The Palm is Dead, Long Live the Palm!

My Palm Tungsten T3 died a mysterious death about 8 months ago. It froze...it wouldn't sync....it wouldn't reset....no amount of documented rescusciation brought it back to life. So it sat on my desk in the computer room, collecting layer after layer of dust.

Every so often, I'd walk by and turn it on to see, if by some strange miracle, it would spontaneously wake up. I was tempted to disassemble it just for fun, but I was aware that it had a built-in battery and probably a powerful capacitor. So I just let it be. It sat next to the retired Sony Clie that my wife used to use.

8 months later, after purchasing a used Sony UX-50, and then having that die a sticky death (it got covered in some syrupy, sticky mess that made it completely unusable), I was stll left without a PDA.

That is until yesterday.

I performed my montly ritual of vacuuming and noticed the corpse of the T3 lying off of its cradle where I had left it. I dropped it back into its cradle and the green LED popped on, and the Palm start up screen blinked on. What???? Yep, after 8 months of hibernation my T3 awoke. It looked like it had gone through a hard reset or the battery drained completely, flushing it of its RAM contents.

I cautiously synchronized it with my MacBook Pro which I maintained a copy of the Palm Desktop contents and the non-Universal Binary HotSync and it was back to its old self.

Since I'm doing the household finances now, I even bought a copy of Pocket Quicken to help me keep track of purchases. Kind of a small token of my appreciation for waking up after 8 months of slumber.

I'm still cautiously optimistic...I've no idea what caused it to go nite-nite for 8 months and the 4 tiny screws on each side of the PDA are still missing, so it could be a short-lived life...who knows.

On a slight tangent, this is the only Palm I've ever truly liked. There are no other newer or current Palm PDAs that have the compact form factor where I can have the 160 x 160 square screen and expand it by sliding the unit open to make it more rectangular. I enjoy the fact that I can use Graffiti anywhere on the screen and love the small compactness of it and allows me to use it one-handed. It's sad to think that if this dies again, I won't be able to find any PDA that fits my needs.

For the time being though, it's good to have my good friend back.

Laptop Security

So I recently got a new MacBook Pro, and the thought of it getting stolen cross my mind after hearing stories about government laptops getting stolen (mind you I've nothing as important or confidential on my laptop like Social Security numbers or anything like that) so I decided to see what I could to: a.) mitigate that possibility of it getting stolen; b.) increase my chances of my laptop being recovered should it get stolen.

Well, let's talk about what I could do to prevent it from being stolen in the first place. Anything I could do would basically be physical in nature, such as Kensington laptop lock (though I've nothing to really chain it to), but those are not completely foolproof. So what else could I do?

First off, I don't have a typical laptop briefcase that screams, "I've got a laptop in here!!!". You know what I'm talking about...typically they have Targus or Dell written all over them. Granted I have a geek-looking knapsack but it doesn't look like your average laptop bag (at least I hope it doesn't). I'm thinking about getting a very low-key messenger bag that I saw on Amazon.com...and it's dirt cheap too!

So keep your laptop in disguise!

Let's say your laptop gets stolen...what do you do? Well, if you're like most people, you'd be SOL. Many of the products I've seen are recovery software programs that clandestinely alert a central operations centre that your laptop has been stolen once it connects to the internet (which most thieves do). They typically send the IP address of the laptop, and that normally can help the authorities locate the physical location of the laptop, and thus the thief.

The most well-known product is LoJack for Laptops (formerly Computrace). Their website indicates that they recover 3 out of 4 stolen laptops that have their software installed on it, which is a pretty good percentage. My only complaint (and it's not really a complaint so much as that I'm a cheapskate) is that they charge $39.99/year for the service, but one of the few software products that support Mac OS X.

The other piece of software that's gotten a lot of media attention is Undercover from Orbicule. The software sounds a lot like LoJack for Laptops, but there are a few differences:

1. They only support Macs


2. They charge a one-time fee of $39 instead of an annual service fee


3. For Macs that have an iSight camera, external or built-in, the software when reported stolen and becomes activated, will snap photos of the thief and will send screenshots of the desktop

Why take screenshots? Well, the thief might be stupid enough to use the e-mail software or chat software installed on the computer, and thus reveal some info about them. Check out this recovery story from Orbicule and you'll see why that additional info might be useful.

To me, the price is right, but given that the detection center is just a hosted server and, from what I can tell, it's a small operation, so the viability of the company might not be as stable as a well-known or more-established company.

Still, it's an ingenious piece of software that uses some other techniques to aid in the recovery of the laptop, like darkening the screen until it becomes completely black.

Note that neither piece of software will work unless the computer is connected to the internet, but given the proliferation of the internet, it's not going to take long for the software to be activated.

Germany sells iPhones???

Say wha???

I found this on TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog)...apparently the iPhone is available for sale on Amazon Germany...for a mere 899 Euros...or over a $1,000 USD!!!

Apparently you're just pre-ordering it and it's available through T-Mobile Germany so the exclusivity of the iPhone for Cingular is only in the U.S....but for how long? Sounds like the phone can be unlocked, but knowing Apple, doing so probably disables a whole bunch of features.

Stealing thunder from CES

I have to say that only the power, aura and sheer anticipation of a Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld Expo could upstage the renowned Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Of particular interest were the respective keynotes by Steve Jobs at Macworld Expo and Bill Gates at CES. Nick Carr talks about the differences between two of the most important people in personal computers.

