[8125, K-JAM, P4300, MDA Vario Software Upgrading] Janis:
Most people tell thier stories at their 1st or 2nd meeting...

I got my T-mo MDA the day they released it, almost running to the store on Monday Feb. 20, was it only 2006? Seems longer.... I wasn't quite sure how to feel when they said none of the pre-orders had come in yet. I called on Tuesdsay, twice. Wednesday was glee day.

On September 12, 2006, at about 5:35 pm, I ran over the thing with my car. I have a tot, and getting a cranky one into a hot car is one of the most immediately taxing things I have ever done (I've moved several tons of rock, sold a $14,000 wedding dress, and scrubbed toilets for chronically homeless men, not that there's anything wrong with being homeless, but being that way for a long time messes with one's judgement, and aim.) It was distracting to say the least.

I realized it was gone within a mile, but I couldn't go back because of the screaming hatchling. So I got home, enlisted very reluctant help (the self-labelled "phone widow"), and called from the ridiculously dusty land-line phone. They had it. The relief was hospital-grade (like when the doc says you're not going to bleed out after, well, I won't get too gross, you decide).

So happily I tooled on back to the McDonald's where the manager pulled out the corpse for me to ID. (Like the police call and say, we have your daughter, and your wondering why they're leading you to the basement.)

So in less than half an hour, I had dumped half a months pay on an new one. When one spends time at momming and this, who has time to actually work?

(The money I have spent on software is hideously disproportionate to my overall budget, too, to the tune of 250mb of one copy of just installers, cabs, or moveable exes, and about a dozen pdfs with reg codes in my "purchased" folder, and those are only the ones that are (still) WM5+ compatible and that haven't been replaced, yet, with something newer and better. SPB and PI have a guy they send me to when, more often than not, I have a development idea.)

So my "widow" drops the thing the next day, no, morning, at about 5:45, not 12-hours after I trembled out a sickening amount of cash on the Tmo plastic desk/counter. Of course this is after spening the short night flashing a new ROM (xelencin's last) and loading it with all the apps I feel like I have to use because I paid for them. (No, Tmo's coverage didn't go into effect yet; enough of that crap.)

So I have an LCD+screen "overnighted" from Tokyo. I was honestly intollerable for the entirety of those two weeks, even though I was getting much, much more sleep.

I had it down to about 5-7 hours a week until people started posting kitchens. Now I'm discovering, I think, unless I'm doing something wrong, how putzy it is to make rgus, etc.

If anyone needs more to do:

an app/apps that install/s from installers (msi, yada yada), that haven't been intalled b4 (like AS already does) and/or moves cabs and runs them without being and extended ROM, just from having the pkgs in the right folder. It'd be nice to just hose the install, or have *it* wait for *me* (heh, heh) instead of brick-risk if I want to add a new pkg w/o doing a manual install first. Nice for compatibility testing (flash this rom, dump this software amalgam on it).

Or how about a "mini-pre-kitchen" that dumps (hmm, bathroom?) a cab right into the OEM folder?

Or suggestions about what tools to use to do this would be welcome, too. I'm not lazy, I just don't have the professional exposure to know which way is best. I can usually figure out the rest.

So I'm saving for something faster with a bigger screen (I like to do graphics while I'm waiting in line) to start in on after the wizard gets tired. How about a 5"x8" reliable tablet with a phone and a 10mpx camera with lens options....

I'm also switching to gin.