Dells Mini 9 gets the subsidy treatment – Engadget.

Up until recently the part that gave me the greatest pull was that they had no phones with flash lite support. I have NEVER done anything with flash lite, mostly because I didnt have a compatible handset. Luckily for me Adobe has made that problem go away. Now Adobe has partnered with Verizon and they are delivering a variety of flash lite handsets as well as the new flash cast service. So Adobe and Verizon seem to make a great pair.

I have a treo 650 and luckily, until recently, I had not had any of the problems that have plagued others with this phone. So its time for me to start looking for a new phone. I am really tired of having a brick attached to my hip, so I was looking for a smaller phone. The problem is I dont think I could ever go back to not having some sort of keyboard. I never got the hang of typing on a keypad, but my wife and friends have started to communicate primarily via text messages, so the ability to type efficiently is a must.

Verizon has several phones that have keyboards and the new samsung (with dual flip modes) seems to be a very nice phone. But none of the phones that have keyboards have the flash lite capabilities.

So there are 4 things I am looking am looking for in a phone. I want it to be smaller than my treo. I want it to have a keyboard of some sort. I want a nice(ish) camera in the phone. And I would like flash lite programming capability.

The real problem I have with any of the phones that come from verizon is that they hobble the bluetooth functionality of the handsets. In order to comply with their exclusive content provider contract through their “get it now” service, they have to disallow you from bypassing those services. So any way you would have to transfer files to the handset not through get it now are disabled. The problem is that that this takes away things that you should be able to do like pair the phone with your computer and having the computer dial from your address book for you.

The next problem is that being an internet professional I like having the ability to check email and the web on my mobile. This is another place where verizon really takes advantage of their customers. Their unlimited mobile phone data plan you will pay a $69.99 monthly charge. Cingular only charges $29.99 and tmobile is only $19.99.

Then to really compound my issues, I went with a friend to tmobile the other day. They had decided they needed a web enabled phone and wanted me to help them pick. We went in and played with lots of phones, one of which was the blackberry pearl. I have never liked blackberries. They are big and the navigation is horrible. I hate that while typing you have to take your hand off to the side of the phone to scroll the dial and make selections. However the pearl solved all those problems. It was small, had a partial keyboard (the true type works amazingly well) a nice camera and is web enabled. I played with the phone for about 20 minutes, and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since. I am totally crushing on this phone! And of course its only a GSM so I cant get it on verizon.

Verizon is working on that though. They have announced a pearl competitor called the Curve (Blackberry 8300). This phone is a cross between the pearl (8100) and the 8800. So it has the scroll ball like the pearl but a full keyboard like the 8800. They say the phone focuses on entertainment features, but I see it lacks a camera. If it had a camera I probably would have called it good enough and put an end to this by picking it up. But no camera and no flash lite means this is not gonna work out for me.

So after all of that it comes down to this. I am very very seriously considering switching to Cingular/AT&T.

This switch is actually very characteristic of me. I gave up on windows several years ago. I switched to linux because it gave me the ability to customize my computing experience the way I want to. Moving away from verizon’s hobbled phones and restrictive usage plans feels like a similiar move. I am willing to give up some luxuries in order to have more freedom in general.

I have been flip flopping on this decision for quite some time now. And I still dont know what to do. I can get me and my wife both internet connected blackberry pearl’s for less monthly than I would for one phone on verizon. But what good does that do me if i dont have a signal and cant make a call?

Anybody made the switch? Any of my friends use cingular in portland? Anybody not like their pearl? I am really looking for some advice here. I am getting really tired of feeling consumed by this dilemma.

Now granted I just finished the game on “Casual” mode (read easiest/”you are a sissy simeon” mode) but I did play it all the way through. I am half way through the first act on “Hard Core” which has proven to be much more difficult this far.

If you have a 360 or enjoy FPS games I cant recommend this game enough. Come online we can play together on Live. Add me to your friends list i am “sinMission” on xbox live.

See you in my sniper scope :)

As an Adobe Trainer I have the opportunity to go all over the country and share Flex with companies that are ready to start building RIA’s in Flex. Beyond that as a ColdFusion conference frequenter I get a full share of airplane time in. But as very few of these opportunities present themselves to me in my area, I do spend a bit of time on planes.

Mostly this is not a problem. I have an iPod and a Nintendo DS. I have a laptop (which I am writing this on now) that when I travel in first class I have enough space to use. Since I don’t travel first class often (today is my second time in my life) I am mostly relegated to use my portable electronics to entertain myself. Its no surprise (everyone says so) that after about an hour of use the iPod ear buds start to hurt. I like the sound these little buds put out, but for a plane ride they just don’t cut it for longevity. Also they do nothing to cut out the background noise of the plane.

To work on solving the background noise dilemma on a recent trip I borrowed a friends Brookstone headphones. These are the mighty large over the ear kind that come with a bundle mid-way on the cord that has a couple batteries and a switch to turn on noise canceling. I put these puppies on and hit the switch. I was amazed as the sounds of the plane slowly faded away. “Wow” I remember thinking. The effect was quite a bit more profound than I had expected. However even as the sound faded away, I started to feel a sharp pain in my head. As I listened to music it built up until halfway through the first song, I thought for sure I should take them off because otherwise I would have to return them to my friend bloody. I decided these brookstone headphones were not for me and put in my iPod buds. The pain from them was slow building and in comparison, it was really more of an ache than a pain.

