Passing of PDA's

Please take a moment to mourne the passing of my personal digital assistant (PDA)....

Thank you.

Now we can celebrate having a "back-up" PDA already on hand! :-)

Several years ago, my sister gave me my first (used) PDA--a Palm IIIe. After a few months of use (that I enjoyed) I misplaced it for most of a year. I was trying to take steps to get my life more organized, so I gave in and bought myself my second (used) PDA--a Palm IIIxe. As irony would predict, I located my first Palm a few months after I got the second one.

The Palm IIIxe has served me well for more than 2.5 years. I took it to Ireland and Greece with me to journal my experiences. (I still have dreams that one day I'll finish editing those notes and post them here on my blog.) Yesterday, my Palm took a bit of a spill--slid off a book in my hand, hit the table, and bounced onto a padded chair. Yesterday and today, it displayed some odd behavior--not clearing the screen properly after alarms. But I'd seen a little bit of that previously when it had a low battery and it had cleared with the battery change. Late this afternoon, I turned it on and it hung displaying the calendar screen--no response to taps, buttons, or even trying to turn it off. I hit the "Reset" on the back and it seemed to be working well again. I tried to synch it with my work computer to have a back-up and ended up with error messages (something that seems to plague me about once a week), but this time, it wouldn't cancel out of the Synch. I had to use Task Manager to kill the synch on my laptop and the Palm had once again hung and would not respond to any buttons. I tried the "Reset" on the back again, but this time it hung at the initial splash screen. So, my Palm IIIxe is displaying the Palm OS splash screen and won't turn off.

Perhaps a bit miraculously, I was able to locate my Palm IIIe that hasn't been used in nearly 4 years. I replaced the battery and synched it with my home laptop. Unfortunately, the back-up on my home computer is several months old, but it's good to see the Palm still seems to be functioning and to have all my added programs on it. The back-up on my work computer is less than a week old, so I think once I synch with it tomorrow I should be well on my way to having my life back in my palm!