48 posts tagged “technology”

I will begin by saying I'm not one of your hardened shoppers who stalks and waits for the deals and such... I just went mainly as I wanted to gift Sol and Aurelia their presents early for Christmas. The line was terribly long... We all waited in line by the loading docks at about 4:45am in the chill cold. Personally, I regretted not wearing my wool coat out as I froze pretty quickly. We all were talking about some of the old times in our lives and trying to laugh to forget the bitter cold. Once 5:00am hit, the store opened the flood gates... What I witnessed was pure animal-like shopping chaos. People shuffling, mass hoarding items, waiting like cattle to get claim checks for high demand items... It was something that would get companies like OSHA concerned.

The art of Black Friday shopping has seriously evolved since the advent of new consumer technologies. I saw many people with mobile phones trying to have other family members triangulate items together to rendezvous at a central point to ensure they would get the best sale items. Some power shoppers had their Bluetooth headsets on so both hands could focus on grabbing items... Of course with human nature, you had people yielding to their territorial instincts of hoarding items and fighting with others over a single material item because it was the last one on sale. The local police were on hand to handle things like major riots, which I didn't see any of those luckily.

My main purpose was to try picking up a 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo ($29.99) for my PSP for movie purposes but well, that was a failure as they changed the deal to a 2GB model for $17.99. Though my main purpose was to to get Bluetooth headsets for cheap to give to Aurelia and Sol for an early Christmas. They are two people who are on the phone quite a bit with their friends and complaining about how their hand or neck hurts from all the talking they do. Sol ended up getting the exact same model Bluetooth headset as me for his phone. He was a bit limited in his choices due to his phone being an older model Sony Ericsson P910i, so I got him the HBH-V705 which is a nice, sleek model with a very professional polish to its look. I managed to snag that for 50% off which was an awesome kill! Aurelia was hoping for the slick Jabra headset she had her heart on, but well she found a Plantronic MiX tower that had more female oriented headsets there. She would get the MiX 330 which is a remix of the original Plantronics Explorer 330 with a white and silver body color and adorned with Swarovski crystals. The MiX 330 ended up being $20 off so it was not too bad. They both were stoked for me to front for their gifts, which ultimately made me happy.

I was not about to leave empty handed, I wanted to see if I could pick up a PSP title for cheap. I found the last copy of Guilty Gear Judgment (with the bonus Guilty Gear XX #reload) and a screen protector for normal price, but it should be plenty fun for when I need my "fighter" or "beat-em-up" fix. While the game was not popular, it beats the imported edition from Japan where Judgment and Guilty Gear XX #reload were both separate game UMD's at $30 - $40 a disc.

Everyone walked out happy, which I was thankful for. Sure, we waited in bitter cold for about close to an hour to get in the shop, but the "spoils of war" were grand. The expensive part of my gifting is done, but the last will come in 2 weeks when I go shopping at Strapya World for everyone else. I just want to put some good karma in the pool for all of those who've supported me when I was down. Not all things can be had at Black Friday, however...

This year, I have noticed that the deals were mediocre rather than spectacular in the paper/in-store ads. The online shops are finally getting better with their "ads" or Thanksgiving sales. Apple did their sale online with slashing prices about $300 here and their on their machines. Newegg has continued on with their tradition as usual. Some shops like Best Buy and Target has some "ONLINE ONLY" specials that you simply couldn't rush to the store for. I feel the next step forward will only be a fusion of both sorts of sales for places that have a physical store front... But at the same rate, they need to make sure the servers can handle the loads of shoppers pounding the servers. I was unable to get in on a deal at Frys.com for the 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo as the server kept timing out, but on finally being able to... the server had a MySQL error preventing the transaction from going on any further. Oh well, there's always next time.

Ringtones: What's yours and how often do you change it? 
Submitted by enrico.  

Right now, I am using the Metal Gear AC!D 2 Codec sound as my ringer as a tribute to my love of Konami's great Metal Gear franchise. Metal Gear almost duels another one of my favorite Konami franchises (Castlevania) for the top spot with how dynamic the story is. With ringtones, I like to use electronic or video game influenced ringtones as they show my love of mixed music or games. I don't change ringtones too often and when I do, it is not without good reason. Personally, I have been fond of Motorola's ringtones as they have brilliant artists to mix their default ringtones. I have found early on that using pop music is a bit cheeky for a ringer as a song can quickly fall out of style and you may get sick of it. With good default ringers, there's not much chance of it going out of style anytime soon.

