Today, I have purchased STUFF!

[annathepiper]

I finally got me a frob. I got me an iPaq, specifically--which I realize is NOT either of the models I was looking at before, but two things sold me on it. 1) It's cheaper than the Sony Clie UX50, and since solarbird and I were in a budget here, cheaper was a good argument. 2) It is of similar configuration to the Zaurus, with a similar sort of keyboard, and I couldn't FIND a Zaurus locally, and wanted to futz with one before I bought it.

So this afternoon I was in Office Despot, and they had an iPaq 4355, so I futzed with it, deemed it useful, and bought it. So now I'll have a frob to take with me to write on at Norwescon so I won't have to lug my laptop around. Yay!

Plus, I can play Nethack on it, as I believe that Nethack 3.4.3 was in fact ported to the Pocket PC OS. :D

In related news, I have also purchased two novels translated into German in an effort to brush up on my German some more. The theory here is that if I am actually reading a novel, it may help the language stick in my brain better. So I bought The Hobbit, which is Der kleine Hobbit in German, which was an easy choice since I've got it in English as well. And I bought a translation of Susanna Kearsley's Marianna. I have a couple of this author's books and like her; she's a lot like Barbara Michaels in style. I don't have this particular novel yet just because it's harder to find, but I'm hoping to find the English version too.

I also bought another CD by Altan, as I liked the first one I got, and a CD of stuff sung by Andrea Bocelli. Opera is not normally my thing, but I heard a song by this guy and OH MY GOD THE VOICE. His voice is absolutely luscious. So I got the CD that "Con Te Partiro" is on.

Comments

[damara.livejournal.com]

I have to agree about Andrea Bocelli. He has an amazing voice.

[annathepiper]

Doesn't he just? I've just heard the one song, which was "Con Te Partiro", but talk about some swoon-inducing singing. He was heartily recommended to me from two different people, so I finally decided to give him a shot. :)

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I adore Andrea Bocelli' voice, too. It's just... liquid.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, that's a very apt way to describe it. But in a way that hits you like a shot of exquisitely good alcohol, no? Alan Doyle's voice does the same thing to me, but where the lovely and talented Mr. Doyle is like a belt of scotch, Mr. Bocelli seems to come across as an extremely expensive and very, VERY good wine. ;D

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I was thinking mercury myself :) Changeable and shiny.

[annathepiper]

I'll let you know if I agree with that after I've listened to this album. :)

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Okay :)

I need to buy some of his music. Back home I just listened to my Dad's copies.

[annathepiper]

The album I've picked up is called Romanza. I bought that one since it was the one with the one song I've heard; I'll let you know how I like it. :) I'm ripping it to my iPod as we speak.

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

Oohhhh, man. I have some. . . . contrary . . . opinions about Andrea Bocelli. Yes, the voice is lovely; too bad his singing doesn't live up to it. There's a reason he sings concerts, not roles.

(Why yes, I AM a huge opera snob. No I don't expect everyone else to agree with me. Yes I am a bit defensive about it. Yes I understand that he appeals to a lot of people who don't like opera, and that there's probably a reason. What? OK, yeah, sure I'll shut up now.)

[annathepiper]

*giggle!* Well, with exactly one song's worth of experience, all I have to go by is "mmmm pretty voice". ;) I don't have the technical knowledge to evaluate him against other singers. But consider me absolutely open to learning, and if you have recommendations for other recordings or vocalists to explore, lay 'em on me, babe! This is me being always willing to expand my musical horizons.

(Massive re-write of earlier comment)

[murson.livejournal.com]

As I noticed I completely mis-read your post. D'oh!

I was looking at the 2215 (I think that was the number - had both CF and SD slots, like the Zaurus, but no thumboard) for a while... care to let me know how the 4355 does, once you've had it a while?

(Semi-related- my Zaurus was killed by some idiocy on my part, so I'm now using a Dell Axim X3i. Nice unit, although I note Dell are taking a pasting from the user community about the WM2003 SE upgrade... or lack thereof!)

Re: (Massive re-write of earlier comment)

[annathepiper]

I will be happy to let you know how the 4355 works out for me. :) So far it's pretty groovy--especially the built-in wireless functionality that lets me browse the web, which is pretty funny, at least when I try to look at a web page and amuse myself with how well it does or does not squinch itself down into the thing's tiny window. ;)

Still trying to learn the fine points of how to keep it connected, though. I messed up its connectivity taking it over to kathrynt and llachglin's last night, where it got onto THEIR network, so when I brought it home again it wanted tweaking.

Also still trying to learn the fine points of the keyboard. The two downers with the keyboard are: 1) the P key is in the uppermost right hand corner where any sane person USUALLY expects a backspace, so that's very confusing, and 2) there doesn't seem to be any way to make the teeny keyboard do < and > characters, which is now the only thing keeping me from being able to play Nethack with only the keyboard on it. ;) The little multi-directional arrow button is working great for moving around on a level, though! So I can almost play with two thumbs instead of one.

GAH!!!

[murson.livejournal.com]

(Sorry, just created and deleted two replies to this... hope you weren't trying to reply to one! Pseduo-HTML tags got me in both cases!)

Can't help with the "<" and ">" I fear - the Z uses "Fn-." and "Fn-<RETURN>" (I ask you! Geez!) for those, the Ipaq I'm not familiar with...

I do, however, agree wholeheartedly that the top-right key should be backspace. Top-rightmost key is "P" on the Z, too - backspace is where any sane idiot would find the ";" key, just right of "L"... and don't get me started on <RETURN> being BELOW the right-shift key!

Re: GAH!!!

[annathepiper]

Whoa, it sounds like the Zaurus has a weirder keyboard than the iPaq; I hadn't noticed the layout issues you mention, when I was playing with tinlail's Zaurus at the last Norwescon.

Hrmm. There is a sort of ctrl key on my keyboard, something with a blue dot down in the lower lefthand corner. It apparently lets me get to several alternate characters all over the keyboard; this is how I'm making numbers and several punctuation marks. However, none of the keys show < and > as alternates that can be made with the help of that key. I will have to consult the documentation to see if there's a way to do this.