Sleep Deprived

And off to bed. Whether the piece of sheer madness that has been completed is worth the sleep foregone....

Techno Geek, Moi?

Mais, bien sûr.

The new mobile phone has just been delivered. Free. Lower charges than the old deal. So I'm justifying it as a cost-cutting measure (ha ha ha!). It's an Ericsson T66. I've stuck with Ericsson, as it's replacing the GS18 I've had since November 1997. (I've just checked: that's longer than I thought!)

I'll miss the old mobile. For a beast with a built in modem (the reason I bought it, since I acquired one of the first Psion 5s at about the same time), it was really quite nifty. I find its weight and size quite reassuring: I've never worried too much about losing it. It's quite a well-balanced weight too. I can feel the heft of it in my hand as I pass large plate-glass windows and imagine how effective it might be should I choose to hurl it hard in their direction. I found it reasonably easy to use. It was good sitting on the train in my old commuting days downloading emails to the Psion. Yup, a show-off and a geek.

I won't miss the arcane rituals associated with attempting to persuade its battery to charge. Second guessing which socket in the house would be acceptable on any given day is not my idea of a good time. I could buy a new battery, but at twenty quid, that's more than the I'm paying for the new phone, for which I'm almost certainly going to get a new battery tout de suite.

And the new one? It's (I was going to say "tiny") miniature and really quite dainty. About the size and weight of the Star Trek communicator my brother bought me as a joke a handful of Xmasses ago. I suspect about as tough and durable as the toy too. No window smashing with this little lady. I was hoping that its interface and interaction would be similar enough to the GS18 to reduce the learning curve. They're not so similar, so I guess I'll just have to struggle along for a while. (I hate phones. I hate making mistakes. I really hate being seen (or heard) making mistakes. Learning to use a new phone is a nightmare.) I'm scared I'll lose it because of its small size and almost weightlessness. I know I'm going to lose it every time it goes into my back pack for a start. But its battery life and standby time are significantly greater than I've been used to.

It'll need numbers programming in too.

It's so very cute, it needs a name.