I can’t believe it! I just received a call from a PSHUG buddy who informed me that Fry’s Electronics is opening up in Renton tomorrow. If you have never been to one of these stores, you must go check it out. They are a geek’s dream come true and have just about everything you could imagine for computers at good prices. They also have been selling PDAs before other stores have them such as when I drove 340 miles to Oregon to pick up my iPaq 2215 before it was officially released. I have had my nose to the grindstone judging Pocket PC software (and am almost finally done) and didn’t catch any of the local newspapers with ads for tomorrow. And to top it off I am camping with my family up in Birch Bay near the WA-Canadian border until Monday so there is no chance of hitting Fry’s anytime soon for me. I do plan on going before our big SEAPUG-PSHUG joint meeting on the 9th since I usually have a couple hours to goof between work and the meeting.

I have been reviewing some great programs and the Strategy Games category was one of the best. There were several games that were excellent (Argentum, BugLord, Lemonade Inc., and Age of Empires). I couldn’t believe some of the sounds, graphics, and gameplay variety and quality that is contained in these Pocket PC programs.

I have been using Joel’s (Geek.com Editor) Orange SPV and the first couple of days I was extremely impressed and thought I could drop a Pocket PC for a Smartphone. However, after now playing with it for over a week, I think I still like my Nokia 3650 better. During my testing and comparison I have actually learned quite a bit about my Nokia 3650 and am finding it even more useful and functional. I am using it this weekend to finish judging and connecting in the boonies using my T-Mobile GPRS Bluetooth connection.

I am extremely busy downloading, installing, and judging approximately 30+ Pocket PC software titles for the 2003 Pocket PC Software Awards so I have no time to really update my blog for the next couple weeks. I may post here and there so check back once a week or so. Thanks for visiting.

I have been EXTREMELY busy at work and haven’t had time to update my blog for a week. I just finished meeting with a shipyard and walking around a 750′ RORO ship to get ready for an upcoming yard period and then caught the bus to Seattle. I figured I would sit on the bus and surf/email with my iPaq 2215 and Nokia 3650, but then found out my stupid iPaq was totally dead. This is about the 3rd or 4th time that it has died overnight for no apparent reason. I don’t know if I have a lemon or what, but I am about ready to do a full hard reset and start over. I put a lot of software on my device and one of these apps may be screwing things up.

Speaking of software, I have started evaluating and judging software for the 2003 Pocket PC Magazine Awards since I was selected a year ago to become a member of the Pocket PC Board of Experts. I have about 10 categories this year and will be swamped in August trying to crank out my judging.

I haven’t been able to get Bluetooth working on my Z yet, but plan on focusing on that this evening since I am writing the intro for the next PDAGeek newsletter and talking about my experiences with the Z. I think I deleted a file I need so I am going to reflash my ROM and try again. I may also try the new tkcRom to see how that works out. The 3.10 ROM doesn’t work with my Sony WiFi card out of the box like other ROMs so I am avoiding it for now.