I can still recant the day that I sold my original first generation PSP... It was a hard day as I had grown to like some of the system's nuances, but at the same time Sony had hit the brick wall with lack of good games. When Sony was just selective on approving titles to come out to the American market, that was when I simply had enough. The DS was enjoying a lot of niche Japanese games and Nintendo of America was eager to approve almost anything to market. So from that, the DS flourished with fans of all ages buying the system. The PSP in America? While Sony of America was barely approving games, they were in bed with Hollywood to try to save the dying UMD Video format from becoming quickly obsolete from one matter of fact: American users found that ripping from a DVD, then transcoding the video to MP4 format to load on a Memory Stick Pro Duo lead to a far more better quality with regard to sound and picture quality. The best part was battery life was even longer as the system was not spinning the disc drive to read the disc, as you could watch almost four 2-hour movies rather than one 3-hour UMD movie.

The irony in selling my PSP was about a month later, Sony finally "pulled their head out of their ass" and finally opened their doors to approve a wider library of games. One of those games happened to be quite possibly the two best games of the Castlevania franchise ever. Konami named it "Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles" with the primary aim of the game to be a more updated 2 1/2 D remake of the PC Engine game Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (or Turbo Graphix 16 with a CD drive, for you American folks). The kicker was that in the main game, you could unlock the ORIGINAL versions of Rondo of Blood AND Symphony of The Night. The news of a Symphony of the Night remake really hurt me, because I had my "Greatest Hits!" version (with the cheeky green packaging) stolen from me and the culprit was never found. After my hopes for a Gran Turismo Mobile were broken by yet another delay, this news of a Castlevania remake and bundle made me bitterly hate that I sold my PSP to the auction block. I vowed one day to get a PSP again so I could regain what I had sorely lost...

Over last week, I managed to get a bit of a surplus of cash due to pulling max-out shifts for my weeks and hitting near overtime so I scored a PSP Slim core package (system, charger, battery, manuals) and Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles for myself. For once, I am seriously impressed with what Konami has produced. Before I go on to that... I would like to link to pspZine's blog archive for those who are unaware of the PSP Slim's differences: pspZine - PSP versus the PSP Slim. Over all, I like the the reduced weight and the slightly improved ergonomics of the device. Though Sony of America has me waiting in desire as the "Photos" portion of the Cross Media Bar (to be abbreviated to XMB) has a "camera" icon. This icon looks like the Japanese "Chotto Camera" or European "Go!Camera" but Sony of America has not announced when they will release this peripheral. Almost counter productive of the new 3.72 firmware release to have this feature but lack the peripheral itself. The XMB interface is finally customizable, which I remember that being a big complaint that the PSP community harped on the most. It's not a big deal, but for some... it was a part of the software that they wanted to customize to their liking. Though going slim has its disadvantages... The battery life is significantly shorter, as the PSP Slim's battery is a 3.8v 1200 mAh batter compared to the original's 3.8v 1800mAh battery. The accessories are still sparse for it, with the "best" one being the component display cables which allow the game play to be displayed on an HD TV. For those who are not HD TV owners, the composite cables (aka RCA cables) cannot partake in the same joy of playing games on the standard definition TV's, although they are still able to enjoy movies and images on their TV. Accessories are still not here for the PSP Slim, even though the system has been out for close to 2 months. One would have expected Sony to make some, but apparently they haven't yet. Enough on the geeky and mundane verbal hardware pornography...

(Zero's Note: For those wondering why I didn't opt for the Vader White value pack or the Daxter Silver value pack, it's because I didn't like the bundled games nor did I like the Vader graphic on the white PSP. I have plenty of Memory Stick Pro Duo's because my phone uses them as well.)

Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles has a very unique intro movie... The narration sounds like it is in German, if I am wrong, feel free to correct me. The movie shows a very unholy ritual that reawakens Lord Dracula from his slumber with by anointing him with fresh blood. Even though this game follows the more old fashioned Belmont whip carrying lineage adventures, it refreshes things by using new skool technology with the ability to save automatically at end of levels, give the user the ability to level select, and the ability to do a "quick save" in the middle of a level. That is a good thing with consideration that no one likes passwords and that whole mess anyways that was remembered from the earlier Castlevania games from the early 1990's. For things that have "changed", there's quite a bit. The movie scenes are now changed from anime cut scenes to 3D computer generated ones with really crisp detail. The art goes more in favor of the "antiquated" drawing/painting style with more respect to the same sort of thing that emblazoned Symphony of The Night's art. If you are a fan of the Castlevania art movement that was more biased towards the anime look, you may be disappointed with the art for this game. The levels "pop" a bit at you, not like in Symphony of The Night or the two DS titles where only the graphical effects from combat or magic stood out. Some of the things within the levels were changed however to incorporate the "secrets" within the new Dracula X Chronicles packaging. We'll discuss this later on the review.

