True geeks keep up with technology. Some to more degrees than others.

Here's my routine. I have friends (Don Bostrom and Joe Ceklosky) who go down to knowledge of chipsets. I stay at a higher level of technology knowledge.

My stance is not to stay at the edge of technology. I don't even have an 802.11g network yet.  I'm not exactly what Geoff Moore calls an Early Adopter. I tend to to pattern my technology buys around things I need to do.

My current tech infrastructure consists of 2 sprint cell phones with full internet. I've been thinking $90/mo is way too much and I plan to drop down to a pay per use service. My decision is made much easier now that the keep your old number rules are in effect. I have 2 telephone lines with DSL. I have an 802.11b wireless network  and a separate print server. I have an iMac that I bought to do Unix and education for my daughter Alyssa. It's still in heavy use 5 years later. I was a bit upset that the video camera I bought at the time didn't work with the iMac though it did have firewire on it. I have a heavy duty pc that I use mainly for ripping movies and storing a lot of cheap hard drive space. For a while, I was using it with Red Hat Linux. I was fond of Pan, a newsreader that made it so easy to download movies. I also have a development environment set up on this machine. I developed the first sketches of the Nostalgia app there. I had retired several other machines that I used throughout my masters degree. One ended up with relatives in the Philippines. The other ended up with my God son.

I have an HP laptop that replaced an older laptop that finally died after 4 years. The new laptop is meant to be used to make my extra curricular development efforts more mobile. I've got CD burners.

What I'm looking to do now is... Replace my video camera with one that works better with the iMac. I plan to get a replacement Palm pilot. My Handspring died a while back. I used to use it for a lot of stuff. I am still on Playstation One. Part of me is considering picking up a playstation 2 now that prices are down to commodity levels. I'm also considering a DVR and on the fringe, I'm interested in a large plasma screen.

How do I keep up? I read the circulars in the Sunday paper, I visit the Best Buy's and Circuit Cities. I comb the internet on sites like Buy.com, Overstock.com, Froogle.com, and best of all, www.pricewatch.com. I used to make it a point to visit local computer shows but these days not so much. Compusa prices have caught up for a bunch of things.

Never shop at Radio Shack. They suck. I had some loyalty to them back to my TRS-80 Model III but I've had several bad experiences and now I'm done. I tried to get MP3 on the cheap and got burned by a cheap unit. These days, I'd buy an iPod before I bought a no name brand. Quality and durability is still important.

This would be a major section of a book I would write on raising a tech savvy kid.