steven n fettig's Jitterin' Thoughts

    I have not only proven myself capable of wasting much time today, but also a poor reader - or one who has a hard time paying attention to detail. Mr. Mossberg wrote an article on the MPIO HS100 keychain storage device that convinced me it was the solution I was looking for. (He has done this twice now - the first and most notably, the upgrade from my Treo 300 to the Treo 600.) We need to transfer about 700 MB from one computer to another (across a 7 mi. distance where dedicated circuits like ISDN and T1's are prohibitively expensive) and I wanted an inexpensive and portable device that could handle the challenge -and was not ridiculously expensive. Plus, given the drive's size, it will allow us to keep adding documents to the pile and not worry about running out of room immediately.
    After reading Mr. Mossberg's article (paid subscription to wsj.com required), I immediately hit up my normal supplier (CDW) to see if they carried this little device. No avail there. So, I went to BestBuy.com to run a search using the part number that he gave in the article (and different variations on the part number), but couldn't find it anywhere. Or so I thought. So, I scoured the web some more and had no luck. Every search ended up pointing back to the article, which ended up pointing back to where I thought I couldn't find the device.
    So, after spending way too much time on this (especially on a busy day like today), I decided, what the heck, I'll email Mr. Mossberg and tell him that he is wrong. It struck me as odd that the article would be released without confirming that the device was, indeed, available at BestBuy (and in hindsight, I should have paid better attention to this gut instinct). I persisted, however, and wrote the following:

I honestly was not expecting a reply. I figured that I would have better luck tonight (on my broadband connection at home) finding it. I wasn't about to give up on listing myself as one of the world's best internet search masters...
    Some time went by and I was distracted by other work when I noticed a message in my inbox from Mr. Mossberg... Really... I feel honored.
    Then I read the email. (I won't post it here because I like asking for such permission first.) Ahem... the device is at BestBuy.com. (The link is above.) Other people have found it. So, I looked again. Voila, it was there.
    I have learned a good number of things today. 1) Mr. Mossberg has good advice (actually, I learned that some time ago, but it was reinforced again today), 2) OPEN MY EYES. That or increase the font size on my 17" iMac's monitor... 3) Mr. Mossberg not only responds to emails, but he does it from his handy Treo 600 - like me (sometimes). We must be buddies now, right? ohh, and 4) I [sometimes] am poor at finding info on the net... despite what my ego tells me.