jr conlin's ink stained banana

According to the Planet Money Blog, one of the things that i should be doing to help my economy as an american, is to buy something.

Considering my somewhat unholy attraction to things requiring batteries and potentially vibrate, (Wait, no, that doesn't sound right, the stuff i like isn't dishwasher safe either.) this means the occasional foray into various electronics marketers for things that go beep in the night. Today was such a day. Mind you, it wasn't really supposed to be.

Originally, i wanted to get a DVI cable, so i headed over to the local Office.* to see if they had one. They did. It cost $70 so i decided not to spend money on that there when i can get the same cable for $12 if i'm feeling particularly extravagant. Whilst looking for said cable, however, i spotted an Acer One all set up and cheerily displaying the fact that "JP wuz Here" in rotating 3d taggable glory.

It was wee. A tiny little computer about the size of a large-format paperback. The keyboard was actually usable and the screen was sharp enough to deal with. There were three USB ports on it for charging up stuff, and at 2lbs it'd be far lighter than what i'm currently lugging about. Plus the price was pretty good.

Still, that's when sanity hit.

Thing is, i don't need another computer. i've got three already (main, laptop, server), and it was really too big to stuff into a pocket and wander about.

Which, of course, will inevitably lead to one person remarking that if i wanted to get something small and capable, i should get an iPhone/iTouch. Up until yesterday, i'd probably agree. Yesterday, however, i discovered that Apple's latest art project doesn't allow you to write to the device when it's hooked up via a USB connection. So, aside from the fact that it doesn't have any way to expand from what you bought, doesn't have a replaceable battery, and doesn't let you write to the device other than via approved mechanisms plus the fact that it runs on the crushed dreams of orphaned puppies and kittens, i'm not going to be slapping down for one anytime soon regardless of whether or not it grants the power of flight and cures world hunger for $.99 a month. i could almost accept that i had to use iTunes to put music on it because i figured that would be a reasonably rare event. The fact that i have to use a specific program to do anything with the beastie pretty much confirms that Apple is marching solidly back to the heady days of 1998. (What, did they steal a playbook from Sony or something?)

Thus the reason that lugging around a 2lb mini computer actually appealed to me. At least with THAT i could use it like i'd expect to be able to. (For what it's worth, no, i'm not going to get the Acer.)

Oh well, winter's settling in and it's become jacket weather. At least i'll have more pockets for my phone, MP3 player and media/browser device.

Still wish someone sold one that made sense.