It’s finally happened … my 5 year old HP iPaq 2210 PDA has died, and I’m not going to put any more money into repairing it. What does this mean for me personally? Well … it means that I can no longer save lots of time by pre-writing blog posts and then uploading them directly to my WordPress screens for final revision and formatting.
So … I guess that means that I’ll need to give up another hour’s sleep if I plan on seriously writing for so many sites.
It Started With An Old Man
What I find really interesting is the way that it died. Four days ago I was on the train to work when this old man in a kimono sat next to me at Meiden Kakamigahara station. He spoke pretty loud on his cell phone (a big no-no on trains in Japan) and seemed to enjoy making a scene as he shouted “私に聞くことはできますか？” (can you hear me?). Shortly after he gave up on the cell phone, my PDA (which I was using to catch up on some RSS feeds) shut itself off. This wasn’t the first time the portable computer had done such a thing, so I thought nothing of it. I flicked it back on and kept on reading. But 30 seconds later, the iPaq shut itself off.
Then 20 seconds. Then 10 seconds. Then it was impossible to keep the machine on at all. It went into a hard reset cycle and died. Cursing silently, I put the iPaq in my pocket and tried to make the best of the situation.
Once I arrived at work, I took the deliquent device and started it up again. It worked perfectly. Not a hint of an error! So I got busy writing some posts and carried on with my day.
The next morning I got on the train to work and started editing and formatting a post that was scheduled for publication on Friday (I’m usually writing posts two or three days in advance, unless something big happens, then it takes priority over non-date-sensitive posts). After less than ten minutes on the train, the PDA started shutting itself off every few seconds again. I looked around for the old man in the kimono, thinking that his robes had built up such a static charge that electronic devices could be affected from a distance … but he was nowhere to be found. Alas, by the time I reached Inuyamayuen (15 minutes from here), the portable computer was all but useless and I spent the rest of the trip looking outside and composing posts in my head for later.
After arriving at work, I took the machine out of my pocket and fired it up. It worked perfectly again … for about five minutes. Then it went back into its downward spiral of uselessness.
This continued the day after, which happened to be my birthday, and then finally today. The big difference, though, is that the machine finally called it quits at about 7:40 this evening, when I tried to take a quick note for yet another blog post that I have no time to write. Now, not only does it shut itself off, but it will not even try to come back on.
Again, this isn’t the first time my little data pad has misbehaved in such a manner, so I figured that once it was back home and on its cradle, it would correct itself and keep on going. Heck, this has worked several times in the past, so why not today?
It’s Dead, Jim
Alas … it doesn’t want to come back.
I’ve invested quite a bit of money in replacement parts for this machine over the years, and completely rebuilt it on two occasions. The frame and body are no longer in any condition to be ripped apart and re-assembled, and I’m not looking forward to ordering the two parts I need from two seperate countries and paying $80 in shipping. That $80 I could put towards something a little more useful … like a newer PDA or sub-notebook.
It’s a shame that the PDA died today. I was really hoping to get at least another month out of it. The device currently has over 70 unpublished posts in various states of completion, as well as lists of ideas and post structures (perhaps one day I’ll share my note-taking methods — Gah! Another post idea I can’t write down!), but none of it is lost. All the data was stored on an SD card, which I can put into my notebook and retreive. That said, it’s still a hassle that the palm-sized portable picked a particularily poor moment to pass away.
Hopefully revenues from TheCarbonBlog and my new projects will be sufficient to pay for one of those Kojinsha portables in the next few weeks 
You had me feeling sorry for you there, Jason. Who knows what would have happened if you had ended the post with a PayPal donate button? Alas, we will never know!
May I ask how you will be disposing of your iPaq? I believe a proper send off is in order. Can we pull out our trumpets and play a round of Taps?
Wow, I was really worried for your about all of your posts that you had written on there…good thing you had them on an SD card.
I’m not sure how I’ll dispose of the machine, yet. Alas, despite the fact that I don’t want to repair it anymore, I also can’t quite justify dropping a few hundred on a new machine right now. Reiko and I will have our wedding ceremony in 4 weeks, which means that we need to put all of our money towards that and the initial startup costs of moving into our first home.
I can get one component from Hong Kong for about $6 plus $18 in shipping and an unknown amount in duty when it reaches Japan. The other part would need to come from Texas, which will run about $60 in itself plus an unknown amount of duty. Considering how I can just purchase a less-abused iPaq 2210 and quickly restore it as this current machine for the same price, I’m at a loss about what to do.
Either way … it’s 1 am and I need to wake up in a few hours to get back to Nagoya. For the moment, I’ll use pen and paper to jot down the ideas. The solution will come when it comes