The games controls feel a tad stiff like a traditional whip user Castlevania game, so the movements are not quite fluid as say a more modern title like the DS title Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. For the nay sayers who may say "The controls plain suck!", they are just failing to realize the demographic of this game. Play Castlevania III on the NES, Super Castlevania IV for SNES,if you want more support on the "stiff controls"... Compared to those two, the game is a little more fluid. The game is a "one difficulty fits all" sort of game... So if you are not down with a challenge, this game may enrage or even frustrate you to insanity.

I will issue the disclaimer for those not used to older, traditional titles with short tempers to either wear your PSP wrist strap or avoid this game.

While the game is not sadistically hard like say the "Ghouls and Ghosts" franchise of Capcom, the levels seem to be challenging and one needs to have good timing at times (like with stages chock full of pitfalls and Medusa Heads flying around). Compared to the original Rondo of Blood which was unlocked, this new "remix" is actually pretty damn close to the original save for the graphics, sound effects & music, and minor level changes to incorporate the use of game unlockables. Dracula X Chronicles would be what I would deem a VERY faithful remake with respect to the original. This is something that would surely make any purist, true, die hard fan of the older Castlevania sing with joy, especially because it was better than the Super Nintendo rehash released in America as "Castlevania: Dracula X" with a lot of things were sacrificed or changed due to the limited abilities of the Super Nintendo.

The unlockables is where things get fun. In the main game, you can find the ORIGINAL versions of Rondo of Blood, Symphony of The Night, and "Peke" (A system card error mini game with regard to Rondo of Blood). There are particular criteria to get these games and when the condition has been fulfilled, the game is unlocked and may be played in the "Original Game" option on the title screen of Dracula X Chronicles. From Rondo of Blood (PC Engine), I would imagine it keeps true to the original Japanese title with respect to what I have played or read on reviews from sites like GameSpot or users on GameFAQs. Symphony of The Night was a real big treat to me, as it combined some interesting aspects from the Japanese Sega Saturn version with parts from the original Playstation release. The big treat I enjoyed was if you had the language set to "Japanese" for the audio dialogue in Dracula X Chronicles, that is also applied to Symphony of The Night. The dialogue is much more refined in this rendition, especially when you consider that the American release had terrible voice actors and a poorly translated to boot. If you remember the prelude level "Castlevania: Bloodlines" with the dialogue of Richter and Dracula on the American release... this line probably made you laugh:

Die monster!!! You don't belong here! - Richter Belmont.

The American voice actors are actually pretty good and I give them credit for being so much better. There are a few changes on some sound effects, but no changes in game play. The "changes" with respect to the Japanese Sega Saturn and Playstation version include the incorporation of 2 more familiars (the sprite and nose devil) and the ability to play Maria being the most notable ones. Truly a treat for those who cannot quite afford to purchase the original American release of Symphony of The Night but already own a PSP. As far as the "Peke" mini game, I have not unlocked that yet.

(Zero's Note: Yes, I am well aware that the XBOX 360 folks have the ability to purchase Symphony of The Night from XBOX Live. I encourage any person who owns an XBOX 360 with no interest to purchase a PSP to buy it.)

I can say that Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles is a good buy IF you are into traditional game franchises. If you're open to buying this remade classic gem, I advise that a good temper is required as well as wearing the PSP strap to avoid game induced rage. If you love Castlevania, this is one game you will not regret buying.

Show us a gadget you can't live without

Please also see my edit about my new experiment with this headset. - Zero

A lot of sites (like C|Net's Review) gave this headset a terrible review complaining of the minor things like the weight of the headset was uncomfortable or the design was not adjustable. I felt those are more of "your mileage may vary" sort of commentary. At the time of this headset's release, not many phones had the A2DP profile, so that may have something to do with some of the unfavorable reviews. I will factor that the initial "buy-in" price ($130) during the headset's release rather expensive being another reason that the reviews came out so unfavorably on this headset. I would like to redeem this headset because I actually picked them up locally from a local retailer for half-off.

