POC Blog

The random technotheolosophical blogging of Reid S. Monaghan

I bought my first smartphone...

Over the years I have remained somewhat of a technophile...I got hooked on computers as a college freshman and eventually switched my major from a BS in Physics to a BS in Applied Computer Science at UNC Chapel Hill.  I am such a geek I even wrote a sort of technology biography a couple of years back. 

I have always enjoyed the products of Palm Inc.  Actually, I was printing out my calendar from an old app called Lotus Organizer when the first Palm handheld came out.  At that time it was from US Robotics before it was sold to 3Com, then spawned Handspring, which worked on cellphones called Treo, then Palm Inc, which borged Handspring back into Palm...

I have watched the smartphone market for years with some interest but two things kept me away.  First, the technology was not mature and the features of the early phones were very weak.  Second, they were just so expensive that I felt a little hitch in the soul paying 500 bucks for a phone.  Well, things evolved and the technology got better but the price did not go down as rapidly so I have held out.  

In October a little phone come out from Sprint/Palm called the Centro which peaked by interests.  First, it was 99 bucks.  Second, it was really small.  Due to the fact that I was moving my corporate plan phone onto my personal Sprint plan I was forced to do another 2 year contract...so this small phone was available to me at the 99 price.  I bit the bullet and grabbed on a few weeks back and I have been very pleased.  So what follows is a bit of a review of my little black Centro...

 

OS Battle Royale

 

 
OK, all of those who like OS X and hate all things Microsoft, or visa versa, Engadget has a pretty extensive comparison up which could begin a religious war.  Of course the fanatics will be most pleased as their operating system eeks out the win!

Here is the link... 

MacIdolators in Leopard Coats

Who dresses up for a release of a minor operating system upgrade?  I'll let you answer:

 

Social Networking Explained

This is a fun, short, creative, low tech but high tech explanation of the phenomena known as social networking...enjoy.

Non Mac Students - An Ultimate Steal

 

Microsoft has an ultimate steal to offer college and grad students.  For a limited time you can purchase Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate edition (great software IMHO) for just 59.95.  Here are the rules:

You must hold a valid email address at a U.S. educational institution ending in .edu (for example, leina@contoso.university.edu)

AND 

Be actively enrolled with at least 0.5 course load.

To any seminary students reading this blog - that is a 679 dollar value for less than 60 bucks.  So if you use Windows (XP or Vista) this is almost a no brainer.  The new version of Office has a fantastic new user interface and I highly recommend it.

So if you are a student and do not worship all things which begin with the lowercase letter "i" - this is a great day for you. Here is the link - www.theultimatesteal.com and if you are concerned this might be a hoax read here.

Blessings

Hug your coder today

If you have any computer programmer friends, make sure you wish them a happy programmer day today. Engadget has a funny little post on it today entitled - if(date == "09/13/2007") Engadget.Write("Happy Programmer's Day");

 

Cool picture

For those who follow technology...this is a cool picture showing Apple products from beginning to end.

Here is the link

This joke is funny...

 

iPods getting stolen? Get you a Hid-a-pod! Poor Microsoft...

Personal iPhone Impressions

I visited an AT&T store today to play around with the iPhone and get some first hand impressions.  Though I had my two girls hangin on me saying "play the video again" I got to play with it for a good 15 minutes.  Well, I can say it was an impressive little device.

Pros 

  • Size - it is very thin, not bulky, sleek
  • Design - best I have seen - just a great looking device and great to hold
  • Screen - was a delight to look at.  At every angle it was clear and bright.  Watching videos from YouTube (via Wifi) was pretty cool
  • Interface - loved flicking it around...found it tough when I was wanting to select text (no cut/copy/paste - if you have not heard - very odd)
  • iPod - the very best iPod interface and experience I have seen.  With only just over 7GB, it would be hard for the 30GB and up types to make it their primary iPod.  If they come out with a widescreen touch iPod at Christmas, I might be interested.
  • Wifi - speed was great here for browsing - the transparent connection recongnition was cool.
  • Photo app - awesome...coupled with the screen it was an beautiful experience.
  • Phone app - excellent implementation

Cons 

  • Typing - man, I hear people get used to it, but this really sucked for me.  I found accuracy difficult and the keys really tight.
  • PIM apps and e-mail - if you are looking for a business productivity device, I think others do it better.  This may be due to learning the user interface.  Getting through contacts was fun with the flick-scroll, but not the most efficient.
  • AT&T edge - connecting to YouTube on wireless was painfully slow...web was very lethargic as well. I still cannot believe they went with EDGE.
  • Price - looking at 600 for the device, and another 1400+ for the crappy AT&T service for two years.  2000 bucks? Wow - I save money to buy computer stuff, but that is a lot of quan.

