Recently in Gadgets & Hardware Category

I Love My Kindle

By Steve on November 8, 2011 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm loving my Kindle.

In fact I'm loving just about everything about Amazon these days. When I got my Kindle about a year ago it wasn't exactly love at first sight. The Kindle isn't pretty or particularly cool and I found the interface clumsy (the keyboard - which I found pretty much useless - seems to have been done away with in the most current version). I enjoy reading on it however and the digital ink technology makes all the difference; it is incredible how little power it uses. I also like being able to get books instantly and cheaper and since I am typically reading more than one book at a time I also like having access to a number of books to read. The Kindle system also gives me the benefit of accessing my books (my virtual bookshelf) through the Kindle applications available for my desktop, Blackberry and iPad.

This morning I was looking for a book about Lewis and Clarke and found their journals available for free on the Amazon site; got to love that. And then earlier this week the bushing on our blender broke and when I Googled for the part it came up on Amazon for five dollars; one click and it showed up at my doorstep three days later.

Does anyone use Ebay anymore?

Breaking Up with Blackberry and Embracing the Android

By Steve on February 7, 2011 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It probably isn't a huge surprise to hear this week that Android now has the largest market share for smartphones.

My brand new Blackberry 9780 is already looking dated next to my friend's Samsung running Android. In the last year or so podcasts have become a favoured way for me to consume news and that has forced me back into the two appliance world (anyone remember carrying a separate PDA and mobile phone) - an iPod Touch for my podcasts and my Blackberry for everything else.

My 12 year old successfully negotiated a swap - my iPod Touch for his Nano - with the logic that the smaller Nano is a better choice for me. And for a week or two he was right. The smaller Nano worked just fine. I had to get refamiliarized with iTunes but it was all it was working until last week when my home office workstation died and I accidentally dropped my Blackberry in the toilet (another story).

My replacement phone a 9780 Blackberry is vastly improved over the previous version I was using and finally has reasonable media management. In fact it handles podcasts better than the iTouch but the podcasts I want are not available for the Blackberry - eg., The Economist, RadioLab, The Age of Persuasion - and some of my other favourites - Ideas, Sunday Morning and This American Life seem to take forever to become available after they broadcast. Frustrating! And then my friend showed me how impressively podcasts stream on his Samsung running Android.

Then there is the email thing. Now that most email is secured by an SSL certificate, I am starting to wonder how much additional value Blackberry RIM's email black box is giving me. This last week I picked up an HP printer with ePrint technology and setup an email alias to forward to the obscure one that HP provides ... but it doesn't work through the Blackberry mail. On top of that, there are the limited synch options available for non enterprise Blackberry Mail systems.

I am almost convinced that I will be able to type as fast with the Android swipe technology as I can on my Blackberry. Did I mention how I really, really covet the way the Samsung Android phone broadcasts wifi?

What's left? I still love my BBN but I am starting to feel as though I could live without it. Sorry RIM, in spite of a long term relationship I may soon be moving on.

Dot tel and the Dumbphone - DNS and SMS are heaven sent!

By Lisa on February 4, 2011 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I own an LG pay-as- you-go "dumbphone". It has a qwerty keyboard that I love with a passion that should only be reserved for animate objects.

I can't get my pictures off my phone nor can I get on the web as it is pay-as-you-go.

One thing I can do, is text the bus stop number to Translink (Vancouver transit) and they send me back the list of when the next buses are scheduled to arrive. This I like. A lot.

I read a Mashable article about the "dumbphone" and its market is expanding. My friend Laura was in Africa recently (Uganda and Kenya) and SMS is massive there.

So last night I was thinking: huge dumbphone market + sms + .tel = opportunity.

The beauty of .tel is the information is held in the DNS. There is no HTML or Flash to render. You don't need an app to be able to view the information. Very dumbphone friendly.

Here's my big idea: There is an SMS section in your dot tel. You populate it with 140 characters of whatever info you want - phone number, email, opening times etc. Telnic has replicating .tel dns servers with every cellular provider.

You text richmondplumbing.tel to 800-555-1212. You get a reply back of: Phone 6042750455 Address 140-4631 Shell Rd. Richmond Hours M-Sa 7-6 Ashton Service Group is on your side for all your plumbing needs.

For those businesses who are in areas that are underserved by high bandwidth cellular services, this would be an amazing solution to parsing essential web based data down to the consumer via SMS.

And for those of you who do pay-as-you-go like me, well your dumbphone just became a whole lot smarter.

Blackberry vs. iPhone - Which Device Reigns Mobile Supreme?

By Kathryn on March 6, 2009 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Blackberry vs iPhone.png Much like the epic battles of Boa vs Python, and Godzilla vs. Mothra, we have a new tale of conflict. It's Blackberry vs. iPhone. Which one is better? Who has more 'cool' factor, better features, easier to use? There's a million different variable that you can check out when buying a mobile device such as this, but what you really need to concentrate on is what you need, and what works best for you.

First thing, consider what you will really be using the device for. This can range from the simple email and text messaging to something more complex like GPS navigation, streaming media, or playing games. Oh, we can't forget talking on the phone either.

The Blackberry has traditionally been known as a mobile device that excels at email. They were the only show around for a very long time, but with the introduction of the iPhone in June 2007 they seem to be playing a lot of catch up lately. Research In Motion (the makers of the Blackberry) have also tried to convince us that we don't need all the bells and whistles when it comes to a mobile phone, but they have clearly underestimated the human capacity for need vs. want. The big complaint for email and the iPhone is that the phone itself does not have a keyboard, but a virtual one that is displayed on the touch screen. The iPhone is definitely weaker than the Blackberry when it comes to email and text messaging.

Rich media is where the iPhone unmistakably wins over the Blackberry for now. There seems to be an application for everything, from telling you which song you're listening to on the radio, to emitting loud sounds to frustrate and annoy all those around you and virtual voodoo dolls. There's a built in GPS function that works with Google that helps you get directions from one place to the next.

Price is usually a factor in pretty much anything you do. The iPhone will cost more to buy than a Blackberry, but there are some considerations that go along with that. The iPhone has a built in MP3 player, and if you want to play music on your Blackberry, you're going to need to purchase additional memory cards to store your music on.

If you're going for the coolness factor, in my opinion, hands down the iPhone wins. There's just so much more that you can do with it right now than you can do with a Blackberry. That's not to say that Blackberry's are trash, that just means that for what's currently out there on the market, it can't really match up with what an iPhone can give you.

I know personally, I'd be buying myself an iPhone if I could, though for now I'll just have to wait and see how much money I'm getting back on my tax return before I make any decisions like that.

« Events | Main Index | Archives | General »

Recently in Gadgets & Hardware Category

I Love My Kindle

Breaking Up with Blackberry and Embracing the Android

Dot tel and the Dumbphone - DNS and SMS are heaven sent!

Blackberry vs. iPhone - Which Device Reigns Mobile Supreme?

Blog

Subscribe

Categories

Articles

Links