Living off the grid...

Having been without power (and connectivity) at home since last Thursday due to the huge wind storm that hit the Seattle area we're finally back on the grid again! - it's amazing how quickly your life changes when power and connectivity are removed. Phones were down and no power to the house, so I've been using a Samsung i320 Landscape Smartphone to keep in touch with friends and co-workers - having access to e-mail and SMS messaging has been extremely useful, keeping in touch with other people that are "off the grid', browsing the local energy company web site for updates on when power might be restored - having a Windows Mobile device with a QWERTY keyboard has been awesome, IMHO much better than using T9 on a candy/flip phone - battery life on the i320 lastet a couple of days on a full charge, I kept the phone off most of the time and turned on to syns SMS messages or to send e-mail, I needed to recharge the phone a couple of times over the four days we were without power so used an in-car USB charger to charge the phone while shopping for supplies.

It's amazing to see just how much we all rely on gadgets, technology, and electricity and how much we miss them when they are gone (and how happy we are when the power comes back on again!) - ok, laptops charging, broadband is up, time to get back to some coding...

- Mike