I originally wanted to pick up the Motorola HT820 headset, but when I read the poor battery life being the headset's failing with an estimate 3-4 hours of total over all life, I was a bit hesitant. The packaging doesn't even make mention of battery life, just that it's a stylish headset and functional at a price of $90. For me, a useful Bluetooth headset needs to have great battery life as being the first criteria and then design and function are the next criteria that must be fulfilled. The alternative that I was considering but hesitant on dropping the cash was the Sony Ericsson HBH-DS970 with the earbuds and pendant style form, but with a poor design with great battery life it was not worth the retail value of $130. Close to the two headsets was the Jabra BT620s headset but with a dramatic price change from $110 to $60. It was a diamond in the rough, but saving $30 was not a bad idea and I figured "why not?" It was a gamble, but I felt it was a worthy gamble as my experience would prove from my experience.

Unpacking the headset proves easy and same for preparations. The headset takes about 3 - 4 hours to completely charge. Also with the AC charger, there is a USB cable that allows you to use the headset as a wired computer headset and charge the headset at a slower pace. I will give Jabra kudos for making a great indicator system. The headphones have two clear rings that have 3 colors that light up according to status. Here's how it breaks down from the manual:

Left side - Solid blue: Pairing mode
Left side - Flashing blue: Linked Phone mode
Right side - Flashing blue: Linked Audio mode
Flashing red (Both sides): Low battery
Solid Red (Both sides): Charging
Solid Green (Both sides): Full charge complete

If you don't like looking like a club light strobe, you can kill the blue flash by simultaneously pressing and holding the call and media buttons together for 5 seconds and it will turn them off until the next recharge. Pairing is simple, hold down the call key until the left status lamp turns solid blue entering "Find Me" mode. Ask the phone to connect to it and enter the passkey to sync to the headset. For musical use, my phone (P990i) immediately recognized all of the functions such as being used as a headset for calls, a music output device, and track control was the real shocker. The power to skip tracks, play/pause/stop playback was mentioned with "limited compatibility" to devices, so it was something to really celebrate about.

As far as sound quality and tonal range... I feel that the device is sufficient for your casual music listener. The tonal range capability is pretty wide and the headset's performance does not favor one genre over another. My phone's equalizer settings show dynamic changes in the headset as well! This excited me a great deal, as a good dynamic range and great sound quality are good things to see from this headset. The only caveat is sometimes the sound transfer has hick-ups and gaps, but this was a problem when the phone was separated about 5 - 6 feet away from the headset. A minor set-back if anything. The surprising part was on tapping the right ear piece, it automatically loaded the media player. Something that I also didn't expect to be supported, much like the track skipping compatibility with my phone.

Tested Songs
"Apologize" Ft. OneRepublic by Timbaland
"Chop Me Up" Ft. Timbaland & Three-6 Mafia by Justin Timberlake
"Papercut/Big Pimpin" mash-up of Linkin' Park and Jay-Z
"Drumhead Pulsation" from the Guilty Gear Isuka Soundtrack
"What Hurts The Most" by Rascal Flatts
"Bloody Tears" from the Castlevania 20th Anniversary CD
"Adelaide" by Anberlin
"Bat Country" by Avenged Sevenfold
"Bodysnatchers" by Radiohead
"Humanity" by ATB

Edit about 24 hours later - I had a crazy experiment to try to listen to the radio while streaming the sound to the Bluetooth, but the only caveat is that my phone requires that you use the wired stereo headset as an antenna for radio signals. I would plug up the headset/antenna to my phone, then transfer the streaming radio broadcast to my headset for the experiment and I would be met with success. The funny part was there was no instances of skipping audio. I was listening to the radio for a straight 2 hours for a intensive test. The signal was crisp and clear with no problems. This leads me to a hypothesis that the Bluetooth chipset is not hindering the on board audio transfer and also that this is not a RAM related problem (aka memory leak)... I now personally believe that the Memory Stick Pro Duo slot is not reading the data fast enough for the data transfer to the Bluetooth stereo headset to properly process the sound. This problem may possibly be phone related and not due to the headset.

