Wagahai’s corner

Since I’m still up and not too tired, figured I’d post about a new toy I recently purchased.. the Siemens SX66 PDA/Phone combo. Here’s my mini review.

Summary:
- Talk time seems to be over 7+ hours
- PDA use is a few hours of heavy online use (online, watching vids, etc)
- functionality is nice but as with any Pocket PC device, needs extra programs to make it work well

The specifics:
- Battery life.. wow.. if you don’t use the PDA, the talk time seems that it could last 8 hours or longer. They did some nice tricks to make this happen.. adjustable keypad lock to stop you from accidently turning the device on with any button other than the “real” power button. Backlight control, control over all of the various wireless options, etc.
- Pocket PC crud.. as usual, they like to “minimize” programs with the Pocket PC instead of closing them. SPB’s plugin for closing programs, making the “today” screen nicer and such really does well to fix this problem. It also is smart in allowing you to add the “last used program” to the exception list for programs you don’t want to close. Additionally I found a program called PhoneAlarm from PocketMax which adds profile support.. so when I am at home I can have all of my fun ringtones, but when I’m out in public I can have something a bit less annoying. Microsoft’s voice command also does wonders for the phone without needing to be “trained” for my voice. The voice commander was written smart enough that it knows to “ask” if it understood the command (especially cool when dialing the phone). Other software that I’ve enjoyed .. PocketTTY (ssh), PocketIRC, SPB weather, NetFront browser (java, css, etc..), Microsoft PocketStreets 2005 and more…
- The hardware itself isn’t anything too special. The keyboard is exposed by sliding the screen up. It has a cool backlight on it, but can be difficult to type on and is missing the control key (damnit!) I’ve also noticed that the microphone in the PDA is easilly covered up by my finger while on the phone and then I sound muffled to the other party.
- SD card slot.. add a 1gig SD card and life is SWEET - using PocketDVD I’ve been copying my Tivo shows to the device and can have a good number of shows available to fill my time if I’m out somewhere and bored.

After having the phone/PDA for about 2 weeks now, I can say that I am still mostly happy with it.. I am still searching for “the right headset” and a good windshield mount for it, but overall I’d say it gets a 4.5 out of 5 stars once you add the software.. without the software I doubt anyone would be too impressed - it would be locking up with memory problems and would be missing many functions people would like.

In a mostly unrelated topic.. I’m still looking for a good replacement for the Microsoft Exchange server so I can sync my outlook to something online and then have my PDA sync’d with my server.. that’d be really nice for my appointments and shared calendar.. but so far I’ve not been impressed by the hoops everyone wants me to jump through to get some replacement online (Apache 2, java stuff, special database, etc)

Headsets.. speaking of headsets… anyone remember back in the early 90’s you could get walkie-talkies that had only a single earpiece that went in the ear and no actual “microphone” - kinda government-like? ..any idea where I can get something like that for a current cell phone? I hate having the boom microphone style and am definately not wearing a full headset.. but I would like the other person to hear me.. and as I recall, those actually worked (at least the ones I tried did).. but can’t find them anywhere now (and no idea what to even search under)

Many of my friends have an idea that I am an insomniac and that I am definately more of a night person than someone who enjoys the early morning.. but the reality is that I dislike (HATE) sleep.

I end up staying up late because I do have insomnia, but also because I hate shutting things down at the end of the day. Even if I’m not “in the middle of something” real, I still have things in my head for work or play that I’m working on, even if I’m not sitting in front of a computer making something happen with them.. so every night it’s the same thing.. check that my scheduler/task manager has all of the “to do” list in there along with any current brainstorming, then (and only then) can I sleep.. knowing that I can pickup where I left off in the morning.

..but mornings are not that easy either. If I have no specific “time oriented” function I need to wake up for, I sleep in.. I hate waking up just to “get back to work” on whatever it was I had to write down and give up the night before. Waking up and looking at a task list with 50-100 items on it doesn’t do much for giving someone incentive to get out of bed. The worst part of this, I CAN BE a morning person.. with motivation (no, not caffine, I mean motivation as in a reason to be up early). EVERY time I go camping, any time I have a morning appointment, any time I have a “reason” to be up at a decent hour, I am.. and I can find it enjoyable. Usually when I’m camping I find that I wake up at around 5am - often in time to see the sunrise. My problem with waking up is that the feeling/thought of waking up is often coordinated with things I dislike, like trying to figure out where I left off on a train of thought the previous night and how large is my current list of tasks.. and other related things that don’t make me really want to be motivated to start the day.

To complicate things, my body really doesn’t object to staying up.. so staying up until 4am, or just staying up all night really isn’t hard. This just makes the situation worse since I’m not usually “tired” which would probably make things easier for this whole “sleep” thing.

Things I’ve done instead of sleep?

• chaperon a sleepover party Ayumi had for her softball team
  (yeah, as if they were going to stay up all night.. not at that age!)
  
• pull all-nighters for fun (heh, certainly wasn’t for the studying)
  
• cross-country road trips
  
• programming (I use the term loosely)
  
• post blog entries at 1am..
  

Anyway, 1:30am now.. sleep is what I am supposed to be doing now.. and we all do what we’re supposed to.. right? ..if only I were tired..