Sony Clie Palm Pilot PEG S-320
It had to happen sooner or later. I have officially become a victim of electronic obsolescence. For the past six years I have faithfully relied on my Sony Clie Palm Pilot for addresses, calendar schedule, memos, and important documents. I purchased the Palm Pilot from a Hanover student who had received another one as a gift (proof that E-Classifieds on the intranet really works).
It was the iPhone of its day (minus the phone, of course, and, come to think of it, the camera, the apps, et al, but you get the point). Fitting inside my pocket, it was a perfect travel companion. The Clie has gone with me to Europe, New York, Las Vegas, and other fun destinations.
I first noticed trouble in paradise when I couldn’t install it on my new HP laptop running Vista. That was disappointing but I could still use it in conjunction with my work desktop (running Windows XP) until…suddenly the hot synch function quit working. Scouring the web (in reality just a quick Google search) I found a Sony site with downloadable drivers and migration tools in zip format. Tantalizing, yes. Sensible, no.
It is time for me to face the facts — it is the end of an era. I finally realized this is a classic example of the perils of skipping too many (OS) generations. It makes sense to use devices as long as they are working fine, especially in these difficult economic times, but this approach may come back to haunt you if you wait too long between upgrading your hardware/software (don’t even get me started on my home desktop running Windows 98). At its worst, data may be lost; at its best you may have a lot of re-keying to do.
It’s like going from driving a car where a cassette player is state of the art to one that has an mp3 port in which case the only song you may hear is the Sound of Silence (funny that you ask why I chose this metaphor…I am starting to see a pattern in my life). But hey, congrats on the new wheels, right?
