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Oh, the places you'll go, October 25th

Submitted by Merlin on October 25, 2007 - 7:18am.

  • AppleInsider | Road to Mac OS X Leopard: System Preferences - Entertaining and nostalgic walk through the Mac’s iterations on the [Control Panel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_panel_(Mac_OS). I vividly recall sitting in the Science building at New College in 1987, staring at the 9-inch black and white screen of a Fat Mac, and thinking: “These little drawings have got to be coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” God bless Susan Kare.
  • How-to: Proper Gmail IMAP for iPhone & Apple Mail - Metric buttload of great tips for using Gmail IMAP with your iPhone. Nicely done. [via Lifehacker]
  • Tasks bundle for TextMate - Henrik’s TextMate bundle will surely be of interest to folks using TaskPaper.
  • dotfiles.org - “community for sharing dotfiles like .bashrc, .vimrc, and .bash_profile” Handy if you’re getting started with the terminal and want to trick out your profile. Get a great bash .profile and half the work is done for you. [via torrez]
  • No Slippage! - Sean Bonner adds skateboard grip tape to his too-slick iPhone. So smart. I’ve been meaning to try this with the edges and corners of my MacBook Pro for months. Just ordered this guy to take a crack at it.
  • My evenings are a waste of time. | Ask MetaFilter - “So, bottom line, what can I do (and what do you do?) to be as productive, motivated, and energetic during the evening hours as I am during the day?”
  • Cool Tool: AlphaSmart Word Processor - Paul Ford has talked about the distraction-resistant AlphaSmart Neo here before. Very tempting little chunk of func.
  • jwz - PSA: backups - “‘OMG, three drives is so expensive! That sounds like a hassle!’ Shut up. I know things. You will listen to me. Do it anyway.” Possibly the simplest and most do-able approach to brain-dead backup I’ve seen. Recommended. [via Nelson]Bobby Hill
  • Food: Monitor Food Expiration Dates with Best When Used By - It would appear there is a web application that will help you track when your food is about to go bad. And here’s a blog post that someone wrote about it. See, back in the coal-smudged, Dickensian second world of Web 1.0, you would have to monitor this kind of stuff yourself – or you could hire someone like Bobby Hill. Alas, technology marches on, and I, for one, will not stand in its way. (Because I actually have some Bulgarian Rails developers building a web app that will stand in the way of things for me. Right now, it’s in a private beta after closing a lucrative angel round.)
in

MobilePro

Submitted by sisyphea on October 25, 2007 - 1:50pm.

I looked at the alphasmarts - too expensive ($500 AU) and clunky and I don’t like the tiny screen.

I picked up an NEC MobilePro on Ebay that, together with postage and the Australian power supply, cost $100 AU. It runs Windows CE, has a touch screen and a great keyboard, and fits in my handbag. It’s an older model with no wireless or bluetooth - I use a spare flash card to transfer files, or IR them to my PDA. It has a built-in modem and Explorer, if I cared to plug it in, but no tempting wireless internet - at least until I cave in to temptation and get the wireless card! I was lucky that this one has a good battery that holds a charge well, but new batteries aren’t that expensive.