Oh Brave New World that has such gadgets in it...!
I've recently acquired an old Palm IIIe, courtesy of my good friend Lantz, on which I am downloading out-of-print eBooks - specifically the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. It took me three hours or more to figure out why it wasn't working with my computer, but John solved my problem in 30 seconds. I don't know how he does it, but it's just another reason why I love him so much.
So I went ahead and purchased the first 5 novels online cuz heck, I'm going to read them. And it's great! I even downloaded some freeware games to pass the time. Why I didn't get one before is beyond me!
Yeah, I could have bought a brand spanking new Treo, say, with its own digital camera and MP3 player with all the bells and whistles, but why spend $200 to $400 on a device where I'll only use maybe 10% of the functions, when I can get a device where I'll use 80 to 90% of the functions for practically free? Betamaxing myself? I think not.
So my message of the day is this: if you want to cheaply enter a paperless society, get yourself an old PDA. You can get them refurbished cheaply at a lot of independent stores for under $50 in most cases. You can get adapters if you don't have the right serial port, rechargeable batteries, and download almost anything you want for free off the net. Not only will you save a bundle in trees and paper, but think about the other environmental benefits: you're keeping ewaste out of the landfills by reusing, and you're saving gas and energy in shipping, printing, and manpower costs. That, plus you're promoting the open sharing of information over the Internet. Cool, no?
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