Wibblelog

Left my cellphone on the train this morning. Felt like an idiot. Unfortunately, it was still there when I ran back to the train to look for it. I was hoping for an excuse to get a different phone, because I absolutely hate the one I’ve got. I’m not sure there’s actually anything else on the market that I want to buy, though. I’d take an iphone if you gave me one, but I’d have to hack it to death to make it do what I want. Palm seems to be a dying platform. I’ve found Symbian to be acceptable but not wonderful - I used a Nokia E61 for about a year before getting my current WinMo device. The hiptop platform used to seem promising (I had a hiptop, then a color hiptop, then a hiptop2, then I had to switch because T-Mobile had absolutely zero coverage where I moved in Mountain View), but now doesn’t really interest me, especially now that Microsoft are buying Danger. Android devices basically don’t exist yet. Hopefully they don’t suck when they do.

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All this “wireless” stuff is getting pretty amazing. It didn’t really hit me until I started using it all at once how much of it I have, but here’s what I’m doing right now: Typing on a bluetooth (wireless!) keyboard and using a bluetooth (wireless!) mouse on the Mac Mini attached to my TV, which is connected via wifi (wireless!) to a linksys wrt54g access point, which is connected via an actual ethernet cable to my Soekris box running OpenBSD (this is normally my home router, when the cable modem is working), which is connected via yet another actual ethernet cable to my laptop, which has an EVDO cellular modem in it (wireless!) and is providing the Internet connection for my apartment, because my cable is out. (which is another story, of course).

Simultaneously, my cellphone - which has its own GSM (wireless!) connection to T-Mobile - is connected to my Mac Mini via bluetooth (wireless!) because I have been sending mp3 files to it to use as ringtones, and also connected to my home network via wifi (wireless!) to provide it with a data connection to the outside world.

Additionally, I was just talking to Jenny on my nifty 5.8ghz cordless phone (wireless!) which is connected to the VOIP box (I use Vonage presently), which is connected via an actual ethernet cable to the Soekris box, which routes it out through my laptop’s cellular connection to the internet. That’s right, I’m using VOIP over cellular packet data, and it works just fine.

So, for the record, I’m sitting here on my couch in my living room using no fewer than nine radios simultaneously, and there are several more not currently active: the wifi card in my laptop, the wifi card in Jenny’s desktop computer, and the other cordless phone handset in the other room. Oh, and I suppose you can count the wireless Gamecube controller, which also uses RF, plus the PSP in the other room which has wifi, along with Jenny’s wifi-enabled laptop, the bluetooth dongle on my linux workstation, my wireless headphones and their ipod adapter, and of course I’m planning on getting a bluetooth earpiece for my cellphone (since putting something shaped like a poptart up to my face isn’t all that comfortable), for a grand total of at least 18 frequently-used radio devices in my little apartment. Note what’s not present in the list: any receive-only devices. I have an FM radio, but I really never use it.

So, I guess I’m slightly unusual in the amount of techno gadgetry that I have, but the only odd things I’m doing here are 1) using wifi on my cellphone, and 2) connecting to the internet via EVDO cellular. I’m sure plenty of people can top the number of concurrently-used radios, too. Can any of you? (hell, does anybody actually read this blog?) Please post a comment :)

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