For calls... picking up calls and managing calls is rather simple. The calls come in stereo sound to the user resulting in very crisp quality. I would call two folks for test calls to see if I could debunk the poor reviews saying that the sound quality was poor on the receiving end. I would get called by my girlfriend Aurelia and later call my cousin Sol to do a test. Aurelia has a Blackberry Pearl on T-Mobile and Sol has a Sony Ericsson P910i on T-Mobile as well. Both reported that my voice came in very clear and without coming off as sounding tinney or echoing with reverberation. That pleased me a great deal.

The fusion of call and music management, I feel I would have to test multiple phones before I can offer a fair opinion on it... When a call comes in, the music immediately cuts out for my phone and I hear a beep tone letting me know a call is trying to come in. On picking up, the connection happens rather quickly... The only issue arises when the call ends and then the music resumes. Due to the poor amount of RAM that the P990i has on it (the primary culprit for many of its short comings), there's about a 5 second delay and the music then resumes. Not the smoothest transition unfortunately. This portion of the review, I really want to do a fair review on it... but I can't quite do it as I only have one available phone to test it out on. If you have a Bluetooth stereo compatible (A2DP) phone and would not mind me spending about 20 minutes to an hour to compile information on this portion of the review, please contact me, I can compensate for your time with food or something.

My closing thoughts on the Jabra BT620s are in favor of the headset ONLY if you pay about $60 or less for it. It definitely is not worth it if you're paying anymore than that price. The audio quality, simplicity, and design are great with the documented battery performance of 240 hours of standby, 16 hours of calls, and 14 hours of streaming music. The comfort level is debatable as some may feel the headphones are uncomfortable or too snug... This is the only "con" about the design as the "Street Style" (if you want to use Sony's name for the design) headphones are more of a "one size fits all" solution. Personally, I felt the headphones as very comfortable to my ears. With crisp sound quality from the musical part and clear calls on the phone side, the Jabra BT620 is a bargain buy for the gadget geek looking to get a value for cheap!

I offer a challenge to those who may be reading this and feel that my review was not fair: If anyone out there has a Motorola HT820 or a Sony Ericsson HBH-DS970 that they want me to do a "shoot-out" review, I am more than willing to take up the challenge and offer a fair "dissection" of the headset to the Jabra BT620s. The only part is, I cannot expense the purchase of the competing headsets. If you are willing to let me borrow yours or if you want to even spiff me one unit of the device for a link exchange or food and drink, I am more than willing to oblige. Contact me and we'll talk.

Let's get some background on Flock and it's relationship with Mozilla Firefox.

Firefox was the original browser that broke the mold from Internet Explorer basically crushing browsers like Netscape Navigator and even the early Opera browser. It was a fresh change of pace from the closed source principle of Internet Explorer as it allowed anyone to view the entire source code of the browser to make plug-ins and modifications to improve the browser. But due to the Mozilla Corporation blowing open a free browser to the market place and including the ability to even giving the world the source code for free... This would make a world where even the online experience could be changed and custom tailored for the end user.

Flock's principle that differentiates itself from a standard Firefox installation in one way... Rather than having to download and install things like specialty blogger, RSS, media, account integration plug-ins and applets, they are all built in to the browser. From the Flock "About Us" Page, they say that how people use the modern day web browser is basically that of a nerve center to the online world and we have regular habits or accounts that we just have to check out.

I am not much of a social person online, but I do like blogging and reading RSS streams quite a bit... So I figured I'd give myself a challenge: Use Flock for one week and then do a comprehensive review. I can say that I am actually a bit shocked at how the week has turned out.

I would pull a pre-compiled version of Flock for Ubuntu Linux from GetDeb.net, as I am not much into trying to compile from source unless I absolutely have to. For users of other operating systems, there are versions for Mac OS X and also Windows folks too. I don't feel secure on my Windows box so I have not installed it there. For the OS X end, I don't have a machine set-up for testing... If you want to review it, I will gladly hot-link your review to mine in exchange for the same.

The install was rather painless. It performs like a regular install of Firefox, but it was able to copy my settings, preferences and bookmarks from Firefox on a click. After the details finalized, the installer asks if I want to lock in Flock as the default... but for all intents and purposes, I would say "No" because Firefox is customized for secure items and questionable websites much better than Flock currently is.

