CE is more than just a choice... it's a lifestyle

wally, very interesting opinion!

you've got a very good point there. what are those PC upgrades and new software for?? really not worth the money and time, i already learnt that.

or maybe i'm the only exception?? i've never had to waste time on such nonsense with my PC. i've had only two PC's in all my life and i never really upgraded them (no need, no money). only a little ram upgrade and dvd writer and of course hdd's. nothing else
i don't care about software, i use some on a daily basis and some other useful software are installed too for those times when they're needed. i never had to choose from a million software, i just ask friends who're more of an expert at these things than i
i never reinstall windows (except one time when a friend of mine totally mucked up my XP )
no problem with security either. i didn't even use a firewall + AV for years. of course the world has changed in the last year or so, and i do use them now.. (there's still not much use of the antivirus soft though)
i didn't even get spam until the last year.. now i do get them, several (1-10) on a single day
ok, that was a little offtopic, i just wanted to tell others it's possible to live different in the world of computing!

so, an HPC gives me other advantages.. it's not a desktop replacement, though it's able to handle that too. i'm away from home sometimes so my hpc's have to become a PC replacement then and they always perform at that well.
so i guess that's a different lifestyle then! not only one kind of CE lifestyle exists! cool..

hehe! familiar situation!!

we're not loosers at all.

You've got the king of the gimmicky HPCs, what with it's camera and twisty screen I'm jealous

oh yes the tablet mode... i want that.. but size.. it's enough if i have the 900C for a bigger hpc, two of these would be too much
my j728 and the sig3 know everything except tablet mode. ahh..
the camera isn't worth anything in it though

but you don't have to be drooling over it for ever. just find 250$ somewhere and get one!

Edited by cmonex 2005-08-16 7:29 PM

That, my dear, is the problem It seems the more money I make, the less money I actually have

save up 100$, after that (only after that ) sell your MP790 for 150$ and you've got your dream machine....

Well I found that article totaly accurate, I think that pure CE enthusiasts love them, but the average person looks to HPC's and PPC's as more annoying technology to either ignore, marvel, or stress over.

For me I think it started when I saw Terminator 2. That little atari computer that John uses to raid the ATM machine with realy stired something in me, not the theft, but the fact that it was a tiny PC that "seemed" to do something. I found them in the shop and found they were realy nothing more than a calculator with a keyboard. But I think that was about the time I first saw a CE1 decide, a little casiopia, but way too costly for me. I always loved the HPC factor, but they were always twice the price of a PPC so I ended up with a Palm V first I think (My wife saw them on Opra and I had one in the bag LOL )

I must add here that I am no office worker, in fact right now I dont work at all and havent for a couple of years with little intention to go back to work.

After moving through a few Pocket PC's and getting rather attached to my Ipaq 3870 with its speed, color, and bluetooth. I enjoyed using it to read books, keep pictures of the kids and using as a reason to learn to code. I even released a few programs on Handango and made a little accessory cash. But I always doted over those HPC's.

Good things must come to an end and I sold the Ipaq due to having absolutly no reason to have it. But it only took a few months for me to go quite insane fretting over its loss, so ebay came to my salvation. After getting outbid on a few 680's I settled for the screen size of an 820. Now Im not sure I made the right decision, I knew it would be trouble, but I didnt know how bad that 256 color screen would be. I realy love the device, the wife thinks Im nuts cause her Pocket PC looks so much better, and is so much newer, but I still love it.

I guess what Im saying here, after all this long and boring raving, your right. We will suffer terrible technical deficiencies like a 256 color screen rather than use something like a notebook, or even other CE based devices cause there is something about that HPC we love that most people cant see and wouldnt understand. The wife has a notebook here that I could do a lot more on, but its heavy, slow to boot, hot, and the battery will die in such a short time. I would rather suffer with my 820.

hm a PPC's is annoying? that's for sure i tried some of them
but hey a hpc wouldn't be annoying for an average user if they were still supported... i know ppl who think the ppc is too incomfortable to use and they switched to hpc's because of that.. and because they just love the form factor! that's this mysterious thing you mention..

My Ibm Z50 i just recently picked up for $100 on ebay has to be one of the best i've used, 65,000 colors bilt in , track point mouse etc...works great with me

I'll add another tidbit here.

CE is a lifestyle that's lower stress and more relaxed once everything is done. (Even installing Outhouse on my desktop has been more pain and work than building a 6651 from scratch, IMO)

As I mentioned before, I hate the Windows treadmill. Once you're on there's no stopping it. It keeps going until you die of exhaustion.

Anyway, there are 3 other desktops here. My g/f and her older kids have them. Every other day is a wormfest on one of their computers, which becomes a wormfest on the network. They're the type of users who click on any link and accept everything sent to them on MSN or email.

All the machines are patched and protected but I can't write a firewall rule to defeat their stupidity. So they bug me constantly when AVG goes off, or ROM drive bays open and close mysteriously, or weird popups appear. I felt like an admin for Clown College.

I've shown my g/f how to use ghost and washed my hands of the mess. When worms are a'knockin' at my CE door I don't care. I do my banking and other sensitive online tasks without worrying who's trying to snatch my passwords.

They might get it one day but until then my hpc keeps my blood pressure in check

I'm with you wally! ... though I've come to terms that I really only need a 500mhz PIII machine with 20gb~30gb of hdd for a desktop (or notebook). XP works just fine and I've not had a silly popup install or spyware invade the commonPC for a long while ... like ever!

I don't run anti-virus app as its my believe that what I don't open or run or download cannot infect me. The only exception to my belief is when the blaster worm hit the system through a DCOM attack, something which the system allowed and was not due to what I did. So besides that, I am happy with the security aspect of the desktop running XP.

It could be a placebo effect, but running FireFox since last September or so has meant no more unknown apps running in the background. I cannot remember the last time I had an infection by a spyware. (ok, its somewhere in August last year! )

While many of my friends clog up their system with anti-virus and anti-spyware apps, running merticulously through all the files on their systems, my system only run the minimal apps required. The result? While they can have their claim to being spyware free, their system still runs slower than the commonPC I use, despite their system's apparent higher-end specs. Reason for that being that anti-virus /spyware apps eats up a huge chunk of system resources (at least for the case of my friends). Its kinda like paying $1million to insure a $1million property from theft. Insurance are mostly a fraction of the full amount insured, so that it makes sense, and you are only paying for the risk of it happening. But for the case of most anti-virus/spyware apps, its more of a 1/1 cost.

ok, back to HPCs ...

For me, its a pragmatic choice. In some way, when this choice spans a good part of my daily life, I say it becomes a lifestyle. ... EDIT: like enjoying 8~12hours of batt life

Edited by Snappy! 2005-08-17 9:08 AM

Snappy, your PC usage patterns are like mine )
ok i'm running an AV and i didn't get the blaster worm, and don't use firefox but that are the only differences!

I'm just beginning my journey with this lifestyle, and I can see why I love it so much. Being able to write this message from my hand-held in a comfortable environment, without lugging aa whole laptop around, and being able to read all your comments in the same way, it's fantastic! The tinkerinng with the problems... though frustrating at times, it makes using the device even more satisfying.

I'm upping my level of committment a notch. It's more than a lifestyle, with the near theft of my 6651 I'm going to call it love

ah.. just like me!