I had to explain computer purchasing concepts to my brother in law. he doesn’t understand why he cannot buy a $299 computer and be happy with it. I tried (not sure if I succeeded) in explaining that it is low end crap, and that it will be easily outdated in 3-5 years. Since they want to (plan to) keep the computer that long, they should not buy the bottom of the barrel. I didn’t mention but felt like I should mention it, that I wouldn’t recommend to my worst enemy to buy a $299 computer so I would not let my family buy that stuff. The only exception of the rule mentioned above is Gus. Since he seems to think he can run the universe on his old P-2 300mhz, I would recommend a 5 year old used Dell off of ebay for him:)
Technology
Busy and Sick
Got one of the 2 circuits we were going to cancel taken care of. our provider is working on canceling the other line. The new bigger circuit for my office is on order now.
Jayson is working on finishing up the hardware for our VMware GSX server. We had issues with the poweredge we bought so we won’t have 4 gigs of ram. We will settle for 3. That means less VM’s we can run. I need to cofigure GSX when I am in the office Friday.
Jay is off next week to goto sell his house. he is going to fix it up and put it back on the market.
I am working to get hardware for our Biztalk 2004 deployment. I need to buy a server for QA and 2 for production. Working out pricing issues now. Hope to have them by next week.
Free Palm SD Card
I tried to fill out the form for the free 128 Meg SD card from Palm today. Since I have less than perfect vision and Palmone decided (like everyone else I know) to make the serial number microscopic I was unable to pull the info I needed for the free card. Lets face it, I don’t need the card. I already have a 512 meg SD card. Dam, I gave away a 128 meg card to Jayson already. It is the principle of the matter that I want Palmone to pay (even if it is a little bit) for putting only 32megs on their top of the line phone and got burned for doing it.
Great Product Just Got Better
I use (sometimes) The Missing Sync 4.x from Mark/Space. It is a palm sync utility for the Mac. I say I sometimes use it because I have some minor issues with syncing my PDA data to Entourage. The Missing Sync is actually a fantastic product. They just released a new version that now supports its own Avantogo Conduit. I can almost seamlessly sync between my Thinkpad and my Mac Mini. The only issue I have now is the category data from Entourage getting into outlook and vice versa.
I may start using my Treo with Entourage as my main source for mail and contacts and drop outlook all together. Of course I say that allot, but I haven’t cut the cord yet. Dam outlook. you love to hate it. And recently I have truly hated it.
All I can say is that Mark/Space is a company that gets me buying Mac hardware. Why? Because I know innovative people like these will write software that lets me use most of what I use on my PC, like my Palm Treo! And no I don’t work for these guys. I just like software that does exactly what it is supposed to without major problems.
Crazy People On The Street
You may have seen us. We are the ones talking to (what appears to be) no one. On the surface we don’t look crazy. But you begin to wonder when you see us talking to thin air. The simple fact is we are not crazy. you are just behind the times. Unless we need to be medicated for some sort of psychological disorder we are probably talking on a bluetooth headset. I thought it was funny when I found this article.
With my new Treo 650 I once again join the ranks of the crazy bluetooth headset talking crowd. Another guy in our office uses his all day. no one knows if he is talking to us or someone on the phone.
The Treo On The Road
I had mixed results with the Treo 650 on the road over the 2 day period I traveled this week. One problem I had was not related to the Treo but with T-Mobile. For some reason I could not receive calls for almost 16 hours. Not sure why. Fiddling with the phone, an extra phone and a different #’s sim card got my number to start working again. not sure what I did. Probably several phone reboots and swapping sim’s did the trick.
Other issues I had was with bluetooth and connecting with my laptop. PDANet didn’t even work with bluetooth. I kept having conflicts with the HotSync software. Even after I turned the hotsync off. Not sure what is wrong, but I think it is related to the 3com bluetooth card more than it is related to the Treo. I just can’t get it to work right consistently.
The screen rocks. I cannot mention that enough. The battery life was good also. I only charged it for like an hour in 2 days and I still have almost 50% charge. That was with bluetooth on most of the daytime hours.
