[Bob Russell]

Another interesting update on this adventure into the PPC world. I've now got two Toshiba e405s, but the second one is on the verge of costing me $299!

Bear with me. I'll get to that. But first of all, I want to update the PPC situation in general.

I'd have to say I'm pretty much hooked on Pocket PC now, even though Palm is my sentimental favorite. With all the rumors of new models with LOTS of internal memory, a return to Palm is very tempting. I didn't want to leave Palm originally, and now that I'm settled into PPC, I don't want to leave that either... but that doesn't mean I won't!

The things that are not on Palm that I would miss most are:
* Pocket Informant (This could be the main hurdle. It's really nice. Palm should commission a version of it on PalmOS!)
* Tombo - a wonderful note management system. I have a copy of PhatNotes and have tried lots of other alternatives. This is by far the best if you can live with text only notes. It has a nice desktop app, but you can also edit the text files with notepad from your synched files directory. This is simple, but among the all time best PPC apps in my opinion. I really hope it will be maintained over time because I haven't found an alternative that I am comfortable with.
* Sprite Backup -- It works just like it should and seems reliable and lets me control things like what gets backed up, and automatic scheduled backups at night, and how many old backup copies to keep, and has auto execute backup files that don't require the app to be installed, and lets me control where the files are stored. Basically, it does what all backup programs should do, and it does it well.
* Wisbar Advance -- This adds a great cascading menu, and does my task switching and management and more. It's awesome.
* Multitasking -- I didn't think this would matter to me, but now I think I'm convinced I like it.
* BetaPlayer -- This is awesome software and plays MPEG-4 files great. You can speed up or slow down playback (if you are willing to have pitch change in the audio, that is), you can easily set the zoom, you can drag the bar to any location, and like the other programs above, it just works great.

I like all these programs because you aren't left wondering about all kinds of uncertainties about where things are stored, what the program did behind the scenes, etc, etc. They just work and leave you with no worries. There's not a lot of "hidden" stuff to worry about, so you get peace of mind and don't have to remember a whole lot to use them.

Many other programs I love are not mentioned above because they are available on both Palm and PPC, like eWallet, HandyShopper (although I don't know if the author will keep up PalmOS support now that he's switched to PPC himself), eReader, iSilo/iSiloX, etc.

Okay, so now the "interesting bit"... I sent my original Toshiba back for service in Dec. They sent me a replacement PDA and a shipping label to return the defective one. Done deal, right? Well, no. I just today got it back in the mail. Refused because of no serial number. But I had all the paperwork done properly, and th serial number was part of the pre-printed label. It is hard to read on the PDA, and I had discussed it with the cust srvc rep, and he was able to deduce the missing numbers, but I guess it didn't get onto the repair tag label. Anyway, I did my part to the letter.

So now I get it back and call Toshiba because they had told me I would be charged about $300 if I didn't send back my unit. Now I'm told that multiple people are calling about the same issue, and one person have even called this cust srvc rep earlier today about it. But he said not to worry. I wouldn't be charged, and the case was closed anyway. But he gave me another number to call if I wanted to follow-up just to be sure, and suggested I check my credit card statements if I wanted to be certain.

I went back to check my records, and horror or horrors, there was a $299 charge on my credit card in January that I had missed! No other notification was given to me by Toshiba, either. I called that person, who by the way was supposed to be the head guy in headquarters relative to returns, and was only able to leave a message describing the situation and that the charge needs to be removed. I hope he deals with this promptly and efficiently. And, to be honest, after all the hassle this thing has caused me, I hope they just wipe out the charge and let me keep the old PDA. It's not much use to them any more unless they are either doing a bulk sale of leftovers, or if they are still getting enough repair requests that they need another to satisfy repair needs. But I think it's almost worthless to them, and I don't want to go through the whole process one more time after they screwed up like that.

But the PDA would be useful to me, I guess. For one thing, it might let me get to data by using a Sprite Backup recovery file on it if I step on the other PDA and break it in half or lose it or something. For another thing, I have to wonder if maybe it was a software problem that may not recur now that I have a more stable set of programs that I'm sticking with. I.e. the PDA might really not have a problem like I thought it did. Well, I do think it's still defective, but what I'm saying is that there's an outside chance it's okay.

So, we'll see how Toshiba handles this. I could end up with a backup PDA, or I could end up with a nightmare trying to eliminate the charge and get the PDA returned again. Will let you know...