Letters From Home

I often joke that I’m The Queen of Yesterday’s Technology.  Oh, I keep my eye on what’s new and I pay attention to the gadgets I think it would be great to have.

Then I wait till a newer model comes out and everyone’s dumping the old ones.  That’s how I got my first laser printer (waited till Epson came out with a new model and then I bought their former top of the line) and my first Toshiba laptop (actually, in that case I waited six years to buy a formerly top of the line model) and my first iPod (a refurbished first-gen nano) and my second iPod (a “broken” 4th gen that I bought on eBay and fixed) and my third (a “broken” fifth-gen ditto).

My philosophy is that just because something’s been replaced by a newer model doesn’t mean that the original is any less good.  The quality is still there.  It’s just that there’s a flashier one that attracts people’s attention, so the price of the old one finally goes down to where I feel it’s a good investment.

Now, I’ve been called Mesozoic and worse, by the gotta-have-it folks who think I’m forever burdening myself with second best.  But, like I said, I keep up with what’s good and what’s new and that includes keeping an eye on the whizbang stuff that turns out to be more like whizzfizzle.  So, when comes time for me to buy whatever-it-is, I know it’s already tried and true.

Plus there are lots of instructions out there on the web explaining how to get around idiosyncracies and hardware glitches and so forth.

What inspired this particular rumination?  Fixing the lid latch on my Titanium Powerbook G4 and then downloading an episode of “Rome” to be played on my newly fixed iPod.

Life is good.

photo credit: mrdavisdc

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So, the battery on my trusty Palm Zire 31 is slowly giving up the ghost.

I bought a new battery for it before I took it apart. If I’d taken it apart first I would have seen that the battery leads are soldered in. While I certainly have the skills to unsolder and resolder a battery, what I don’t have is any inclination to do it.

So I guess it is time for me to think seriously about replacing the Zire before the battery bites the dust for good (I get about 30 minutes out of it now). I want to stick with Palm, both for ease of use and for ease of data transfer. I don’t need a lot of bells and whistles (as is evidenced by my long-time satisfaction with the Zire 31 and the fact that the Palm Centro is the only smartphone that has ever gotten a second look from me). I’m sure there are PDA features that I don’t now have that I will love when I get them, but truthfully other than a larger screen I can’t think of any right now.

And, of course, I have the family budget to consider. As always.

So what should I be looking at?

Cross-posted with my LiveJournal to try to capture a wider audience.

photo credit: mtsofan

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