GSM

Freedom Day

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Today is the day I have been waiting for. It is the day that my mobile phone contract is up. I rely on my mobile all the time so since february I have been thinking what I would do when this day came. My issue was I have 2 phones on the same plan. One line was under contract and the other one has not had a contract in years. The one without the contract I wanted to keep, and drop the other one that the contract just ended on. The issue is you have to change price plans when you switch off the family share plan to a single phone plan with T-Mobile. I didn’t want to change the plan type on the phone I wanted to keep and then have to get into a contract since I was making a change. I am so against contracts for crap like a cell phone that I would have switched from T-Mobile and switched providers just to prove a point that a long time customer should not have to sign contracts!

Turns out T-Mobile was super cool with my situation. They offered me a regular 1000 minute plan with no contract, but I couldn’t get unlimited nights. For the price, and the fact that I still got unlimited weekends I took it. I can always get rid of it later if I have a problem.

So after my billing cycle changes (sometime this weekend I think) I will be down to one phone and no contract! Lets just hope that when I get my bill next month they didn’t f–k anything up.

Mac Mini Twins

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Being single + impulse buyer + tax return = new mac mini for Scott. I was at the apple store Monday. Gus may refer to it as his Mecca! I was looking for a bluetooth USB adapter for my Mini. I happened to ask if the Mini’s were in stock. I wanted another one, but I haven’t wanted to wait for it to show up so I haven’t ordered it yet. Stupid logic, but it works for me. The guy at the store said they had the high end one in stock. In a moment of weakness I said I will take it.

Now I use my mini at home almost excessively. I sometimes use my Thinkpad or my HP desktop, but very rarely. The Thinkpad is only for work emergencies. that happens enough to warrant me taking it home every night. The HP is my DVR and not much else these days. I live off of my Mini. That is why I wanted another one. I spend 10 hours a day at work and allot of it is on a computer. hey I am in the Technology field. So I figured dropping a Mini at my desk would be great. I can do allot (but not all) of my work on a mac. And the mini is portable so I can throw it in my bag and take it with me when I need to. The logic worked for me. As I said I had tax return money. So now I have more computer than I can count. Well that is not true. I have 1 PC desktop, 2 mac desktops, and 1 mac laptop. The rest of the computers I discuss are not technically mine. The Thinkpad is the works. But it makes sense if you look at it a certain way. I need a PC at home, and I need a Mac. Another mac for work, and the powerbook for when I travel. Well in my head the logic worked. I know I am crazy. you don’t need to tell me.

So far I am happy with both Mini’s. I should get my 512 meg ram upgrade for the new mini in a day or so. I didn’t want to shell out the outrageous price for the 1gig chip again. With my new camera phone I can take better pictures of the inside of the unit compared to the bad ones I took when we opened my first mini.

Update, I got the 512 Meg ram upgrade. Jayson had the handy putty knives from the last time we did this and had the memory upgraded on this new mini in 20 minutes. I have it sitting on my desk at work. I was able to use it for more than like 80% of the day Friday. I need to find a good open source SSH client for OS X. I am starting to make a list of business software that I could use on the Mac.

I got the new mini to bluetooth sync with my Treo 650 after about 2 minutes of trying. It worked like a charm. So much simpler than my horror with the 3com PCMCIA card with my Thinkpad, and the Xircom bluetooth card that I never really got to work right.

Allot Of Phones

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While I was waiting to receive my new Treo 650 I decided to put down on paper exactly how many cell phone models that I actually have. Well honestly I have had a list in notepad for a while now. And I am finally putting it up on the site because I feel like writing and I don’t have anything else that will be quick!

Before you look at the list, realize this is about 13 years of phones (granted most of them in the last 6), and some of them I had for a few days (in some cases a day) and then returned them because they were crap in my opinion. I noted the ones that I didn’t keep for very long in red. I am in a list kick. I have wanted to write out all my phones, organizers, and computers for a while. Here is my list mobile phones.

Crazy People On The Street

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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

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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.

More Fixation On The Treo

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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

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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.

2005-02-14_treo_650_07 2005-02-14_treo_650_06 2005-02-14_treo_650_05 2005-02-14_treo_650_04 2005-02-14_treo_650_03 2005-02-14_treo_650_02 2005-02-14_treo_650_01

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Free Space On Treo

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Since my 650 is on order I need to make sure that I have free space in order to upgrade to it. The 650 basically uses more space for the same amount of data. So I need to make sure I have at least 33% free space than I already have, or else I will run out of memory. I am currently syncing my Avantgo Channels onto my memory card. I am also seeing what else I can offload to the memory card. The problem with that is that the dam memory card access is slow.

So basically I bought a $600 device with virtually no memory. I can buy a 32 meg memory card for like $30 or less but I spend $600 and only get 32 megs of memory (only 24 megs of usable space).

I gotta say I thought the Treo 650 would be my perfect phone. now I am thinking I will use it until HP gets their act together and comes out with a smaller GSM Pocket PC phone. Some company always has to take the perfect device and mess it up somehow. Thanks Palmone!

Vindigo Vs. Zagats

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I have had both Zagats and Vindigo over the years. I have bought yearly subscriptions to both systems. When Zagats was actually featured on Vindigo all was well with the universe. Now I pay for Zagats (since it is no longer on Vindigo) but I miss some features. the other day I wanted to check movie listings. Rich and I were out and wanted to see what was playing near him. it took me 15 minutes to find a site that I could browse to on my Treo. if I had Vindigo I would have downloaded all my listings already. The question is whether or not Vindigo’s restaurant review is anywhere as good or as comprehensive as Zagats? Or is the movie section of the free Vindigo good enough for me to keep paying for Zagats and just use the free Vindigo?

Once I get my Treo 650 I will download the Vindigo trial and give it a whirl.

Unlocked Treo 650 Price Increase?

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What the f–k is up with this? Palmone made a “mistake” about pricing? Sure for weeks they allowed rumors go around that the price of the unlocked version would be $599. They announced it and left the price on the site for over a day, but they made a mistake and the price really was $699. How f–king stupid do they think we are? Thankfully I put my order in on Wednesday. News.com reports that they will not raise the price if you already had an order in before price increase. If they screwed me I would never have bought another PDA from them again. I am still skeptical until I actually get my Treo and see the credit card bill.

This whole ordeal is very frustrating. The bigger problem is why the hell is no other company making a device close to this form factor that actually competes with the Treo? They have had over a year to do it, but the best people can come up with is this? I have used Gus’ it is huge compared with the Treo. So I am pissed at Palmone for being dicks, and I am pissed at everyone else for not making some real competition.

I am using a bit of expletives in this post, but I was a bit pissed that I almost got charged an extra $100 for something because some large company decided to be a bunch of ass’.