Palm Woes

I'm a total gadget freak. LOVE gadgets. And I'm always happy when I find myself in a position to actually own a piece of new technology. I've learned over the years, in fact, that I need the stuff. I need to surround myself with technology. I don't need coffee. I don't need cigarettes. But I do need a new gadget every once in awhile.

Which makes today's entry even more painful. My trusty Palm Pilot is giving me grief, and I've had about enough. Before I tell you about that, though, let me share with you my Palm saga . . .

Sometime in early 1998, I was working a temp job at a nursing home, and my boss (a very wise woman) decided to hire me. My first act as her executive assistant was to help get her organized by ordering her a new Palm Pilot. And you're going to pay me to do this? I thought. Unfortunately, as we discussed my new salary, I found out the meaning of the term non-profit. Not one to remain on the floor very long, I attempted to . . . soften . . . the blow with a subtle hint that it would be very easy to order two Palm Pilots at the same time, one as a "welcome gift" for her new assistant. Being the wonderfully wise woman that she is, she agreed.

And Doug was never happier.

So my first Palm Pilot was the Palm Personal edition. It had 1/2 a megabyte of RAM and it was boxy like a fifties-era station wagon. But it was all mine! I quickly discovered the online community of fellow Palm users, especially the ones that occupied their time writing creative little programs for this mini-computer. (By the way, the Apollo moon missions were run on less computing power than that early Palm of mine.) I found out how to sync websites to my Palm every day, movie listings, books, and endless kilobytes of games. Too many kilobytes, in fact, and I rapidly maxed out my little PDA. Luckily, Palm came to the rescue with an upgrade card. They didn't do this for any other model since, but for the Personal edition they offered a 2mb upgrade kit. Not only did it give you four times the RAM, but it also added the infrared beaming option! (boring now, but way cool then, and it would come in handy by the end of my story!)

And just when I thought life couldn't get any better, Corey surprised me with a little gift!

Oh, yeah. (No, not like that. Like the song from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ohhhh, yeahhhhhh.)

Another four times the RAM. Half the size. And look at those curves! It was a thing of beauty. A poor man's BMW.

And life was even better than good. For many years.

But when I acquired my new favorite toy, my Powerbook, I discovered the limitations in syncing Palm Pilots with the Mac operating system. Not great. And the Vx came with a serial cradle, requiring a USB adapter just to work with my Powerbook. For the most part, I synced the Palm at work, which was a PC, so no big deal, but I've weaned myself completely from the Windows world and now it's time to be syncing at home.

But I've run into nothing but problems. The only successful sync I've made so far is through the IR port on the back of the Powerbook, and it took like an hour. I've bought two different USB cables and neither of them work. I've downloaded several different drivers and applications from both Palm and Apple . . . without success. And I'm honestly about ready to chuck the thing and buy an ipod.

When you're used to the plug-and-play reliability of the macintosh, you have little patience for anything less. When I plug my camera into my Powerbook, the pictures just appear. Just like that. No drivers. No nothing. They just appear. Same with video. Same with music.

<sigh> But I don't think my Principal (new boss) will want to buy me an ipod. I'll have to wait until I can afford my own . . .

Posted: Tue - March 16, 2004 at 10:52 PM

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Palm Woes

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