After a long crazy 5-classes semester, I decided to reward myself with new gadget upgrades! Replacing my iPod nano and my 4 years old Zire 31 Palm PDA is 8GB 2nd gen iPod touch. How was my 4 years old Palm doing on its final day? It hard reset itself when battery went completely 0%! All data… apps, notes, contacts… gone! I can restore everything back, but I just don’t think it’s reasonable to limit myself to a 4 years old technology.

iPod touch

For iPod touch, I always think of it as a PDA… just like a Newton (that’s why I’m naming mine Isaac). It has everything that I used to have from my old PDA (including an anagram app for Scrabble) plus wifi that would let me do many stuff like listening to internet radio. Although I could’ve got myself an iPhone, but the whole risk regarding hacking (sim-unlocking and jailbreaking) just isn’t worth it when I already have a working unlocked phone.

Now comes the “woe” part of the entry.

- Incompatibility with clock rdio dock: I used to charge my iPod every night with it, now I can’t thanks to the restructuring of the dock connectivity. Even worse, I can’t even charge it when I plugged into the powered USB of my powered-off PC. That means I have to turn on my PC every time I want to charge it.

- Canadian app store not accepting iTunes giftt card: When I bought my iPod I also bought a gift card hoping to use it for apps. No dice. I later found out that I need credit card for paid apps. Luckily I got my US iTunes account rolling while I was down in Seattle visiting my brother, and it did work with app store purchase. But still… I’ll stuck at $15 until I got a chnce to be down in the States again.

- No tactile control: Now I’ll have a harder time skipping songs while keeping my iPod in my pocket. It was easy with iPod nano but with iPod touch I’d have to click home button twice then scramble for the on-screen skip button. Maybe I have to invest in remote to overcome this stupid downside of touch screen.

Pinnacle HD Ultimate Stick

I thought I could catching up to the HDTV revolution with it, but sadly… there are no over-the-air digital station in Victoria! I used to get many channels with great signal while I was with my brother but absolutely none here. Face it, we live in a luddite country. It’s like having a cell phone without a network to support it.

PC memory upgrade

I was down at Fry’s in Renton to get anything at reasonable price for PC upgrade, and I walked out with 2GB of RAM at only $25. I hoped this would make a great ugrade since I can’t run WoW and Firefox at the same time with 2GB on Vista. Woe? 32-bit Vista doesn’t support 4GB of RAM! 3GB is fine but I wish I could get something out of that idle stick.

I also bought a 8GB CF card at a bargain $20 that I’ve yet to test out. I hope my camera supports it or else making it 4-in-a-row for woes!