PDA Handyman opened its internet doors in 2001 and in 2002 we started offering the Ask The Handyman feature. It was a hit and I even have a selection of the early ones in the Ye Olde News section. We had a server crash in October 2002 which lead to the move to a new host. A couple of years later we were hacked by a funny guy who thought he was cool by squashing our database and losing nearly 2,000 stories, opinion pieces, reviews, and yes, Ask The Handyman entries. That event hit us hard as we had to live with the fact that we had not safely backed everything up and that some punk had knocked all of our hard work down because he felt it was validating.

So now, a few hundred hours of therapy and anti-depression prescriptions later we’re able to fire it up again! Bust out your old quandrys and new issues. We take anything and everything. We once had a reader who had searched for a regular handyman find us and ask us about what a re-modeling of his kitchen should cost. We answered him! Head on over to the Contact Us page and click the link to get started!

written by Tyler Regas

Sister site, Certless, has just published its first issue of Sillycon Valley as well as two other mini-preview comics. Certless will publish one new comic every two weeks until everything ramps up, then they will publish one a week. Head on over and take a look.

written by Tyler Regas

My apologies for the lack of updates recently. I’ve been building out our new website, Certless. If you are a technology professional, you know a lot about certifications. You either have them and find that all the money you spent on them doesn’t help or you have none and HR departments demand you have them anyway. Its a horrible catch-22, but there’s little we can do to alleviate it, aside from laugh and engage in community building. To help in that, PHM Publications has opened Certless.com. We hope you find it helpful, entertaining, and online!

written by Tyler Regas

I was rummaging through the site’s log data (we use AWstats, if you’re curious) and re-discovered that there is someone or a few someones who uses a RISC OS system to read the Dojo. I must say, I’m honored. The Dojo isn’t known for its RISC OS-oriented headlines, but RISC OS-based system users are well known as tenacious technology users. Cheers to you, our mates in the UK! Read on for more statistics on who reads the Dojo! Continue reading »

written by Tyler Regas

Some weekends are just slow. We do have reviews coming up. You’ll soon be seeing reviews for HP’s iPAQ 110 Classic, the Insignia Pilot 4GB PMP, LapWorks new Attache, and a bevy of handsets from LG, the Shine, the new Chocolate, and the hot Voyager. Also keep your eyes peeled for mini-reviews of Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard, and the Aliph Jawbone (yeah! I finally got one!!).

written by Tyler Regas

Six years ago today, PDA Handyman opened to the public. Our first reviews were of Casio’s ruggedized Cassiopeia EG-800STD and their budget-minded BE-300 Pocket Manager. We also offered long-term updates on Handspring’s Visor Deluxe (the blue one) and Compaq’s seminal iPAQ 3135 (that’s the grayscale model). Finally, we took a quick look at the specs of the somewhat anticipated Royal Electronics Lin@x Linux-based PDA, which was unveiled at 2002’s CES show in Las Vegas. We were also running Palm InfoCenter headlines on the site, and they had just leaked Palm i705 pictures and were discussing the rumored release of Palm’s M515 and M130 devices. Talk about retro!

We want to thank all of our readers for six years of great support and sticking by us through thick and thin (and ignoring my periodic brain farts), and we look forward to another six years of some of the most amazing portable devices, software, and services that we can report on for you.

written by Tyler Regas

Okay, I’m vetting a new idea here, so if you are interested in technology certifications and jobs and such, take a look at CertLess. The ethic behind the site is to reduce the importance of certifications while highlighting the skills of the people out there. I work with a load of talented people, many who are far smarter than I am, and few of them are certified. I’m not certified, and I consider myself pretty smart in certain areas. Certification, however, doesn’t mean you know anything about what you are certified for. It just means you’re good at studying and taking tests. So, swing on over and see if you want to participate. Its all free right now and the phpBB2 forums system is most certainly NOT the what will run the final site, but I wanted to get something out there now.

written by Tyler Regas

I’ll take any jibe or barb you can muster since I’ve been sabotaging the commenting for months and didn’t even realize it. Apparently, there’s something wrong with the PHP emailer where it does not send out the registration required to submit comments. To rectify that for the time being I’ve disabled the account requirement. Keep in mind, however, that it won’t post if you add links. You know who you are.

written by Tyler Regas

Ok, now that the new year is finally here, we can get started with all of the new things we’ve been planning for you, our dear readers. We’re adding more reviews, more retro gear and resources, more Editor’s Choice Awards, and more opinions. We’re also going to be tracking the big shows, specifically Winter CES and MacWorld Expo. The time for rest and relaxation is over, and the time for New Year’s resolutions is here. We resolve to be more Dojo than ever before! Here’s a short list of reviews we have coming up soon: Nokia N95 8GB, Palm Centro, Apple iPod Nano, Colin McRae Rally for Mac, Kensington SlimBlade Trackball Mouse, Western Digital 320GB 2.5″ laptop drive, and much, much more. Hello, 2008!

written by Tyler Regas