Read about featured Gadgeteer - Cornelis Steinitz

Gadgeteer Article

December 01, 2002

Name: Cornelis Steinitz
Location: Switzerland

My name is Cornelis Steinitz - it's a mixture of a Dutch first name and a German last name. I was born in 1964, have the German & Dutch nationality and have been living in Basel, Switzerland (northwest Switzerland) since 1993. I am married, no children and have one cat :-)

I was raised in the United States (North Miami, Florida) into the middle of my teens, which means my "mother" or "native" languages are both American and German. In the mid 80s I spent two years in Holland which is where I self taught myself the Dutch language. I can pretty well read and speak Dutch but I am trying to hang in there as far as my writing is concerned ;-)

Around 1997/98 when I first saw a Palm Pilot at a tech fair, I honestly have to admit, that I thought: "Well, without handwriting recognition and no physical keyboard, this thing will bomb in Europe". Boy was I wrong!!
Ironically, at that same time that's when my love-affair with the Palm started.
First I looked through all the tech catalogs, then all the Info sheets I could get my hands on and of course I was observing the first articles on the internet on this new handheld. In mid 1998 I bought my first Palm - a Palm Professional. From then on I have had every Palm except the IIIxe.

Before "meeting" the Palm I owned various PDAs. To this day you could say that I am still hunting for that perfect PDA...

The PDAs I have owned, or still own (model type names may vary since I bought them in Europe):

Casio Datenbase (unknown model)
HP 100LX
HP 200LX
Psion 3c
Psion S5
Apple Newton Messagepad 2100
Palm Pro
Palm III
Casio E10 (WinCE 1.0)
Sharp Mobilon 4200G (WinCE 1.0)
Palm IIIc
Palm V
Palm Vx
Palm IIIc
Rex
Rex Pro
Rex 6000
TRG Pro
Palm m505
Sony Clié PEG-N770C/E
Palm m515
HP Jornada 720
Sony Clié NR70V
Sony Clié T625C

My interest has also been very high as far as cell phones are concerned. This, paired with the miniaturization of the phones, still keeps up my gadget interest to the dismay of my wallet on some months ;-)

Here is the list of phones I have owned or still own (model type names may vary since I bought them in Europe):

Nokia 2110
Ericsson SH888
Nokia Communicator 9110
Siemens S25
Siemens S35i
Nokia 3310
Nokia 3320
Trium Geo
Nokia 3210
Nokia 8210
Nokia 6210
Siemens SL45
Motorola Accompli 6188
Motorola Accompli A008
Ericsson T68
Ericsson R380s
Ericsson T39m
Ericsson R520m
Nokia Communicator 9210
Handspring Treo 180g
Nokia 6310i

Am I rich? Do I want to brag about my collection?
The answer is in both cases NO!
I just want to let people know that "gadgeteering" (Judie/Julie: is that a trademarked word by now? ;-) is my #1 hobby and that I am very interested and very much open to the new technologies appearing on the tech market. I also take a lot of free time  to check each model carefully to see if it suits me.
The second most fascinating part of the actual PDA is the hardware that you can get optionally ;-)

Besides this, I bought my "tech toys" one after the other, have taken very good care of them and when it came time for me to want to sell them, I put them up on a local Swiss online auction or have found friends who wanted one or the other model. That way other people may have found a model that they liked for a way better price.
With that earned money plus a little bit of saved money I went out and bought the next model, real simple! Or I bought a used model at online auctions.

I have had a number of websites which have had the subject of PalmOS based PDAs:

• NeoX.org

• P21.ch

• PDA>>>Port.ch

I don't have them anymore, since being a self employed person demands more focus and time at my business (and for my two business websites for that matter).

As a hobby I wrote, and still write views on PDAs and an occasional review of certain PDA-based hardware for a few local German language websites and an online magazine (in a palm format) called "Beam" My articles have even appeared in two large German PDA magazines. So that was a real pleasure to see those out there!

Another portion of my free time is used to hang around in the newsnet and to read PDA based articles on various websites, my top favorite being - how else could it be - "The Gadgeteer" (keep up the GREAT work gals!)

As long as the tech world holds my interest I will always be a "Gadgeteer". And I don't see that fading anytime soon in the future! :-))