The experience is quite unique... the "Home" page is called "My World", the default "nerve center" for your browsing experience. There's a set of links to do things like post to your blog direct from the browser, upload videos to YouTube or images to Flickr/Photobucket, or check out your bookmarks in del.icio.us, provided you have logged into those services. On the top right are tiny icons to indicate which services have integrated with the browser and another set of services that have not been linked to Flock. On the main page are links to your most recently visited book marks, the top 3 newest RSS feeds from each site you have a RSS session with, and then the latest media from your favorite links in another column. Other than that... the browsing experience is much in the same vein as Firefox as far as stability goes.

The difference with Flock is that if you log into your media services such as YouTube, Photobucket, and Flickr, the button for the "Media bar" will pop up a bar on the top that will contain streams with a thumbnail of an image that link to the respective image or YouTube video. The image uploader is nice as it will do batch uploading to Flickr or Photobucket natively in the browser, rather than having to go through the web based uploaders of the sites which typically limit you to a max upload of 5-6 images a session, unless you subscribe for the premium member services. The blog client works well and there is not much to write about... The blog compatibility is hopefully getting bigger, because I can't quite blog to Vox from it yet, but I can only hope that it will be addressed in the 1.0 Final build.

Security is a big thing that needs more revamping with Flock, in my personal opinion... I mean, it's fine for minor things like social use of social networking sites, but I wouldn't dare to say it could replace my stock Firefox install. With things like more network integration (like Facebook is coming with the 1.0 Final build) and more security issues to be addressed, Flock will be a browser to watch for development.

Overall, if you like being networked to everything and see the use of the web browser much like the folks of the Flock Development Team... you will be very pleased! If you are more of a blogger and news reader, Flock does a great job at what it does for helping you keep track of things. I can recommend this browser to folks who love the connectivity but also want the stability of the Firefox engine.

Well, today I had to check up on the status of number migration and finally got the message that things have finally been migrated over. There was only one thing that remained... Severing the other line that was now unused. I would have to seek AT&T's power to do that and that was what I had to do...

So I would call them up and basically navigate through their TERRIBLE IVR system to finally find the option of "Closing a Line". But in classic fashion, I had to hold for 10 minutes just to get a representative. The T-Mobile call I had before to double check the status of my number translation was short and sweet with only waiting 3 minutes flat for a representative to connect me. For customer service urgency, AT&T never had the same amount of speed in the 2 years I had been with them. This phone call was an interesting one though... Let's dive into the details.

The rep was a upbeat sales person basically asking why I was not continuing with AT&T because I had selected the "Close a Line" service. I basically told him my grievances:

• Wait times for Customer Service take about 10 - 30 minutes on non-peak times
  
• Customer Service reps on technical or billing issues are far from helpful
• I have been told that I don't "deserve" an upgrade even though I have had a loyal 3 year history with AT&T (after understanding that I was marked as an LTV1 customer from a question on upgrades)
  
• Of all the times I was sent "incentive" offers to get "better phones", the deals were the exact same as a new customer signing with AT&T (as noted in one of my earlier posts in August)
• The plan pricing is a plain criminal rip-off compared to the competition

The rep would just try to apologize on behalf of the bad experiences I have had with the company. He then decided to go into more detail on my dissatisfaction on the upgrade incentive I was offered. I told him that I wandered into a few shops and basically my "incentive" was for a selection of free music phones which any other customer could get... But also the matter that I was using a Palm Treo 680 at the time and the incentives on smartphones and PDA phones were a far cry from a good deal and downgrading to a free music phone "upgrade" wasn't my intentions... He then asked about what I got from my T-Mobile dealer. I just told him "I was given a T-Mobile Wing at no cost out of pocket for me". The AT&T rep was taken aback... but he decided to pull out all the stops to try to keep my business. "Zero, I am willing to give you a FREE AT&T Tilt Pocket PC phone (a $500 value) and one month of Pocket PC internet on our blazing fast 3G network just to try to keep your business!" I just flat out told him no, because as tempting as that deal is... I have no doubt that I'd have to sign up for a ridiculously expensive plan to get that sort of a hook-up.

Had they offered me something like that back when I was teetering either way on AT&T and on that Treo 680... I would have been convinced. Sony Ericsson's devices have worked marvelously for me and the tri-band nature of them running 900/1800/1900 make for the perfect harmony on T-Mobile or any other networks should I choose to be the "world traveler" on vacation. My phone does what it does well and I don't think I'll be upgrading at any time soon... Plus the fact that I have a spare phone for times when I'd rather not take my smartphone with me to the gym is nice.

AT&T, I hardly knew ye... Learn to save a sale early before it's too late.

