Cocktail Confessions

Hopefully I’ll get back to writing some new entries here with a bit more consistency.  Although I don’t have much to show for it, it does seem that my free time as of late is luxury I do not seem to have much of.  With that in mind, I have a few planned entries for the days coming  so thanks for hanging in there and checking back in.

My Droid phone is a year old now, and I still love it.  I’m passing on getting the Droid II or Droid Pro for now.  With Verizon now beginning to rollout their LTE network and with dual core smartphones in the pipeline, I figure I can wait a bit longer.  Not sure I’ll jump on the iPhone bandwagon or not.  Yes, I understand people call it the ‘Jesus phone’ and I do realize it can do a lot of things, but Apple is so over-priced and so proprietary, it’s become almost a personal mission statement for me not to get anything Apple.

In a few short months, Motorola will offer up Olympus (aka Terminator) and it’s only a matter of time before the Google Honeycomb OS makes it’s official debut, so I’ll try to stick out until then.  I’m also looking forward to the day I can afford a nice 10.1″ Android tablet as well.  I can see myself reading books (ala Kindle), magazines, and playing a few social games and looking things up while I watch TV.  Plus it’ll be easier on my eyes.

Speaking of eyes, I’ve been wearing my reading glasses now for a few months, but am already thinking I may need to go visit the optometrist again.  My eyes have been very tired and sore as of late.  While the glasses do help and my mid range to long distance vision still seems really good, it does seem my close up abilities are even getting worse than when I had them first checked out a few months back.  I notice that things close up tend to be more blurry, take longer to focus and seem to put more strain on my eyes.  It’s not even the end of the day anymore where I just want to close my eyes for a few minutes and rest them.

Okay, back to my phone.  What a racket cell batteries are.  My battery isn’t holding a charge like it used to for my phone.  Whereas when I first had my Droid the battery seemed to last at least 2 days, maybe a tad more on average; these days it’s lucky to hold a charge for a full day under normal usage.  Of course, if I don’t look up anything, the battery will last longer, but that’s the whole point of getting a smart phone: reading emails, surfing the net, looking up restaurants in the area, shopping, taking pictures and updating Facebook.  So anyways, Verizon still wants $39.99 for a standard battery.  WHAT?!?  $39.99?  That’s ridiculous!  If you can wait a few days for shipping, buy on Amazon.com.  Here, I found a new battery (well, hopefully new and not counterfeit) for $5 +S/H.  Yeah, I’d rather spend a total of $8 than $39.99+ tax for the same thing.  It’s analogous to buying accessories at the car dealership.  The same floormats for $69.99 found at the car dealership can generally be found at Target or Walmart for $14.99, so why would you do the same phone accessories?

Okay, kinda a mish-mash here of quick things:

My next Droid may not be the Droid X or Droid 2 afterall.  With Droid 2 coming in the next 2 weeks (and a $199 price tag to boot), I was seriously considering an upgrade to my smartphone.  My Droid turns 1 in November.  However, those chaps over at Android and Me are hinting that a new ‘rumor’ may infact be the unofficial leak of the Droid Pro.  So, what are the hilights of the Droid Pro? I’m glad you asked:  Could be boasting a new 1.3GHz CPU (fastest yet), a 4 inch screen, and global roaming (taking advantage of the LTE Verizon network perhaps?)!  No other details at this time, other than it may be debuting in November, 2010.  I’ll share more as more info becomes available.

It’s also being reported that Netflix has signed a deal with EPIX, Lionsgate, and Paramount meaning that very shortly a whole new library of movies and television shows will be available via Netflix streaming.  I use this feature on my XBox 360 all the time.  I’ve recently been watching Sparticus, Weeds, Dexter, and many other shows through my Xbox and loving it. 

Speaking of XBox, I’m not overly “wow”-ed by yet by the newly announced MS Kinect.  It’s listed at a street price of $149 and will launch with 11 titles.  I just read a synopsis of the titles in the Sep ’10 issue of OXM, and none of them really stand out for me.  This may be one of those things where I’ll have to wait and see the reviews and reception of the titles first before I’m an andopter of the peripheral at all.

I still have a video I need to edit and post here on preparing a beef brisket, and I still have 2-3 podcast episodes saved on my hard drive I also need to edit and post as well.  I really need a day off in my normal life to work on this.

possible Droid 'Shadow' seen in the wild.

It’s been a little while since I last did a technology posting here.  As a matter of fact some of my recent free time has been occupied by my continual research into ‘share & shoot’ flash camcorders (but that’s another post).  However, I was squealing like a little school girl today when a few ‘leaked’ images of the upcoming Droid II surfaced on the web today as well as some of its rumored specs.

