GT2697

I guess I should have seen this one coming, but I guess I need to describe for everyone why I use the internet name GT2697.  Granted, this isn’t going to be a great story, but some of you have asked for it so here goes.

The crux of the name goes back to about 10 years ago.  Its actually 2 parts, the GT and the 2697.  When I started spending time on internet bulletin boards, I found that a lot of the screen names that I wanted to use were already taken, so I wanted to think of something alphanumeric that wouldn’t be chosen by many folks.  I also wanted something that I would be able to remember (for example, I am also AZcellphonejunkie and AZcellphonejunk depending on the site which can be confusing because of character limitations on the server).

So, at the time, I was driving a Pontiac Grand Am GT, which is where the GT comes from.  Nothing more of an explanation that that.

Now the 2697 is a longer story.  When I was younger, I was part of the Exploring program through the Boy Scouts, with my specialty being Police.  I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis called New Brighton and the NBPD was the department that i spent my time with.  The city at the time was split into 3 different sections and had 3 different call numbers of their vehicles 2690, 2696, and 2697 depending on where they were patrolling.  Being the dubious teen that I was, I listened to a police scanner constantly and was always listening for a call in my part of town, the one covered by 2697.

So there you have it, nothing more than that to explain where the name comes from.

How much bandwidth does the Slingbox use?

I’m up in Minnesota today and so I of course have been using my Slingbox a bit along the way. Last night I went to bed and wanted to watch a few minutes of Leno, so I fired up the Sprint Air Card and started watching Bill Cosby. 5 hours later, I woke up and found that the stream was still going. In my groggy state, I didn’t think to take a screen capture of the Sprint card information bar, but I do remember that I was at .98GB of data that had been transferred. If you extrapolate this out over the time that the stream was going, it comes out at about 200mb of data per hour of video being watched on the laptop. My max stream on my home network is 512kbps and when I’m streaming over the computer, it is typically saturated. Anyone know the conversion rate and if any of these numbers make sense/add up?

On a good note, it’s nice to see that the sprint card can run the slingbox for that long with no issues.

To SERO or not to SERO

My day job is contemplating providing Blackberry devices to additional positions, and I could be one of the recipients. If that happens, I wouldn’t need to use the workaround that I have to get my corporate email on my mobile devices. If that happens, I need to take a look at what I am going to do with my personal phone. Right now, we are AT&T subscribers and between my Treo and my wife’s Blackberry, we spend over $130 per month. This gives us 700 minutes, plus data and 1500 SMS messages on my line and 200 SMS messages on my wife’s. If a move was made to Blackberries for me, I wouldn’t necessarily need the Treo, so I started thinking about a SERO plan from Sprint.

If you haven’t heard of SERO, check them out at the SERO site on Sprint. The SERO plans that I am thinking of are the $30 per month plans that have 500 minutes. These plans give also include N/W minutes starting at 7pm, Unlimited Data, Unlimited SMS, Unlimited MMS, Unlimited M2M minutes and all the other regular features on a Sprint plan. I started doing the math, and the cost per month with these plans is about 50% of what we are paying now. If you take into account that we would have to pay $350 in early termination fees, switching would take about 6 months to save enough money to make it worth our switch. After that, we’d save $60 per month, very appealing.

So the question of the week for me has been, do we make the switch? As much as I’d like to call up and start the process right now, we are going to wait a few weeks to see if I actually get a Blackberry in my hand. Stay tuned!

Tmail.exe error

I don’t really know what this is, or why it occurs, but I get it occasionally on the Treo.  One of the little things that comes with running a Windows Mobile device I guess.

Re: Skype

Really Skype, 2 days to get things going again?  I know the service is new and revolutionary and free, but really, 2 days?

The annoucement Monday of what happened better be something like:

“Our servers were flooded out because we accidentally opened the roof to the compound and the mechanism broke and it started to rain and so everything went down.”

I guess we’ll have to wait to find out.

I know nothing about this…

(Thanks to Crunchgear for posting it)

Motorola MOTOROKR S9 Stereo Bluetooth Headphones Review

When Motorola contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I would like to try out the new S9 headphones, I was pretty excited. I have always been a big fan of Motorola products, so I was excited to see what they had done. This isn’t the first pair of BT headphones that Motorola has produced, but it is much sleaker than the ones in the past (think HT820). I’ll break down how I have used them and hopefully cover all the bases on my experience with them.

