Skype Caller ID

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So close, yet not yet. That is what I am thinking about Skype’s new Caller Identification. This has been one feature I have wanted on Skype for some time. With it, I can finally think about using it as a true phone replacement for my current Broadvoice home phone. Now all I have to do is wait for them to enable the service for use in the US.

I also realized that it would be really cool if Skype passed through caller ID info from a caller when you use call forwarding. Right now I see the same crazy 0012345678 show up on my forwarded calls as people see when I call them. Maybe this Caller Identification resolves this also? I hope it does.

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First Ride of the Season

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I headed out to the bike store today to get air in the tires of my bike. Sitting in my apartment all year left them needing a quick refresh and then I was off on my first ride of the season. I took it easy today since I know I am a bit out of shape and I don’t want to over do it. I rode a bit in Central Park, and then headed home. If the weather stays the way it is I hope to get a few more rides in this week.

Blackberry Pearl

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After being fed up with issues on my Treo 680 I went out and bought a Blackberry Pearl. This was an impulse buy, since it is a short term solution until work upgrades my Blackberry for me. Until then I am using the Pearl. My first impression is that this phone is small. It is the size of a regular phone. It fits in my pocket. That is nice. The call quality is good, and the screen is nice and bright and sharp. I am still getting used to the keyboard, so the jury is still out on it.

In the long term I will use the Pearl for my work email, and maybe get a larger screen PDA phone for my personal mobile. I know, why have two? Well I can’t port my personal number to my work account, and I don’t want to give up my personal mobile number. I really like it, and everyone knows it. Right now I have been forwarding my call from one phone to the other so I can keep one phone in my bag and not have to carry it all the time. But as good as the Pearl seems, it doesn’t do tasks very well. I like the Windows Mobile or Palm for that so I might get some other device. I just know the 680 is not that device. It crashes and is too dam slow just too often. I am eyeing the Apple iPhone, or the Windows Mobile 6 Treo with the newly announced Blackberry emulation software running on it that might come out this fall. I guess I am always on the hunt for the perfect PDA/Phone. So close, but not there yet!

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So This is Outside

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I went to the Sakura Matsuri Festival today at the Botanic Gardens in Brooklyn. I know, two days in a row leaving Manhattan really takes allot out of me! It was an interesting experience, especially since it is outside what I would normally do on my Saturday. I am still trying to figure out what was more interesting the festival itself or the people dressing up in costumes? There were the people in traditional Japanese costumes that you would expect, but there was also a noticeable number of people dressed up in Animea characters and other costumes. I even saw a guy dressed up as a transformer. It was just weird/interesting.

All in all it was a good day, except for the fact that after I got home I started to get a migraine. I took some Amerge and a 2 hour nap and I was allot better but not 100%. I ended up having to cancel my plans to go out with with some friends.

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The Wet Mini Road Trip

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Today I left the island of Manhattan and my reliance on the public transit system to go out to Long Island for a data center tour. In theory everything should have been fine even in the rain. My car was late showing up, but I still made it to the site a few minutes early. That should have been a good thing, but apparently there is no reception area at the place I went to so I was standing out in the rain with no way of getting inside.

Thankfully my boss drove to the site so eventually he showed up and I had the dryness of his car. We tried to sort out the whole situation. Apparently there is no one typically onsite at this facility that can greet people or give tours. Some how they messed up the fact that we were showing up for a our so we were out of luck.

Since the tour was a bust we hit a local diner for some early lunch, and then I called a car to take me back home. With the amount of time lost going back and forth to the island, this was the perfect day to work from home. And that is exactly what I did. Once I got home I got online via the wonderful world of VPN and worked the rest of the day from the dry confines of my apartment.

I ended up not going out to meet Danny after work even though we had tentative plans. I was no where near the office, and I was tired and didn’t really want to go out after a crazy wet morning. So laziness kicked in and I hung out at home.

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The Three Month Rule

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I was once told that it takes someone three months or so to fully adjust to a new job. I have believed that theory that it takes that long to be a fully functioning member of a new team, but personally I haven’t put that theory to the test for some time. Of course that was because I was at the same job for almost 6 years. That was until about 2 1/2 month ago.

This week I started to notice that I am able to take on more responsibility and a more active role in my team. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t doing anything for 2 1/2 months, but what I was doing before was specific tasks and projects. Now I am starting to grasp the bigger picture and taking a more active role in shaping that big picture. Then I looked at my calendar and saw that it has been more than 2 1/2 months since I started. I proved my own theory right. I does take about 3 months for everything to fall into place. It may take me many more months to fully understand everything but I am now feeling more connected to what is going on. And to be honest it actually feels good. It is also weird that it doesn’t feel like that much time has past since I moved jobs, but looking at my calendar proves my gut feeling wrong. How time can fly.

I am Not Addicted to my Blackberry

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The odds were against me. Heck I even thought I would be, but I survived the Blackberry outage with not issues. I actually didn’t know there was a problem with our Blackberry mail until about 2:30PM on Wednesday, and even then I didn’t ask about it until about 5:30PM EST. That timeline does sound weird to me since everyone said the Blackberry system was down Tuesday night and back on Wednesday but many of us at work were down most of Wednesday afternoon.

In any event I am officially (in my opinion) not addicted to the device. The jury is still out about the internet in general though!

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Lazy Saturday

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I was up late last night so I decided to have a lazy Saturday. I just got back from some light shopping. I got a book at B&N, and some blank DVD. Nothing fancy. It is really nice out today.

I am not sure what my plans are for tomorrow or tonight for that matter. I am playing it by ear, but I don’t mind not doing much. This week was busy at work, and I was out half the nights also.

Why Do Some Stores Treat You Like a Criminal?

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Why do some stores in NYC treat their customers like criminals? I know most places out of NYC don’t do it, but some chains especially electronic stores like Best Buy seem to be treating everyone who buys something like a criminal these days. Every time I buy something at Best Buy I get badgered to show my receipt to some one at the door before I leave. It use to not be this way. I am a customer. Treating your store like a police state does not encourage me to go back and spend lots of money.

A few months ago on a consumer blog I read that unless a store is a members only store like Cosco, I am under no legal obligation to show my receipt if asked when leaving a store. I have tested this theory several times at Best Buy (hasn’t happened at CompUSA since I decided to try this) and so far I have not been stopped when I just ignore the guy at the door and continue on my way out. Is it sad that a small part of me wants one ignorant employee to try and stop me one time?

On the flip side I just got a new monitor at the Apple Store and walked out without a receipt (they email you a pdf of your receipt if your email is on file) and no tags or anything on the box. I asked the clerk about getting out of the store with no receipt and they were like you have to buy the monitor before we can give it to me from the back, so I don’t need a receipt to leave the store. See not treated like a criminal. And to make sure I compare apples to apples (no pun intended) I have bought computers at Best Buy that they can only get from the back of the store and I have still been asked for a receipt. How can some stores get it right, and others so wrong?

H700

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I got a new bluetooth headset this week. I bought a Motorola H700. It is great for one simple feature that I cannot understand why others don’t include. When the boom is closed and a phone rings, I can answer it normally like I would without a headset, or I can open the boom to answer the call. When the boom mic is opened, I can answer calls by tapping the button on the side of the headset or on the phone and the call goes to my headset.

With other headsets, when they are on the call always goes to the headset. I like everyone else sometimes forgets that I have the headset turned on or don’t want to use it for that particular call but I have to fumble around since the call is already going to the headset. It is annoying.

Now all I have to do is stop my Treo 680 from crashing all the time and I would be happy with my mobile phone setup.

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