Technology

Phone Update

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According to a very reliable source (Howard) the Handspring Treo 600 is supposed to kick ass. Not his works mind you, but I am paraphrasing. He knows people who have test units and they swear by them. I am holding onto my Treo 270 until the GSM Treo 600 comes out and then I am switching. I hope it is as good as everyone says.

I saw Howard’s new Sony Ericsson T616 or 61 something. it is nice looking. The screen was nice and bright, and it had a built in camera. The problem is I heard bad things about the reception. Howard said he had good results so far, but I am not sold. If anything I am going with the Treo 600, and if I don’t like that, I probibly will go with the Motorola V600.

For now I wait.

The Best Laptop(s) I Ever Had

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Technology is supposed to get better over time. You are supposed to have a “better” computer, PDA, Phone, etc. as time goes by. But is that always the case? Think about cars. My dad talks about some old car he had in the 70’s that was probably the best car he ever had. Tons of people like classic cars, and would go back to them in a flash. Does anyone really want to go back to a 286 computer and use DOS again? That old 10lbs laptop from 12 years ago cannot be dreamed about. I mean you can think back to the good old days with nostalgia, but do you really want that old equipment over what you have now?

I just thought of that when I declared (with Gus) that the IBM Thinkpad T40 I have is probably the best laptop I have ever had. But if it wasn’t wouldn’t we have a problem? It is of course the newest laptop I have. It should be the best. Shouldn’t it? Now my last laptop an IBM Thinkpad T31 or the Dell Latitude C400 I had before that were good solid machines, but the T40 is just rock solid awesome computer. The little things push it over the edge from company computer, to the best machine I ever had.

On that same note, I have to say things about my Powerbook 12″ that I have. You can and cannot compare it to a Thinkpad, or a Windows computer. They are the same, and different at the same time. I think that the powerbook is also one of the best computers I have ever had. I have had machines the size and capabilities of the Powerbook before. It is actually a bit bigger than my Latitude C400. It is just better. The keyboard is the best or one of the best I have ever used on a laptop or off of one. The DVD Burner is amazing. The port layout and other features make it fantastic.

The question is when these machines get a bit older and I upgrade, will I look back and wish I still used them? After all their is always something better just down the production line.

The Different Ways To Communicate

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Going up to Kingston gets me thinking about how I use the communication tools at my disposal. If you ask anyone, I have too many gadgets. The problem is sometimes none of them work the way I need them to. Right now my blackberry’s screen is all screwed up so I have a hard time reading it. I need to replace that. On a good day the screen sucks, so I would like to get my mail another way. The Treo Mail program requires you to pay $50 a year. I don’t know if the mail function on the new Treo will be the same as the old one, so I don’t want to buy the Treo Mail if I plan on upgrading to the new Treo 600 in 2-3 months when it comes out. Eudora Mail for the Palm sucks, so I can’t check mail that way. The problem is I want to send and receive email on the road, but I don’t want to pay the crazy hotel charges for a phone call. I am thinking of getting software that will allow me to use my Treo’s GPRS data service on my laptop. the problem is the same as with the Treo Mail. Can I still use it when I get the new Treo 600? If so I am sold. If not, I don’t want to fork over 50 bucks.

Another problem with the blackberry is I use it for alerts all the time. If I start forwarding all my mail to it, I will get duplicate emails when I get an alert. (Alerts goto my mailbox and the blackberry, so sending my mailbox to the blackberry will duplicate some mail.) the other problem is if I turn on forwarding, I have to turn it off. It becomes a pain. I never know when I will need it or not. With the Treo, I can turn it on or off from the handheld.

It is crazy that I now have all these options, but still can’t make a decision on what to use. I want to get rid of one or two devices. Who needs a PDA/Phone, a pager, and a cell phone. It is too much to carry. In addition I have to carry around my thinkpad.

