Channel 9 Forums - Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

Neal — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 12:56:07 GMT

My belt's main purpose is for all my wireless gadgets and not just making me look all snazzy. These are some of the gadgets that adorned my belt recently..and here is the funniest part, they were on me all at the same time ! HA !

1 Verizon Wireless Blackberry ( for email and phone )

1 Nextel Color Screen Blackberry ( for "redundancy")

1 Nextel I730 phone ( walkied talkie / GPS navigator phone ..you know in case I get lost..in NYC...yeah thats it.)

1 Samsung I700 Pocket PC smartphone ( gotta have a pocket pc )

OK, so I geeked out. well i got rid of the color blackberry and the i700, they're not residing at the bottom of my desk draw now.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

librarian — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 13:14:25 GMT

Do you have the Dick Tracy SPOT watch as well?

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

Richard Acton — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 13:43:59 GMT

I'm suprised your trousers don't fall down with all that weight attached to your belt.

I have a SPV E200 It does everything I need.

http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/show/handset/orange_spv_e200/details

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

spod — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 13:47:06 GMT

I have no wireless gadgets whatsoever - i don't even wear a watch or have a mobile phone... not sure why, i think i like being able to be out of touch when i want to be..

am i dramatically losing geek-points here? do i need to buy one of these things, or do most live without wireless connectivity still?

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

Lowrez — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:02:52 GMT

spod wrote:

I have no wireless gadgets whatsoever - i don't even wear a watch or have a mobile phone... not sure why, i think i like being able to be out of touch when i want to be..

am i dramatically losing geek-points here? do i need to buy one of these things, or do most live without wireless connectivity still?

Not in my book. A lot of geeks I know make it a point of pride that they don't carry a cell phone. It is a distinction from the sysadmins and tech support folks who are 'tethered'.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

Neal — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:50:07 GMT

Totally agree, my Cisco geek carrys nothing.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

Neal — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:57:34 GMT

Speaking of wireless. Does anyone use a softphone ?

I've given up my regular pots line ( just because there are much cheaper alternative solutions )
and gone with Cisco based softphones running off my laptop. If the laptop is off or i'm not connected, the calls are forwarded to a Cisco 7960 SIP phone at home or my cell.

I also have a few SIP lines on the laptop but rarely use 'em.

Neal

http://adminnotes.typepad.com

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

FrankCarr — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 16:56:22 GMT

Plain old Nokia phone - the model they give you for free when I sign up.

I had a Blackberry provided by a company I contracted at for a year. It was really a pain to carry it around along with a cellphone. Two funny stories came out of it's use there. One was when a particularly boring product manager was going to give a presentation on our work. We setup a scheduler to bombard his Blackberry with mail about every 30 seconds. He ended up turning off his unit after about 5 alerts when he realized he was the butt of a joke. The other was our manager who had a convertable Mustang and drove fast and wild. She was pulled over by the police one day for reckless driving. She was talking on her cellphone and thumbing an entry into the Blackberry while trying to stay on the road and in her lane, apparently not too successfully.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

Neal — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 17:18:54 GMT

The "powers that be" in our company actually has a written policy ; Leave the Blackberries at the door when in attending internal meetings or conferences or don't come at all.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

SMac — Fri, 23 Apr 2004 02:55:30 GMT

Darn.. your company must be seriously Anti-Fruit or something.. do you work for Meet-Is-Us or something? What's your company's stance against vegitables.. or kiwi fruit..

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

Neal — Fri, 23 Apr 2004 03:29:24 GMT

hahaha..... Its just Blackberrys.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

gmiley — Fri, 23 Apr 2004 13:17:14 GMT

I carry only a cell phone most of the time. I do have a Zaurus 5600 handheld as well as a PalmIIIc. Sometimes I carry my Nightvision goggles but only when I'm infiltrating third world countries.

As far as the 'I don't carry even a cell phone' and any argument for that statement. Mine has a nifty new feature, it might not be on your phones though. I call it the 'power button'. Science and technology sure have come a long way.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

mrichman — Fri, 23 Apr 2004 17:25:17 GMT

Motorola MPx200

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

lars — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 02:29:08 GMT

gmiley wrote:

I call it the 'power button'. Science and technology sure have come a long way.