Anyway, being a self-admitted Mac fanboy, there isn't the passion and excitement when you listen to Bill Gates talk in comparison to listening to Steve Jobs talk...it's like Gates is trying to sell you something that even he doesn't believe in. Given Jobs' reputation for perfection, it's not hard to actually believe him when he tells you his products are "the best ever".

Anyway, I'm totally smitten with the iPhone (or whatever it will be called when it's finally shipped, pending Cisco's lawsuit over the iPhone name). Despite it's shortcomings (my biggest beef is that you can't sync wirelessly with your Mac), it's going to set the cell phone industry on its head. There's no other device that even looks like this device, nevermind that it has an interface that Nokia, Motorola or Sony-Ericsson can only dream of.

For the Ramen Connoisseur

I saw this on Gizmodo recently that every instant noodle connoisseur should have. It's a Ramen Noodle Cup Timer that looks like a cooker and even has a red LED under the "burner" to make it look like it's cooking.

Personally my favorite ramen has been Shin Ramyun and Tung-I Ramen Noodle, Chinese Beef Flavor.

It harkens me back to a time when I was poor and living off of ramen...like yesterday.

CA-NA-DA! CA-NA-DA!

Yay...! Team Canada won the World Junior Hockey tournament by defeating the Russian team, 4-2. Okay, so nobody outside of Canada really cares about this tournament, but if you can imagine the fever of March Madness and just replace school spirit and allegiance with national pride, that's the World Jr. Hockey tournamnet.

If you want to know the secret to Canada's success in this tournament (Team Canada has won this tournament 13 out of 34 times since its inception in 1974. Only the Soviet Union/CIS/Russia have won it more times), it has to do with teamwork. It was very evident that teams that are very talented individually often fail to be a cohesive unit and cannot play as a team. It's not about who are the most talented, it's about which players can play within the team concept the best.

I think it has to do with the nature of Canadians and the culture of Canada. We're definitely less individualistic than our American neighbours, and it has a lot to do with mosaic vs. melting pot mentality of Canadians. In Canada, we form a mosaic - a patchwork of different nationalities that aren't ask to abandon their homeland cultures, but are asked to maintain them but also contribute to the rich fabric of Canadian culture. The American melting pot asks that you become an American and abandon all other values for its own. It's a singular culture that often doesn't play well with others.

In a sense, Canadians are more accepting of others, their values, and their beliefs. We respect other points of view and do not tread on them. Americans only believe in the American way, right or wrong. There's definitely nothing wrong with that, but if sometimes doing things the American way may not be the appropriate thing to do, they don't know how to do things any different.

Flame on!

Rediscovering old stuff

I'm in the process of unloading my Powerbook G4 since I've replaced it with a MacBook Pro. I thought about using eBay but I'm not fond of paying the fees to sell my wares. So I thought about using craigslist.

I haven't been to craigslist in awhile and I was brought back to thinking about how cool the web was way back when and how it was just a community. It's still a community but there's certainly a lot less hand-holding as we all dove into the new frontier. But the simplicity of craigslist reminded me that the web is still all about the content (stupid!).

Anyway, I found someone who would be willing to trade their Mac Mini Intel Core 2 Duo for a Powerbook. Yes way! I really couldn't pass that offer up, so I e-mailed the person to see if they'd be willing to accept a slightly dented Powerbook.

By the way, I still can't stop raving about the MBPs. Just the MagSafe adapter (which I've already tested by accidentally getting the adapter cord tangled around my foot and my foot cleanly kicking the adapter free. on my powerbook this would have caused further damage to my already bent power adapter tip). And you just can't not love the built-in iSight camera.

I'll stop gushing.

Oh yes, flat files are stupid. Just had to get that out of my system.

The blog is back and there's going to be trouble...

So I'm finally back in the blogosphere after Blogger finally got back to me about resetting my account password. I think I requested it a few months ago and I totally forgot about it. I thought their e-mail to me was spam or some phishing attempt.

Anyway life is good. I got a 15" MacBook Pro....I *SO* wanted the built-in iSight camera...unfortunately, I've yet to find a buyer for my used Powerbook that's only less than 2 years old. It's in great work condition....it's got a dent and the battery and power adapter need to be replaced, but everything else is great! I was hoping to avoid eBay but alas, that might be the only place wher I can sell it. Yeah, so we have a surplus of 2 laptops. We had a surplus of 2 laptops even before I got the MBP, but I ended up donating one of our older laptops (it was 4 years old) so at least we can get a tax credit for it.

It's 11:24 pm and Sydney is still up.....argh.....she's like the Energizer Bunny, I swear.

So yeah, tomorrow is the Gold Medal game for the World Junior Hockey Championship (a.k.a., "The World Juniors" in Canada, and "The IIHF Under-20 Hockey Tournament" everyone else in the world). It's the equivalent of the NCAA Frozen Four or March Madness in college basketball except you're playing for your country. It gets incredible television ratings in Canada but everywhere else, nobody really cares about it. Even when the tournament was being held in the U.S., there were no national sports television networks airing the games. Anyway, Canada is in the Gold Medal game against Russia tomorrow morning. I have an all-day meeting (figures) tomorrow so I can't listen to the streaming radio broadcast of the game. Think they'll notice the headphones in the meeting?