[Tfug] PDA non-usage

[Bexley Hall]

Hi, John,

--- John Gruenenfelder <johng at as.arizona.edu> wrote:

> I've got a Sony Clie TH-55, one of the last PDAs
> they made before pulling out
> of the market altogether (in the US, anyway).  I use
> some of the PIM

Do you "carry it" or, like me, do you just keep it in
a desk drawer (despite "maintaining" it religiously)?

> functions.  It serves as my address book and I also
> use the notepad function.
> It's just like doodling (saves a bitmap image) so
> you don't have to worry about character recognition.

Yes, there are apps for the Palms, etc. that do that.
I had occasion to use a Newton as a piece of scratch
paper one day while driving (without having a pen
*or* paper handy).  But, that wouldn't motivate me
to carry the thing -- especially something as large
as a Newton! -- all the time.  :>

> My main use for it is, no surprise, reading books. 

For *visually* reading them or as an "audio book"?
(sorry, I've not looked at your "Weasel Reader" to
figure out what it does)

> It's also got wifi and I
> frequently use it to SSH and check my email. 
> Sometimes I'll use it to browse
> the web, but the included browser is really awful.

OK.  As I mentioned to Jude, I'm discounting these
features.  I'm just trying to figure out why the
PIM-type features aren't used more readily.

E.g., CMU (IIRC) worked on a "rememberance agent"
which, IMO, is a *great* idea.  Granted, that's
considerably more sophisticated than a PDA but
it seems to me that the PDA is just a low-tech
version thereof.
 
> I've got a few games on it to waste time with. 

Yes, I do a couple of Soduko puzzles on each of
my two daily 30-minute walks.  But, that gets boring
pretty fast.  I would imagine crosswords might be
a better "investment" for me but that would require
a friendlier user interface.

> ClieFrotz is the best of the
> bunch since it lets me play interactive fiction
> (i.e. text adventures) written
> in the Inform language, which is most of them.  It's
> actually a decent
> platform for doing so.

Thanks!
--don


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  
Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.  http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping