I might add some captions later, or more likely I'll do that on Facebook, so if you are in the photos and have a Facebook account, add me there.
]]>Working with emacs I just expect I can undo the last 1, 2, 50, 100 edits I made. Maybe geeks better than I make no mistakes, but I make plenty. With editors like 'vi' and 'nano' I am constant quitting without saving and starting over. With emacs I just undo to the point I made the mistake and continue from there. For me the difference in experience is huge.
You can argue key bindings, moded versus modeless, macros etc., whatever the editor I can cope. But if your favourite editor doesn't have multiple step undo... your editor sucks. So there. And Merry Xmas :-)
]]>I have recent moved to an Android/Google phone (HTC Hero) and loving that. If I didn't have an Android phone I would have an iPhone. Things I look for personally are:
These days you should also expect to have:
You need the compass, not because you care where north is, but because GPS doesn't know which way you are facing if you're standing still. And you need GPS, not so much for maps, but because all the funky new apps on the horizon are location based, so without GPS+Compass you'll not get to use them. Wifi lets you do all you big downloading and syncing at home where the data is free/cheap so you don't blow your data plan.
Your choices are the best of the old generation phones:
Or one of the new generation phones, i.e. the iPhone or one of the a phones running Android/Google.
The 'Hero' has almost identical guts the the 'Magic', different style case and adds a 3.5mm headphone jack.
I didn't list any Windows Mobile phones because I think, and probably even Microsoft employees agree, they suck :-)
One question to consider is whether you want:
Whichever you get used to the typing speed appears to end up about the same. New gen phones like the iPhone are 100% touchscreen, Android phones come either with or without slide-out keyboards (in both case you can use the touchscreen). People with physical keyboards almost always end up holding them with both hands, so-called 'two-fisted' users. Touchscreen keyboard users usually hold their phone one-handed.
Nokia, Blackberry, and Windows are seriously behind the curve on touchscreen phones; They have some now, but their OS and the existing apps are totally unsuited to touchscreen use. Check back in 2-3 years and see if they have managed to evolve.
If you really hate yourself enough to buy Windows Mobile, get something from HTC, they try hardest to hide Windows Mobile from the user :-)
One thing I really like about my Android phone is that it is totally independent of my laptop, no syncing software, no updating software, no requirement to have iTunes. Everything is installed, updated, synced, over the Internet. Rather than syncing with my laptop apps, I get both my phone and laptop apps to sync my contacts, calendar, photos, files, etc., all over the Internet with Google or Exchange or Facebook or Sugarsync or Dropio or Flickr or POP/IMAP email or whatever services I want to use.
The worst thing about my Android phone is that it doesn't (yet) support bluetooth keyboards, which I have and like to use. That is just a software issue, so if Google doesn't add it in an update, someone else will work it out I hope.
I recently switched to using a phone running Google's Android. Once I got the hang of the capacitive touch-screen I went straight to trying out some of the many applications in the Google Android Market. Some were uninstalled immediately but many others persist. The phone, and HTC Hero, came with a range of built-in Android and HTC applications, and after trying Market alternatives, the HTC ones were often the best option. Below my list of installed applications. I won't be keeping all of these, but they are all worthy of consideration.
Note that there are many applications I am unable to try; it turns out that Google is not much less evil than Apple when it comes to their app store. I am unable to try or buy most commercial Google applications, because Google blocks them in many countries including Australia and Singapore (Why, I do not know). It is sad that Google isn't living up to its promise of an open market for Android applications. (If you are an Android app developer you should know you are missing out on a lot income because of the Google Market blocking of application sales.)
In some countries, especially the US, Google is collaborating with mobile phone operators to tell Android phone owners what applications they are allowed to run on their phone, e.g. by blocking tethering applications for Android phones. A protest application is available: KeepAndroidOpen by MichaelHuang.
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