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Convergence. That's the dream. I only want to carry one computer device, so it has to do everything. The perfect product does not yet exist, but we are quickly closing in on it.
I've had the T-Mobile Sidekick (which is the rebranded Danger Hiptop) since it's introduction on October 1, 2002. I have been wildly happy with this device. It is a mobile phone, with a qwerty thumb board for entering text. It does email, AOL instant messenger, and basic web surfing. For me email is king, and I use it constantly. It also comes with a plug in camera attachment, but the photos are so small as to be basically unusable.
A new color (screen) version has just come out. And with a much better camera, although it sill lags seriously behind other camera phones on the market.
I might upgrade to the new version, but I think I will probably end up with the soon to be released Handspring Treo 600 instead. I liked the original Treo (pictured for comparison on that page,) but it was just a little too big. The 600 solves that problem. It has the thumb board which I like (over stylus entry like a palm pilot, or like the Sony Ericsson P800 uber phone.) I guess this is personal, but I've got to have the keyboard. And it has a built in camera which will hopefully have decent resolution.
But this is still just an approximation at best. But getting closer. Hopefully it will be out by October first.
This weekend was perfect here in NYC. Spent Saturday in Central Park under beautiful blue skies. Hot, but with a breeze in the air. Very nice.
I'm going to try to return to blogging more regularly. I didn't exactly intend to take this long break, but that's what happened. Went through some difficult things, but also some nice things that just aren't possible to write about here. Both have made me a little stronger. My energy feels very focused now, although to what exact end I am still unsure.
I love NYC, in case I haven't said that recently. Summer absolutely kicks ass.
I'm still going to write some about my personal life here (I don't really think it is a blog if you don't provide this sort of real life context for your other posts,) but my rather vague plan is to otherwise tighten the focus a bit. I'm still overly interested in Apple, but only to the extent that I see them as having the best chance of building the mobile computing device that I am really interested in. This yet to be realized product will be the axis around which most future posting will revolve.
Bet you can't wait, huh? Well, hopefully it will be better than nothing.
From the Python Dev mailing list:
...At EuroPython I was cornered by the key Macpython developers with exciting news: Apple's next release of Mac OSX, code-named Panther, uses Python and Apple is planning to include Python 2.3 in that release. (Apple already ships Mac OSX with Python 2.2 included in the developer tools, but Panther will actually use Python for some essential functionality.)I wonder what "essential functionality" refers to?
Apple's schedule is such that August 1st is about the latest release date for Python 2.3 that will make this possible. I appreciate everybody's help with keeping this schedule!
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
Oh my god, what a bunch of dorks. I'm at the SOHO Apple store now waiting for the WWDC (World Wide Develolper Conference) satellite feed. There is a theatre on the second floor that is showing it. I figured there would be a few people here, but it is absolutely packed. The whole second floor is filled. I've never seen so many gadgets in one crowd at a time. Weird. It's like a Grateful Dead show for computer geeks. I feel strangely at home. Play by play in the thread below if it is possible for me.
Doing some spring cleaning today. I found my old blogger.com username and password and decided to give it a shot. Amazingly, my old stuff is still on their server! Here's my first blogger post:
[10/21/1999 11:01:13 AM | jim b]Maybe I'll dig the rest out and put them into my archives here. My blogger account is 5515. Does that mean I was the 5515th blog? I actually expected this number to be lower.
O.K., yes, back at it again. Things have been really busy for me, but thanks to blogger and their amazing site, I can now post updates right from the web. Hopefully this will cut down on the amount of time this page requires. If you're thinking about the web, definitely check out blogger.
Worst spring ever.
Transcript of William Gibson's speech to the Director's Guild to America.
Emergent technology is, by its very nature, out of control, and leads to unpredictable outcomes.... As indeed does the emergent realm of the digital. I prefer to view this not as the advent of some new and extraordinary weirdness, but as part of the ongoing manifestation of some very ancient and extraordinary weirdness: our gradual spinning of a sort of extended prosthetic mass nervous-system, out of some urge that was present around the cooking-fires of our earliest human ancestors.
Blogumentary trailer. (16megs via fimoculous)
Call me crazy, but it seems like having to reboot your phone is a step in the wrong direction.
I guess it's better than having to reboot your car though.