Spoons: Walrus

The time has come to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kins, and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings

Forks: Chandler

So I've heard a lot about OSAF's Chandler.
It's supposed to be personal information manager (PIM) (like Microsoft Outlook). Except it's both old news and floundering-Mitch Kapor supposedly cut funding for it at the end of '08. I'd still like to try it, the only problem is I'm running Fedora and I don't feel like fighting with it to make Chandler work (seems Chandler was development with Ubuntu in mind and I have KDE as well-darn gtk dependencies...). In any case I'll post my progress on the issue as it happens (so expect few and far between posts on this topic)

Forks: Blackberry Pie

So I in the market for a new phone and I like the look of blackberries. Naturally this kicked off research for me. The two leading devices are the Curve and the Storm.

The Storm
Clearly a "flagship" kind of phone for the company-it's got it all (except Wi-Fi), bells and whistles to spare.
The major concern here is also the major feature of the phone, the touch screen that's also a button. Everyone is concerned about dust and such getting in through the necessary gaps (necessary for the screen to move like a real button). Most are concerned about the crazy different input style. Bonnie Cha from Cnet gives the impression that the phone's input method is inferior to other touch screen devices and to other blackberries. Other's mention the possibilities that the "no real action until click" opens up for the touch screen. Similar to adding a extra button in some ways, the clicky screen allows for nifty looking hover touch screen effects and simplified highlighting. Most seem to think that the novel input method is more different than downfall.

The Curve
A solid device for the regular user. Can do everything that the average person is actually likely to do with there phone, plus. A tryed and true design that starting to get refined to the level of reliablity that the old Volkswagen Bug achieved. Got some nice features, like a 3.5mm headphone jack and all the other bits that make it a blackberry. The only fault I've seen about this device is that it doesn't support the Verizon Streaming Video service (It does for Sprint). Other than that one single, requires-extra-monthly-fees, downfall it's been a love fest for the Curve. There's not really anything new or fancy here, it just does what it does well.

My Verdict
I'm going with the Curve, that is when I can afford it. It's a solid phone that should last for a good long while and provide my with every feature that I'll ever be able to actually get the service to use. I've heard good things about Blackberries for years, and they certainly make some nice devices over at RIM, so here's hoping I haven't made a grave error in my judgement.

Forks: An Introduction

Different topics for different things.
Forks-Tech
Knives-Politics
Others to be determined later.