Saturday, September 14, 2002

Wireless, wireless everywhere, but not a byte to synch The wireless data infrastructure is slowly coming into focus.  I can go to any local Starbucks (In my metro area, anyway) with my laptop and get high-speed access.  With a Handspring Treo and a GPRS connection, I can access the web and email from pretty much anywhere that I might typically find myself on a daily basis.  It's all starting to come together. There's just one problem: price. T-Mobile Hotspot The local plan for 802.11b access (a.k.a T-Mobile Hotspot) is US$29.99 per month.  That's for unlimited minutes, but with a total monthly transfer limit of 500MB.  Additional MB's are US$0.25 each.  That doesn't seem like a lot of data to me.  I can easily imagine myself exceeding that limit each month. T-Mobile for Handspring The T-Mobile plan for PDAs (including the Treo) starts in the US$20 range, but for only 5 MB.  Again, this doesn't seem like a lot of data each month, at least for my use. Sprint PCS Vision High-speed data services, via 3G cellular technology.  This means it's fast.  The plans start at around US$55 per month.  This includes voice service (4500 minutes), but only 8MB of data.  The commercials are promoting video phones.  Decent, high-speed video can burn up 8MB very quickly. Clearly, these are still early adopter rates.  I'm not much of an early adopter these days.  I just don't have the time, or in this case the desire to spend so much money.  Also, until it's cheap enough for me to buy it for everyone in my family, including my Mom, it's just not for me. 7:09:44 PM

Life with the fujitsu P2000 I just recieved my Fujitsu P2000 laptop this afternoon.  It's a very small, highly portable laptop based on the Transmeta Crusoe processor. I've spent most of the evening setting up the system and installing software.  After the typical three-to-five hours needed to get any new PC "just right", I'm starting to feel at home with it. What I like so far: The size: one of the reasons I went with the Fujitsu is that it's the only ultra-portable that has an integrated CD/DVD drive.  I had desired the Sony Picturebook for some time, but I didn't like the external CD, and the Fujitsu has a slightly taller screen. Integrated wireless: Full connectivity from my couch with no wires whatsoever is a beautiful thing. Long battery life: I ordered the extended battery, both for the extra runtime and for the fact that it adds a slightly larger wrist-rest area to the front of the laptop.  Even with the wirless networking running, I've been running all evening on the battery's initial charge. High-res screen: the small text is taking a bit of getting used to, but the resolution makes the screen seem much more clear.  The Phantom Menace DVD looked great! Things I'm going to have to get used to: The keyboard: the arrow keys are overloaded with the page navigation keys (home, end, pageup, pagedown).  One must remember to hold down the Fn key to make these work.  Also, the right shift key is really small.  I keep hitting the up-arrow by accident. The eraser-head pointer, but I refuse to get an external mouse. The LCD indicator panel.  It's hard to see the shift-lock status when working in the dark. 12:41:39 AM