[Tfug] PDA non-usage

[Bexley Hall]

Hi, Angus,

>I use a PDA because it can be backed up and 
>restored to a new unit when it's lost or 
>damaged.  You can't do that with paper unless
>you're anal about xeroxing your notebook every
>night.

Good point!  But, that only works if the things
you're "putting in your notebook" are *supported*
in your PDA!  :<  For example, when I layout a
circuit board, the resulting (gerber) photoplotter
files can;t be viewed without a special piece of
software.  And, have to be viewed "in color"
(trying to keep track of N different layers of
a board printed in B&W is just plain crazy!  :> )

So, for example, whenever I have had to show 
something to a client, I have *printed* that part
of the board, marked it up with a pencil, and
hand-carried or snail-mailed it to the client.  :<

I haven't yet tried to see if I can mark-up one
of these files "printed to a PDF".  That would be
considerably more portable (since Gerber "viewers"
are expensive and/or broken and/or feature poor).

>I once lost 3 weeks of billable time when I 
>misplaced my DayTimer back in the days of paper
>PDAs.

<grin> I track my billable time "in my head" until
I get back home and can record it properly.  For
exactly that reason (but, to be fair, I usually
only have to deal with a single client on any
given day so I just have to make a point of noting
when I arrived and when I departed -- what I *did*
while there is usually very easy to remember)

OTOH, I find it very hard to track my worldcare
volunteer hours (perhaps because I don't treat them
as billable?)

>I found the book a month later, buried in the couch 
>cushions, and my clients were mostly understanding
>about the late billing, but for a while I was 
>running on memory alone.  I've had a number of PDAs,
>and each time one fails, I just buy a new one and
>synch from my desktop computer to the PDA and I'm
>up and running in just a few hours with no lost
>data.  Can't do that with paper records that get
>lost or wet.

In my case, it is an "effort" to remember to sync the
computer with the PDA.  I.e. the PDA is "gospel" and
the computer gets brought along when I remember it. 
:<
I'm now taking to keeping my files on the SD card so
I can just pull that (assuming *it* doesn't get
corrupted)

--don



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