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Carrying Your IT Equipment With You?
dada21 asks: "As an on-the-go journalist, IT consultant, entrepreneur and blogger, I find myself with way too much stuff. About 5 years ago I started to downsize and cut back to just 2 PCs total (small laptop and PVR desktop), 1 PDA, and 2 cell phones (main and backup). The laptop goes everywhere (doubling as a great GPS center in the vehicle for those long road trips), the PDA does, too. Traveling with all 4 electronic devices is a mess of cables: power/charger, USB, and the like. Everything is light and small but the bulk of all of it adds up. I currently use a Toy Machine messenger bag but it just doesn't work when you're trying to shove a file folder, pen/appointment selection and a day-timer in it. I'll spend the cash, even if it is really expensive, for the convenience, speed and quality for a jack-of-all-bags that can handle the jack-of-all-trades. What bag is the best solution?"
I know it's a minor point, but why on Earth do you need a Day-Timer if you have a PDA? Or, to look at it the other way around, why the hell do you have a PDA if you are already carrying a notebook PC and a Day-Timer?
Also, Day-Timers suck. Get a Franklin. In fact, get a Franklin PDA and you're all set.
-Peter
But as time has gone on, while we've become more reliant, dependent, and expectant, of technology, the technology itself has become no more practical. The integrated device is far away. While systems like the Nokia 9500 have gone so far, the fact is we can't rely upon such technologies for everything. Just entering text into any mobile device, for instance, remains a pain, a crucial barrier to the integrated digital world.
In some ways, the question may be raised: is this the direction we want to go in? The truth is, yes it is. We're expected to have this degree of communication because the world is becoming more complex, because as we gain efficiencies through our increased knowledge, we find ourselves having to manage the data flow.
And so, right now, we have to lug laptops around, with wifi and bluetooth connections, and cellphones, and iPods. Will this end? It has to. Because unless it does, we'll never be able to realise the next step of total information connectivity. Our ability to learn, and to take advantage of the information available will be decreased.
This quagmire of people being unable to take advantage of information while the technology itself remains a hinderance will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.
You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that there has to be a nationwide program that provides technology at the point of need, ensuring total connectivity. Tell them this is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by good, American, companies from Cingular to Motorola, from IBM to Dell, from Apple to Microsoft to support you with the technology you need in your life but that without a government mandated technology supply, ensuring those who need information can get it without the need to lug around laptops, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how a government program of technological availability will help all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on funding such a network.
You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Remember, it was thanks to ordinary people like YOU that we are now seeing such innovations as SMP in OpenBSD. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.
KMSMA (WWBD?)