Two Late Nights In A Row

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I just found out that I need to be around tonight at 1AM for a software release. This will be really fun because I will be up till the same time Wednesday for a hardware release. Needless to say I am not happy about the situation. I hope I am awake tomorrow. I have a meeting filled day from like 10AM through 2PM. Meetings are never fun.

Unfortunately Keith cannot do this hardware swap by himself tomorrow. I don’t think he can mount the gear with one person. if he could I would seriously thinking about letting him.

Bring Your Powerbook To Work Day

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I didn’t take my thinkpad home last night due to the dinner. So I decided to commute in to work today with my Powerbook. It is the 2nd time in a week that I am doing it. For some reason I just feel comforatable typing on it, but not on the Thinkpad. I miss the blog entries on the train like today’s entries. Of course because I have 30 minutes to type I tend to ramble on about useless stuff. That is just what a blog is supposed to be. I will see if I will want to commute with both. I doubt it though. We shall see…

Training For A Call Center

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Yesterday a new class of trainee’s started at our Kingston Call Center. We have 24 customer service reps who will “hopefully” start taking calls full time on 9/22. The class was so big that we had to put the working reps in the training room and the people to be trained sat in the call center. Joe our Tech guy in Kingston is overloaded right now. Justin went up for 2 days to give him a hand. Justin was eager to go up, so it worked out ok. I need to get up there one day next week. I will also need to be there on the 22nd.

Besides the ongoing call center build out I have hardware swap out’s to deal with in our Data Center Thursday morning. Tomorrow will be interesting since it will be a long day.

I just received my first Penguin Computing Server. These guys make cheap linux servers. The joy of it is, I can put Windows OS’s on it without a problem. The Super Micro servers I have been buying for windows will not handle Linux. I have some issues with the hardware, but for the price we will deal with it. A decent server can be had for around $1600. I can get a really cheap one for under a grand. We are actually looking to get some cheap windows box’s and may actually use these guys.

I am still awaiting a heat sync for a Super Micro test server we are testing. I got a trial of a serial ATA server. Actually we had the financial ok to buy it but instead of buying a regular server we got this to test. If we like it, we will keep it. If we don’t like it, we will send it back and get a normal IDE server. Serial ATA looks good, and this machine can do hot swappable drives, where IDE RAID cannot.

I need to also start working on our Exchange 2003 test server. Gus and I want to get one working for the Information Systems team and see if it is easy to admin and troubleshoot. If it is we may want to make a larger scale deployment. The difference this time will be we don’t outsource it and we do it ourselves. In December of 2002 we outsourced our mail and put it on Exchange 2000. It was a horrible failure. Too much latency with accessing exchange over the WAN. We abandoned that option and returned to our original mail provider with just POP/SMTP mail. We have been happy since.

Technology Scare’s Me Some Times

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My dad wants to get a phone / PDA combo device. Now he has always been ahead of the game when it comes to gadgets. I get that from him. But he is also not the biggest computer genius. He has had a cell phone since the late 80’s. Has had a PDA or whatever they used to be called for longer than that. He now doesn’t want to carry a cell phone and a Palm. He uses his palm all the time at work, but only carry’s the cell phone in case of emergencies. He now likes the idea of combining the two. Lucky for him he has Sprint PCS. I don’t like them anymore, but at some point I did. That is why he has service with them. He actually doesn’t complain about the service so we keep him on it. My mom also likes her phone number. I say we are lucky is sprint looks like it has the biggest selection of PDA Phones. I showed him my Treo 270. He seemed to like it. Of course I showed him my original Treo over a year ago, but that is another story. I think he may be better off with one of 2 Samsung phones out there. The SPH-I300 or the SPH-I500. I like the I500, but it may be too much like a phone for my dad. He will use it as a palm more than a phone. He liked the Treo but I don’t know if the no memory expansion and the keyboard will cause him problems. He did play with the keyboard on my Treo for a half an hour today and then proclaimed we will go shopping next sunday.

