I am so completely pathetic that I can't even update my pathetic blog. Shame on me!. I was going to install a Linux Install-o-meter which would gauge my current opinion on whether I should install Linux on Odysseus but I've already hit 100%. Familiar Linux will be my choice, and for those not in the "know" it can be found at handhelds.org to the left in the left hand menu. It's got support for my Targus Stowaway keyboard which is only the baddest-ass thing ever.... EVER!

One of the most disapointing things about the Pocket PC is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of full version free software, or perhaps it's just too hard for me to find. I've added links to Microsoft's web site for Pocket PC on the left there if you'll notice as well as links for all the other sites I now frequent looking for cool stuff for Odysseus.

Day 8: Just today did I realize how to do file related activities on the iPAQ. Since I got the device I've been trying to figure out how to delete, move and copy files around on the unit itself as opposed to using the Mobile File Explorer interface during a sync. I thought at first that it would be in a menu somewhere that I hadn't been to yet. Well its not. Turns out you have to "select-drag" the file and then you get the equivalent "right click" menu stuff. Cool, but unintiutive and hard to accomplish sometimes. It would be useful in a menu too.

As a bonus to the CF card I got (for mp3's) it's also useful for taking work home, as long as it's all under 64MB! Which is more space than I had on my X-drive, when it used to be free. Well I'm off. If you are having problems seeing the title PNG, try browsing under Netscape, just for the moment. I'll fix it later tonight, somehow. If anyone has an idea, please send a message to me.

Day 1-7: This is to be a short review of my experience with the iPAQ up to the present. I was walking through a local Staples picking up a few odd's n' ends for my drawing kit, when I stopped by the Little Gadgets Section © to pine after all the things that I wished I could have. I was thinking, "man I wish I could afford one of those!" It was about then that I realized I could. Fortunately the only one there in the store was a return, as that allowed me to get a $50 discount. The box was torn apart as is the previous purchaser was a raptor with a particulary bad case of Parkinson's. Does this describe the level of schreddedness in an adequate way? So I brought home the iPAQ in a plain brown box. After setting up the software and the charger/syncing base I was finally up and running. One of the first things I liked was the ability to sync and to download stuff into the flash card (or anywhere in the unit for that matter) at the same time. Bitchin! One of the problems I've had is that my Windows 2000 machine will kill the USB stack randomly. I haven't been able to pin down the problem though. But anyway, I've found some neat software for WinCE 3.0. The least of not is PocketQuake! I've been able to use Odysseus at work quite frequently and not just for showing off or playing MPG movies with PocketTV or MP3's with Window's Media Player 7 (because the standard Windows Media Player could not frickin' play files from the Compact Flash cards!!!!) but for actual work, like taking notes during meetings and such. Luckly I was also able to get all my contacts on the device from my pager (a Timeport P935, I work for Motorola MSP, we write the software for the pager) and my calendar from Outlook, which I assumed I could since Microsoft wrote both. Dissapointingly I can't find a Pocket Powerpoint. Another cool feature, though logically I can't think of why it's cool; a picture viewer, though I only keep small, both in size and in dimension, jpg's on Odysseus.

Avantgo.com provides a neat service where they store offline webpages in your device for viewing during the day. I have the Weather Channel, Space.com, Linux Mandrake, CNN.com and some others. The only problem I have is that I don't often have emough time during the day to read all that stuff!.

Additionally Microsoft provides a reader program that allows you to read eBooks. This is a pretty cool feature since the reader app allows the text to be rendered in larger sizes and with anti-aliasing (or blended so that it seems that it is). I found a free text to eBook converter so now I could convert files from Project Gutenberg into eBooks I can read, for free, as apposed to the plethora of eBooks I could pay for from any number of eBooks web publishers. I'm just not ready to buy a book that I can't hold and put on a shelf to impress people who are impressed by that sort of thing.

One thing that has struck me as positively capitalist is the sheer number and price of the accessories for the iPAQ. The PCMCIA Card Expansion Pack I am longing for now (so I can have wireless access to our network at work through 802.11b) costs, are you sitting(?), $160. Yeah, it has a backup battery too, but really, $160?!?! The 802.11b card alone is $100! What is so damn expensive about this pack? Does it have a brick of frickin' gold in it or something? Not only that but the much anticipated Compact Flash/PCMCIA/Battery Expansion Pack is $230. Not to mention the serial cradles which can sell for up to $40 (though the one I got for work was only ~$25, which is in addition to the USB cradle I have at home). However CompUSA doesn't sell the AC adapter. Don't even get me started in the roaming wireless access charges and equipment.

So what this all boils down to is the staggering amount of money one could blow on this device as if it were a crank additiction. Careful what you lust after!

Before you go off thinking this is some sort of fancy literature page let me correct you. Odysseus, while to some is a stunning example of courage, cunning and tenacity in an ancient epic, is in fact the name of my Compaq iPAQ. Yes, a Pocket PC. Much akin to the Palm Pilot and such. I say Pocket PC not only because that's it's proper name but that it is, in fact, a PC in my pocket, not that this is to say I have an extremely large pair of pants in which I could store a small hydro-electric damn and a personal computer, but rather a small electronic device with a battery the size of a Palm Pilot, in my pocket. Well actually it's on my hip in a holster, but Hip PC would sound...well, too uh...dumb. So anyway, I have this toy, right? And this blog is my daily account with it, in all it's pathetic glory.