Yesterday I received my very first PDA, a hand-me-down. It’s not a new one but like me it still works. It is a Palm Zire 71. One of the earliest Palm products to incorporate a camera and an MP3 player right in the PDA and it has a color screen.
I’m a pencil and paper kind of guy (and I really mean pencil not pen). Although I have of necessity used computers a lot they have cost me many hours of replacing lost information, learning new software, changing operating systems, and upgrading/installing hardware.
The pencil, and I mean the yellow No 2 piece of wood lead pencil with the black graphite rod down the middle that got shorter as you sharpened and used it so you knew when you needed a new one type of pencil. Don’t try to pawn off a space age push the button out comes the skinny little lead that always breaks and you never know when its running out type of pencil either.
This hardware (pencil) and operating system (paper) has not changed as far as I can tell since I first used them. No repeated learning curves no software bugs no hardware problems no system crashes no files lost in the bowels of some crazed digital machine, never to be seen again. You might mislay a pencil and paper file somewhere, some time but eventually it would turn up. It would not just evaporate never to be seen again.
And no need for special graphics programs, faster processors and more and more memory to hold it all. With pencil and paper you can write words, draw pictures, do calculations, and even play games, all with no added extras.
Don’t get me wrong I think advances in technology are great when they are needed and make life easier and better. But advances for the sake of advancing is the realm of scientific research not day to day life.
So here I am taking a major step.
Do I need a PDA? Of course NOT. I’ve got ,you know, the pencil.
Will it improve my life? Probably not enough to make a difference.
Will it be better than a pencil? I don’t think so, but maybe it could be a close second and I’m an open minded person so I’ll give it a try.
But I’ll have my pencil at the ready as backup.
I’ll keep you posted on the pros and cons of using a PDA around the cottage and yard.
Say, if you are using one, just what do you use it for?
Originally posted: July 24th, 2007