*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

I haven’t blogged about this yet but I acquired a Zune back in December.  The reason I haven’t blogged about it is I haven’t traveled anywhere with it  yet.  As a matter of fact I got the Zune while I was on a trip in Michigan and since I run Windows Server 2003 on my laptop I couldn’t even play with it.  When I got home it wasn’t supported on Windows Vista either but not to long after that there was an update and it works now.  Once I got it setup on my Vista machine and over the initial shock the Zune didn’t sync with Windows Media player at all (I’ll blog more about this later) nor support podcasts or video casts I then installed http://www.feedyourzune.com.  I know what you are thinking.  “It doesn’t support podcasts out of the box?”.  Answer: nope.  It probably will in the future since it is just a software upgrade, but right now it doesn’t, therefore the need for FeedYourZune.  With FeedYourZune you can then get podcasts and video casts onto the Zune. 

The night before I left for CodeMash I spent some time getting video and audio casts downloaded to the Zune.  I haven’t traveled with a video device before so I was curious what I would play the most, audio or video.  Turns out I never stopped playing video on the plane or while waiting in the terminal.  I probably played video for about 2.5 hours and I had about 2/3 battery life left.  I’ll blog more about the Zune experience later on sometime after I get a feel for it so let’s move onto the squirting video!

Zune Squirt Video

The Zune has a wireless card built into it and one of the things you can do today with the wireless card is transfer a song to another Zune.  Since I work at home and know absolutely no one else where I live that has a Zune, this is something I couldn’t play with without a partner in crime.   During the first day of CodeMash we were having lunch.  Patrick and Alex of SRT Solutions were at the table along with Steve and Bob and last but not least Jason Follas.  Jason had just acquired a Black Zune and had it with him.   Being geeks we immediately thought it was the perfect chance to squirt.  I pulled my Canon SD630 camera out and took a quick video.   

Just a few more screen shots so you can see how the experience is.  Here are our devices sitting side by side on the table.  Mine is white, his is black.  This is what the screen looks like when you are searching for nearby devices.  Sorry for the bad pic but the lighting in the room was really bad.

Once the transfer finished which we didn’t want to wait for it in the video so here is what the screen displays once it is finished with the transfer.  Note that it says you can play the song 3 times in 3 days.  This is something that digital rights management needs to address because the file I transferred Jason was in fact just a podcast which should have no restrictions.  I don’t have any ideas how this should be solved in order to mark a file with a different license but we need to figure it out.  Especially when it comes to podcasts and video casts.

Remember 2002 in terms of what was available for Smart Phones? Not a whole lot to be honest. Palm was just starting to add phones to their PDA line up and about the only other phones available were Java based. I bought one of the first Sidekicks and used it for awhile. I loved the flip around keyboard and the ability to check email on it and surf the web but I ultimately gave it up for the T68i because I wanted to use Bluetooth with my new Mac. The Sidekick was a fun device but it didn’t take me long to outgrow it and get frustrated. I think I had it what, 2 months? Today the Sidekick 3 was introduced to T-Mobile subscribers and will be available officially on July 10th. The new Sidekick offers a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, color screen and a built-in MP3 player. It also comes with a mini SD memory slot. You can checkout a video of the Sidekick on YouTube. Is it just me or does this device make too much freanking noise? There are tons of blurps, bleeps, wangs and ticks in the video. Watch it and you’ll see what I mean. Obviously the Sidekick has gotten better over time but my big beefs with it were

• battery life
• had a weird proxy system for checking email that wasn’t secure
• locked up a lot
• didn’t support good integration with various contact and calendar programs ( I remember having to login to a web site to add contacts for example)
• no touch screen
• lack of API support for developers

Anyway, it is kinda cool to see it survive and the really weird thing is the phone I have today pretty much has the exact same form factor. Talking about coming back full circle! I still prefer my 8125 over the Sidekick. The 8125 is just capable of much more. Plus I can write my own apps for it by just firing up Visual Studio. I am in the process of writing an RSS Reader for it in my spare time. In terms of form factor the Sidekick still spins out as the 8125 slides out but they are very similar. Here they are side beside:
A few comparative thoughts So what’s the bottom line? Well for starters the Sidekick doesn’t have Wifi and you can’t touch the screen. For me this is hugh. I love navigating with a stylus. I do like the jog wheel on the Sidekick but the Sidekick suffers on the software side of the house. I don’t see any companies rushing out to buy 1,000 devices and deploy them to their sales force. The Sidekick is just not an enterprise device. More of a teeny bopper device. The 8125 also supports direct push email with Exchange which is a huge plus. Both have 1.3 mega pixel cameras and MP3 players. Big difference here is the 8125 syncs automatically with Media Player and can also play videos. Have a Media Center PC? With a third party tool you can save a show you recorded to your phone and watch it whenever. Another big difference is the Office tools bundled with the 8125. Reading word, excel and watching power point slides on windows mobile 5 is now native. In other words however the document looks and renders on the desktop, it will appear the same on the phone (even power point transitions). I guess the bottom line is this: Teen who wants to look cool: Sidekick Power User, Professional, Enterprise Customer: 8125

Last week was Tech Ed week.  Sorry I didn’t blog any entries on it.  I was still recovering from my web host loosing 2 months of my data.  It is hard to recover from a loss like that.  Not to mention  I spent ALL of my energy walking 11 miles a day riding the bus back and forth from the conference.  Everything you’ve read about the bus and traffic situation in regards to this year’s Tech Ed is absolutely true.  Enough of that though, let’s talk about the goods!