Now, first and foremost, remember, the keywords here are ‘rumored’ and ‘leaked’ and may not be the final product released.  As happens many times, there are pre-production prototypes shopped around and tweaked before things go golden and make it to the public, but everything I see so far looks very promising.

The only major drawback is that I just got my original Droid back in the late November or early December time frame making my device only about six months old.  When I got my phone, I signed a new two year contract which makes me ineligible for a free upgrade for at least 18 months as of this writing, unless I want to pay a small penalty and upgrade when it does come out ‘possibly’ this summer.

Just when the HTC Incredible made me green with envy, the new Droid, aka ‘Shadow’ looks even more impressive than the current hard to find HTC.  So without further ado, let us all begin to salivate on Droid’s upcoming big brother:

• 4.1 or 4.3″ TFT screen (this replaces Droid’s current 3.7″ screen).
• Possible that the current prcessor will be dropped for either a 1GHz Snapdragon or a 720MHz OMAP3630 which is an upgrade from the current Droid 3430 (this new chip will reduce overall power consumption).
• It’s rumored to be 9mm thick which indicates the physical keboard will now be gone thus making it lighter.  Not sure I like this myself as I tend to fat-finger using the touch screen and often find myself using the slide out keyboard out of habit now.
• Motorola Motoblur will be included which is an intergrated front end UI that melds many of the popular social networking services (Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, etc) into one sign on account.  Also look for an optical trackball like the newer HTC models are sporting.
• It will most likely launch with Android OS 2.2, codenamed Froyo, but if you have a regular Droid or like phone most everyone will be getting this upgrade OTA in the coming weeks anyway, so it’s not really a selling point to me.
• Kinda vague, but I’ve seen reports of anywhere between 2 and 8 GB of internal memory.
• The camera will be upgraded from 5 MP to 8 MP with 720p video recording.
• An exciting new feature is the ability for 1080p output via a HDMI port.

*Note HDMI port and overall thickness.

If it indeed released this summer (meaning next 2-3 months) that will make my current Droid only about 8 or 9 months old.  It’s a pretty significant upgrade and I feel like I was one of the last people to jump on the smart phone bandwagon.  I use my Droid and many of its built in apps daily, especially the maps and GPS functions.  I like Buzz and gmail contacts and messaging a lot, so do I dare spend the money?  But as these things tend to go, and more and more often than before, whatever current flavor of the month is, it will soon be made obsolete by the newest and slickest phone just around the corner.

Anyway, your thoughts?

Update on my Ford Sync and Droid issue…

Well, the Internet is a smart thing and after a brief perusing of some forums, I see that I wasn’t the only one having issues ‘sync’-ing there new Droid with MS Sync in Ford cars.  It appears this is a know issue and various reports share that there is a ‘rumored’ fix coming Dec 11 in the form of a patch.

However, after a bit more digging, I did discover there is an alernate Motorola pairing code that uses four digits instead of Sync preferable 6 digits.  The good news?  Well, after fiddling with teh menu option on my steering wheel, I discovered a ‘Special’ PIN number on my Ford Edge, and once entered into my Motorola Droid…..VOILA…it works!

Granted, I’ll feel much better when both the Droid patch comes out in a few weeks AND I get Ford to upgrade my Sync firmware to what it actually should be, and not the version that is currently installed when I bought my car two years ago.  But for now, it appears I got the Bluetooth to now work.

Well, against better financial judgement I broke down and finally upgraded my cell phone after almost 3 years of using my sturdy and reliable LG. 

I went ahead and purchased myself a Smartphone, and a new Motorola “Droid” at that.  I went with the Droid as it comes pre-installed with Android OS 2.0 (Eclair) by those nifty tech heads over at Google.  Also, being my first smart phone required me to get my very first data plan as well.  Thank goodness the company I work for has a corporate account with Verizon as it affords me a nice monthly discount as well on both voice and data.

I’m still getting used to the phone.  It’s much bigger than my LG workhorse, and of course more expensive, and most likely more fragile.  So far, I love it.  It has a lot of nifty features and I’m really digging the GPS with turn-by-turn instructions and live traffic reports.  The way it handles contacts is pretty cool tool, either via the phone interface or a gmail account, and updates pretty much on the fly.  I also enabled Latitudewhich will allow me to track and locate my friends if they so choose.  I can also update my Facebook and have access to a lot of apps, although I suspect most are junk or duplicates and up to this point I’ve never used any, so I can’t really think of too much of a need to start going app crazy now like Apple-heads do.

However, one cool app that of course made it to my Droid is ’10001 Cocktails’.  As the app describes itself: “Put the bartender in your pocket!  Browse and search thousands of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink recipes on the shot-cocktail-recipe.com website!  Add fresh drink ideas and drink reviews and save your favorite drinks to your personal list.”  Don’t think I won’t!