Over a million iPhones have been sold.  Have you: bought one, considered it, or decided it's not for you?

Wow... I am shocked that Vox even posed this as a "Question of the Day"! I'll go over the 90 day "evaluation" of the state of iPhone related affairs as well as answer the "Question of the Day".

With the 90 day time frame basically upon us, there has been lots of hot-button issues with regard to the iPhone. Things like hackers unlocking the iPhone for free, lawsuits over a "defective battery design" or "diminished resale value of the 4GB model being discontinued", to even the latest one on bans of cash sales of the iPhone... The device has stirred up the market and, dare I say, in an impactful way. You have makers who've basically taken apart their ideas of what a user interface should be and then revamped it to much more promising things. Notable manufacturer on this forefront being HTC with their new TouchFLO interface for the Windows Mobile 6 operating system. But at the same right, there are also manufacturers competing on a beautifully crafted shell. Noteworthy names being LG's Prada phone or Motorola's complete revamp of a mainstream sensation, the RAZR2. There were naysayers saying "No one will ever buy up into the gimmicky touch only bit!" But when you have to note that millions of the iPhone have been purchased, the numbers don't lie... If Apple makes it, people will come.

On the technological side of issues... AT&T has their panties in a wad all from the whole unlocking of the iPhone away from their network due to the minuscule profit margin they earn, unlike the one Apple gains from the sale of the device. AT&T pays Apple $18 per iPhone on their network, so to "recoup" their losses. They profit money from the sign-up of contracts and subscribers locked into their plans. But they do have a right to get their selves in a "tizzy" over it, because they can't subsidize the cost of the iPhone unlike like say... a RAZR V3. Here's an example of subsidizing phones:

Phone: Motorola RAZR V3
AT&T Store's List Price: $250
2 Year Contract Price: $100
After Diccounts and Rebates: FREE!
(AT&T's possible invoice price on the phone $5 - $20)
Zero's Note - I don't know the exact number, my figure of AT&T's invoice is an estimate. Take my number with a grain of salt.
Prices from the AT&T Wireless site

The iPhone, because it is made by Apple does not give AT&T this luxury to slash the price of the device as they please because Apple makes the device at a much higher cost than ordinary cell phones or smart phones. I would estimate that the iPhone's "cost" is about $150 - $180, invoice probably at $250 (AT&T's "buy-in price") while retailing at $400. Talk about getting the short end of the stick for AT&T. It's rather a steep deal and I can see why AT&T is mad as hell. The same right though, people saw it coming... Because Apple fans will stop at damn near nothing to get their hot hands on one of their new devices. The fact of the matter that the iPhone had few exclusive technologies specifically to AT&T had almost made it a target of hackers, unlocking chop-shops, and various retailers... If there were tons of things that required AT&T, I could see it being a better cash cow. But with the news that Orange France will be releasing an unlocked model for the European market... It may just serve to enrage AT&T even further when you have unlocked phone shops importing these unlocked models to the American market place.

As far as the iPhone, It's not for me because I need a robust and powerful device. With the iPhone for my friends, my opinion is more in favor of telling ones who have not jumped on board with it... I would recommend that they wait before buying in. Apple submitted their patents for an iPhone "Nano"  to the US Patent Office and some analysts say that it could be about November for a second generation iPhone. Europe's Vodafone has advocated that the iPhone must have 3G or it is useless for their advanced network. So much new possible innovations for the iPhone as a platform, but just time is the factor of all things.

So I did the Dist-Upgrade to Gutsy Gibbon today and well things broke. I won't cry about it, but it is a bit annoying until kinks get worked out. I may have to seek a full reinstall because this time around... so many things seemed rushed. I'll see if I get any replies on the forums about my issues, but it'd be a damn shame to have to reconfigure everything again.

I have been terribly backlogged in stuff and haven't had time to write a proper review on things... so... I would like to get that squared away.

Strapya World [Legend Cross] Collection Phone Charms
I am one of the people who falls into line with the Asian (primarily Japanese and Hong Kong Chinese) belief that a person should have a lucky talisman around them. Talismans are thought to be a trinket or charm to give the bearer protection or have properties to positively influence the lives of their users. In the modern day, Asian societies have had a thing for putting cell phone charms on their mobile phones as a means of protecting themselves or boosting certain aspects of their lives. Things like anti-evil wards, money blessings, empowering health, and even charms to boost ones romantic life or for making a wish. I was looking for a charm or strap to put on my next phone, because when I owned the Nokia E62 and the Palm Treo 680... these enterprise communicators just simply lack a place for phone charms or wrist straps. I was initially looking to get a phone strap that had a charm that senses the cell phone tower waves when the phone receives a call, for the few times I put the phone on "silent" mode on my desk, face down with out the vibrate.

