The Very Best Gadgets!
OK, I admit it—it’s a trick title. Anyone who claims to identify the very best gadgets will get into a lot of trouble, quickly. Every class of gadget—music player, PDA, digital camera, cell phone, and others—has a coterie of zealous fans, each with their favorite brand and model.
But what I can tell you about is my favorite gadgets, and give you some reasons for my choices, with the hope that these insights will shed a little light on your path to happy and productive gadget use.
PDA
Apple coined the abbreviation “PDA” for “personal digital assistant,” when they released the groundbreaking Newton in the early nineties. But the breakthrough PDA was the Palm Pilot, which came out a couple of years later.
Your typical PDA has built-in functions—address book, task list, calendar, notes—and the capacity to run additional software you can buy. Today’s PDAs are as small as a pack of cigarettes, have color screens, 32 or more megs of memory, a memory expansion slot, and other functions, such as wireless communications.
My current PDA is a Palm Zire 72. It’s about 4.5 by 3 by .7 inches, and weighs 4.8 ounces. It has a 312 MHz Intel processor, and comes with 32 megs of usable RAM. It has a 320x320 color screen.
The Z72 comes with all the usual built-in apps, so it is truly an address book/appointment calendar/task list machine. In addition, it’s a great voice recorder, MP3 player, and 1-megapixel digital camera.
Of course, the only way I can trust all my thousands of contacts and other crucial information to a little electronic box that I might sit on is to have it synchronized with my desktop personal information manager. This baby talks to MS Outlook, Time & Chaos (my favorite), Palm Desktop, and others.
It also reads Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and—with extra software—Powerpoint presentations.
And it connects by USB wire, infrared, or Bluetooth.
My battery lasts all day, with my typical usage, without recharging.
I like this thing so much I’ve created a website about it: http://TheZire72.com.
Cell phone
I am a contrarian when it comes to cell phones. You’d guess I’d have the latest combined PDA/phone/camera/coffeemaker. But no – I like my phone to be just a phone.
I have a several-year-old Sanyo 4900. It has a color display, a really loud speaker phone, a nice variety of ringer tones, and buttons big enough for me to see and feel.
Periodically, I step into my local phone store, to see if there is anything I’d like better. So far, the answer is no. I don’t even know how to use many of the fancy functions on this one!
Digital camera
If I indulged my love of photography, I’d never get anything else done. So when I need a quick pic, I use my PDA. For slightly more serious photography, I have a 2-megapixel Canon PowerShot S100. It doesn’t begin to compare to some of the new models out there, but it’s more than adequate to capture family events and occasional forays into nature.
Digital recorder
Even though my PDA does a good job as a recorder, my Olympus WS-100 digital voice recorder is better. And since it is only about a third the size of the PDA, and considerably lighter, and runs forever on a single AAA cell, I carry it everywhere.
To get its contents—up to four hours of high-quality audio—onto my computer, I pop off its end-cap to reveal a standard USB plug. I plug that into a USB port on my laptop, and it appears to Windows (or to MacOS) like a memory drive.
When it’s in my shirt pocket, it records my talks and presentations better than far more expensive and fancy units. Powerful.
Laptop computer
This topic really needs an article all its own. So I’ll just note here that I use an HP tc1100 tablet computer, and have never been as happy with a non-Mac computer as I am with this one.
There is something about being able to write and draw—and type when I want to—that makes use of the tablet PC an engaging and even transformative experience. In my office, it’s plugged into a 22-inch monitor. It’s my only machine, and it is truly wonderful.
If you get a chance to try out a tablet, do so.
Music player
Even though I do not like to walk around “plugged in” to earphones, I cannot resist the gorgeous design of the iPods. Especially the Nano.
For now, I listen to recordings and podcasts on my Z72.
Conclusion
Most people, even gadget-lovers, never get around to exploring and using the full functionality of their devices. Life has simply gotten too complex for many of us, and learning one more set of button-pushes, one more menu sequence, is just too much—even when learning it would save us a lot of time in the long run, because we use the functions every day.
So if you acquire a new gadget, or have some on hand, invest some time in learning its proper use. It will pay off handsomely.
