Nokia 6610

The Nokia 6610 is quite an unremarkable phone compared to the smart-camera-hybrid phones you see alot of these days. Which makes it such a great choice since it does such a good job of being a phone. You can make & answer calls, check messages and even peek at emails without being overwhelmed by an unweildy, clunky device (which is how I see most of the modern smart phones).

It's tri-band GSM, has a color screen and decent battery life. It can go online via GPRS, which is okay but not fast. I've checked email on both my laptop and handheld. The bandwidth is just barely adequate to send and receive basic messages.

It has a nice form factor- slender and efficient. No wasted space or fashionable curves. I really like the interface for dialing, contacts, etc. It's very easy to use, even with one hand. And it's got a speakerphone feature too!

But like all good but unexciting products, the 6610 is old and is no longer available from most phone providers. I had to go to Ebay to find a new faceplate after cracking the original.

If you can get one, I highly recommend it. I'll keep using mine until I can find a new phone with as much usability plus better features (like faster data speed & bluetooth).

I've got my eye on the Palm Treo. I would have gotten one if they had shipped when they said it would originally. I waited month after month, then gave up and got my 6610 on a year's contract.

Dell Inspiron

For over 5 years, a Dell Inspiron has been my laptop of choice. They aren't the lightest, but they are reliable, expandable, reasonably fast and have great graphics.

In '99 I got an Inspiron 7500. Pentium 2 400, 96MB, 4.8GB HD. It did a great job for office work, email and graphics. The ATI chipset had decent graphics but it was a pain getting the S-Video out to turn on when you needed it. Also, the doors on the PCMCIA slots were pretty flimsy. Within a year they both broke off.

In 2003, I upgraded to the 8200. I purchased it on Dell's Refurbished Outlet. This is a great way to find a deal on a recent laptop. Dell does have plenty of sales going on, but it was much more fun searching the available refurb inventory for a model that matched my wish list of CPU, memory, HD, OS, etc. New units would show up, then dissappear as other people snatached them up. You have to be patient to find one close to what you want, but then you have to be decisive to get it.

My model was a 1.7Ghz P4, 256MB and a 40GB HD. I've upgraded some of the components-- more on that later.

The 8200 "improved" the PCMCIA doors by omitting them. Instead you get two fake cards that take up the slots when you're not using them. This time I opted for the NVidia GeForce 440 GO graphics chipset. NVidia is a better choice than ATI for stability and compatibility, but not speed (at least in my experience).

In early '04 I ordered a docking station. This makes it real quick to unpack the laptop after a trip and just plug it in and go. Keyboard, mouse, monitor, network all connected in one place. Initially it shipped with the wrong power supply. I had to show Dell their own FAQ that described how certain power supplies were not compatible with the "older" Inspirons (by that time I think the 8200 wasn't even listed on their site). After sending the same wrong supply TWICE, they finally sent the right one.

Later in the year, I upped the RAM, eventually to 1 GB. But I read online in the Dell Forums that you could also upgrade the CPU and video chipset. Dell even has step by step instructions if you look for them.

Here are some other useful Inspiron websites:

• Inspiron 8200 FAQ
• Bay Wolf's Links Page
• OEM Laptop Support Dept (modded NVidia drives)
• OmegaDrivers (modded ATI drivers)

FYI, you need modded drivers because the Dell "approved" ones are over a year old!

First I got a Mobile P4 2.6 on Ebay. By then, laptops came with the Pentium-M, a more laptop-friendly CPU. Ebay was the only way to get a Mobile P4 without paying a fortune-- with PC technology, sometimes older parts are MORE expensive than new ones. Following Dell's instructions, that worked great. I also installed a fan control utility just in case heat became a problem.

Then I got really adventurous and wanted to swap the NVidia chipset for an ATI. I read on several sites that the Radeon 9000M was just a little better than the NVidia 440 GO. That was all I needed to start looking for how to get the part. I got on the phone with Dell and the order was made. Or so I thought.

About 2 weeks later, I logged on to check the order status and it was cancelled. I called and they re-submitted the order. But it got cancelled again. It turns out the Sales dept was putting in the order, but the Spare Parts dept was cancelling it when they received it. The reason? That part was no longer in stock. So why they heck do they let you order it!!?

But the third time, I was connected to a very helpful guy. He did some digging around and found another part number for the same product. Maybe that would be available? It was worth a try.

