Since applying the latest 1.2 Crysis version I’ve been continually getting “kicked from server” messages. Running a dedicated server on a network game (of which I’m the network admin!) this is rather annoying. I’ve found loads of posts on various forums about this happening to other people playing online games but haven’t found any relating to network games. Rebooting both servers and clients helps sometimes. Reinstalling helped, for a while.

I weighed my handbag the other day. It weighed 8 lbs!
Apart from the ‘normal’ weight of keys, glasses, lipstick and hairbrushes, my bag also contained all my essential kit for the digital life of a writer/journalist/techie/web developer on the road:

What could I leave out?
First off, there’s lots of duplication there … apart from the obvious 2 MP3 players, the Olympus is also an MP3, so is the Garmin nuvi and so is the PDA. My phone is an MP3 too actually. Likewise the ipod Touch handles appointments, tasks contacts and email. I can watch movies on it, provided I buy them from Apple. The PDA however lets me watch whatever I copy to it. The iPod has some of my music, whereas the Zen has a whole lot more. I can’t envisage leaving either one behind. The Garmin is great for listening to music or Audible books in the car, but I’m not seriously going to carry it round at the gym! Likewise the PDA or the Olympus.

The phone is also a camera, but the quality isn’t good enough for photo journalism purposes (well neither is the Nikon, but it’s good quality for incidentals – if I know I’m going out to get shots I carry an SLR).

The PDA is also a voice recorder, but the quality isn’t anywhere near production quality (whereas the Olympus is good enough for capturing sound effects as well as a dictaphone – again if I know I’m going out to capture sound I load for bear with my trusty Shure mic).

So I’m stuck. I can’t figure out what to take out of there.

Every so often I ponder the value of convergence devices, but each time I’m further stumped just what I would go for. I mean, would I want Garmin making my phone? Can a phone camera give good enough quality to be my every day carry? How about combining a phone and a PDA? (Would it work reliably as just a phone? Quick and straightforward, yet giving me all the flexibility of my PDA?) Would I trust a phone manufacturer’s onboard GPS to guide me when I’m lost?

I’ve asked a bunch of friends what they would do. But none of my girlfriends are gadgetgeeks and none of my guy friends have a purse to carry their kit in. They just fill their pockets with what kit they think they’ll need when they leave the house in the morning, or more often than not leave it behind. (Apparently gadgets have a grace period when they are new and shiny and braggable during which time they’ll get carried every day, but after the novelty has worn off – or everyone else has one – then it’ll just be a selective carry if and when it’s needed.)

But me, I’m not like that. As a kid I used to feel bad for all the teddy bears that I didn’t choose to cuddle each night, so I’d end up cuddling them all. Nothing’s changed, I guess …

If you have any ideas on convergence devices or if you’re a gadget girl who’s successfully made the giant leap of leaving something behind, let me know!

I just read Adrian’s blog on ZDNet and to my surprise he’s talking about HIS new Mac Mini – which is kinda weird because he bought it as an anniversary gift for ME yesterday.  Hmmmm… it’s bit like when Homer Simpson bought Marge a gift of a new bowling ball (complete with the name Homer on it).

Well it’s the thought that counts – right???

I’ve used a Mac and the Mac OS (via Pear PC) before but it’s a new feeling being a Mac owner (well assuming that I am that is – I may just be the wife of one!?)

I’m also excited about the iPod Touch I got this week.  Actually I bought one for Adrian as an anniversary gift. Well, I knew i’d be jealous of his if I didn’t have one so I got one for myself at the same time (which is what Homer would have done if he was smart – or a woman!) 

I love the iPod Touch – it’s great for browsing the web and the only real gripe I’ve had with it on the usability front at least was the tedious and arduous task of typing in the wifi connection password on that fiddly little keyboard (which was particularly hard because the characters are obfuscated – with no way to unhide them – plus the onscreen keyboard feedback shows capital letters even when you’re typing lower case).  

The screen keyboard mostly works ok with my fingernails because several of them have broken off lately and are hence short at the moment making typing possible.  It does get a lot of fingerprints on (at least they’re not ear prints like the iPhone). 

As for the iPod Touch being an MP3 player I’ve no experience of that at all yet because I can’t get it to sync with my PC.  I don’t think it’s a problem with the iPod though, just an iTunes transfer timeout, but I’m not really sure at this point.

Now if only I had a Mac, I could try syncing it with that…

My PC is running so sloooowly it’s like trying to work in a vat of treacle – although not so tasty!   Adrian and I both ran process explorer and compared results.  For some reason pretty much every running process that we have in common is taking 10–20MB extra memory on my Vista PC than his. 

He has more RAM than I do and a slightly faster processor.  He also has less hardware attached to his PC than I do eg. Canoscan LiDE scanner, Wacom Intuos graphics tablet, Logitech G15 keyboard, MX518 mouse, Hauppauge WinTV card and all their associated drivers and run at startup services plus numerous MP3 device-related applications.  Sure I’ve got a lot more crap running than he does and I could free up a lot of juice if I shut off some of those annoying services that run purely in order to keep their application in my face all day rather than offering me any extra facility by taking up all my RAM. 

But I’m just really stumped – after much searching neither of  us can figure out why every process is eating more memory on my PC than his. 

I’m not going to stress about it.  After finishing the build, I’ll be settling down to get my installation up and running on my new Quad Core PC this week.  So even if I didn’t have a new PC to look forward to I’d still be planning on spending my week installing Vista and all my applications.  Sometimes it’s not worth fighting with these things.   (My current PC will get downgraded to XP – one Vista PC headache is more than enough!)