As far as using my new phone as my MP3 player and viewing YouTube videos….well, not yet.  I’m still hoping to get a new Zune HD in the coming months.

The only drawbacks so far to my new toy is that battery life (when in use and not in standby mode) seems to get sucked dry faster then Motorola would like you to believe it does.  Also, the Bluetooth cannot sync with my Ford Sync yet…that may be a firmware issue on Ford’s part though.  The last 3 attempts at updating my Sync at the dealership, the machine has been ‘down’.  Ugh.  I mean the phone’s Bluetooth works great…I already paired it with my old Motorola headset just fine…I just can’t get it working with my car stereo yet.

Now in a completely different and unrelated tech issue, my XBox took a dump on me late last week.  I got the dreaded RROD (Red Ring of Death) which signifies an internal hardware error that is most likely attributed to a faulty design when it comes to dispersing the temperature inside the console.  So the bad news is my XBox has been shipped back to Microsoft and may not have it for the next 3-4 weeks….Awesome, just in time for Christmas and my holiday break where I’ll get all these new games I can’t play.  The good news is that it is still under warranty and Microsoft is supposed to fix it for free.  So it shipped out Monday this week.  I’ll just have to cross my fingers and make sure it gets back new and improved in 3 weeks.

Between cocktails and lucidity, even I like to keep up with a few techno gadgets that I’d like to get my grubby little fingers on.

First up was a complete surprise to me, the “Zoom Q3 Handy Video” recorder.  I recently purchased the Zoom H2 audio recorder and am pretty impressed with it.  I actually recently recorded my very first podcast with it in interviewing my grandfather (I haven’t posted as of yet) and have plans to use it more often.  Well ‘lo and behold, now this little gem appears to be a first in the genre and records records 24-bit/48 kHz audio via a pair of condenser microphones, gets powered by two AA cells and captures video at 640 x 480 (30fps). There’s also a 2.4-inch 320 x 240 LCD and an SDHC card slot, though you’ll have to shell out $249 in order to get this kind of technology into your own pocket. 

From the pictures I’ve seen, it look as if it has very similar functionality and interface to the H2 audio recorder and may work out really word for video podcasting.  Of course, the list price of $249 is a bit much for me right now (you can probably find it cheaper online eventually) and it is a first gen (I tend to wait for second gen stuff unless they get real good reviews), so overall, this is a pretty cool little device.  And if you’re into recording your drunk friends or perhaps a little ‘bedroom olympics’ with out having to break out the big camera or cellphone, this may be the answer you’re looking for.

Next up is the long awaited Blackberry Storm 2.  I’ve been waiting for this since it was announced, or at least rumored, after the disappointing performance of the original Storm.  Rumor has it that the Storm 1 was released a little prematurely in-order to capture holiday sales last year and a lot of people complained about it’s tactile touchscreen keyboard and some other functionality.  Anyway, long story short, the Storm 2 is being hailed as what the original Storm ‘should’ have been and a vast improvement from the original.  Although I did recently read one review earlier today as a matter of fact that was more or less a complaint against the aging RIM OS, not the device itself.  Well, the OS can always be updated as MS does all the time anyway.

I’m with Verizon as my service carrier, and I truly do believe they have the best domestic coverage and customer service amongst all the other carriers despite a some criticism in their lack of phone variety, especially in the smart phone or PDA category.

Personally, although I suppose I’d like an iPhone just as much as everyone else does, in the end, I just want a good phone.  I’m not a huge believer of changing my phone every six months and as a matter of fact I have had the same LG VX800 for almost three years, and prior to that, I had another LG for just as long.  LG makes good workhorse phones…heck, LG makes good shit in general and I’m really impressed by all their stuff.  Can you believe I still have the same, original battery for my phone (3 years and counting) without ever having to be replaced?

That being said, Verizon does annoy me with all their stupid ass text messages, automated phones calls, and mailings stating I am eligible for a free phone upgrade.  Yeah, I know that…I don’t need you reminding me of that ever week Verizon.

So why do I want a Smartphone?  To be honest, I’m not exactly sure.  Yeah, it may be kinda cool to get an email here and there, to do some minor Facebook updates, but I’m not buying a phone to watch videos on a 2″ x 2″ screen or take professional pictures.  A lot of the ‘apps’ that are available are pure fluff, and I figure, I’ve gone on this long without having them and I don’t feel I’m missing out on too much….I’m actually saving money by not activating a data plan.  But my tech does feel a tad bit dated, and there have been a few ‘rare’ occasions I wish I could look something up, look at a map, or send/receive an email when there is no computer in sight.  But the data plans just kill me, and something I’d really not like to spend extra money on.