Not too long after, he called to let me know that not only was the ATI card on its way, but that it would be FREE of charge!! Wow, what a company! I am a Dell customer for life.

I know there are probably people out there who have horror stories dealing with Dell and sworn to never buy one again. But you could probably find the same for any company. Even Apple. :-)

My experiences with Dell have shown that if you are persistent, polite and patient, they will reciprocate. Everyone I dealt with was very professional and really tried to help even if they didn't know what to do. I think with a company as big as Dell, I had to be lucky to not be stuck with a person who either doesn't care or has an attitude. Until that happens, I'll glady keep using an Inspiron as well as two DJs (both the 20GB and the 5GB versions).

So now my Inspiron 8200 is:

• 2.6 GHz Mobile P4
• 1 GB RAM (PC 2100)
• 40 GB HD (5400 RPM)
• ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 (64MB)

I think I can keep it going through the rest of the year. By then it will be quite outdated, even by an entry level laptop. Not to mention the physical condition-- all that plastic isn't going to hold up forever.

I am taking care of it as much as I can. I found a great backpack recommended by many other Inspiron owners.

Since laptop HDs are so expensive (everything for laptops is more expensive), I purchased a regular 200GB Ultra ATA drive and an external Firewire/USB enclosure. I use it to store large project files as well as backups of the internal drive. I bought the drive and enclosure separately, taking advantage of rebate deals as they came up.

Dude, I have a Dell. :)

Backup Software

I didn't mean to put down Ghost entirely. I've been using it for years to set up PCs at work. We do training classes every month and we re-image the drives before each class. Never had a problem.

At home I'm using Acronis True Image. A friend recommended it so I thought I'd give it a try. I like how it can run directly from Windows instead of having to reboot. It can do incremental backups as well. Since I have a lot of digital photos, I've been doing periodic backups to an external Firewire drive.

Hard drives have become so cheap lately. You can find great deals on Techbargains, NewEgg and if you're lucky enough to live near a Fry's Electronics, you can take advantage of their weekly specials.

Making Backups

You'd think that after my Palm went back to day 0, I'd be more paranoid about backups and such.

Well I learned yet another valuable lesson in this area. It turns out that if your PC hard drive has any errors or the drive you are backing up to has any, Symantec Ghost will happilly make your backup corrupt as well.

It's even a known fact on their website. Once you make a backup, you should test it to make sure it's okay. Otherwise when you try to use it later, you're screwed.

So be careful out there!

Zire 72 - Watch that battery!

What happens when a Palm Zire 72 runs out of battery?

Everything goes away!! You're back to factory defaults and all your memos, contacts, etc. are erased.

That's not like previous Palms that would hold onto files for a week or so until you got around to recharging. And since the 72 goes through power fast, you have to keep an eye on that.

Dell DJ

We've had two Dell DJ's for a few months now. They're cheaper than iPods and have all the same features, except for the "click wheel", whatever that is. They key things we were looking for were easy music import, easy playback controls, and lots of storage.

We have the 20GB and 5GB "mini" models. They connect via USB and can use either the Dell supplied software or Windows Media Player. I use iTunes to rip and organize tracks, and the Dell software to download. WMP is too clunky.

The cool thing about having so much storage is that you can put in dozens of albums, select shuffle and get a variety of music for hours. Highly recommended.

PalmOne Zire 72

I have the Palm Zire 72 PDA.

Cool features

• Decent screen (320x320)
• Bluetooth - Works great for HotSync and Internet Sharing w/your PC.
• All the great PalmOS apps - I love the Calendar, Todo List, Memos, etc. Very elegant and extremely useful.
• MP3 Player - Requires an expansion card. Pretty basic functionality-- this ain't no iPod.
• Camera - A mere 1.2 mpixel. But it's cool that you can associate pics with your contacts.
• Email and Web apps - Very functional. Email supports POP3 and IMAP. Browser mostly works except w/frames.
• Documents to Go - Nice but you have to be careful about sync'ing the wrong direction and losing updates.
• World Clock - Useful when traveling.
• Phone Link - Worked with my Nokia 6610. I can dial numbers from the phone book and log on the Net via T-Mobile GPRS.

My only complaints are that the battery runs out pretty quick and the blue paint scratches off easily. Palm dealt with the paint issue by coming out with a silver "special edition" Zire 72.

I also picked up the WiFi SD Card. Works great at home, office, airports, Starbucks. I only wish T-Mobile would support WEP or some other login method than filling out a web form (which is painful with a stylus).