The Bargain Hunter/My "New" PDA
Well, folks, another long delay between posts. Contrary to what I thought would happen, my workload hasn't abated much since the passing of the April 15th deadline. Fortunately, I haven't been working too much on weekends, which gives me time to rejoin one of my passions: visiting yard sales and flea markets. The signs have started appearing on telephone poles around town, and the weather has generally been improving, which means that it's time to go hunting for bargains outdoors.
This past weekend, unfortunately, was not a very good one for yard sales. On Saturday (prime yard sale day in my area), it rained steadily much of the day, so pickings were slim. I did manage to come across a rather nice find, which I will get to soon. Sunday, contrary to the weather forecasts, was only marginally better; most of the vendors at the local outdoor flea market had tarps over their booths, which made the trip there largely useless (though I did take back a piece of malfunctioning video equipment purchased there a couple of weeks ago, and got a refund).
Getting back to the 'big' find: at a relatively nice-sized yard sale, I came upon a bagged item, which I figured to be a modem or somesuch. It turned out, however, to be a semi-antiquated Palm Pilot model Vx (though the front badging says Palm V, the back cover and specs match the Vx, which leads me to believe it was upgraded in some fashion during it's lifetime), with a good selection of accessories. After buying a USB-to-serial adapter (which, incidentally, cost several times as much as I paid for the Palm!), I was able to hook it up to my modern laptop (which Sony saw fit to make without either a serial port or floppy drive; I have spent far too much on making up for these indiscretions), and download programs for it from the Internet.
For a long time, I figured I would never get one of these things. During the internet boom, I remember seeing Palm Pilots and other PDAs everywhere, and never thought the day would come where I'd find myself with one. Now that the fad has essentially long since died out, and this unit has been surpassed many times over, I see this as an opportunity to attempt and use this semi-obsolete device to try and manage my life. It should be interesting to see how well I manage to use it, and whether or not it actually has an impact on my level of organization, if one currently exists... ;)
-Adam
This past weekend, unfortunately, was not a very good one for yard sales. On Saturday (prime yard sale day in my area), it rained steadily much of the day, so pickings were slim. I did manage to come across a rather nice find, which I will get to soon. Sunday, contrary to the weather forecasts, was only marginally better; most of the vendors at the local outdoor flea market had tarps over their booths, which made the trip there largely useless (though I did take back a piece of malfunctioning video equipment purchased there a couple of weeks ago, and got a refund).
Getting back to the 'big' find: at a relatively nice-sized yard sale, I came upon a bagged item, which I figured to be a modem or somesuch. It turned out, however, to be a semi-antiquated Palm Pilot model Vx (though the front badging says Palm V, the back cover and specs match the Vx, which leads me to believe it was upgraded in some fashion during it's lifetime), with a good selection of accessories. After buying a USB-to-serial adapter (which, incidentally, cost several times as much as I paid for the Palm!), I was able to hook it up to my modern laptop (which Sony saw fit to make without either a serial port or floppy drive; I have spent far too much on making up for these indiscretions), and download programs for it from the Internet.
For a long time, I figured I would never get one of these things. During the internet boom, I remember seeing Palm Pilots and other PDAs everywhere, and never thought the day would come where I'd find myself with one. Now that the fad has essentially long since died out, and this unit has been surpassed many times over, I see this as an opportunity to attempt and use this semi-obsolete device to try and manage my life. It should be interesting to see how well I manage to use it, and whether or not it actually has an impact on my level of organization, if one currently exists... ;)
-Adam
posted by Adam Vaughn at 12:15 AM
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