Hooray, my PDA finally connected to the internet! I got it back "fixed" - still waiting for a complete explanation of what they did, AND the audio still sounds junky but it's sorta legible. Found out my random number web service is a little broken - it acts differently on my PCs' browser than on the PDA. Perhaps this has to do with caching? Need more testing...

Now it's time to buy a phone. The Symbian web site lists all the partners, but it does not list a specific phone. Motorola is a partner, for example, but if you look up a specific phone (Motorola C332) it will say that the "user agent" is MOT-TA02/06.03.23BR MIB/1.2.1. I need to find a good developer site that will sort this all out.

On a headier note, I've noticed that Wired Magazine makes a bold assumption about its readership: If you're technically savvy, then you are also politically savvy. A corrolary is because you're patient to figure out how stuff works, you also care what's going on in the world and have the patience to sort through that mess too. Their articles on technology/war and technology/energy speak to that assumption. I have not found this to be true. It could be a case that you only have room in your life for one thing that is thorny, and you pick one, either technology or politics but not both. I think it goes deeper than that. A good article that describes technology will be inherently hopeful. The reader will come away with more info than they had before reading it. That info might solve a problem they currently have, or it might just plant the seeds for something later. Politics, on the other hand, is hardly ever hopeful. Reading on this topic just illustrates how hard it is to get anything done with all the systems in place. I don't know many techies who have the patience for it.

comment []11:12:42 AM