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I am
Elisabeth Liddell. Until the mid 1980s I was a teacher and college lecturer,
helping to establish the study of the mass media in Scottish schools and
colleges. Then CFS / ME struck,
and the course of my life was changed. Forced to retire, I began to teach myself
to draw and paint, something I'd always wanted to do but never had the time for!
I specialised in pastels, doing mainly portrait painting (see more about pastel
painting, and a gallery of my own work here).
Then, in 1996 I decided it was time to find out about computers..... at that
time I had not even seen a computer mouse! I began with a PC, hoping to use a digital
camera, scanner and video capture card to widen my art work. I soon discovered
that the technology of the day was not capable of handling the demands I was
making, but I
soon found myself becoming engrossed in what the computer could do for me, and
began an adventure which is still ongoing today!
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the Geofox One
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I found that
sitting at a computer was very hard on both my muscles and my energy (both
compromised by the CFS) so I was delighted when I discovered that there were
small 'palmtop' computers that would permit me to sit comfortably, or lie back
and still write, keep my calendar, phone book and play games. I was sold on the
idea, and got my first Psion 3 (a second-hand 'classic') for my
birthday that year!
Then I discovered the Geofox One - Internet, email, and
fax could be mine, with a neat slot-in modem, a huge screen, a
larger keypad, and 16 MB of space to play with. I had
to have it!!
I was so delighted that in September 1998 I started a small website
which I called FoxPop, from the full name Mike chose for it
which was GeoFOX POPulis. I had two aims in mind, to write something
about my new Geofox, and to learn how to create a 'real' website
using the FrontPage web editing software I had just bought. It was
strictly a hobby site, and a way for me to play around and learn
about creating a website |
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Then a few
months later Geofox Ltd went out of business, and suddenly things
got serious. FoxPop was the only place on the internet where Geofox
owners could meet and talk and find out what was going on!
After that it was a roller-coaster ride and I learned the skills I needed
as I went along. I recruited a gallant band of fellow Geofox users,
and together we built the website into the central place for Geofox
users to find information and support for their machines. |
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After that FoxPop grew and grew. We decided to expand and cover
other Psion-made EPOC machines, so as not to become a static and
shrinking site as the user base of Geofox owners diminished. And
when my own Geofox 'died' I decided to move platform to WinCE. These
machines were bigger than the Geofox, and had an integral modem and
a colour screen. The keyboard was also larger, easier to use, and
closer to the desktop in design and the placement of keys. My first
was the Jornada 860, the first of many HPC Pro machines. And since
then I have stayed with the Microsoft-based Pocket PC and HPC Pro
machines. |
But FoxPop
itself did not stand still! Several of the team chose to move to the Palm
platform after the demise of Geofox, so we expanded to cover all the three major
PDA platforms. And over the years the core FoxPop team grew, and as laptops
began to shrink, and the larger PDAs became more complex, we added small laptops
to our coverage. And as the divisions between mobile phones and palm-sized PDAs
began to blur, we found ourselves covering 'smartphones' too.
All this
time I was the sole person actually running the site. As FoxPop grew and became
more popular I had to re-design the site, move it to new servers, and battle with
the technicalities of keeping it growing. I also wrote reviews myself, and
handled the articles and reviews from our growing band of contributors.
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Then Mike fell ill, and eventually had to retire from his teaching
job. He helped with FoxPop as much as he could, but the growing work
load eventually proved too much for both of us, and sadly in April
2004 we had to close the site. At that time it comprised over 2,000
web pages and 500 MB of downloadable information on a wide range of
mobile computing and PDA-related topics. It had been growing and
developing for over 5½ years. It was a very hard decision to make. |
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The latest news is on the
PDA page here - with plans on track to bring back
some of the FoxPop archive, and give some of the contributors space for posting
their current articles too
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