Hello Curt,

  CJS> Uh...the name's "Curt", actually. :-) And you want to be a bit
     > careful with the quoting; you pulled my text out of Brad's
     > message where he quoted it and attributed it to him rather than
     > me.

Yes, I can see that now: Brad had just indented your words.  In text
mode it wasn't obvious to me that he hadn't written that. Sorry Brad
for attributing Curt's text to you.

  CJS> Well, I find many laptops fit that description exactly, which
     > is why I didn't buy one. Yet my Libretto doesn't fit that
     > description.

No, I understand that.  It's probably quite a capable machine, and it
sounds like it meets your needs well.  Mine are different - Ideally I
would like something that fits in a jacket pocket.  I'm seeing specs
in the region of 500g, although I would probably tolerate more than
that.

  CJS> ...but you didn't give us any indications of what sort of size
     > and weight you are looking at, if I recall correctly,
     > or what you have now that you consider to big.

If I hadn't before, then I just did.

  CJS> Well, the 640 x 240 screens on the palmtops are going to make
     > VNC or web browsing a bit painful. Lots of people seem to be
     > able to live with ssh and so on on tiny keyboard, though,
     > although I can't.

640x240 would be fine for text mode: the key thing (for me) is that I
get to see all 80 columns at once.  With an 8x10 dot font, I get the
all-important 80 cols x 24 rows.  I think web browsing usually
benefits from an 800x600 pixel mode, but a lot of my web work is just
quickly looking up specs - I know I can do that in 640x240: I have
tried.  VNC lets me pan around a user's desktop.  Not ideal, but
potentially useful in a crunch.  I envisage spending most of my time
in text mode.

  CJS> if you want to do the "wireless download" thing, make sure you
     > can get the wireless access you need. You may not be happy
     > trying to download an 8 MB build of something or other over a
     > 32 Kbps link.

As always it's the application that makes the difference.  CDPD at
19.2 KBpS would be fine for the uses I have in mind, and I understand
it has good coverage out on the prairie.  We're heading upstate, so I
will keep an eye out for faster options like GPRS.  I suspect that for
>80% of the time, even 9.6 KBpS GSM would be fine for a ssh into a box
connected to a fatter pipe. For the record, I don't know that anything
I ever wrote built to 8Mb ;-)

  CJS> But usually I find the client site has Internet access for me,
     > so it's not such a big deal.

That's okay so long as nothing hits the fan when you're between client
sites. I would like my next palmtop to have at least one PC-Card slot,
then I've got most bases covered.  Ethernet, wireless Ethernet, CDPD
and even analog modem if it comes to it.

I'm seeing more CompactFlash network/comms cards these days, but PC-
Card's installed base probably saves a premium, and in any case a $15
dollar adaptor gives you the best of both worlds.

- Andy Ball.