Category: Revelation

Vicki made an off-hand comment to me the other day to say that according to AT&T I’ve fullfilled the contract I signed when I got my Treo and I’m eligible to get another phone if I sign up for another 2 year contract. Of course, my first thought was “iPhone!” My second thought was that this was a rather cruel thing to tell me when we’re officially in the blackout period when I’m not allowed to buy anything for myself for fear that I’ve made Vicki’s Christmas shopping harder.

I guess the question for today is “Would I want an iPhone even if I could buy one?” And I’m not 100% sure the answer is yes. Buying the Treo was a no-brainer: it could do absolutely everything my existing phone could do, and everything my existing Palm Tungsten E could do, which meant I could reduce my gadget load. It also tempted me to add data to my cell phone plan and so now I use it for email and for mild web browsing (ostensibly for checking weather while away from base, but used more often for checking my friend’s page while in boring meetings). If I could do everything I do with an iPhone that I do with my Treo and my iPod, again it would be a no-brainer. But that’s where it gets difficult. So let’s look at it piece by piece.
Continue reading “iPhone thoughts”

Brian Scearce wrote this on a mailing list I’m on. It’s too good not to share.

To the tune of “My Favourite Things” from “The Sound Of Music”:

Steam-run computers with shiny brass fittings
Read-only memory: Jacquard-type pittings
Ethernet using just tin cans and string
These are a few of my favorite things!

LCDs lit up with shuttered white candles
Objects with actual ivory handles
Striking a bell for the part that goes “ping”
These are a few of my favorite things!

Every now and then I have an idea that I think would probably be valuable, but rather than running with it I just chicken out and document it. Sometimes it turns out to be a decently good idea (such as when I thought that there might be money to be made going around to homes and offices and running anti-virus and anti-spyware software on a regular basis, since most people can’t seem to be bothered to do it for themselves), and other times it turns out that somebody is already doing it (like when I had the idea of combining small/fast/expensive disk storage with bigger/slower/cheaper disk storage with even bigger/slower/cheaper tape storage, and software to stage data between the different levels of storage depending on usage patterns).
Continue reading “My latest million dollar idea”