IP: whats new in Farber Gadget land

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Not much. I am happy with my Toshiba Libretto. As a friend of mine
commented -- it is the machine you always have with you, not like a
standard laptop which you might bring with you.


My Pilot is most of the time there also but I have not yet managed to
decide where the tradeoff is. If the Libretto had instant on, I know where
it would be. 


I had hoped to get to try one of those RAM two way pocket system but in
spite of promises it never showed. That seems to be too often the way of
the amateurs in this field -- promises but no delivery.


The application I find myself using endlessly is JFax. I never send faxes
via my machine anymore and am getting to the point where all my incoming
faxes are jfaxed to me by email (as is the outgoing faxes). Cheap, reliable
and neat (www.jfax.com and I don't get any kick back :-)  ).


I have tried the jfax voice mail . in principle it is a neat idea . It
attaches the voice message coming from your JFax telephone number as an
attachment to a email. it works fine cept I have had quality problems with
the recorded voice and the service badly needs the more general facilities
that make it a stand-alone voice mail. The quality problems are getting
better and boy is it a joy when you are overseas at hotels which charge
outrageous fees for toll calls and you want to check home voice mail. Right
now I mainly use the Personal Assistant service which works very well and
is flexible and affordable. If these two could be integrated I would be a
happy puppy ( and it would be trivial to do technically).


When I am in the valley all I use is my libretto coupled to that nice small
Metricom Ricochet SE wireless modem. I also use it in central DC and all
the time at SFO. It is a perfect match for the Libretto and it works and
works and works.


I am waiting for several more gadgets to try and will report on them when I
get and use them .


Dave