My darling Tabby

I just looked over the blog and it has been over two years since I bought my hp2710p It is the third laptop I have owned and has been the best one of all. I have upgraded the RAM and replaced the batteries which are routine maintenance as far as I am concerned. The biggest issue I have is the outer case has tons of cracks and today I dropped it while it was in my backpack and broke the latch on it. With the other two laptops I had, the deathnell for them had been hard drive issues and overheating problems. Neither of those are a problem for Tabby. The fans run almost exactly the same as they did the day I got it, which is unreal for a two year old laptop that has taken a beating like mine.

Of course by writing this, I will probably have a catastrophic hard drive failure in the next few days.

Next gadget

ME LIKEY FLIP SMARTPHONE!!

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The Presidents Blackberry?

Interesting. I haven't seen this on any other blogs and I have never heard of this device before.
Its a bit pricey for me to review for you guys.
Click Here

UPDATE: It was early in the morning when I posted this, it is the device he will be using, and its Windows based!! Take that Mr. iPhone Chandler! LOL

Gadget ramblings

Samsung Saga (aka the New Treo)
I absolutely love this device. The optical mouse is the SHIZNIT! You really need to try it out to see how great it is. I only use the stylus for soft resets and really I went the whole day without using the touchscreen at all. If the Q or other non-touchscreen devices had an optical mouse, it would make the smartphone OS so much more easier to use. Surfing with Opera and using the mouse to click on very small links instead of trying to hit it with my thumb or digging out the stylus is awesome.
Three complaints
1. Wish it was same length and width as a Treo.
2. Automatic Fn key lock in address field on text and MMS messages.
3. Some folks have random wake ups occur. I have twice I think, but sometimes I hit buttons when I get it out of my pocket, so I couldn't confirm that.

Touch Pro
I had a Sprint TP bought on ebay Sunday night. Monday afternoon I get an email from the seller along with a refund and some crap reason he deciced not to sell it anymore. I have taken that as a sign that I don't need to try tweaking another device with the upcoming holiday activities going on. I will not be getting a Sprint TP. At least not this month. I will however, be keeping the vzw TP. I am sure an unlocker will be coming out for it which will allow custom ROM's and I will keep working with it and the beta Redfly drivers.

Pay-it-forward gadget giveaway
Seriously folks, I have mentioned this once before. If you or someone you know (student, unorganized person, etc.) needs a winmo device and can not afford one, needs a backup, needs something til their contract is up, whatever, I am spreading the cheer, as only a gadget lover can. These devices need a good home for someone who has a verizon line. I want to help someone out. I would like to do this directly, but if you know of a charity that would accept devices like this please let me know. I have two pn-820 smartphones, a Treo 700wx, and a nokia 770 internet tablet. I have been extremely blessed this year and want to give back. I will trust that if you ask for one of these that your intentions are good, someone is watching you. He knows if you've been bad or good, and it's not Santa. Yeah maybe I am a bit nuts, but.....well yeah I am a bit nuts.

My Touch Pro is going back Monday

Found this post from the amazing mrailing. If he can port a Sprint TP over to Verizon then I know it's safe to do.

Sorry but with the holidays I haven't wrote much about the Touch Pro but I am switching ESN's back to the Saga today and mailing this piece of crap back Monday. I will look for a Sprint Touch Pro next week. The keyboard is laid out better and it has more memory and I get a phone with unlocked GPS. My plan is to unload all of the rest of my phones and stick with the saga and the Sprint Touch Pro.

Wondering what else I have? Two pantech pn-820's, a treo 700wx, and a nokia 770. I am in a pay-it-forward mood this year. If you have need for one of these devices, send me an email.

Universal stand-alone battery charger

I think I will order one of these when I get back

Universal L-ion battery charger

Props to michaelk from pdaphonehome for showing us that. He confirms it works for the saga.

Announcement from Redfly

Colin Kelly from Celio Corp has posted on the WMExperts forum to check out the website at 11:00 am today for an announcement!!

I have no idea what it is.

I have a few guesses so lets see how my predictions go (in order of how likely I think they are):
1. Even lower price and/or extended the pricing program which ended yesterday.
2. BB support
3. iPhone support

Slide SlingPlayer support in between 1 and 2

For the gadget guru with everything

I would so totally wear this if someone bought it for me and do a totally impartial review and videotape peoples expressions while wearing it.

Click Here

Something wonderful this way comes!!

Hmm...What could it be?

Enemy agents entering the compound!!

Well I have a BB Pearl coming hopefully this week yet. I thought about waiting for the Storm but I don't want to use a NE2 for a device I am not sure I will like, which means paying full price, which I can't do. Besides, the purpose of this experiment is to try the BB OS. So it came down to either a Curve or the Pearl. The Pearl won out with its size (and I got a better deal on it).
So stay tuned as this diehard win mo user ventures into new territory.

Fun

Well we moved into our house six years ago today. A tradition sprung up from that event. Our town's trick or treat is always the Sunday before Halloween which falls very close to Ed-boy's birthday. We started having his b-day party on trick or treat day. All his friends come over and go door to door with him and then come back for pizza. The other part of the tradition is that my brother comes and we stay at home and pass out candy while partaking of adult beverages. Needless to say a good time was had by all.
In my state last night I posted that I would try a BB device. The person who asked caught me in the "right moment" to ask, I guess. Either way, I will give it a go. Having started out with an ipaq and never moved from a win mo device of some sort, I should try something different.

