So I've gotten so many toys since last I updated. I wound up getting a Sprint phone that has a camera in it, which means I've been taking totally dorky photos. Here's one of Wheaten trying to figure out what that noise is:



I put the black frame around it for something else I was doing. Though you can't tell from this example, it takes surprisingly good pictures for a crappy little VGA camera. You just can't enlarge them at all.

So that's been fun to play with. And as for the worries about connecting it to the pc/pda, the sprint rep who sold it to me also told me how to connect it to my pc, and gave me the necessary cables to do it. He said that as long as you don't go downloading a bunch of mp3s and videos with it, Sprint turns a blind eye. I haven't done much with it yet, but it does work.

But I couldn't access CompuHigh stuff through the phone, so last weekend I got a cute little pocket pc--an hp rx3115, paid for by an unexpected check from CompuHigh. (They decided to institute a profit-share program--they're just cool people to work for.) The iPaq is awesome. As for the necessary stuff, it's got integrated wireless, bluetooth, and infrared, which means I can use it to connect from Uno's, Panera, the Blue Moose, and the bar (so far). It also has mini versions of Word and Excel, Internet Explorer, and a little notepad program (basically a mini-version of Windows, with a start bar and everything). I've downloaded a few additional programs to help its functionality, but it's been remarkably easy to work with. On the fun side it's a tiny little multimedia machine--it'll play mp3's (it's got a surprisingly good little speaker and a headphone slot), it records audio (which I haven't played with much yet, but I will) and I downloaded a full-screen keyboard so I can hold it and type on the screen with my thumbs (surprisingly easy for those of us who've played home console video games).

And since I just got paid, I might go and pick up one of the fold up keyboards for it...it was my original plan, but now I'm not sure how much I'd use that. So I might not. It hasn't been a problem yet, but I know it doesn't have a lot of memory (60 something megs?) and it's flash memory, which means memory doubles as ram from what I can tell. But it came with a mail in offer for a free 128 meg card, so that's cool. I might try downloading some mp3s to it and using it as a portable walkman. And I'd like to figure out how to hook the phone up to it too...

So I'm slowly getting what I wanted. And to top it all off, Adelphia finally came and hooked up the high-speed internet. So I have lovely reliable 100mb connection at home, with 11mb wireless.

Geekdom abounds :) Now we'll see if it actually makes me more productive, or if it just means I have more to distract me.