PDAs and Static Electricity Don't Mix!

[piperpilot]

Sitting in the office passing the time away, I thought I would share with you all a sad tale of woe involving my iPAQ 5455 and the clothes dryer. A few weeks back, I was gooving out with some tunes on my iPAQ while doing housework--a necessary evil made palatable only by the usefulness of my iPAQ as an MP3 player. I went to the clothes dryer to remove a load of synthetics and as soon as I touched the clothes, ZAP, involuntary hard reset from the static electricity. Because most of my programs reside on my work computer, I had to wait until I got in to the office on Monday morning to reconstitute my iPAQ. It took up most of the morning. Although I still use my IPAQ to listen to MP3s while I do housework, it doesn't get within ten feet of the clothes dryer. Total bummer.

[Janak Parekh]

:cry: Sorry to hear about that... but it's a good thing it's still working. :)

Don't you pocket your iPaq somewhere when you're playing MP3s? When I play MP3s while working, it goes in my jeans pocket, out of harm's reach.

--janak

[piperpilot]

It was in my pants pocket. I think it had to do with the fact that I was drying synthetic hiking clothes--fleece, nylon pants, etc.--which hold a lot more static electricity than natural fiber clothes, because I have used it near the dryer on other occasions and had no problems.

[gadfly]

Have you considered using the iPAQ Backup program that is built in on the 5455 and a SD card? I'm not sure the flash memory would survive a zap like that but the best part of using the program is you can have selective backups AND you always have those backups with you. The program can also be found here (www.spritesoftware.com) under the name Pocket Backup for those that don't have the iPAQ 545x or 39xx series.

BTW- Which MP3 program are you using and how do you like it?

[piperpilot]

"Great idea, Gadfly," she says after the damage has been done. I didn't think of it at the time, but I will do that now. I have plenty of open memory on the 256MB SD Card that I'm using; I might as well take advantage of it and avoid the frustration of having to reconstitute my device if the clothes dryer and I ever do battle again.

P.S., I'm using MediaPlayer but am looking at other apps for playing MP3s as MediaPlayer is very quirky when it comes to MP3s.

[piperpilot]

Gadfly: Just wanted to thank you for reminding me of the backup utility for my H5455. All of my applications and settings are safely residing on an SD Card, so that if the evil spectre of static electricity strikes again, I will have the last laugh!