average admins

So, I downloaded a new feature to my phone.  It’s called TeleNav.  After a recent trip to Dallas, where upon exiting the interstate to go to a local guitar shop, me, Jess, and my mom got lost on the outskirts of Dallas.  I knew I needed something to keep that from happening again.  So, I have now downloaded this program and will try it out as soon as possible.  I can’t wait.  Go to Telenav.com to see if your phone is able to run this program.  It’s a lot cheaper than buying navigation for your car and easier to use.

jason

Originally posted at cocoacrusty.com on March 15th, 2007.

I stumbled upon this article the other day when I was reading through some of the blogs I monitor in Bloglines. The article is from O’Reilly’s MacDevCenter.com site and is about a patent filed by Apple in August of 1982 and granted in December of 1985 for a flip phone in the shape of an apple with a bite taken out of it. In other words, the phone is in the shape of the Apple logo.

If you review the patent through some nifty patent interface provided by Google, you’ll see 13 drawings (Fig. 1 - Fig. 13) of what the proposed phone would have looked like. This is pretty cool to know that Apple had an idea for a phone over 20 years ago. I am also very glad that this phone didn’t make it to market and that the iPhone will be their first cellular phone offering. If they had released this flip-phone back in the late 80’s or early 90s, they may not be around today to give us phone addicts the iPhone.

Until next time…

Originally posted at cocoacrusty.com on March 15th, 2007.

I am totally sold on hands-free communication when using a cell phone. I can not stand to hold a phone up to my dome and talk on it. It makes me feel all yucky inside. So, ever since I got my first Bluetooth® enabled phone, the Motorola RAZR V3, I have been sporting a Bluetooth® headset along with it. Before I go on about my latest adventure, let me give you a little history of where I’ve been.

Lately, I have been using a Plantronics Voyager 510 and a Motorola H700. Both of these headsets have their pros and cons, in my opinion. I have written a little bit of what I like and dislike about both of these units below.

(more…)

For all of us who text message constantly, we might be getting a faster way to send them! Check this video out! (Chris, one guy uses a Treo) Anyway, as soon as this technology is available for my BB 8800, I will be hooking that up. So, anyway, I found this by playing around on the net through a place called UniqueDaily.com. Okay, Go have fun and watch the clip! Tell me what you think! It would sure work nice for me, Jeff, Chris, and especially Troy, who despite all the peer pressure applied by the rest of us, will not switch to a full qwerty! Dang you Troy! Dang you all to heck! Well, I guess I can’t say much, being that I sold him the phone!

Later,

Jason

Originally posted at cocoacrusty.com on February 22nd, 2007.

I recently posted an entry titled “Using a Nokia E61 for internet Access in OS X” that discussed, you’ll never guess, how I got my Nokia E61 working with my Apple MacBook for Internet access when no WLAN or LAN is available.

I think the combination of the Bluetooth® phone and the MacBook works pretty well. I mean, think about it, this isn’t your primary Internet connection. When you’re out and about and need access to something on the Internet like e-mail, directions to a location, etc., it works great. Of course, with my phone, I can access this type of information directly from the Symbian OS based web browser, but when you want to sit down and use something a little more comfortable and familiar, this setup is more acceptable.

So, I did some preliminary testing of the data speeds using Speakeasy’s Speedtest site to see what kinds of speeds I am getting when using my phone as a modem with my MacBook. I figured this information would come in handy for anyone looking to use their phone in a similar fashion. It will also help you decide if the speeds are enough to warrant the extra money you’ll be forking out each month for an unlimited data plan with your cellular carrier.

Also, keep in mind that these data speeds are based on the cellular service here in the greater Texarkana area. Your performance will vary based on the coverage available in your area and the compression and speed options available through your carrier. Here comes the data:

As you can see, based on the testing that I did today from the house during lunch, I averaged 116.2 kilobytes per second down and 78 kilobytes per second up. That’s not too bad. It’s better than dial-up. It’s pretty close to a bonded ISDN line. However, when I was working at that client site the other night, which is located in the center of Texarkana right off of the Interstate, I had downstream speeds up to 212 kbps and upstream speeds nearing 114 kbps.

I think it is all going to depend on where you are in relation to the cell towers, what type of equipment you have around you that might be interfering with the Bluetooth&reg connection and the cellular reception, where your phone is located in relation to your laptop, and what type of data quality your carrier provides.

As for me, this will be a great alternative for accessing the Internet when a decent broadband connection is not available. I also look forward to using this type of connection in hotels when traveling. You don’t know how many times I have tried to get a hotel’s “free wireless Internet” service to work and have been unsuccessful, left with no connection to the digital extension of myself that is the Internet. I have to stay connected!

Until next time…

Originally posted at cocoacrusty.com on February 21st, 2007.

Last night, while working at a client site, I started messing around with my Nokia E61 and my MacBook so I could get Internet access while working at the client’s office without having to jack in to their local network. My phone and laptop are both Bluetooth® enabled so I figured why not give it a shot.

I did some quick research and found that it would be extremely easy to set this up within Mac OS X. When I first paired my phone with my MacBook I remembered it asking me if i wanted to use my phone for Internet access. At the time I said no but last night I kind of changed my mind.

