First Post
I figured I should write something other than that 'Hello World' post that was generated. Well, this is my blog...wierd. Almost too easy to setup - Wordpress is cool. Hopefully this blog will serve as a way for me (and others, if I'm interesting enough) to spread information about how technology can work FOR you, not against you.
For the last year and a half I have been drawn into the world of HTPCs. I got bit by the bug hard and after only about 2 weeks of planning (which you'll find is not very much time for me) I built my dedicated HTPC around a program called SageTV. SageTV is an amazing fit for my living room, rock-solid operation, and a huge WAF - Wife Acceptance Factor. If any of you are considering bringing a HTPC into your house, and you have a significant other, you have to take the WAF into account. If you don't, the HTPC will never graduate from a side-hobby that lives in your office to a fixture in your living-room.
Admittedly, I've always been a gadget-freak, but I won't buy a gadget unless it's exactly what I need. The last time I was looking for a cell-phone, I put it off for 6 months waiting for the Treo 600, and used an old flip phone with a broken screen because I decided that a keyboard was an essential feature in a smartphone and the Samsung SPH-i500 didn't cut it (I'm a sprintPCS subscriber BTW), and I'm so glad I did.
The Treo 600 has been my primary computing device since I got it in November of '03, and it is amazing. Do I wish I had a 650? Of course! But to me, the 650 would be an incremental upgade. I'm waiting to see if PalmOne can put one of those 4gb hard drives in there and add EV-DO - Then I'll be tossing the 600. In the mean time, I've found some amazing things that are possible with the 600: I can control my HTPC from anywhere using PalmVNC, get all my email with SnapperMail, watch re-encoded TV shows I've recorded with MMPlayer, go online with the built-in browser, and even get my RSS fix with QuickNews.
My most recent interest is in TabletPCs. I'm a film and television editor and a large part of my job is taking notes from producers, directors, executives or whoever and working them into a show. My current system involves my chicken-scratch handwriting in a spiral notebook and highlighters. I highlight the notes as I address them, when the page is day-glow, I move on. This works to a certain extent, but it becomes overwhelming very quickly when dealing with notes about notes and who made them, when they were addressed, what I actually changed to 'fix' it, the list goes on and on.
I originally thought I could use my Treo for this purpose, but I found that it is much less acceptable to be punching away on a tiny keyboard than it is to write in a notebook. The same goes for typing into a laptop - they just look at you wierd and say, "Can't you just write it down?". They believe it's overkill, even though I don't.
So anyways, the object of my gadget-lust is the semi-leaked IBM X41 TabletPC. My current primary computer is a Dell Latitude LS - ancient, I know (There's a story behind why I'm stuck working on a 400mhz Pentium III, but I won't bore you with it) but it "works" for me, or at least it has been working for me. It's time for an upgrade, and I believe that TabletPCs have matured enough for them to handle all I can throw at them.
As for what to expect from my blog, I hope to write about the ways I make my technology work for me, and not against me. I believe that technology should mold to the way we work, and not the other way around, which is why the TabletPC seems like such a great thing to me - at least in theory. There will be commentaries on what I think should be changed, major news postings and what implications I think they might have, my ideas about the future, tips for those who are interested in any of the technology I use, and a light sprinkling of my 'real-life' just for good measure. This site will also be filled out with some of the software projects I'm starting work on, some of which I can't talk about yet, so keep an eye out as I have big things planned for both my favorite HTPC programs.
So I think that'll do it for now. I went a little longer than I planned, so if you made it through - Thanks for sticking with me.
Vince