Now that Tech Ed is over, the raffles and drawings are being done by the vendors.  Everyone that went to Tech Ed and registered at every single vendor’s booth like I did should be checking their spam filters daily during this time just in case something gets caught.  That would be terrible to actually win and not know about it.  

Last night I learned that I was the Tuesday winner of the “Cingular Mobility Pack”.  This is a GREAT win because it includes all of the following hotness:

1. Cingular 8125 Pocket PC Phone (HTC Wizard, I-Mate K-Jam, etc) ($499.00)
2. Cingular 2125 Mobile 5 Smartphone  ($299)
3. Sierra Wirelss Aircard 860 PC Modem ($199)

Is this complete hotness or what!!!!!? Depending on how you rate the price of the 8125 phone, this is a $1000 or $1200 retail value.   For those “not in the know” let me explain the 8125 phone real quick.  First and foremost it is a Pocket PC with a sliding keyboard.  Allthough it is branded as the 8125 from Cingular it is in fact known as the HTC Wizard since HTC is the manufacturer.  It is also known as the I-Mate K-Jam, the QTec 9100 and so on.   The phone has WIFI, Bluetooth, full keyboard etc.  It is a beast of a phone and a great form factor.

The same phone in an I-Mate K-Jam unlocked version was being sold at a discounted price at Tech Ed for $630 so it isn’t a cheap device by any strech of the imagination.  When I went to the Cingular web site to grab the links I noticed they are running a special on the 8125 phone right now for $189.99.  But that is one of those sign up new plan deals, not if you just walk in and buy it.

The funny thing is I picked up an 8125 while at Tech Ed and as of Monday I’ve been enjoying Direct Push email on it after applying the new update.  I’ll be doing a post about the phone later to give you some more insight.

Quick FYI:  For my personal taste I liked the K-Jam phone better because of the keyboard.  But $630.. are you kidding me?  I was talking to Steve Riley about his K-Jam phone and his take on it was to get the QTec version of the “HTC Wizard” phone because the K-Jam comes with software that slows it down.  Anyway, now I have 2 8125’s and a 2125.  I’ll probably give the 2125 to my wife if she wants it.  Of course, one of the 8125’s is going on Ebay. 

Josh Holmes won an I-Mate K-Jam at one of the parties on Tuesday night and he proudly rubbed it in our face all week. So for Josh, back at you now buddy!!!!!!!!!!

Update 6/24/2006 8:56 AM
It turns out the wife doesn’t want the 2125 phone.  She wants to keep her Motorola phone that she has been using for almost 2 years now. Her unwillingness to change is my personal gain! So as it stands I think what I’m going to do is keep both the 8125 and the 2125 and simply swap them out when I need to.  For example if I go mountain biking, fishing, running, saving the whales, solving world peace and hunger or whatever I’ll just take the sim card out (another reason to have a GSM phone thank you very much Verizon) and put it into the smaller 2125. 

My OEM 2GB MiniSD with SD Converter came in that I picked up from Digital Media off of Amazon for the low price of $40.  Not only is the price outsanding, but having the ability to convert the mini to a standard SD card is awesome. 

While this really isn’t a true head to head comparison article for those that are looking to buy a Treo or a Blackberry, hopefully you’ll find this information useful so you can make a better informed decision. This is all based on my personal experience and unique needs. It is time once again to revist the “Treo vs Blackberry” debate. Several months ago I got word through the grapevine at work that we were going to be beta testing GoodLink. Since last summer I had been waiting for work to get GoodLink but at the time GoodLink wasn’t as “security ready” as some folks wanted. As soon as I confirmed we in fact had a GoodLink server in house, I drove to the store that day and picked up the Treo 650. Previously I wrote about the Blackberry vs Treo and the four things that I didn’t like about the Treo 600 compared to the Blackberry, they were:

1. It is not “always on”
2. You cannot type on the small keyboard
3. I cannot get work related email
4. No bluetooth (which I miss horribly)

The Treo 650 using GoodLink fixes 3 out of this 4 (keyboard is still a little small) plus it provides a lot more functionality and is a much better phone than the Blackberry. Let me say before you read any further that before I had gotten word about the GoodLink server, I was already debating on switching back to a Treo. The Blackberry was just not cutting it, I always found myself saying, well if I had my Treo I could ….. (insert statement). Checking email on the Blackberry was OK as I will explain, but other than that, it didn’t do a lot for me. In the end I would have still gotten the Blackberry when I did because it was the right thing to do based on my needs at the time when I got it (since GoodLink wasn’t supported). Nevertheless, let’s kick things off with my Blackberry gripes and then work our way down to the Treo.

Since bluetooth has been around I have owned now three different bluetooth headsets. My first one was a Sony HBH-30. I used it with one of the first bluetooth phones to hit the market, the T68i by Sony Ericson. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have gotten one if it wasn’t for Hotelling, I blame him for making me switch to the evil empire that was ATT (the gps location was cool though). After getting away from ATT because of horrible service, I went over to Sprint where I acquired a T608 Sony Ericson which also got use out of the HBH-30 (do you see a Sony infatuation forming here or is this just me?). Then one day, the HBH-30 stopped working, completely 100% dead.