Overall, for those who are looking for a consumer device, who want to unite phone, internet stuff and iPod, this is definitely the way to go. If I decide I do not want to do e-mail outside of my laptop (I have stayed away from e-mail in my hand on purpose so far) - I may look into getting iPhone (though I just hate the AT&T exclusive deal).

But if your main purpose is to combine a productivity tool with your phone expect to be hammering e-mail, heavy SMS (no MMS on iPhone btw), working with office stuff you will probably want to stay in the Treo, Windows Mobile, Blackberry world...

Finally, just to prove that Apple people are a member of a cult, see David Pogues iPhone vid - weird.

iPhone Review

Engadget has the most ridiculous iPhone review out...ridiculously thorough. Enjoy, but don't worship a little handheld device...that would be evil. 

New iPhone Specs

Engadget has some new specs for the iPhone which broke on the Onion. Check em out:

 

OK, just kidding...not that I am down with all that is on the Onion - but it sometimes has some humorous stuff.  For a satirical look at the Christian subculture check out Lark News.  If you are a Christian who cannot laugh at yourself, please do not visit.  After laughing, weep for the church in America.

Apple News...

Steve Jobs is speaking again this morning at the World Wide Developers Conference.  Mac Idolaters will array in droves to hear what Jobs is saying to the devotees.  The buzz says a lot of Leopard, .Mac getting hooked up with Google, maybe movie rentals in iTunes as well.  Endgadget will live blog the keynote - that jazz can be found here.

On another note, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs recently gave a joint interview on stage at the D conference. It is an interesting look back on the last 30 years of personal computing from two guys who were in the thick of it from the beginning. It is available free on iTunes in both audio and video formats.  If you are at all interested in Tech history, this is a good listen.

Finally, the most important Mac News today - The Logos Bible Software OS X widget now has the ESV.  This indeed is cause for rejoicing.

 

For those who think differently about PC Guy

For all of you out there who actually like PCs and are sick of that little snotty Mac guy in the Apple advertising campaign, Laurie McGuinness has produced some fun adds where PC guy is more of the man.  These are pretty funny spots showing the Mac to be the 5% little weasel he is!

 

Mac Works for the PC Guy 

 

PC Guy gets the Girl 

 

Music - Mac Doesn't Like to Share 

 

Mac may be cool but PC has the money

Palm and other announcements

Palm Inc, will make an announcement of a new mobile device tomorrow via a web cast.  What makes this different than, Blah, Blah, Blah...is that Jeff Hawkins is making the announcement via webcast. For those who don't know Hawkins, he founded the device category and the company when he created the first Pilot in the mid 1990s.  He also founded Handspring (oh, I loved my Visor Prism), a company which helped move the concept of mobile computing forward towards the Treo type devices we see today.  Hawkins is an intellectual and a creative dude so this should be interesting.  Here is what the press release reads:

Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM), will host a live video webcast on Wed., May 30, to describe a new category of mobile device. The webcast will follow the announcement of this new product at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.

A new category of mobile device?  I'm skeptical of this, but we'll see. The full press release can be found here.  Anyone excited?