My Sony Ericsson Headset works great with the Treo. That bluetooth accessory works as advertised (for now). I used it allot. it is great to have wireless hands free.
I need to get beyond contacts back on the Treo. I don’t like the trial of agendus. I just cannot get used to its UI. it is supposed to be good, but it is too different.
Jayson is enjoying my old 600. he got a bunch of apps on it already. We were beaming contacts while waiting for the train Wednesday. Yes we are geeks.
I am also almost out of memory in the phone. That dam memory issue is really affecting me. Avantgo, snapper mail, agendus, and vindigo are taking up almost all of my memory. I am trying to free up space any way I can.
New Switch
We just upgraded our network in my companies call center office. We put in a new Cisco blade switch. it will act as our primary core. We did some reconfiguration on the old core’s and will use them as backup. this is phase 1 of our expansion plans.
When I say “we” did the work. I mean we hired a contractor, and told them what to do. We then looked over the configs and did testing. It is nice to leave the heavy lifting to others.
The upgrade actually went well. I am always hesitant to say that because I am fearful that something out of the blue will go wrong. But actually it went as good as to be expected. no major problems. I was back to the hotel and in bed by 3AM. I would have been in bed sooner but I had some cell phone problems I had to play with to fix.
Friday it is back to my normal office. I miss my chair:(
More Fixation On The Treo
So for the next few days I will be writing about the Treo 650. I get fixated on nice new tech. So far this little device has not let me down. A few quirky issues with bluetooth syncing but otherwise all looks good. even the bluetooth issues are kind of minor. The dam thing still sync’s. I had problems with the built in DUN, but after installing PDAnet my laptop connects via bluetooth to the phone just fine. And it is just in time too. I am packing to go away for 2 days. The train ride is allot better when I can check my mail on my laptop and not rely on my Blackberry. And yes I have a Blackberry and a Treo. I was “given” the Blackberry for work. It is for email and direct connect. I am stuck with it until I can get the Blackberry software for my Treo.
I also got my USB sync cable in the mail today. I am glad it arrived before my trip, but for the amount I paid for shipping they should have driven it over here. I also got a little exoskeleton case for the Treo, and a screen cover. The cover is one that I had on the 600, but this one applied like crap. it has some blemishes. you cannot tell when the device is on, but when it is off it looks like crap. All the accessories are from Boxwave. They are a great PDA accessory site.
Other cool software I tried (i had it for my Treo 600 but never tried it) is Tussh. it is a free-ware SSH client for the Palm. I was able to remotely connect to and reboot a linux server jayson was playing with. it was nice.
I will have more real world opinions after my road trip tomorrow.
Treo 650 Is In
I got my Treo 650 today. Finally after months of waiting for it, I got it! First impressions of it are good. It seems like a solid phone. The screen is fantastic. Bluetooth works. I was able to get my Sony Ericsson headset to pair up in a few minutes. It was sending and recieving calls without a problem. More impressive was after about 30 minutes of tinkering I got my 3Com Bluetooth PCMCIA card to sync with my Treo. the problems I had were actually related to the 3Com software, and once I figured out the issue, I was able to sync with no problems. I just did it twice and it worked!
Next up is the big task. I need to get DUN (dial up networking) to work with the Treo. I have done it before with other Bluetooth phones so I am hopeful I can get it to work. I am off to play with that, but first a few pictures I took this afternoon.
New Cell Phones
We are expanding the team. That means we need more cell phones. We figure if we want people to be available all the time (on call) then we need to provide a cell phone. We like Nextel. Direct connect is addictive. We can add a phone to our account for like 10 bucks a month (plus tax). Not bad. One emergency and it pays for 6 months or more of service. That is my opinion at least.
We picked up 2 Motorola flip phones for some of the guys who don’t need Blackberry’s. Our sales department is also interested in Blackberry’s so we may get them some on our account. many of them have Blackberrys from different carriers already, but new people would get the nextel’s.
Why can’t Palm or Microsoft make a product as good or better than RIM? I have been waiting over a year for Blackberry software on my Treo. I am still waiting…