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Jul
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I'm a self confessed gadget-head; I've always had an interest in technology and the art of "how things work"; often an innovation comes along that really gets my interest though probably a lot less than most people - it takes something pretty specical to pique my interest.
One of the most overlooked gadgets I'm exposed to on a fairly resular basis is the Sun Ray. I admit that it's not the primary device I use during my workday (ie. I don't have one in my office or at home [yet]) - I'm still "tied to a laptop" (I'll explain that dichotomy later). I typically use a SunRay when I'm in a remote office and just need to dive into my mail quickly (yes quickly) - unpacking, booting, connecting my laptop vs. plugging my card into the screen; I also use them when I'm giving a presentation (inside Sun, conference rooms have Sun Rays integrated into the A/V system) - I usually drop my preso. into a mounted folder on my laptop or home machine before hand; then simply plug my card into the screen and start presenting. I really hate it when you have to wait for a speaker to connect their laptop, change the resolution, plug in the power, mouse, etc. So when I present at Sun Executive Briefing Center - I'm always really amazed when I plug in my card and the session resumes exactly where I left off - usually the last slide of the last presentation I made.
OK, back to the "tied to my laptop comment". I'm lucky, I have a really small, modern laptop (a Vaio S170B) but it is still WAY TOO BIG for what it does - it does mail, browsing, blog editing and documents. I'm sick of lugging it around (plus all the associated cables). So, I have a plan to detach myself from it - soon I'll be able to pick up corporate mail on my Treo650 - so, I'll always have the option of dipping into my mail wherever I am (something the laptop can't do despite increasing coverage of 802.11) - when I'm in an office or at home, I'll have SunRays (when I join the WFH program).
One of the under-hyped aspects of Sun Rays is that they are extremely unintrusive - ie. they do what they do without you really having to invest much time in them - it seems that every time I turn on my home Windows machine these days I have to perform some kind of upgrade, malware eradication or virus scan of one form or another. I guess that's mostly a Windows issue but having my machine adminstered centrally is also a part of it - for example I'll no longer be responsible for backing-up my laptop (you all back-up your laptop regularly I presume ?)
So, where does this lead ? Eventually my laptop gets relegated to long road-trips without access to a Sun office (ie, writing documents, etc.) - this is a pretty infrequent thing these days. Amazing when you think I have been absolutely attached to a laptop for the last six years - that's progress.
Note - this was blogged on my laptop - I'll be looking at some blogging tools for Palm V this week.
Technorati Tags : SunRay, Treo650
