Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Friday, October 29, 2010

The Verizon Smartphone Life

Last year when my Blackberry Curve fatally locked up on me while on the road, I went to a Verizon Store in Albuquerque and tried to get it fixed. The store was unable to fix it without sending it out for a few days. I decided that I would use my upgrade and get a new phone while I was there. I decided on an HTC Droid Eris.
Eris


Verizon had just come out with the Original Droid and the Eris was a smaller lighter phone that didn't have the signature "I'm a phone from the future and I'm here to kill you" feel.


So I decided to give up the physical keyboard of my blackberry and jump in to the uncharted Android world. It's been almost a year now and Verizon has since killed off my phone after 1 software update. Here are my impressions of living with this device day in and day out.

In no particular order;
Great internet device.
Really abysmal battery life.
lack of physical keyboard for me, was trying at times.
good form factor.
Android marketplace blew up this year. TONS of apps.
NOT great phone ( buggy phone software, laggy, pocket dialed constantly)

Soooooo, after finally getting fed up and very inpatient for either my upgrade or the iPhone to appear, I decided to give Palm a try again.

I used to carry a Palm Treo. Which was a decent but creaky phone due to lack of support. Palm kind of let the OS languish. When they came out with the Palm Pre I was intrigued.
images

The slide out keyboard is cramped but workable.
Here are the highlights of the phone. (which is about to be replaced with the Palm Pre Two.)

Good, Bad and not great.

Physical keyboard a plus
lack of feel for tiny keys not so much
Really nice touch screen if a little small
not great battery life
Touchstone charger lets you charge uses induction charging (no cables needed)
Free Verizon wireless hotspot lets you use the phone to get up to 5 other devices access to the internet
did I mention not great battery life?
The Palm App store does not have the depth or breadth of either the Android Market or the iPhone App Store.
Build quality on the phone is suspect, it creaks and feels cheap, like it will break easily if you don't treat it like a raw egg.


So I'm living with a phone I now like a little better. Hopefully Palm will continue to update their software and come out with new better built devices. HP bought Palm about a year ago so hopefully the money and ideas will flow and this underdog will get a bigger place at the table.


Thursday, August 26, 2010

Net Neutrality-infographix

This could prove to be a VERY important issue in our time.

The folks over at MBA online have provided some useful facts.

Prepare to write your congressperson.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Friday, July 16, 2010

Easy Way to Capture Streaming Video

There is a bookmarklet I’ve found called KeepVid which I’ve found helpful for those times when I need to capture video for presentations. Here’s how it works.

Point your browser over to www.keepvid.com
Screen shot 2010-06-22 at 8.47.57 PM
Highlight the web address www.keepvid.com and drag it into your browsers bookmark bar.
Screen shot 2010-06-22 at 8.34.41 PM
Navigate over to YouTube and find the video you’d like to download to your computer.

Highlight the web address for the video and drag it down to where it says “Keep It” in your bookmark bar

Keepvid should launch and lower down on the page, if it can be downloaded should be a few different choices of the video. Usually it’s the different file types YouTube offers.
Screen shot 2010-06-22 at 8.47.19 PM
Right click on the one you want and with any luck it will start downloading to your computer.

The only gotcha I’ve found is that some content can’t be downloaded but it’s worth trying!

Welcome to TheDiff Blog

Hello!
I'd previously published a blog using WordPress. I found it very powerful but was having a hard time customizing it to look how I wanted it to look. So I've begun again and I'm using a program called RapidWeaver. It's a web page creation program for the Mac. I hope you will visit back here often and please leave comments.

Cool Case for MacBook Pro

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This is from a company called twelvesouth. It's a case for your laptop that is made to look like a leather bound book. It is extremely well made and I've been getting TONS of compliments on it.
I really like the fact that it just looks like a ledger book when it's laying on a table or in my backpack, giving it a kind of "stealthy" appeal.

>> From the company's website

Hardback cover softens the blows.
Protecting your MacBook is a top priority and it’s job one for BookBook. Slip your Mac inside the velvety soft, padded interior. Zip it closed and your baby is nestled between two tough, rigid leather hardback covers for a solid level of impact absorbing protection. The rigid spine serves as crush protection for an additional line of defense. BookBook creates a hardback book structure that safeguards your MacBook like few other cases can. Far better than any floppy neoprene bag ever will. End of story.
The real story. No two are alike.
Each BookBook is brought to life with hand craftsmanship and distressing, ensuring no two are exactly alike. From dual zippers with leather pulls, that at first glance look like bookmarks, to the sturdy reinforced hardback covers, BookBook is a vintage work of art built to protect modern day Macs. Along with classic looks, BookBook was designed to use as a traditional sleeve or to work while connected via elastic corner clips. Those dual zippers give you the option to charge your MacBook while it safely stays inside BookBook. This case is designed with good looks and smart functionality, cover to cover.
BookBook is the perfect disguise.
One of the neatest features of BookBook is the stealthy security it delivers. No one will see your MacBook when it's tucked inside BookBook, even when it's right under their nose. Sitting on a coffee table, dorm room or desk, BookBook looks like a vintage piece of literature, not an expensive laptop. It’s a great disguise and a simple way to reduce the risk of your MacBook getting stolen.

Easy Charging for USB Devices

I spend lots of time on the road and I have a few devices that can be charged with USB. My ipod Touch, my Android phone and my digital camera, these devices can be charged via a usb port. Since my office is my backpack, anything to shed weight is good.
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My "main" charger is from iGo. It's called the iGo Anywhere. What makes it better than a regular USB wall wart type charger is that it has a battery inside the body of the charger. What that means is you can charge as many as 2 devices at once even if you don't have access to a wall outlet. There are many days where my Droid Eris phone will die in the middle of the day and I won't have time to plug it into an outlet. I pull this little baby out of my bag, plug in the USB cable and in about an 45 minutes, it will restore my phone to about 75% battery.

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