The first and last site I stumbled upon was Ross Barkman’s home page. This site has a number of mobile phone scripts available for use within the Internet Connect software but I was unable to get any of those to work in my situation. I used the built-in Nokia Infared script and it worked like a champ. I did use a section of Ross’ site, located here, that has a lot of information for different carriers in multiple countries for the connection settings to use when logging on to the Internet through my cell phone’s GPRS connection.

If you’re using a newer Bluetooth® enabled phone and want to set it up as a modem for your Mac laptop or other machine, I say just give it a try. Find your carrier’s information in the link provided above, or here, and go for it! I think you’ll be impressed with how easy and painless the setup is within Mac OS X.

Until next time…

Since my last blog post, I’ve had a couple different phones. I know I talk about phones a lot, but it’s just that I rely on mine consistently. I recently talked to Jeff, about my requirements for a phone. I have found some features, as of late, that I really need, rather than want. Those requirements are: full qwerty keyboard, direct push email, detalied contact info with ability to sync with outlook or other program of my choice, bluetooth, good calendar management, good call quality, and internet (possibly have wifi). Now, I rarely would use Wifi, but it’s just an extra feature, that I wouldn’t mind having. I used to include a camera as one of those features, but realized I really haven’t used my camera in the last year, except for 2-finger battles. I could just bring my digital camera or we can use Jeff’s Rebel Xti, for all the carnage.

Having said all that, I sold my Motorola Razr V3i and Slvr, and took back the Blackberry Pearl that I had bought recently, on the whim that I thought I wanted a smaller phone. Well, I realized that I like having a bigger phone. I have big fingers and got tired of hitting every button but the one that I needed on the Pearl. Don’t get me wrong, the Pearl was probably one of the best phones I’ve ever used. Read my old article here. So, I took it back and got what I thought would be, MY IDEAL PHONE, the Cingular 8525. I found this gadget to be much more than I needed and began pondering what I really needed. Thus, came the aforementioned features, I decided on the BlackBerry 8700c. I know some of you, okay maybe one or two of you, might say, “why not wait for the new BlackBerry 8800 to come out?”. Well, again, I don’t need the camera or video capabilities. The WiFi would be a plus, but honestly, I don’t really care for the look of the new 8800. I kinda like the boxey-ness of the 8700.

I had been using the Treo 680, and it was a really good phone. Chris, I will have to say that the 650 is a little better. I think you would like the OS of the 680, primarily due to some of the new features it has, and you can play with my 680, if ya wanna find out. Well, as for now, I’m gonna go strictly with the 8700 and stop looking at other phones, especially those with touchscreens. Anyway, that’s it for now! I was just bored and thought I might write a little about the newest cellie to hit my hands.

the phone guru,

jason

question: what all do ya’ll look for in a phone?

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/the-apple-iphone/

It definitely has a lot of sex appeal. It’s like having a little MacBook in your pocket. Check out the comments if you want to hear from all the haters out there.

The best thing about this phone is that it’s going to be on the Cingular network. While Cingular sucks here in our neighborhood, it’s the best available.

Jason, start saving your pennies now since this phone has quite the hefty price tag on it … 600 bucks for a 8GB model with a 2-year contract. I might just be trading in my Treo 650 for one. Now I just need to find a good spot on my shelf for my new 80GB iPod.

As you read in my last blog, I told of how I became to dislike the Samsung Blackjack. I returned it and began looking at the Palm Treo 680 and the Blackberry Pearl. The Treo was just basically the Treo 650 sans the antenna, which was a very nice little subtraction, but the Pearl really caught my eye and I’ve already had the 650! I already have the BB 7130c and I like the Suretype keyboard, despite what other people say about it. I, honestly, have yet to find something I don’t like about this phone. I mean this thing is almost as small as the Motorola SLVR. It is as thin as my RAZR closed, and is smaller than my 7130c. This phone has all the same features of the Blackjack, but is faster (personally I think this is due to the processor of the Samsung). It has a 1.3MP camera, qwerty keyboard, Bluetooth 2.0, MicroSD slot, PUSH email, Push to Talk, trackball (finally got rid of that horrible clickwheel), and an HTML browser. The processor is amazingly fast on this phone and has a very loud headset. The calls are crystal clear. I tested the headset at Ta Molly’s, which we all know is one of the loudest restaurants in town and it did very good.  I love the keyboard. One great feature that BB finally added was caller picture ID’s. I just hooked up my phone to my laptop and it sync’d with my Outlook Contacts, pictures and all. It took a little while to get used to not having the clickwheel, but i’m getting the hang of it. So, that’s it for now! If ya have any questions or wanna see the Pearl, gimme a holler!

The phone guru,

jason

So, I’ve been invited to a “rollout party” for Verizon Broadband here in Huntsville.  It was implemented yesterday for public use, but it is still being tested and configured, so it isn’t fully reliable yet.  The official rollout is next week sometime.  Verizon is inviting businesses to the Space and Rocket Center for a show and tell.  Below is a topic schedule.  If any of you want any specific info for the future in Texarkana let me know and I’ll post what I find out.  I think I’ve heard it is coming to T’town in the next year, right?  I’ve used it down the Birmingham area not too long ago and it was great (fast and reliable even when driving down the interstate).

EVENT SCHEDULE 

Registration & Breakfast
7:30am - 8:00am 

Announcement
8:00am - 8:30am 

Technology Demonstrations
8:30am - 8:45am 

Vertical Market Solutions
8:45am - 9:15am 

BroadbandAccess - You Drive!
Hands-on demonstrations
9:15am - 10:00am