So for about the last three, four weeks, my Palm has been doing this weird thing while sitting in its cradle at work. “Waiting for beaming …” it will abruptly say, like someone with another Palm has opened up IR communications with it. Nobody, of course, has. Weird.
And then, last weekend, Doyce and I, vying fiercely for the title of Alpha Geek at my game, were sitting next to each other with our laptops. “Hey,” I joked. “Look. Your laptop has its IR port next to mine.” We laughed and joked for about 30 seconds about how unreliable — nay, never-have-gotten-it-working-at-all — laptop IR ports are, when …
Bloop.
“There’s another PC in the area,” my notebook announced.
Unsolicited, it and Doyce’s notebook started to chatter away in infrared, blooping and bleeping and sounding like an R2 convention for the rest of the game.
Of course, Alpha Geeks that we are, we actually used the damned things to transfer some files. “Cool!”
So this morning I’m looking at this mysterious message popping up, yet again, on my Palm. And then I think to myself, “Hey, you know, my notebook’s IR port is on that side. And the IR stuff used to be disabled, but obviously the WinXP installation re-enabled it. And even though it’s not pointed directly at the Palm’s port when it’s sitting in the cradle, there’s a hard wall right next to it, which could bounce around the beam. And …”
Tech mystery solved.
Hmmmm. I’ll have to try doing an actual sync at home via IR.
You forgot to include the best line of the game: “Mom! He’s pinging me!” The laugh was heard all the way to the kitcen.
A true geek would have not only mentioned their Palm….but it’s model number. =)
I’m always curious about what other Palm users have as far as hardware. And in case you were wondering, I’m on my 3rd Palm device, this time a Sony T615C….yeah color!
Palm IIIc here. With the folding keyboard.
you geek you…
Palm Vx. My first. I’m waiting until sometime early 2003 to consider upgrading to something that has color and, possibly, wireless connectivity (I’m not sold on the concept).
And I have a folding keyboard, too. 🙂
I should also mention that I sync my IIIc to my XP laptop with IR. When I was using the cradle and the Serial/USB adapter, each time I unplugged the adapter, I got BSOD. Somethingabout using Win2k drivers on XP, I think, though it was recommended.
IR works just hunky-dory for me.
Stowaways? I used to have one for my Visor Deluxe but being as I never use my Palm for that much text entry (and only use it while on the go) I sold it.
Hopefully if a certain check arrives this week I’m going to order the Memory Stick camera for my Clie…..new toy to play with on vacation!