What I would give to be even considered a Gadgeteer....(Daydreaming)......

Well, Here's my story:

Name: Tim Warner
Website: PDALife.com
Location: Florida

One day I was wandering around CompUSA looking for something to spark my interest.. I happened across a box and gandered at it. What it said on the outside was something very different than the PC's I had worked with for so Long, and it was something I have never heard of before. The Time was 1996 and the box was labeled "Pilot 1000".

It was a tad expensive but I figured, "what the heck, lets try this puppy out". I bought the device without any demo and went straight home. I remember sitting on the couch learning Graffiti for the first time. Being a man of poor penmanship I did my best to print when I wrote. I ended up learning graffiti in only a few minutes and furthermore, I could read what I wrote.

At the time I was working as A Registered Nurse and I knew that this would come in handy at work. I first started collecting patient noted using memopad, I created a template that I would use to enter information in a formatted way, It help me organize my nursing routines and it was cool. I even got a few Doctors to buy Pilots back then, They all returned them because they didn't like it (Or for various reasons).. I bet they use one now though. I left Nursing for a while and went to work with IBM pushing the Palm Pilot Professionals for a while before returning to Nursing where I started using HanDBase to track my patient information. After finding that the developer for HanDBase was local I met with him a few times and after some time he offered me a position with his company. I am currently working at DDH Software as their Information Manager.

When I first got the pilot I turned to the web. at the time there was only one resource (www.pilot.org). From there stemmed a rapidly growing grassroots community in which I did my best to keep up with. I started my own website "The Airborne Pilot Page" which was my little fan site for some time. I then changed the name to Palmlife.com and ultimately to www.pdalife.com which is what it is now. It's not really much to look at, But it's my humble offering to the community.

Many years later and numerous arguments with the wife about me buying gizmo's I think I am getting closer to my ideal "Gadget" setup. (Bear in mind I once said that "all the Pilot needs now is Backlight")

I have recently begun selling off or giving away my old Palms to support my increasingly expensive gadget-addiction (I still have my original Pilot 1000). I have at one time or another owned all of them (with the exception of Sony devices) at one time or another.

My Current Setup focuses on wireless. I Carry with me (Daily) My Gateway 200 Laptop (Less than 1" thick and Less than 3lbs with integrated 802.11 and Bluetooth PC Card), The Ericcson T39, Palm m515 with Bluetooth SD, iPaq 3875 with Integrated Bluetooth and a CF sleeve for the symbol 802.11 Card and when I go out of town I bring my Kyocera 6035 Smartphone (Better Nationwide coverage)

I only have three wires I carry with me. Power for my Laptop and USB Chargers for the iPaq and Palm.

I have 802.11b setup at work through our Fractional t1 and at home through my Cable so I am always connected to broadband when at home or work and while I am out I connect seamlessly to my T39 through either Pocket PC, Palm or Laptop (Depending on what I am in the mood to do)

My Ideal setup is Color (PocketPC or Palm) Phone with expansion and integrated Bluetooth.

That is Part of my story, Too much to tell in just one sitting...

--Tim Warner