To my dismay, the selection for those type of charms is rather limited. But Google would eventually lead me to Strapya World. It is one of my favorite places for getting something unique for the people and friends I care about dearly after my great experience there save for one small imperfection. Their selection is unique and huge so it's pretty easy to find something for everyone. There was one section that had me interested... the luck and magic charms section. I liked the designs in this particular section mainly from how interesting they are. The Legend Cross series piqued my curiosity as the design is unique, but the price won't break wallets. I liked the designs so much that I bought all 5 designs. The nice part is that they looked far better in person than the online pictures give them credit for.

The only imperfection with my set was that on the "Pledge of Peace" or "Gladius" (which is on the package) cross... The blue "gem" wasn't glued on properly and fell off during the shipping. I managed to fix it, so no harm there. I really liked the "Red Devil" or "Chaos" cross the most, personally, as it fits with how I am the "black sheep" of the family. I will post pictures of the charms later on with better detail and post repairs for the "Gladius" cross. Each cross was about a little over $4.50 USD, but totally worth it.

Playing Around with a LIVE T-Mobile version of the Motorola RAZR2 V9
With October 15th looming in the horizon of T-Mobile USA's launch of the RAZR V9, people are hyped over the phone's release to T-Mobile. Initially, people were pissed that T-Mobile's rendition was going to be the weakest of them all without expandable memory card access being the buzz kill... Until there was a shocking change in plans. The T-Mobile version got tweak with 2GB of flash memory built into the phone! The fun didn't stop there... The T-Mobile one uses the newest version of the pure Linux operating system. As far as the features go, nothing has changed from the other versions for Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, and so on.

The T-Mobile shop had one to play around with today (October 13th) and frankly... I am impressed that Motorola is finally in a positive step forward for progress. The new system that the phone is based on is pretty quick and responsive, unlike the Java/UNIX fusion system or even the problematic P2K system. The fit and finish of the phone is very sharp. It is a cut above how the RAZR of the past was and even the "upgraded" versions such as the V3i. Once again, it has the flash and wow effect that the predecessor (the V3) had on the market when it first came out... I can already see eBay or craigslist sales go wild over the RAZR2 much the same vein as the RAZR did back in the day. Personally, the 2GB built into the phone is a great move for those who aren't technologically knowledgeable, because they don't have to go "What memory card do I need?". It's just a plug-n-play affair. This is a godsend for folks like my father who is not the most technologically advanced guy when it comes to phones... but he does love music.

As it stands, my father may be getting one when I sign up... so you may be seeing some live photos and a more detailed review at some point. Keep an eye out here if and when the phone comes in.

Sony Ericsson HBH-PV705 Bluetooth Headset
With family blowing up my phone every now and then, they usually have had an ironic timing to notify me about something before I come home or leave a place. Stuff like me doing a stint in a grocery store and then to see my phone ring on driving home... I don't like picking up my phone while I drive, so I just ignore the ringer and just drive. When I get home, it's a situation of "Didn't you get my message? I was trying to call you and ask you to buy this one ingredient for us" and I end up doing a second trip for posterity. So I figured for my own sanity and my family's sanity, I should pick one up for cheap. Found this one for $20 off of the "retail" price that the SonyStyle Online shop was selling it for.

After the headset charged up, I would do the pairing. It was rather painless. After the pairing, the phone worked with the headset well. Once the authentication is configured, the headset automatically pairs to the device immediately. This is much better than my experience with the experience I got from trying to pair a Motorola headset with a RAZR V3, that was actually a really sour experience. The sound quality is crisp and clear, easily a "bang-for-your-buck" deal. The headset is not compatible with MP3 ringtones and the headset had a great little chime that's sure to get your attention. The buttons have a good tactile feel and make a satisfying click so you know that you're not hallucinating if you clicked something or not. With a documented battery life (from the manual) of 12 hours of talk time and 300 hours on standby. That's pretty good for a down to business headset that is simply no-nonsense and just does it's job sort of issue. Sure, it's no Jawbone... but for a basic headset, it's one hell of a deal.