datacloud

Scaling

I recently purchased a Sharp Zaurus PDA. Or maybe it's a laptop. Or palmtop. It's difficult to tell. Running a QTopia's version of linux, I can use it for a much broader range of activities than I could my previous PDAs (going all the way back to an Apple Newton and up to the Handspring the Zaurus replaces). In fact, for the most part, I'm using the Zaurus for 90% of what I could use a desktop or laptop. It won't run MS Office, for example, but HancomWord, which is included, reads and writes .doc files. And I can't run Adobe Photoshop, but it does run simple paint programs (and if I upgrade to the Debian Linux installation that's available, I could run GIMP or another full-power image editor). Here's a shot of the Zaurus in relation to the 15" PowerBook (the Zaurus is displaying Google News).

Along with wireless, the Zaurus is beginning to change my ideas about how these technologies are integrated into my worklife (and life in general). I'm still in the middle of the transition period, but I find myself relying on my PowerBook less (and the several Dell Dimension towers have been relegated to serving various applications or running specialized financial software that won't run under OS X or linux). And the portability of the device makes it much less of an issue to carry around--sure, I can bring the PowerBook around with me, but the Zaurus is an order of magnitude simpler, sort of like the same leap that was made between early portable computers like the Osborne to the modern, four- to six-pound laptop.

There's an odd, almost contradictory impulse in the development of these technologies: at the same time that I'm shifting large portions of my work onto a laptop device slightly larger than a pack of cards, I'm also getting used to the idea that some of my work requires different support. So while for years I struggled to use the PowerBook as a desktop replacement--and it was, for the most part--I've realized that different types of work should rely on different types of techology. The middle ground won't always cut it. So I can use the Web, do email, and edit documents on the Zaurus, the tiny screen (even though it's 640x480 resolutio) won't cut it for work requiring large amounts of information on the display. For that sort of work, the PowerBook setup makes more sense (particularly the PowerBook when I'm running in dual-monitor mode to add the pixel real estate from the 21-inch monitor on my desk to the 15" lcd of the laptop). And, despite the ease of use and portability of the PowerBook, I sometimes need more CPU speed than it can deliver and use one of the various desktop machines in my office or my lab.

(All of this, I realize, is partially to rationalize my irrational need to buy more technology.)

Posted by johndan at August 7, 2003 06:23 PM