Overall Appearance
Included in the box with the headphones are 3 different tips for the ear buds, a wall charger, a BT dongle, some documentation, and a CD. It’s a very strange box, opening like a ring box, but I guess the packaging makes the first impression, so fancy is fine. The first thing I did was pull all the other stuff aside and go for the S9′s themselves. One thing that was very different than the HP BT Headphones I have was the lack of lots of tactile buttons. You notice with them that while there are a few buttons that you can “depress”, most of them are activated by light pressure. Something that takes a minute to figure out. The style is very sporty and the construction is mostly hard plastic, making them great for working out.

Initial Setup
Like most current gadgets, these came with some charge in them, so I was able to start playing with them immediately. However it should be noted that they require about 2 hours to charge when they are completely dead. The charging port is your typical mini-USB (thank goodness) which is nicely hidden underneath a rubber flap on the back. To start, I put the headset into discovery mode (hold down the power button for 6-8 seconds) and then took the Bluetooth dongle that was included, and plugged it into my IBM Thinkpad. The Motorola adapter then immediately found the headset and I was on my way. I found that the distance that the headphones have from the dongle quite impressive. I typically find that 5-10 feet is the typical distance that works well for most Bluetooth devices. These were able to go all over my 1650 square foot house with very little static or interference. Very nice for someone that wants to wear them while walking around without the wires.

However, then it was time to pair them with my MacBook Pro. This experience was completely different. I initially thought that I would be able to use the built in BT on the MacBook to stream the music, but I was never able to get it to work. I did some searching, and it appears that you need to download and install a separate program that would allow A2DP access, something I didn’t want to mess around with. A quick attempt to use the BT dongle was futile, looks like Mac users will be forced to do some tinkering to get them to work properly.

Use
Like I mentioned before, the buttons on the S9 are very different than what you may be used to in a headset. On the left, there is a raised call button and 2 recessed volume buttons that are touch sensitive. On the right, a play button and forward/backward track controls. Once you figure out how the controls work, it is really fun to use. Many will love these touch sensitive controls when doing things like jogging where it is hard to get your finger on the control to perform the action. An audible beep lets you know that the button has been pressed, and you are on your way.

The quality of sound through the speakers is fair but not fantastic. I would say it’s on par with a corded pair of mid-range headphones. The high range sound seems to be a bit over-emphasized, something I’m sure is a result of the style.

When wearing the S9′s, there was some discomfort around the area above my ears. The tight wraparound design makes me wonder how those with a larger head would feel with these. I guess you can stretch them a bit, but I didn’t feel like seeing how far they would go before cracking. I mentioned that there were 3 pairs of tips for inside the ear. This is a very good thing as the large ones were the only tips that allowed me to not want to throw them across the room. Most of my issues with comfort are a matter of personal choice. I feel that most wraparound headphones are not as comfortable as other designs. One thing to note though is that Motorola claims these to be water resistant, so your run in the rain will not harm them.

Six hours of playback is the rated listening time, about what I found in my tests. The 1.14 ounces is a great weight, and after a few minutes, I forgot I had them on.

My tests were only on a PC, so I wasn’t able to test out the call functionality of the S9. Motorola though suggests that you are able to easily switch between music and phone calls with a simple click of the phone button. Also, like with many BT headphones, the mono sound will only come through one ear.

Final Thoughts
The Motorola S9 Bluetooth Headphones are definitely for the active person who wants something light, durable and easy to use. The sound quality could definitely be improved, and I would like the comfort level to be increased in the future. Keep in mind that at $129 these aren’t cheap, but definitely more innovative than others out there.

Motorola S9 Bluetooth Headphones

I made a post last week about a package that I received from Motorola, and it’s now time to come clean. Inside was a set of Motorola S9 headphones that I have been able to try out over the past week. I will be doing a full review of them in the next week or so after I have had some additional time to use them, but I thought I would give some initial thoughts.

