Small computery things you can fit in your pocket

The new iPod. I really shouldn’t have looked.

I’m such a sucker for small computery things. I bought a Philips Velo a few years ago. It was the only pda at the time that had a full keyboard big enough for me to touch type on. I loved it. I used to take it with me everywhere. I wrote half a book on it. It was just the most wonderful toy and it did everything I could possibly want.

Then the battery went. I can fit two normal AA batteries in the space left by the Philips own-brand battery, but for some reason they last hardly any time at all. I mean, just minutes. It seems that they’re just a fraction of a volt too pathetic to do the job. So now my Philips is forever tethered to its charger, and pretty much useless.

A year after I got the Velo, I was given a Palm by a company I was contracting with at the time. It was a nice Palm, pretty good for its time. I filled it with fun stuff from Avantgo to read on the train home. I put my diary on it and ran my entire work life from it. It was also a most wonderful toy, and I was chuffed as a small horse with it. (And that’s pretty darn chuffed, let me tell you.)

For the whole time I worked in that studio with that Palm, it was invaluable. No more lugging round a huge diary or notebook to meetings. Instead I could scribble away in my Palm, schedule more meetings, and then sync it with my desktop later. It made life so easy!

When I left, my boss generously told me I could take the Palm with me. So I brought it home, plugged it in to my desktop and? Nada. Dim byd o gwbl. Zip. Naaaathing. It simply would not talk to my pc at all. Nothing I did fixed the problem, so I gave up. Now it’s languishing somewhere, probably fatally out of charge, never to be used again.

Of course, now that I no longer have meetings or a diary as such, and no longer commute, I have no real need for a pda. But I feel really quite sad that both are just sitting about being useless. Maybe I’m lacking in imagination, but I’m not sure what to do with either of them. If anyone reading this wants the Palm, let me know. Maybe we can sort something out. If anyone knows where to get slightly-over-1.5v batteries, email me. I could still find a use or two for the Velo.

Anyway, the new iPod looks lovely. But would it last? Or would it just be another cute little device that’ll end up languishing in a drawer somewhere, obsolete in only a matter of months? Would it be nothing more than a short, passionate fling with a beautiful creature that will ultimately let me down just as I’ve become used to relying on it?

Good job I’m skint and will never find out.