My new iPad

I picked up a newspaper for the first time in months today. I’ve been getting my news from the Canadian Press, Globe and Mail, and New York Times iPhone apps.

Well in today’s Globe, Sondra Gotlieb doesn’t get the purpose of a Blackberry & Facebook. And all I can think is that poor dinosaur just can’t see the end coming. To extend the metaphor her iceage is the Internet.

And then I started thinking about Harvey Gellman. My first PDA was a clamshell HP 8300 followed closely by a palmpilot, then another HP Windows based device. The reason I think of Harvey is because he and used to play this little game. At the end of a meeting we would arrange to meet again. I’d pull out my PDA and fumble around with it trying to enter the time of our next meeting into the calendar. I’d be half way through this little exercise and Harvey would say “I’m done” because he’d finished pencilling me into his pocket calendar. His calendar being a chequebook sized, pocketable, paperbased system that served him just fine.

Harvey passed away 7 years ago this coming April. In the mean time I’ve gone through three or four PDAs. While the technologies come a long way in these 7 years I still think I’d loose our little game.

That’s why I need the iPad. Maybe it will give me the edge and I’ll win the game with Harvey.

Blog posted here.

  1. Jim Reply

    I think if Harvey had found something faster he would have used it. He was so keen on new tools and would try them all. I think he found that his approach was faster. I wonder what he would be doing today.

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