I have used Bluetooth headphones in the past so I know many of the pros and cons. Motorola did a very nice job with these, and I have to give them credit for the size and weight. These are very comfortable on your head, but the earbuds cause some discomfort over a period of time. I am going to try different tips and see if my results differ. Also, the distance these things work is great! I was able to use them all around my house while connected with the included BT dongle to my computer in my office. Volume control is convenient and it gets plenty loud.

More to come!

NBC Phoenix interviews The Cell Phone Junkie

I received a call yesterday from a reporter at Channel 12 here in Phoenix, which is the NBC affiliate. He stated that he wanted to interview me on the various sides of the iPhone. 45 minutes later, we were taping. The interview went very well, and I had a lot of fun. Don’t get me wrong, they slanted my views a bit, but in the end, they do say may get one. You can see the interview by going clicking here, going to Tuesday July 3rd, then click on the “iphone reviews mixed”.

Enjoy!

Get ready, the iPhone is coming!

iPhone arrives on June 29. iPhone features an amazing mobile phone, is the best iPod ever created, and puts the Internet in your pocket with desktop–class email, web browsing, searching, and maps. And iPhone makes it all easy to use with its revolutionary multi-touch user interface. iPhone syncs with your PC or Mac just like an iPod, so organizing your content now will help you start calling, texting, emailing, surfing, listening, and watching even faster when you get your iPhone. Here are a few suggestions to help you get ready:

Making a call with iPhone is as simple as tapping a name. You won’t need to re-enter all your contacts because iPhone syncs with the address book you already use on your computer—Address Book or Entourage on a Mac, or Outlook or Outlook Express on a PC. If you keep your contacts on the web using Yahoo! Address Book, iPhone can sync with them, too. To get ready for iPhone, organize your contacts in one of these applications and make sure they’re up to date with the latest phone numbers and email addresses. If you don’t have contacts on your computer, don’t worry. You can still enter them directly into iPhone.

Using its built-in calendar, iPhone lets you check your appointments with the flick of a finger. iPhone uses iTunes to sync with the calendar application you already use on your computer—iCal or Entourage on the Mac, or Outlook on a PC—just like it does with your contacts. If you don’t already use one of these applications to manage your appointments, now is a great time to start, so you’ll be ready to sync when your iPhone arrives. If you choose not to use a calendar program, that’s OK. You’ll be able to enter appointments directly into your iPhone calendar.

iPhone is the first phone to come with a desktop–class email application. So now your phone can display rich HTML email with graphics and photos alongside the text. iPhone will even fetch your latest email every time you open the application and automatically retrieve your email on a set schedule, just like a computer does. iPhone works with the most popular email systems—including Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, AOL, and .Mac Mail. If you’re not already using one of these services, now would be a great time to get an account. iTunes will make email setup on the iPhone a breeze by automatically syncing the settings from email accounts stored in Mail on a Mac or Outlook on a PC. Don’t worry if you’re not on one of these email services; iPhone also works with almost any industry-standard POP3 and IMAP email system.

iPhone has a 2-megapixel camera and a gorgeous 3.5–inch display, so it’s a great way to enjoy and show off your digital photos. iPhone uses iTunes to sync your photos from iPhoto on a Mac or Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop Album, or any picture folder on a PC. You can carry thousands of photos on iPhone, but you can start by creating an album or two with 50 to 100 of your favorite photos, so that when you first sync your iPhone, you’ll be ready to quickly show off some of your best shots.

iPhone is the best iPod ever. Its beautiful, 3.5–inch widescreen display allows you to easily enjoy the music, TV shows, and movies you have in your iTunes library. If you already use iTunes, you can start getting ready for iPhone by creating a playlist of a few hundred of your favorite songs. If you don’t have iTunes, now is a good time to download it and start a music and video library. That way, when you sync your iPhone with iTunes, you’ll be able to take your favorite music, as well as a few of your TV shows and movies, with you wherever you go.

To set up your iPhone, you’ll need an account with Apple’s iTunes Store. If you already have an iTunes account, make sure you know your account name and password. If you don’t have an account, you should set one up now to save time later. To set up an account, launch iTunes, select the iTunes Store, and click the “Sign In” button in the upper right corner of iTunes. Sign in and you’re ready to go.