With a wince, the Rat
Packet Rat R. Fink With a wince, the Rat is rewired, reconnected, perhaps reborn by NT Readers know all about the Rat's technolust for power-sucking, megahertz-pumping multiprocessor machines that run hydrodynamic simulations in the background while recompiling his latest set of homebrew drivers. But now and then something small makes the cyberrodent drool. This time it's the newest road warrior toy: a featherweight PC running Microsoft Windows CE.
Packet Rat Readers know all about the Rats technolust for power-sucking, megahertz-pumping But now and then something small makes the cyberrodent drool. This time its the The whiskered one has long regarded WinCE as the most aptly named of all Windows Anyone who can touch-type C++ code at 20 lines a minute fumes at having to regress to But recent events caused the furry one to give WinCE another whack. While in Boston a The Rat began suffering from full-blown Internet withdrawal. Usually he can cure such Problem was, he was in Bostonon foot, unwired and unable to wait for a next-day Whats more, none of their display systems even had an Internet hookup. The He was nearly in a coma when he returned empty-pawed to the Visual C++ conference. It Truly desperate, he bumped into a fellow coder carrying what looked like a remarkably Just before collapsing in despair again, he spotted the yellow feature sticker glued The furry one followed the scent of shrinkwrap to the back of a WinCE programming It was, as Elmer Fudd might say, the beginning of a beautiful fwendship. The rodent can The kicker, of course, is that Microsoft is turning WinCE into a client for Windows It might just workuntil he figures out how to burn the Linux Kool Desktop The Packet Rat once managed networks but now spends his time ferreting out bad packets
R. Fink
With a wince, the Rat
is rewired, reconnected, perhaps reborn by NT
multiprocessor machines that run hydrodynamic simulations in the background while
recompiling his latest set of homebrew drivers.
newest road warrior toy: a featherweight PC running Microsoft Windows CE.
operating systems. Previous versions of the mobile OS did make him wince.
hunt-and-peck Chiclet keys.
few weeks ago for the Visual C++ developers conference, the wirebiter found himself
digitally naked. His 10-pound-plus notebook suddenly decided to turn itself into a highly
scalable paperweight, depriving him of e-mail and Web access.
afflictions with an IMPAC credit card and a discretionary budget, so he went looking for
something to reconnect him to his lifeline.
delivery. The staff at the local computer shops looked at him like the giant rat he is
when he started asking about General Services Administration Information Technology
Schedule prices.
nerve! spat the Rat.
had been four whole hours since the cyberrodent had last checked his servers uptime.
small device from NEC Computer Systems. After hiding the coders unconscious body in
a stairwell, the Rat booted up the MobilePro 800. It was running WinCE.
above the devices touch-type keyboard. Miraculously, the unit was equipped with an
internal V.90 modem and Point-to-Point Protocol dialer. And it was brand-new.
session where someone was selling brand-new thin clients. Scraping tips off tables in the
hotel restaurant, the Rat procured the software and headed for the nearest RJ-11 port to
get a fix. Within minutes, he had re-established his connection to the digital universe.
now dispense a few compliments to Microsoft Corp. reps among rants about his Windows NT
problems. He finds himself extolling the MobilePros virtues to co-workers, Metro
passengers and the cashier at the corner convenience store.
Terminal Server and the terminal service in Windows 2000. So the seduction begins again.
Microsoft is plying the Rat with sexy hardware to lure him back into the NT camp.
Environment onto the MobilePros ROM. n
in cyberspace. E-mail him at rat@gcn.com.
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