OK....

Let me know right now....
I have a line of Verizon open for renewal, I will try a Blackberry tomorrow and I promise an honest review of BB OS for y'all. I have never used BB ever before, but, I will, and give you a real appraisal from someone who has been using WinMo from the get-go. I don't know when the BB Storm is going to be released, if you're looking for a BB OS review from someone like me I can do it this week. If you want a Storm review, well then you will have to wait a few weeks but I will just for YOU. Let me know, I can do either. I appreciate all my readers and since I have extra lines open for renewal, I have the opportunity to help y'all out with my insight.

Thank You

I got a message from someone who has been reading my blog since the flurry of i760 posts. I tell you right now, I vow not to get another Win Mo device until I try a Blackberry device. I may even go to Verizon tomorrow!

Decisions, Decisions....

Three new phones all allegedly coming out next month on Verizon. I am very torn on what to do. It will probably come down to either the i770 (right) or the Touch Pro (center), as I like to have a keyboard. On the i770 the circle in the middle can actually be a trackpad or a D-pad which is cool. The Touch Pro is an HTC product, and their build quality on sliders always worry me.
The one on the left is the Samsung Omnia which has no keyboard but will have a 5MP camera.

I could just keep going on and on but I guess I will wait until they hit the store and then start annoying the sales reps.

Gadget update

Been using the LG Voyager for the last few days and have been for the most part very happy with it. I have been using it on a spare number I have so my phone calls and text messages are being forwarded from my Touch. I am thinking I will keep the Voyager and get an aircard for Tabby. The Voyager does not do everything that a winmo phone does, but it just seems easier to use. The browser is way better than PIE. There are two things that I am working on a workaround for and one thing I can't fix:

1. Can't use Google Reader in the Voyager browser.
2. The Voyager doesn't have a Tasks program, which I use heavily with my winmo phones. I actually don't use Tasks for tasks. The Tasks program has a note function for each task you put in so I keep all my notes in the Taks program instead of the Notes program. Why? Tasks can be synced with Exchange Server and Notes cannot. That way I can have the notes I take on my winmo phone available on any winmo phone I use as well as Tabby.
3. Can't use Redfly. Thats a hard one, man I love that device.

Even with these three things, I think I am really liking the idea of having a "dumbphone" and an aircard. You can tether with the Voyager, but with as busy as we have been lately, I have more instances of people calling me when I am tethered. Also, you can get push email for the Voyager, but the last few days of not getting real time email have been kind of nice. I check it when I have a moment or I use Tabby.

I will say that after using the Touch and now the Voyager, I have zero desire to turn on the i760. Now it's been removed from all Verizon shelves and word is they are recalling it because of EVDO issues associated with the 6.1 update. I can really see how bad the touchscreen is on it even though I still think it has the best form factor for me (external number pad) of anything out there.

Great article about Tabby

One of my Gadget Heroes James Kendrick wrote a piece about how convertible laptop is great for mobile users like me. Specifically the 2710p which I use.

Click Here

I do not use the tablet feature as much as i thought I would. Mainly for meetings to ink notes but boy it is invaluable for that and I don't think I would buy a laptop anymore that didn't have it.

Indoor GPS lock in 30 secs!!!

WOW peoples, if you have a Verizon Touch with GPS enabled some guru at xda figured out how to get the GPS working super fast.

http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=VerizonAGPSFix

Using the Flip Video

Last week I got a Flip Video camcorder and so far am loving it. It is so dip simple to use. Sure its not the greatest quality but it is absolutely instant on and so easy to upload things to youtube. My only complaint is when you upload to youtube it doesn't look as clear as when you are viewing it on computer or dvd. Gotta figure out that yet.
Here are two vids I shot on Sunday at a wrestling show with the boy.

1. This is a video of Evan Bourne who is absolutely my favorite wrestler right now. Yes that is me screaming in the vid. His signature move which is shown is called the Shooting Star Press. It was actually an illegal move until he proved to the wwe higher-ups he could pull it off without breaking his neck. That is why it was illegal. And no what I just told you is not made up or fake. People did get hurt in real life using this move. He just started with the WWE a few months ago and I think he will be a big star with them.


2. This vid is me getting a high 5 from Triple H. I am NOT the idiot yelling "It's all about the game!!" over and over.

R.I.P. 4G iPod

Well my beloved iPod has locked up and hard reset twice in 24 hours. This is very upsetting for me. I have used this for about 5 years in conjunction with a Griffin iTrip. It is the absolute best FM transmitter I have used. I hardly ever use my iPod anywhere but in the car. So now I need to replace it. I really do not require an authentic iPod but whatever it is, it must have an easy to use FM Transmitter (with a strong signal) for the car.

If someone sends me a link to a Belkin product, I will ban you.

Two things to note

Celio Corp dropped the price on the Redfly to 399.

I am still looking for a program that will allow me to convert a pdf to a .doc or .txt file from my pocket pc or mobile browser. That's the kicker right there. Any ideas?