the mobile phone network, to another computer by an infra-red port, and to any WiFi networks we wandered into that didn't have a password set. What more could I need? (A password-cracking program possibly).
It ran a version of Windows, which could be a good thing, or not. It didn't have to boot, and just to reassure me that it was as good as the real Windows, it locked up and needed a reset within a day of my getting it. It had Outlook, Pocket Excel, and Pocket Word, which meant I could write things on it at odd moments. Also, it had a notes feature that allowed me to scribble onto the screen and challenge it to translate my handwriting into characters. So far I've won every single game.
The slide-out keyboard was too much of a challenge for me, so at least it won something. I found that the software keyboard, where you tap with the stylus away at a miniature keyboard at the bottom of the screen, was good, but slow. Strangely, the writing I did at such a slow pace was sometimes better than that carried out at full speed into a normal keyboard. It was reminiscent of the old tappity-tap of the typewriter where you struggled more on not making mistakes than on getting the words out faster than the brain could produce them.
But sometimes speed is good, so I bought an accessory for it, a folding keyboard that talks to the XDA2 by the infra red port. The keyboard ran on two small batteries that I expected to run out on a weekly basis, but I still haven't replaced them a year after unfolding the keyboard for the first time and typing "Hello Drongo".
Together, these two became a major source of solace to me during long boring days of testing software; I wrote as I waited for tasks to complete or machines to restart after having found yet another thing the developer hadn't anticipated the user would do to their program. I logged my hours into a spreadsheet on it, and generated invoices, which I then synchronised with my computer at home and mailed off for payment.
I ignored most of its other features; I rarely used it as a phone, I texted nobody, I didn't even use it for connecting to the net or emailing. I took videos and photos with it, including the wall with the inverted artist's works featured in a recent blog post.
Pressure is always a good thing, never mind worrying about stress and nervous tension, life begins with a scream and a wail and usually ends with a groan or a sigh, and between those two utterances there is a whole cacophony of noises running from pain to pleasure, (there is a difference, you know). Silence means indifference. I was pressured into trying to get some form of internet connection during the weeks because the weekends were just not long enough.
So I opened my wallet and paid for a monthly email capacity of 4Meg, (which I doubt will be enough but it was one of their standard options). Of course it isn't perfect for the task, but it even handled an attached picture sent to me to show just how much I was monopolising somebody's inbox. In return I sent a photo, taken with the XDA, to show just how boringly ugly I could be if I looked at a lens and tried to smile.
It isn't an ideal way to roam both the world and the net; for instance, I cannot read my blog. I can see the dark brown patterned background fill the screen, and then wait in vain for the beige centre panel to load with the text. The pocket version of Internet Explorer has decided that what I post is not what I ought to be looking at. And pocket Outlook emails do not seem to indent and properly mark the replies to replies to replies that seem to characterise the emails we need to exchange. Two of us are getting very confused and it is possible that we have inadvertently mixed up our minds with each other as a result of an intense week's communication.
But it's better than sitting dreaming alone.
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I spend my life doing something new every 18 months, on average. This means that I have to have a strong set of routines to guide me through the shocks and upsets of each new contract. It is a paradox that this regular change in work means I have become a creature of very strong habits, which I cling to like the contents of a life-raft survival pack. I sometimes hold a muster to make sure that they're all still there and in good working order, and I won't let friends borrow them, not even for an afternoon. I'd rather they took my tools. I change my habits when they've got so worn that I can no longer keep myself from falling through the holes in them. (I've just checked to be sure that I haven't confused my habits with my socks and pants).
But sometimes something new comes along that just screams to be taken on board, even though the life-raft is almost awash. A shirt-pocket computer? That just *has* to be in my survival kit, doesn't it?
This started a few months ago when I had to give my mobile to my partner because she had just given her mobile to her daughter who had given her mobile to someone she had met in a club and for some reason hadn't been able to give herself to in order to get it back. I didn't use the mobile all that much anyway, all I seemed to do was say to it "I'm sorry, I'm driving at the moment, can I call you back?"
I was due a replacement phone on the terms of the contract I had, and was getting tired of the standard type of small screen and teeny button layout. So I got something that a couple of friends had already got; a palm-sized computer that happened to have a phone built in.
It also happened to have an excellent camera, took videos, recorded sound, and played music files. The screen was the size of a credit card and it had a slide-out keyboard. It could connect to the mobile phone network, to another computer by an infra-red port, and to any WiFi networks we wandered into that didn't have a password set. What more could I need? (A password-cracking program possibly).
It ran a version of Windows, which could be a good thing, or not. It didn't have to boot, and just to reassure me that it was as good as the real Windows, it locked up and needed a reset within a day of my getting it. It had Outlook, Pocket Excel, and Pocket Word, which meant I could write things on it at odd moments. Also, it had a notes feature that allowed me to scribble onto the screen and challenge it to translate my handwriting into characters. So far I've won every single game.
The slide-out keyboard was too much of a challenge for me, so at least it won something. I found that the software keyboard, where you tap with the stylus away at a miniature keyboard at the bottom of the screen, was good, but slow. Strangely, the writing I did at such a slow pace was sometimes better than that carried out at full speed into a normal keyboard. It was reminiscent of the old tappity-tap of the typewriter where you struggled more on not making mistakes than on getting the words out faster than the brain could produce them.
But sometimes speed is good, so I bought an accessory for it, a folding keyboard that talks to the XDA2 by the infra red port. The keyboard ran on two small batteries that I expected to run out on a weekly basis, but I still haven't replaced them a year after unfolding the keyboard for the first time and typing "Hello Drongo".
Together, these two became a major source of solace to me during long boring days of testing software; I wrote as I waited for tasks to complete or machines to restart after having found yet another thing the developer hadn't anticipated the user would do to their program. I logged my hours into a spreadsheet on it, and generated invoices, which I then synchronised with my computer at home and mailed off for payment.
I ignored most of its other features; I rarely used it as a phone, I texted nobody, I didn't even use it for connecting to the net or emailing. I took videos and photos with it, including the wall with the inverted artist's works featured in a recent blog post.
Pressure is always a good thing, never mind worrying about stress and nervous tension, life begins with a scream and a wail and usually ends with a groan or a sigh, and between those two utterances there is a whole cacophony of noises running from pain to pleasure, (there is a difference, you know). Silence means indifference. I was pressured into trying to get some form of internet connection during the weeks because the weekends were just not long enough.
So I opened my wallet and paid for a monthly email capacity of 4Meg, (which I doubt will be enough but it was one of their standard options). Of course it isn't perfect for the task, but it even handled an attached picture sent to me to show just how much I was monopolising somebody's inbox. In return I sent a photo, taken with the XDA, to show just how boringly ugly I could be if I looked at a lens and tried to smile.
It isn't an ideal way to roam both the world and the net; for instance, I cannot read my blog. I can see the dark brown patterned background fill the screen, and then wait in vain for the beige centre panel to load with the text. The pocket version of Internet Explorer has decided that what I post is not what I ought to be looking at. And pocket Outlook emails do not seem to indent and properly mark the replies to replies to replies that seem to characterise the emails we need to exchange. Two of us are getting very confused and it is possible that we have inadvertently mixed up our minds with each other as a result of an intense week's communication.
But it's better than sitting dreaming alone.
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posted by Sopwith-Camel | 7:55 pm
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