Re: [NTLK] [WTB] Serial Dongle for MP 2000 + comment

From: John (OceanCity_at_mac.com)
Date: Wed Nov 09 2005 - 01:42:42 PST


11/8/05 Andy Hill issued the following and I have taken literary
license to pass it along on a "Need to Know Basis" . . . ?

>1) Recent total transfer from paper diary to Newton for busy work schedule.

....have done the same. After almost 20 years of trying every
conceivable form of Paper-based, Newton, then Palm, then PC, then Mac,
software, and all permutations of, guess what, I'm back to the Newton
again. My last incarnation :-) of all this landed me squarely into a Mac
application called DayLite from Marketcircle which is absolutely an
outstanding enterprise class PIM/CRM organizer for the Mac desktop and
laptop, server/client solution. This broad-based organizer system
[DayLite is available at VersionTracker.com w/demo] met or exceeded all
my contact, calendar, ToDo, and more, needs. See:

<http://1234zzzz.com/pub/1600daylite.jpg>

The ultimate irony of all this was that try as they would the incredible
team at MarketCircle, much like the original Newton team, is so advanced
conceptually that nothing mainstream including the Palm OS could match
DayLite's simplicity and power. DayLite even has a Palm conduit which
had to be hobbled and dummied-down in order to sync with the outdated
Palm data scheme, but alas, it was the Palm side of the equation which
leveled-down the least common denominator and hence a perfect match will
never be possible from DayLite to any Palm hardware.

I even picked up a Treo 650 which uses the latest Palm OS and DayLite
did flawlessly sync to this [Treo 650] quite capable PDA, however, the
Treo for me was too large a form-factor for a cell phone, and too small
a form-factor for a PDA. The screen and keyboard on the Treo are far too
tiny for my eyes and fingers, and the thickness of the Treo is too fat
to fit comfortably in my pockets as a phone. I pawned the Treo off on
eBay after just 2 weeks of squinting and trying to type the Bible on the
head of a pin using toothpicks just to push on the microscopic keys ;-).

I have come to the conclusion that hardware convergence is not for me,
is just an oxymoron, and in the end just a moronic marketing pursuit to
keep the consumers consuming.

I love my new Motorola RAZR cell phone w/bluetooth remote earpiece [that
actually works perfectly 100%], fits snug as a bug in a rug in my pants
pockets, with it's quintessential "form follows function" clamshell design.

I can grind out reams of paper and web output as needed from PhotoShop
and Pages, and/or heavy merges out of DayLite, etc. when I'm at my
desktop workstation.

FCP runs like a kitten on my dual G5 2.0 loaded to the gills with RAM
and firewire 800 hard drives.

For fast email culling in and out I need a full-sized keyboard and
cinema screen and PowerMail, what could be better?

All this having been said I was still left with no simple yet powerful
mobil based solution.

Then it was Newton 2100 Redux for me earlier this year. I was one of the
original Newton 2100 early adopters back in the late '90's and one of
the original New York City Newton User's Group which met monthly in the
Apple Marketing Center in the CitiCorp building on Lex and 53rd as a
very dedicated group of almost dozens who met monthly to share Newton
information. There was even a "Newton Retail Store" down the street! The
entire store sold Newtons only, amazing. We had lots of top name 3rd
party NOS application software vendors demoing their wares at the
meetings, and the excitement was in the air, you could just feel the
electricity all around you. Then in 1998 the Newton arm of Apple was
amputated and just about all the Newton users including myself blindly
jumped to the [then quite] innovative and promising Palm platform. Of
course the Palm handwriting recognition was a total joke, and then some,
unless you were willing to learn yet another lame language they called
"Grafittii" or something. Grafitti, or whatever it was called pretty
much did actually work, but required you to rebuild your subconscious
and change the way you wrote even on paper as a wasteful side-effect.
For the time being the Palm got a lot of us through the day, but never
equalled the Newton, and by then the world was changing so fast that
almost every day something new and clever showed up in the marketplace
but still no total mainstream compatibility. Even all the Palm PDA's I
tried never did sync quite right, always some problem or data corruption
with a million different PC hardware and software developers lacking the
unified standards required for solid syncing.

Anyway the point of all this is that there were always links in the
chain not strong enough to carry the overall load requirements of the
real business world. From 1998 until around the turn of the century I
had to administer a medium sized PC LAN which required my full-time
attention patching up as it continually faltered due to security issues
and less than perfect standardization gliches. If you've been there you
know the story ;-)

One day I finally gave into my brother-in-law's gentle prodding to look
at a "MAC", blasphemy of course coming from the PC world, but the
perfect quest for the rebel in me. So I bought an entry-level iBook to
touch and feel, and within literally five minutes I knew I was in
nirvana. There was no turning back. Since then, around the early 2000's,
I've gone from that first iBook, to a dual G4, through a series G4
PowerBooks, and most recently to another dual G5 desktop workhorse for
daily use.

But then still no good PDA mobile solution. The Treo 650 came close, but
no cigar. Then, I forget exactly why, I bought up a Newton 2100 on eBay
and there was no turning back, again. Redux. What I really needed was
always there right in front of me, the Newton. To this day still ahead
of it's time. Since I can't remember anything I had to totally
reeducate myself to use my newly acquired eBay Newton, which as always
for me was a struggle, but more than worth the journey, as the legendary
Jimi Hendrix noted "are you experienced?" as he whaled out on the
strings of his guitar the purity of music never equalled ;-)

I now use my 2100 intentionally as a stand-alone mobile devise for ALL
my scheduling and ToDo requirements using TimeTrax, from those crafty
Germans ;-) who, like the Newton team, seem to have anticipated your
every next move. See:

<http://1234zzzz.com/pub/Newton_Stand-Alone.html>

So, it's around 4AM and I really have to get going, it's gonna be a long
day, but one thing for sure is I'll have my trusty Newton with me the
whole time to keep me on track ;-)

Cheers,

John

>2) Jogging the 9 miles home last Friday as usual but not wanting to
>leave the Newt at work, so jogging with it all the way home.
>3) Having to regularly defend myself from tactical and cunning ridicule
>by colleagues. Man! how funny is the word dongle anyway?

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