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Steve and his Sony Magic Link - Week 1

This is a follow up to my previous post.

After a week of using my Magic Link, I've all but replaced my Newton with it. The screen is a problem under most lighting conditions, and I'm not sure how it will deal with a lot of data in it, but I'm not finding any major issues with the use of the unit.

I highly suggest picking up Barbara Knaster's "Presenting Magic Cap" Sony's manual does not go anywhere near enough in depth with regards to using the unit efficiently.

I purchased a Apple Newton 1 MB card for $50 from Frys Electronics and it has really helped. All data is on the card, and I've moved the "Welcome" messages into their own package and wrapped it up.

I now know 5 people with Magic Links. More than I knew people who had Newtons in week 1.

Cool new features I've found / Things I've tried -------------------------------------------------

These may be obvious to you, but new to me:

* Contact btn in Magic Lamp. I was looking for this but didn't make the connection. Any place a name appears I can press Contact and phone, email or fax that person. Cool!

* Label maker. (Option-Kbd) I've started to use the label maker, and while I can't always predict which things will accept labels, I'm renaming more things.

* Custom meeting types. As describe in "Presenting Magic Cap" I made an appointment that is about "20 minute missions" for "Magic Edge" with the plane icon and dragged a copy of it over the New btn (upper right) and now its a default type of meeting! What a time saver! 8-)

* I thought that there was no quicker way to delete log entries or emails from the list view - I was wrong. You need to drag the icon on the left of the list item.

* Storage on a ram card is neat. You can create "packages" of data and "wrap" them up. The data is still on the card, but its no longer in service, ie, you won't see name cards that are in the package, in the name rolodex, etc.

* Faxing is seamless

* Beaming is cool - The device is *always* listening for beams, and yet the lithium ion battery still does 3 full days worth of service.

* The construction tools are cool. You can do all sorts of customization. I took the sound coupons and applied a different sound to each tool on my desk, so when they are selected, I get different sounds. Don't stick a song on one, though! It can get older after a little while. 8-)

Current Gripe List ------------------

* No UNDO! * Needs better screen * No way to select ink I've drawn and easily erase (scrub in Newtonese) it, or move it. * I can't figure out how to get the address stamp to have two lines for the address. * When selecting a sound for something, you can't hear the sound at the time of selection. * Removing a RAM card is really, really slow. * Needs a faster internal modem, esp for voice messages * A friend sent me a email with a 120K attachment. After 15 minutes, my ML locked up. I wait for 30 mins, then reset it. Then I could not dial back into PersonaLink. Neither could the Sony tech support person. Either the server went down while I was getting the email, or my email took the server down. It took 2 hours for the server to come back up.

Nobody has headsets, so I can't use my new phone as a phone yet. 8-(

Summary:

In one week I've sent 84 emails and received 183. Sure some of these were "Your name card changed so we uploaded a new one" type of message, but it sure has not seemed like 267 transactions! Thus, I must not be spending that much brain time dealing with it, a plus for the interface.

I'm looking forward to eShop (online shopping), the telephone headset and the Macintosh connectivity software.

Meanwhile, keep communicating!

Steve

© Copyright 1997-2002 Steve Riggins. Graphics by Andrew Duncan.