Shopping with him is fun. We go for breakfast, drive out to Roosevelt Field mall area. Shop for maybe an hour and then go home. We are super fast shoppers. The only slow down we encounter is if we goto Best Buy. He can browse the DVD section for like 2 hours. That store is a black whole. Everyone I know sifts through those DVD racks forever.

My Personal Phone Dillema

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It survived a month. I still have (and like) the Treo 270. I totally think having the unlimited data account that actually works in allot of places makes this device good, versus just using it as a cell phone. To tell you the truth I almost never use it as a cell phone. I do when my Verizon phone runs out of batteries or if I have to call a number I don’t have in my Verizon phone’s limited speed dial. other than that I don’t use it that much. I just forward my T-Mobile calls to my Verizon number.

That brings me to another problem I am having. I am too connected. Gus mentioned that I have too many numbers to remember. It is true. I have my primary cell phone. That is Verizon right now. I also have my old AT&T number that I don’t use, but can’t cancel it because the contract is up in December. I then have the T-Mobile number that I use for data. I also have my NYC work number and now I have a Kingston work number. I have trouble routing calls places. Right now I have a message in NYC telling people I am out of the office. My T-Mobile phone is sending call’s to my Verizon phone. And the Kingston voice mail is telling people they can press 1 or 2 and get me at other numbers. I don’t have a solution though. T-Mobile kicks but on the wireless internet so I keep them. Verizon has the best cell coverage, so I keep them. And I need my work numbers. Now in december if/when cell phone number portability happens I will cancel my AT&T contract and take that number and move it to T-Mobile so I can keep the good number. I need to see how I can pull that off.

On top of all that, I have a blackberry pager from work. I hope one day for the Treo to work well enough that I can get rid of the blackberry. I will see what the new Treo 600 can do.

I Am Glad I Kept The Powerbook

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As much as Gus made sense when he said I should sell the powerbook and buy a desktop mac, I am glad I didn’t listen to him. I love this little powerbook. I don’t use it on the road much anymore, but when I do it is golden. It is light, the keyboard still is one of the best laptop keyboards I have written on, and the screen is bright. The fonts may be a bit small, but I can deal. Granted I use it plugged into my desktop monitor at home most of the time, but this type of portability is awesome. I also don’t like putting all my personal stuff on my work computer. I just got around to putting quicken on my Thinkpad. The only reason I did that was so I can sync quicken with my Treo.

The downside of this powerbook is that it gets HOT. Man this thing is charging and my legs are getting hot with it on my lap right now.

Neat Stuff For The Treo

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So I am still playing with the new Treo 270 I got last week. I downloaded eudora internet suite for the palm. I am not a big eudora mail client user, but they have a cool palm mail client and web browser. I am comparing it to what handspring offers.

I also downloaded Landware’s Pocket Quicken 2.03. I used this software ages ago and it is awesome. it lets you sync up your quicken db with your palm. So I can figure out where all my cash goes.

I also am trying Handsprings Treo Picture Caller ID. It lets you assign a picture to display when a specific phone number rings. It is cool, but the photos take a lot of space on a palm. Also trying the demo for SilverScreen 3.0. It is a theme or skin for the palm. it is slow on the 33mhz dragon-ball processor on the Treo, but it makes stuff look nice. It probably will fly on the new Treo with the new Palm OS 5.

And of course lets not forget the old favorites Avantgo. That is the most used program for me on any PDA. Without Avantgo I wouldn’t get my fix of news every day while sitting on the train. I also have the newest version of Vindigo. That is my attempt at acting sophisticated and knowing where to go. NYC coverage on it is great.

And for the record I will not download any annoying music for a ring tone. I can’t stand them on everyone else’s cell phone. Phones are made to be put on vibrate. I may use my phone allot, but I do have some etiquette. Get a clue people on the train, railroad, etc!

In a nutshell, the apps make the Treo way cool. And the service actually working now makes it actually functional.