An important point about PDA use: If you decide to get one, do away with your paper notebook. Otherwise, you will never know if or where you recorded that appointment or phone number. My dad used to say, “A man with two watches never knows what time it
But what I can tell you about is my favorite gadgets, and give you some reasons for my choices, with the hope that these insights will shed a little light on your path to happy and productive gadget use.
PDA
Apple coined the abbreviation “PDA” for “personal digital assistant,” when they released the groundbreaking Newton in the early nineties. But the breakthrough PDA was the Palm Pilot, which came out a couple of years later.
Your typical PDA has built-in functions—address book, task list, calendar, notes—and the capacity to run additional software you can buy. Today’s PDAs are as small as a pack of cigarettes, have color screens, 32 or more megs of memory, a memory expansion slot, and other functions, such as wireless communications.
My current PDA is a Palm Zire 72. It’s about 4.5 by 3 by .7 inches, and weighs 4.8 ounces. It has a 312 MHz Intel processor, and comes with 32 megs of usable RAM. It has a 320x320 color screen.
The Z72 comes with all the usual built-in apps, so it is truly an address book/appointment calendar/task list machine. In addition, it’s a great voice recorder, MP3 player, and 1-megapixel digital camera.
Of course, the only way I can trust all my thousands of contacts and other crucial information to a little electronic box that I might sit on is to have it synchronized with my desktop personal information manager. This baby talks to MS Outlook, Time & Chaos (my favorite), Palm Desktop, and others.
It also reads Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and—with extra software—Powerpoint presentations.
And it connects by USB wire, infrared, or Bluetooth.
My battery lasts all day, with my typical usage, without recharging.
I like this thing so much I’ve created a website about it: http://TheZire72.com.
Cell phone
I am a contrarian when it comes to cell phones. You’d guess I’d have the latest combined PDA/phone/camera/coffeemaker. But no – I like my phone to be just a phone.
I have a several-year-old Sanyo 4900. It has a color display, a really loud speaker phone, a nice variety of ringer tones, and buttons big enough for me to see and feel.
Periodically, I step into my local phone store, to see if there is anything I’d like better. So far, the answer is no. I don’t even know how to use many of the fancy functions on this one!
Digital camera
If I indulged my love of photography, I’d never get anything else done. So when I need a quick pic, I use my PDA. For slightly more serious photography, I have a 2-megapixel Canon PowerShot S100. It doesn’t begin to compare to some of the new models out there, but it’s more than adequate to capture family events and occasional forays into nature.
Digital recorder
Even though my PDA does a good job as a recorder, my Olympus WS-100 digital voice recorder is better. And since it is only about a third the size of the PDA, and considerably lighter, and runs forever on a single AAA cell, I carry it everywhere.
To get its contents—up to four hours of high-quality audio—onto my computer, I pop off its end-cap to reveal a standard USB plug. I plug that into a USB port on my laptop, and it appears to Windows (or to MacOS) like a memory drive.
When it’s in my shirt pocket, it records my talks and presentations better than far more expensive and fancy units. Powerful.
Laptop computer
This topic really needs an article all its own. So I’ll just note here that I use an HP tc1100 tablet computer, and have never been as happy with a non-Mac computer as I am with this one.
There is something about being able to write and draw—and type when I want to—that makes use of the tablet PC an engaging and even transformative experience. In my office, it’s plugged into a 22-inch monitor. It’s my only machine, and it is truly wonderful.
If you get a chance to try out a tablet, do so.
Music player
Even though I do not like to walk around “plugged in” to earphones, I cannot resist the gorgeous design of the iPods. Especially the Nano.
For now, I listen to recordings and podcasts on my Z72.
Conclusion
Most people, even gadget-lovers, never get around to exploring and using the full functionality of their devices. Life has simply gotten too complex for many of us, and learning one more set of button-pushes, one more menu sequence, is just too much—even when learning it would save us a lot of time in the long run, because we use the functions every day.
So if you acquire a new gadget, or have some on hand, invest some time in learning its proper use. It will pay off handsomely.
An important point about PDA use: If you decide to get one, do away with your paper notebook. Otherwise, you will never know if or where you recorded that appointment or phone number. My dad used to say, “A man with two watches never knows what time it
posted by Joel at 11:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home