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No iPhone 4 For Me … Yet

Dower — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 07:54:22 +0000

Well week one of Apple’s new iPhone 4 has gone by and I still don’t have mine. So much for pre-ordering eh? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, and I’m probably better off waiting, consider all the horrors I’ve read about on Gizmodo, Engadget and other internet sources. Still, it’s disappointing. Mine is also a white pre-order, which has been delayed due to manufacturing issues. Last I read, the issues was suspected yellowing, which I can see happening… I’m considering going black, if they ever come in. Best Buy hasn’t been that lucky (or good) at handling their pre-orders… Considering I was probably one of the early ones. On the plus side, the upgrades to iOS4 for my wife and I went smoothly and we’re enjoying the new features. It’s not quite perfect, but the folders and the task switching is a welcome addition… Funny thing is, they iOS4 isn’t available for my iPad yet, and that device NEEDS task switching. Now, i just need to sit down and get going on development for this platform.

New Updates Coming

Dower — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:27:37 +0000

My co-worker Sean found my blog today and picked on me for not updating this thing since the end of November.
It’s not like I don’t have anything to say, but I suffered from the same excuse… Too busy with other things.
Well, now that the old decade is behind me, and the end of the year madness is mostly ended, I’m getting back into this.
I got a couple of things I’m working on right now, first, my wife was sweet enough to buy me a new Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet, which I’m experimenting with right now for an upcoming review. In addition, to commemorate the upcoming Apple Tablet I dug up my old Newton 120 Messagepad to share some of my insights on.

What the Heck is Going On?

Dower — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:51:18 +0000

I’m not dead! Honest! Life has been busy, and I’ve not been able to get my thoughts together to write anything comprehensive. But let me recap some of things going on so I don’t forget.

I got back from Voices That Matter, and I was so inspired by Erica Sudan’s Dell Mini 9 Hacintosh project I had to try it. I’m happy to say that I’m a proud owner of a HP Mini 110 Mac! I’m going to write about my experiences doing it, and using it soon! I’ve also made my Dell 17″ E1705 laptop into a nice 17″ Macbook – Bwahahaha!

I’ve also been checking out Windows 7, now that I have it. I’ve installed it a couple of times now, and the short of it is… I like it! It is so much better than Vista… If Microsoft brought this out as Vista, Apple wouldn’t have so much trash to talk about. I’ve not delved too deep into it, but from what I’ve experienced so far from installation to initial usage it’s been awesome. Kudos to Microsoft!

In gaming, my buddy James got me Borderlands… Damn him! I’ve been playing that more than I should, and in reality, not as much as I want to… Damn real life job!

So, between those three big things, and the impending launch of Motorola’s Droid on Verizon tomorrow, I’ve got no shortage of things to type about… I just need more hours in the day…

Tomorrow I’m off to Voices That Matter in Boston!

Dower — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:45:55 +0000

It’s finally here! Tomorrow, I’m off to the Voices That Matter iPhone conference. I’m looking forward to re-igniting my iPhone development interests, especially after my recent non-iPhone work related experiences. It’ll be nice to get away from home and hang out with all the development brains, maybe some of that awesomeness will rub off on me.

I’m hoping to hook up with Jennifer and James, two of my fellow Big Nerds in Boston tomorrow. I’ll be sure to write up how things go.

Things Coming Soon

Dower — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:04:10 +0000

Just a note about things I plan to write about in August.
My wife bought me the Logitech MX Revolution. It’s not a new mouse, in fact, it’s over 2 years old, but Logitech doesn’t seem to have anything new or better in their lineup. How does it hold up to my expectations? Digging in my basement I discovered my still boxed Logitech CyberMan 3D mouse! I’ll also delve into some gaming, by reminiscing about my MMO experiences as I search for the next time sink. Lastly, maybe I’ll get my act together and properly theme my web site!

To Atlanta

Dower — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:15:56 +0000

I’m on the plane and on my way!

I am now an Apple Convert

Dower — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:39:49 +0000

Well, I finally gave in and did it! I couldn’t stand to use my Xperia anymore. After struggling with Windows Mobile for 8 months and having tried the Palm Pre, I decided the time was right to get an iPhone. Having used my iPod Touch heavily over the last 8 months also helped finalize my decision. I’m not fond of being chained down to a carrier, but there isn’t a whole lot of choices, to get into this device. I’m also not really down grading anything either, since I’m leaving T-mobile for AT&T, which has better coverage in Rochester. I’m actually writing this blog entry on my iPhone while waiting for my fish fry at Palmer’s foods. I guess I’ll be writing about my experiences from this perspective now. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop following other smartphone developments. We’ll see how this device truely works out for me.

Got my Archos RMA Today

Dower — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:45:41 +0000

It took a while, but I finally got an approved RMA. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if they want me to send the whole thing back or just the battery. I wrote back to them to find out.

BlueAnt V1 Review

Dower — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:39:32 +0000

I was very excited when my BlueAnt V1 arrived. The last headset I bought was almost 6 years ago, my Motorola HS850; which still works today, but is starting to feel a little old and oddly, bulky.

Obviously, looking around the internet the top bluetooth headsets are the Jawbone II, BlueAnt V1, and one by Jabra. The selling point for the BlueAnt for me was the voice functionality. I was a bit disappointed to find out that my Xperia X1 doesn’t come with any voice dialing functions, this is contrary to what I was used to with the limited voice dialer that was on my n95. It wasn’t the best, but I could tap my Motorola and say “Home”, and it would call home. With the Xperia, I click the headset and it sat there… Not very handy when I’m driving. The Jawbone would have probably done the same thing as my Motorola, so the BlueAnt seemed like a better choice to have some level of voice functionality with my Xperia.

I’m happy to report so far that I’m very pleased with this headset. It’s pretty small, but the buttons on it are accessible. I didn’t have to train it, and it understands my voice immediately upon turning it on.

First thing I had to do was charge it, since it’s not fully charged out of the box. The nice thing is that the charge cable is USB (on one end), the other end isn’t a mini-usb, buy a smaller proprietary connection. On the plus side, it came with a mini-usb conversion plug as well, so you don’t need to use their cable. or if you needed a longer charge cable.
Charge time is quite fast, i didn’t clock it but the charge light went off quicker than I expected.

Pairing it was easy, the Xperia picked it up immediately when I turned on the phone’s Bluetooth and told (yes you tell it) to pair. It nicely reports that that it’s connected to the phone. I found out that if my phone’s bluetooth is off, it’ll attempt to reconnect and it tells me that it’s attempting to connect.

I’ve used it quite heavily in the past few weeks on conference calls, and it works very well. It lasts as long as they advertise.

The noise cancellation seems to work well too, at least the others on my conference calls didn’t complain about noise.

Overall, i’m very happy with headset, and would definately recommend it.

Archos 7 320gb Just Arrived!

Dower — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 06:00:00 +0000

This past week my Archos 7 arrived from Best Buy! It’s nice, shiny and a fingerprint magnet! I actually have had it for about a week already, but to my disappointment, it arrived with a nice red dead pixel in the middle of the screen, something I find unacceptable for a $500 device. Luckily Best Buy was nice enough to send me a replacement. I’ll be writing up my own review of this device in the coming days. With my brief experience with it already, I have some interesting things to say about it. I’ll also be trying to wrap up my thoughts on my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, things like the camera, GPS, and my final thoughts about it.