hold up on that throwaway culture!
love buying gadgets. i’m a gadget retard. sitting in a cafe right now with a laptop (on my lap — wow), two iPods (freshly sync’d, updated, and charged), another MP3 gizmo (primarily for recording cop encounters*), and a portable 250 GB USB hard drive, running a quick differential backup of my laptop onto a 4 GB flash drive. that’s only what i brought with me into the cafe.
oh, but there’s one more thing with me here — the subject of this post. years ago i was one of the first to “adopt” the Pocket PC, in my case a compaq iPAQ H3630. think i paid $500 for it, and was lucky to find one available when i did. then i threw on hundreds in accessories, most important of which was a nifty fold-up keyboard with standard-sized keys.
roll forward five years, and the consumer pocket PC is nearly dead. laptops shrank and prices dropped, the iPod destroyed previously orgasmic MP3 players, and the thumb-typers invaded with blackberry fever. add in the dying internal batteries of the iPAQ, and you get a regular ~$30 eBay market for used units.
dug my iPAQ, but that battery shit was a killa. when cleaning up a few months ago i asked a friend if he wanted to give the iPAQ to his kids, since it worked okay plugged in. he didn’t think they’d want it, and i almost threw it away. after moving from a rented office to full road warrior status, i found that my writing had gone into the dust because i was always worried about zapping my vehicle battery using my intentionally huge laptop (great screen). began looking back longingly at the days when i’d keep the little iPAQ and keyboard in my backpack, then would end up writing an article at a bar or restaurant. checked eBay again and found that many reputable vendors were selling a better replacement battery w/tool and instructions for less than $15. WTF, i gave it a shot. a week later the thing arrived, and in 15 minutes of careful handling i had a spanking new battery in my iPAQ that kicked more ass than the original.
quickly began enjoying the gizmo again. five years later it’s still damned powerful, despite the comparatively small memory. sync to the laptop is normally flawless and painless, though it pays to back up regularly. i’ve read a few ebooks using it — one of the features i always liked, and it’s great having the option to roll an article over to a device where i don’t have dying batteries like a monkey on the back. every time i go battery power on my laptop, it seems there’s a TNT fuse burning in the background. i need hours and hours, baby! the iPAQ, not supporting spinning motors, and sporting a small, dimmable screen, can reliably go many hours on a single charge (at least 8, i’m guessing, though i haven’t yet tried it), and days on the car battery if necessary.
strange how replacing a battery was almost like buying a new toy. reminds me that humans are quick to confuse boredom with loss of utility. i don’t have the problem so much with software (e.g., i still use and revere MS office 97, with no desire for a newer version), but sometimes i forget how neat a gizmo remains regardless of what’s come later. if you have a dead compaq/HP iPAQ and would like a new battery, give it a shot. not the easiest battery install ever, and requires a delicate, patient touch, but well worth the result when you do it right.
*have come up with what i think’s a good safety for these state goon fucks who want to shove a “wiretap” charge up your ass for recording them without notice at the same time they’re recording you without notice (lunatic pricks). if you think it’s going to be a stop for which evidence would be needed, as soon as the cop walks up, simply ask him if the conversation’s being recorded. if he says yes, then you damned sure don’t need to make him aware that it’s being recorded. haven’t tested it yet, and i could be wrong, but i think that’s better than the usual “you’re being recorded” notice, which tends to inspire the normally hostile psychopaths to greater hostility, and also can lead to them trying to bullshit you into believing that they may “legally” nix your recording right there. nobody hates loss of evidence control more than the guilty (in this case professional violent psychopaths). major caveat: since these nutcase pricks have psychosis sufficient to insist that you’re a criminal for not notifying them directly that you also are recording a conversation they didn’t notify you about directly, who knows if the method described here would evade their ninnyness any better. i think it’s worth a shot, but don’t know the ultimate result with each moron jackal.