You know it’s Spring when…

Sadly, Lane Stadium is currently under construction, which is why in the background there isn’t anyone in the East stands. The game also didn’t have the same energy as a typical Tech football game. No one was screaming or jumping around, or chanting… the Marching Virginians weren’t playing "Stick It In" or any of our songs… no one knew who to root for. It was a scrimmage… so both teams were ours… Go Hokies…

Pics are low quality because I took them with my cell phone, but you gotta love Technology…

I am finding it more and more difficult to carry all my technology with me. I have a mp3 player, a PDA, and a cell phone. Sure, these are small devices… but I only have so many pockets. It would be outstanding if I could get all of these things in one device, but that isn’t currently possible. That battery life would SUCK. Sure, I could get a smart phone that has a little storage for mp3s or whatever… but NOT 40 Gigs worth. And I love my mp3 player… I use it everyday.

I have been considering getting a new PDA and a new cell phone this summer.

My PDA is two years old and in order to wireless connect to the internet I have to plug in this card to it that sticks out about an inch. It’s also a pretty large PDA to begin with (wasn’t a factor when I bought it). And I’d also like a PDA with a mini-keyboard right on it so I wouldn’t have to poke at the screen. I find myself using my PDA more and more this year, it’s very handy. When I’m on the academic side of campus it’s alot easier for me to carry around my PDA instead of my laptop and stay connected with email in my classes. If I had an integrated wireless card and a mini-keyboard on my PDA it would make things a lot easier overall.
Current Contender:  Sony Clié PEG-UX50

My cell phone is also kinda buggy nowadays. The camera (which i don’t use all that much) doesn’t work sometimes. In order to use it, I have to:

1. Hit the camera button
2. Push Ok (this will bring me to a "Please Wait" screen, which will stay there forever until…)
3. I tap it lightly on my leg (hitting seems to fix some electronics)
4. Hit the cancel button (the camera is "working" cause the "Please Wait" message goes away, but you get no picture and just some colored horizontal lines going across the screen, cancelling makes it go back to the menu)
5. Hit Ok (which goes back to the camera)
6. Take the Picture

So after forcing the camera to "work", cancelling, and starting it up again, the camera works fine. The key part to the process is hitting the phone on my leg… If I wouldn’t do that, it would never get past the "Please wait" message. This is very very strange, and makes me not trust my phone. If I get a new phone I may make the camera part of it optional… a lot of places don’t like camera phones nowadays, and I don’t use it all that much. And I may want to throw in Bluetooth (the PDA I get will have that, so they may be able to sync together, or with my computer) It’d definitately have to be a clam-shell (filp phone) design.

I considered going for a Smartphone (PDA/Cell phone hybrid) but they don’t have 802.11b (WiFi) Wireless, which is what I use to connect to the net here on campus. In order to get my email I’d have to actually connect through Verizon which charges a ton. So they have to be separate things. None of these purchases would be until summer (which at this point, is only about 3 and a half weeks away)

Spring and Technology