Diana, one of my good friends, says, "Lorrie, hanging out with you is like living in a science fiction novel!"
Yes, I have too damn many electronic gadgets upon my person. For amusement, here's the gallery of what's going with me on the train:
The single one of my doodads that graces my hands most often when I'm out and about is this, my lovely and talented Palm VIIx. Even if I've turned off the cell phone and I don't want to lug the iBook, I still have my most essential piece of gear close to hand, keeping my phone numbers and train schedule safe. Oh, and for when I really need my e-mail fix, there's that whole wireless Internet thing to consider. Shoot, I bought a Palm (m100, the least of the clan) these for my extremely non-techie mother for Yule. Pictured nearby is the folding keyboard thing that allows me to take notes faster than a speeding bullet in those long meetings, and yet can still collapse to the size of the Palm it accompanies. Not pictured is the HotSync cable for extra added USB fun.
By the way, if you're in the market for a USB adapted for your Palm cradle or sync cable, be aware that the one from Keyspan, at least on my trusty iBook, will only sync at 9600 baud, which was unacceptable to me. Keyspan's technical support, when I verified I had the latest drivers and all, shrugged their communal shoulders.
I just bought the Palm-branded USB adapter. Not as flaky and it goes much faster. Get that. Don't get the Keyspan one. Moving on...
My travel-battered Nokia 5190, with service from Cingular Wireless (née Pacific Bell). No, you may not have the phone number. It's GSM, the standard used in Europe, which means three things:
It's this last that I'm fond of, as it's an undocumented feature of this model, and not a well-known one in the States. Picture, if you will:
A typical train platform on a public transit system. All around you, people order their half-caf double non-fat latte with two and not just one sprinkle of cinnamon at the platform's coffee stand. Cell phones ring, yes, with their pedestrian William Tell Overtures and that default ring for the tragically lame.
Then, some of John William's best-penned and most strident notes sing out, a cruel little triplet and its variations... yep, it's the Imperial March from Star Wars.
Okay, so it's all in tinny little beeps. But it's mine and sure makes this phone different from many other phones, so there.
And now, the iBook. You may scoff, you may laugh, and you may even say "Gosh, Lorrie, why'd you bring your own toilet seat on the frickin' train?"
The plain fact of the matter is, though, that this has taken all the abuse living in my backpack has seen fit to heap on it, but still blesses me with the Great Sigil of the Happy Mac whenever it boots. It has exactly as many ports as I need (Ethernet, USB, modem, power, audio), two to three times the battery life of most of its Intel competition (4-6 hours), and generally does all I need and nothing I don't. My only possible complaint is that at six and a half pounds, it's a little heavy. But I can't break it over my knee like a lot of its brethren. For my humble purposes, I win.
Oh, accessories not visible from this view: an Airport card, some extra RAM and, for when it's deskbound, a stand, external keyboard and mouse, and a bitty USB hub.
And here, right here is the culprit responsible for all the pictures in this reckoning, me. My hands, anyway, and cradled in them is my Kodak DC260 Digital Camera. Not pictures is the cable I use to hitch it up to the iBook, nor the charger with the spare set of batteries. I copy the images as incredibly huge (multi-megabyte) JPEG images, then reduce their size by 75% with Adobe ImageReady, convert them to PNG-24 format, and upload them to my humble web server.
PNG? Why, it's a "Turbo-Studly Image Format with Lossless Compression." Check the official PNG site for details.
That's the complete catalogue, for all you curious onlookers and would-be muggers out there.