*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

As always, I post my Christmas wish list to my web site so those that want to get the ZorKa something (and you know who you are) will not have any trouble with their purchases during the Holiday Season. Topping the list this season is the brand new device from XM called the XM2Go MiFi (pictured to the right). I’ve been an XM subscriber for about a year now (actually since last Christmas, thanks Mom!). I love my XM. Especially on long road trips back and forth to the South. We listen to a little news, then a little comedy, catch the weather, hit the ever so popular 80’s channel, a little classical, well, you get the idea. It’s great! But, XM is only in the Jeep, and nowhere else. This is why the XM2Go is awesome since you can take it with you, AND even record 5 hours of audio from your favorite stations. It is like Tivo for the radio. While this is not a comprehensive list at the moment (it is still early) it will be updated as I continue my quest to balance want versus need this Holiday Season. You can find my wish list at Amazon.Com.

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.

As noted a few days ago I have been playing with a blackberry from work. After a few days of playing and being constantly connected, I made the plunge for the Blackberry 7290. For the past several months I’ve been using my Treo 600 from Sprint. While I have been relatively happy with it playing MP3’s, taking pictures and getting personal email on it, it just didn’t connect me to the office. I’ve tried pushing to get Good Link installed at work but my attempts failed (for security reasons). After my attempts of trying to get something that would provide me the last piece of the puzzle, I started investigating the Blackberry once again. I reviewed the Blackberry awhile back and didn’t find it favorable. However, I have an open mind and new technologies do tend to get better over time. So here we go!

The past few days at work I’ve been playing with a Blackberry. I know what you are saying, “What the hell are you doing that for?”. Well, trust me, I thought the same thing. Don’t get me wrong I am happy with my Treo 600. The screen is descent, the phone portion is good, lots of software to play with, memory slot, and a fairly small form factor. There are 4 things that hold me back from calling it the ultimate geek gadget though:

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)

I’ve been using a converged phone device for several years. I started with the Visor Deluxe which had the phone plug-in into it. After that I had got a Treo 300 but found a few limitations of the device. Then I broke my devices back out and got a Sony Clie UX-50 and Sony T608 Bluetooth phone. After awhile, I really missed the converged device so now I am back to the Treo line (after almost purchasing the new HP h6315). Read on for some nice Treo tips.