The Story of the PDA

Hey Folks,

I would imagine that there isn’t too many still walking around with a PDA. Better yet, how many people even remember what a PDA is? Do you remember the Palm Pilot?

Well here’s a little story…

Once upon a time, long long ago (at least in terms of computing) back in 1986, the very first portable hand held electronic device know as Personal Digital Assistants or PDAs was released upon the public.

These devices were designed to get rid of those old fashioned paper day planners in which you would right down all your appointments and important contacts. And perhaps, if you were so inclined, you would also annotate your own personal information (just in case someone found your day planner – they could return it) and other important information like account numbers and pins.

So these PDAs were able to perform all the same functions as a paper day planner or organizer, but just not as easily or conveniently.

They often included such functions as:

• Appointment calendar
• A to-do list (everyone loves a “to-do” list!)
• An address book
• A Calculator (a very novel idea indeed)
• A memo or “note” program.
  

These PDA’s would save infinite amounts of time required every year copying all the information over from last years planner. From the busy executive to the average stay at home mom, this was manna from heaven not to mention digital efficiency at its finest. Perfect organization; never again late for an appointment; and no more forgetting important dates like birthdays or anniversaries.

At first, you needed a little stick, known as a stylus, to write on the PDA’s glass screen in order to input your information. These PDAs tried to recognize your handwriting, but as you could probably guess, it never worked as well as writing on paper. After all, half the time we can’t even read our own writing, how in the world is a computer going to read it!

So a virtual keyboard was designed that would appear on the screen and you would tap each virtual key one at a time with your little stick to input your data. Of course this took forever, but at least once that data was put in, you never had to input it again.

Then, a brilliant engineer came up with the idea of adding button onto the face of the PDA in order to facilitate data entry. It didn’t take very long until a full mini keyboard was included on the front of the PDAs to streamline data entry.

Everything was going along just fine until one day someone realized that they were carrying both a cell phone and a PDA. And, as luck would have it, the cell phone had many of the same features as the PDA including contacts and the ever present, tool for all occasions: A Calculator.

So again, one day, another brilliant engineer came up with the idea of combining the PDA and the cell phone. After many years of careful thought, a new device was created to replace the cell phone and the PDA. This device was called the Smart Phone!

Today, it is very hard indeed to find a mere cell phone or a PDA… They are all but extinct. However, it is equally rare to find someone without a Smart Phone. These Smart Phones can now browse the internet, send personal messages, play music, and even play games for hours on end.

Of course Smart Phones can still make phone calls, create a “to-do” list, be used as a calculator, contain an appointment calendar, and create a memo… however they just don’t perform these functions very well. Many times, instead of using your Smart Phone, we still use the old fashioned methods of paper and pen for data functions. And if you want to make a quality phone call where you can actually hear the other person talk, it’s often best not to use your cell phone.

So although PDAs, and now Smart Phones, have not made us any more efficient or less likely to forget an important birthday or anniversary, there is a high likelihood that you did try to input some important sensitive information into that old PDA or even a new Smart Phone.

If that is the case, it might be worth while to get that old PDA shredded to make sure none of that information falls into the wrong hands.

Until next time…

Keep Totally Secure!

Mike
Head Shredding Guy