emergency weblog; or: epersonae; or: elaine nelson

(riffing off of Tim Bray)

I had a work PDA…well, I still have one, but it’s old and flaky, and I opted out of an upgrade this year. I discovered that I need my calendar at meetings less often that I thought, and the PDA isn’t as good for taking notes as I thought.

We bought a laptop a little bit ago, but I’m not as perma-attached to it as Tim seems to be: C uses it at school, I think, and I *love* having it for wifi & writing on the couch, but it’s not my constant companion.

I have a cell phone, and it’s something I now couldn’t do without. The camera idea seemed cool, but integrating it with my cell phone service is a PITA. What I do love is my stupid mp3 player, which is chintzy and drains the battery like crazy, but it was on sale, and I use it on the vanpool and the bus. As a non-driving commuter, music is a must.

I wouldn’t mind being able to get to my calendar on my phone, but that would be my work calendar, which I imagine being too much trouble.

As for texting, my fingers and brain just don’t work that way. I’d much rather have an honest-to-god keyboard. Same goes for handwriting, I think, though I’d love to have something that did a combo of the two: type where typing is best (long bits of text), write/draw where that makes sense (circles, arrows, etc).

There’s a quasi-ideal gadget concept that I carry around in my head, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon…and it would almost have to be a combo: a tiny phone that would fit in my pocket, to use essentially as a walkie-talkie, and a very small laptop that would do everything else. Except take pictures, I think. I don’t know if I want either of those devices to be picture-taking.

Not that I could afford such things, of course. As it is, I probably won’t upgrade my phone until/unless we change service, and we’ll be paying off the laptop for a while….