If your reading this blog then you likely, like me, have a number of unused or half-used gadets lying around your house waiting to find their usefulness in your life. Its hard to ignore them because they must have SOME use right? Its hard to sell them because they’re now outdated or scratched up. And its hard to trash them because, well, they still have some coolness and besides, you paid a good chunk for it. This is a list of some of my current gadget and PIM/organizational items and how I’m struggling with which ones to use.
|
ITEM |
PROS |
CONS |
What is UNIQUE |
|
|
|
|
|
|
iriver mp3 player |
v. small/portable and thus available for the ‘emergency record’ session |
Now that I’m mac, no mp3 syncing. Horrible interface -takes many ill-planned hard to find button presses to get anywhere |
-Very small size. |
|
M-Audio microtrack mp3/wav recorder/player |
excellent portable recorder with many options for settings, hardware, etc. Can play music if wanted |
Not the most portable mp3 player (for exercise, etc) nor is the interface meant to be for finding songs, etc. |
-Good recording quality. |
|
Ipaq 3955 Pocket PC |
can do tons -play music and movies, calendar, tasks, contacts, holding the entire wikipedia (05) database, keyboard, wifi for basic web/email when available (though admittedly not the best browsing experiece), note-taking, record notes |
record is pretty basic/low quality, ALWAYS LOSE MY STYLUS and am thus stumbling to make things work, mini keyboard is pretty tricky, and honestly I am really skeptical about how productive I am with electronic PIMS |
-Syncs PIM info -Offline Wikipedia (and other books, info, etc) -Other applications (portable and instant on)
|
|
A small paper pocket calendar
|
immediately accesible (no power or input issues), no screen-distractions, more socially acceptable |
no repeating items (bdays, weekly apts, etc), no syncing or interacting with other info, no cut and paste, no reminders, etc. |
-Simple, More socially acceptable |
After listing it like that, I think I’ve come to some conclusions:
1) I’ll give the iriver to my wife with a bunch of music on it and she can just press play when working out (but but but then I won’t have a small ‘emergency’ recorder!)
2) I’ll obviously use the Microtrack as my main recorder, I just need to start really doing some field recording.
3) Until the iphone comes out, I’ll continue to use my Ipaq for contacts, tasks and other info like instant wikipedia info.
4) I think I will switch back, for now, to a paper calendar –its just so much more practical and socially acceptable still. Not totally sure why, but seems to be true.
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