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PalmPilot all-too-Personal
Victim: Hoffsieu@aol.com
Date added: 1/10/2001
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This is sort of an ironic story, so share in my misery although I have no photo to offer at this time. My Palm III already a victim of "Top of the car syndrome" (Andrew HatField, 11/14/00), it's replacement has finally expired. Since my mother never adapted to digital organization, she offered me back my ol' PalmPilot Personal. I'd been using it for about a year and a half, up until about a week ago. I used to boast that my baby still had "USRobotics" proudly emblazoned at the top-right. Beaming? Bah! Updatable OS? Hogwash! Half-a-meg of RAM and a first-generation backlight are state of the art, so I convinced myself. I had ample room for my family's addresses, plus an appointment or two. AvantGo ShmavantGo. Living in this sort of denial infused me with a sense of brotherhood with the crazy guy in overalls down the road who's convinced that the 1981 model year of his Buick makes it a classic.
Gradually over the past year, my aging PalmPilot Personal began to show off its developing Alzheimer's disease, the most charming sign of which involved a total inability to retain the stylus calibration from one on-turning to the next. So, fine, I can get used to pretending that the calculator silkscreen button is really the down-scroll arrow. We're not all in a position to plunk down a couple of bills for a new PDA. However, when I found I had to smoosh my thumb into the memory door to be able to access or input, I began to get concerned.
The background of my tale is that I hadn't performed a HotSync in about 5 or 6 months. My old PowerTower Pro had burned out it's video board, and I yet hadn't bothered, bold fool that I am, to buy a Palm USB kit to work with my sparkly new iMac. Hey, wing-and-a-prayer living is kind of exciting. Just before Christmas, though, my consternation got the best of me and I found an eBay benefactor willing to part with a USB kit for $25.
For all my daring, the heavens finally gave me the cosmic finger as, two days before my USB kit arrived, my aging, ailing, semi-trusty PalmPilot Personal failed to power on. Did I forget to replace the batteries? Oh, no. Even with new ones, my old PPP had finally shut his crows-feet-bracketed eyes for keeps. Taking with it, I might add, half a year's worth of data, including updates to who-knows-who's addresses and phone numbers.
Sorry to wax poetic, but really had to get this off my chest. Now: Palm?...Visor?......Clie(?!)... time to go shopping.
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