I've had a tab open for most of last week for a 128 gig solid state hard disk that would fit my laptop, and that had a list price that I was comfortable with, and a maker that I tend to consider reputable. I haven't ordered if for a number of reasons (not ready to swap drives, I'm using the wrong kind of file systems, given that my current drive works fine it's a bit more than I want to spend at the moment.) But the fact that these things are "affordable," and cost half what I thought they did, I've been thinking about my current stable of gear. This is, as those of you who think about technology in a way similar to me, not surprising. Here's what's on my mind in terms of new gadgets:
Netbooks, the small laptops are awfully sexy and I kind of want one. This isn't logical: my real laptop is both small (12 inches,) has a full sized keyboard, decent resolution, and is totally functional: I use it for everything from the writing and production of this blog, to most of my day job, to all of my entertainment computing. I take my laptop everywhere, so a notebook doesn't make a lot of sense. Also the relative (and ongoing!) cost of maintain a full "tycho-stack" on more than one machine is difficult and not something I want to get into. This doesn't mean that I don't find all the netbooks extremely cute and desirable but I don't really need one. I suppose the interest in the SSD is part of an effort to make the existing laptop into more of a netbook.
Also on the stack I'm approaching the time in my cell phone contract when it's time to upgrade again. I've been debating the Nokia N900 for some time. Though I've not played around with the n900 I think all of my "I wish my phone could do X," problems could be solved by using a phone that actually uses Debian. Except I've learned in the last week that the screen on the n900 is resistive, like all of the old Palm Pilots (say,) and not capacitive like the iPhone/iPod Touch/Android phones. Big bummer. Not only is the phone not subsidized, and expensive, but it uses outmoded technology for the most important component. Fail.
At the same time it looks like Android phones are finally starting to make it to ATT. I'm not a good candidate for the iPhone (not being a reliable Mac User) and while I'm not sure about the enduring possibilities of the Android Platform, it seems like the best option at the moment.
I like my blackberry, really, but the replacement for the blackberry I have at the moment? The same phone. Really. Well, I think it has a different model number and a slightly different trackball, but otherwise, it's the same. I mean... Throw me something here? Upgrades are supposed to be upgrades. I wonder if Blackberry smart-phones are today's Nokia S60.
In any case, dithering about cell phones, netbooks, and SSDs aside, nothing else in my technology stable needs changing really. I geeked out a few weeks ago, and reorganized some of my mail config (but not much of it!), and I think if I had free time, I might redeploy the server to use nginx and prosody which are a bit more lightweight that my current stack, but that's all minor and will totally wait. It's a good place to be.