I try to avoid that one. My Nokia 6600 takes a whole 55 seconds to boot up. I think they need to make atleast that piece of technology abit faster.

/Lars.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

gmiley — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 13:45:35 GMT

I've always used Motorola products and have never had anything over 10 seconds (max) for startup time. I'm now using a replacement phone from Kyocera which I have no complaints about so far; it starts up in about the same time if not faster.

I'm thinking about switching from Alltel (formerly GTE) to Nextel, though I must say that my coverage is phenominal with Alltel. I can travel through the Everglades and sustain a signal the whole trip.

I am also fond of the vibrate feature. It doesn't intrude on anything you are doing and if you ignore it, the only one that knows is you. The person calling just thinks you forgot your phone somewhere and you call back when you have time.

It really isn't that hard to ignore a cellphone or any other electronic device for that matter. I laugh when I see people run around or jump over furnature to answer a phone.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

object88 — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 20:05:48 GMT

At work, I keep all my technology on my desk-- a Archos jukebox / portable HD, Palm m500, Motorola cell, and coffee mug. All black-and-white "ancient" technology; I try to stay at least 4 or 5 releases behind the cutting edge. Much better on the pocketbook.

If I'm not at work, the phone's in the pocket (where it has an annoying habit of changing volumes and going to speakerphone mode; damn external buttons), and everything else is in my free-for-showing-up-at-the-conference totebag.

BTW, anyone else bothered by the exceedingly short charge-time on cell phones these days? I have to recharge about every other day. My (archaic) Nokia held a charge for a good week (and was about twice the size...).

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

lars — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 22:11:39 GMT

object88 wrote:

BTW, anyone else bothered by the exceedingly short charge-time on cell phones these days? I have to recharge about every other day.

Yes. It's like being back in 1997. Love the camera. Love the colour display. But it runs out of juice pretty quick. I'm not too happy about cell phones getting more and more computer properties either; atleast not when it says "please reboot your phone after the installation is finished.". Life ain't easy.

Which reminds me that I need to charge the phone...

/Lars.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

samdruk — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 04:56:15 GMT

Treo 600. And sometimes a Sony DSC-P92.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

lenn — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 05:38:12 GMT

I have three items that go just about everywhere with me. This is after years and years of trying everything that hits the market.

1.) Sony VAIO TR1AP Laptop. Ultralight, good battery, best screen on the market, built in CDRW/DVD

2.) HTC Himalaya/O2 XDA II/T Mobile XDA II Pocket PC Phone Edition. Great screen, camera, GPRS, the works. My laptop lite

3.) My iPod. Nuff said, it works great.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

amg — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 22:21:38 GMT

My cell and my iPod.

That's it, my nizzle!

p.s. Your iPod works great? Really? Don't drop it on shag carpet from one inch...or...look at it from an odd angle...or...just don't use it and it'll work fine. I'm on my 4th iPod...and...believe it or not, I take insanely good care of them. I believe they're made out of old tires.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

dave-o — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 02:56:52 GMT

I have a PalmOne Treo 600 in a Nutshell leather case which hangs from my belt. That's all I need.

Tech Off - Whats on your Utility Belt ?

Neal — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 03:51:32 GMT

lenn wrote:

I have three items that go just about everywhere with me. This is after years and years of trying everything that hits the market.

1.) Sony VAIO TR1AP Laptop. Ultralight, good battery, best screen on the market, built in CDRW/DVD

2.) HTC Himalaya/O2 XDA II/T Mobile XDA II Pocket PC Phone Edition. Great screen, camera, GPRS, the works. My laptop lite

3.) My iPod. Nuff said, it works great.

How is that laptop, I'm in the market for yet again another laptop, I use them fairly aggressively and up to my 5th notepad in the past 3 years. Right now it's a DELL LATITUDE x300. I don't care much for on board ROM drives , just a small , fast laptop with lots of memory.

Suggestions ?