History of these devices that I have owned over the last 11 years (Palm Pilot 1000, Palm Professional, Handspring Visor Prism, Dell Axim X5 - Pocket PC, Palm Zire...waiting for a convergence device worthy of time/attention)

 
Update: Apparently, if you are a Geek, tomorrow is a big day all around.  The following schedule from Engadget is indeed interesting
 
Wednesday, May 30
8:00AM - 10:30AM PST window
Steve Ballmer / Microsoft
Jeff Hawkins / Palm

11:15AM - 1:00PM PST window
Steve Jobs / Apple

7:15PM PST
Bill Gates & Steve Jobs 2getha 4eva

Thursday, May 31
11:00AM - 12:45PM PST window
Eric Schmidt / Google

iPhone Phobias

 
(Photo from Mac Life

There are a couple of interesting articles on the coming iPhone (MacIdolater, cease worship now) I read this week.

  • First, Information Week's Alexander Wolfe posted his top 7 iPhone Questions Steve Jobs Doesn't Want you to Ask
  • Second, Mac Life asks a question that sends shivers down any Mac fan's spine - iPhone, Will it be the next Newton?  For those unfamiliar with tech history, the Newton can be studied here.  Basically Newton was technology before its time and it never really caught on - it was very cool, but did not sell so well.  It was too big, too expensive, and the handwriting recognition didn't work so well at first...but it did open a category that the PalmPilot stepped into in the late 90s to make some cash.

Anyway, the iPhone has buzz, but whether it will see longevity and market penetration remains to be seen.  My concerns:

  • No removable storage can be added 
  • Cingular network is Slllllooooow with data
  • No removable/replacable/extra battery, which sucks if..
  • Battery life may be weak
  • Price very high (though Mac people will pay)
  • 8mb is pretty small storage for iPod freaks and you can't stick a mini/microSD card in it because...well, no removable storage.
  • Lack of tactile keys for texting - you have to look right at the screen to text/e-mail
My prediction is that it will sell many of these out the door, but it may underwhelm the owners.

iPhone-Schmiphone

The Microsoft guys are getting a bit funny in poking fun at the iPhone...

For those Apple people who love to bash on Microsoft...check out their fiscal 2007 profits

From the Yahoo Biz article: 

I have written extensively about Microsoft's problems. But last week, I got a stunning reminder about the company's power. It takes Microsoft only 10 hours of business to exceed Red Hat's entire quarterly profit. Skeptical? Check out the math, and nine other facts about Microsoft's most recent earnings report. Microsoft last week announced quarterly revenue of $14.4 billion and net income of $4.93 billion. In other words, Microsoft's daily net income is about $55 million. That's $55 million in pure profit every 24 hours. Do some quick math and you'll learn it takes Microsoft only about ...

  • 10 hours or so (yes, hours!) to exceed Red Hat's (NYSE: RHT - News) quarterly net income of $20.5 million.
  • four days to exceed Research In Motion's (NasdaqGS: RIMM) quarterly net income of $187.9 million.
  • four days to exceed Starbucks' (NasdaqGS: SBUX) quarterly net income of $205 million.
  • one week to exceed Nike's (NYSE: NKE - News) quarterly net income of $350.8 million.
  • two weeks to exceed McDonalds' (NYSE: MCD - News) quarterly net income of $762 million.
  • two weeks to exceed Apple's (NasdaqGS: AAPL) quarterly net income of $770 million.
  • 18 days to exceed Google's (NasdaqGS: GOOG) quarterly net income of $1 billion.
  • 23 days to exceed Coca-Cola's (NYSE: KO - News) quarterly net income of $1.26 billion.
  • five weeks to exceed IBM's (NYSE: IBM - News) quarterly net income of $1.85 billion.
  • 10 weeks to exceed Wal-Mart's (NYSE: WMT - News) quarterly net income of $3.9 billion.

That is a lot of cheese coming from the big ugly Washington company. Personally, I have become such an Office 07 fanboy, that I actually like Microsoft again.

POC Tech Bundles 4.24.2007 - MacIdolators Weep

The folks at Apple and all the Mac OSX fanatics love to mock windows and gloat about how secure the MacOS is in comparison.  Many have said that this is only because nobody is trying to hack it.

It turns out that a guy entered a Mac Hack contest and was able to hack one in less than 30 min. Here is an exerpt:

The hacker that won the challenge, who asked ZDNet Australia to identify him only as "gwerdna", said he gained root control of the Mac in less than 30 minutes.

"It probably took about 20 or 30 minutes to get root on the box. Initially I tried looking around the box for certain mis-configurations and other obvious things but then I decided to use some unpublished exploits -- of which there are a lot for Mac OS X," gwerdna told ZDNet Australia .

According to gwerdna, the hacked Mac could have been better protected, but it would not have stopped him because he exploited a vulnerability that has not yet been made public or patched by Apple.

Apparently apple just sent out a patch to all Macs with 25 security patches...twenty five.  I wish Microsoft would make a commercial that has the nerdy "PC guy" smack the hip cocky mac guy around.

On the Vista front, Samsung has announced a new hybrid hard drive which will couple nicely with Vista and provide significant performance and major boosts to laptop battery life. 

For Logos Users Who Are Preachers

If you are a user of the Logos Libronix software (sorry MacIdolaters, the Mac version is in the works but not out just yet) and do any sort of preaching, the following Addin looks just great.

Sermon File Addin Here is the description from Logos' web site:

Convenient

Copy and paste your sermon or illustration from Microsoft Word, another word processor, email, or a web page. Or import a lifetime of sermons from the MS Word files (or any HTML formatted files) on your hard drive.

The Sermon File Addin grabs the text, formatting, and automatically hotlinks Bible references within your text! Just key in a few optional details like title, date, topics, and Bible passage to easily find things later.

The addin remembers topics and tags you've used in the past and suggests them as you type, which helps keep your index clean and consistent over time.

Flexible

Your sermons and illustrations can be formatted and structured the way you want. You can apply standard topics or invent your own. Add tags to organize your sermons and illustrations by duration, occasion, rating or any other attribute you can think of!

Powerful

Sermon File Addin applies the power of the Libronix Digital Library System to the task of organizing your illustrations and sermons.

That's right...we're unleashing several million dollars' worth of technology on your sermon file!

Your sermons and illustrations are compiled as two separate books within the Libronix Digital Library System. These books are fully indexed and searchable by word, phrase, topic or Bible reference.

Greek, Hebrew and other language text within your book of sermons or illustrations is recognized, so you can KeyLink to a lexicon. You can even embed links to other resources within your digital library.

Serendipitous

The old joke says that when you get to a certain age you can hide your own Easter eggs. But regardless of age, we've all experienced the feeling "I know I have a clipping somewhere that relates to this topic." Or the sinking feeling of "I wish I'd found this in my files a week ago!"

The Sermon File Addin provides the solution: your sermons and illustrations will show up in Passage Guide reports. So when you're studying a passage you will be alerted to every relevant illustration and sermon you've written or collected…and never again forget that you were saving it for just such a time!

In fact, you could say that Sermon File Addin facilitates serendipitous discovery.

Looks like a good deal at $49.00 bucks...I'm going to read up on it a bit more and may take the plunge today.  Personally, I try to use electronic sources for everything - I seldom keep paper articles and illustrations.  I use the web, store/archive stuff I write electronically (always on two hard drives), and footnote using ISI's EndNote (which is now out on the Mac)  To be able to search all my past teaching with Logos tricked out search technology is compelling indeed.

 

POC Tech Bundle 4.13.2007

Keeping up with the Tech Lingo Jones

Here is a fun article on Net language.  If you really want to be in then check out NetLingo.com Just in case you have a need to know what twittering means.

New Get a Mac Ad - Macidolaters Rejoice! 

The Mac and the PC Flashback to their younger years in the latest rendition of the Mac/PC ads by Apple Inc. Macs and iPods are cool, but Apple consistently puts out the suckiest mice.

Pink Zune Now Available

Yes, put your sleek black iPod away...I know you have been waiting for this.   

Flickr-ering the wrong images...

 

Apparently the Yahoo owned web site Flickr.com had some problems last month when its servers got overloaded and cached images from some accounts were wrongly appearing in other accounts.  You can read about the problem here. The results apparently included some illicit images showing up on some peoples screens who were trying to look at their own legitimate pictures.

One user rightly saw how ridiculous this scenario could be and commented on it here.  Just imagine if a Flickr server gets too much traffic and all of a sudden porn is sent out to grandmas flickr account or a kids screen in school. 

Pretty bad stuff, Yahoo...