On a return trip from my last training gig, I sat next to another traveling trainer. As we talked shop and compared tech, he brought out his Bose headphones. Similar to the brookstone headphones in size this headset is often considered the holy grail of listening equipment. I told him the story about the others headphones I had tried and he insisted I give his Bose a feel. I put them over my ears, and could immediately feel the difference in quality over the Brookstone pair. He showed me the switch to turn on the noise canceling and I enabled the feature. Just as soon as the background noise had faded away, the ear-splitting, brain-melting pain began again. As I removed these headphones from my head I realized that I was certainly not meant to own a pair of headphones with active noise canceling.

I assumed that was the end of the road, and decided my iPod ear buds were gonna have to do. But somehow I just wasn’t satisfied with that as the solution. So I asked around a bit and found that although many folks had a headset that they liked, they had been eyeing the Shure family of ear buds as a possible next purchase. So I started to look that route as well. On the Shure.com website they state that they earbuds use “Sound Isolating Technology” and unlike active noise canceling headphones “no artifacts are introduced into your listening experience”. I thought 2 things when I read this. 1. So I jam these in my ears and then they block sound. Huh, might as well just plug my ears. 2. No extra noise artifacts? Maybe this is what caused my headaches with the other headsets. After wrestling with the though of spending $200 on a set of headphones that implement sound isolation by plugin my ears, i finally gave in.

I bought a pair of the e3c headphones at Best Buy for $179 on friday afternoon. I took them back the office with me and while my friends laughed at me for spending that much on ear buds I decided to try them out. As they sat making jokes I readied the buds for my ears. As I carefully inserted them and found a comfortable position, i didn’t really notice any change. Until I looked up and realized that they guys in my office were still talking but I couldn’t hear them AT ALL. I had two guys standing in my office no more that 10 feet from me speaking at a little louder than normal and I couldn’t hear them. It was neat but I didn’t really put much faith in them working in the loud airplane.

Well today that was put to the test. And I was amazed at the results. As i sat on the plane while we took off, I waited till it was ok to start using my ipod. Once the flight attendant gave the ok, I pulled out the new earbuds and proceeded to put them in. The effect was immediate and profound. The noise was completely blocked out and my music was gloriously clear. I didn’t even have to turn the ipod up to half volume to feel like I was rocking out. And the best part? No ear splitting pain in my head! Total sound blocking, glorious music reproduction, and no pain. I think I may have found heaven.

So if you or someone you know is thinking about getting some new headphones I can not recommend the Shure headphones enough. I was skeptical but i am converted now.

Ps. Special Thanks to Dan Short for being the first to turn me on to these buds.

Keeping in mind this little unit is a “toy” and should retail for like $30. Take a look at the video of Elmo TMX and tell me I am wrong. :)

So I guess the pro-order folks are the lucky ones. Except it seems many of them are not getting theirs either.

But one way or another the demand is there. On ebay this morning I watched 3 360′s sell for $3350, $3050 and $3500. I thought for sure it was a joke but they keep going up there. And its lots of bidders, not just a couple driving up the price. I have to say I am amazed.

I know this happens everytime a new console comes out, but I can barely understand someone paying over $3000 for a console. I just cant put those thoughts together? Would you pay that?

First of note was the Coldfusion 10th Birthday Party.  I hosted a
party at my office and we had a great turn out.  I orinally had
planned to watch the feed live, but being on the west coast that was
middle of the afternoon for us and not many people could make it. 
So we got together that night and watched the recorded breeze. 
Thanks to the wonderful package I got from Ed and some of the stuff i
brought back from cfunited, everyone went home with some swag.  We
gave out copies of CFDJ, those great tag posters, candies and sample
cd’s.  In addition to the gear everybody got most people got other
prizes as well.

Just a week later we had our monthly CFUG meeting.  Kam and George
from Isite Design here in Portland, presented on a CF application
security framework they have been working on.  The premise of the
framework was that they often have to work around existing systems, and
then add on more security to protect features they have added.  It
seems quite well thought out and very featureful.  I will post
more on that soon, as they announced the intention of making the code
available for public review.  Also after they work out the license
they are entertaining the idea of turning the project open source.

As for things that have been happening in my world, I will post a
summary.  I came upon the need to do some development using MS sql
server.  As you can guess on my powerbook that is a bit of an
undertaking.  I picked up Virtual PC and did an install. 
From what i had heard it was pretty easy to get these all
connected.  In truth I had good successes right out of the
gate.  I got the vpc isntalled with winxp and sql server, I could
surf the net and connect to the world, but i found very quickly there
was a problem.  Although I could connect the outside world, there
was nothing i could do to connect to my host mac. I couldnt ping it nor
could I access any of the services on it.  I was using the shared
networking and after some research I found that I needed to be using
"virtual switch" in order to allow those to connect.  So i made
the switch, and restarted my vpc.  But this was not the solution I
was looking for as it also didnt work.  The current state of
affairs does not allow the virtual pc to work over the airport.  I
NEVER have my computer plugged into ethernet.  I dont work in any
kind of normal office with it.  This is a problem in that without
a cord plugged into the jack, my powerbook wont enable the ethernet
port and hence the vpc cannot communicate via it.  My solution for
this was to build a loopback ethernet jack.  Basically I just took
a couple inches of cat5 stripped the outside off and kept the 8 little
wires inside.  Grabbed an end piece, and fed the wires back into
its self as is diagramed on this site. 
I havnt gotten it to share my airport connection which I thought I
would, but i can have the 2 computers talk to each other, and that is
happy times for me!

The last bit i will talk about is that I am very excited to say I got a
new toy.  Just yesterday I finally triumphed over my hesitation to
renew with verizon wireless.  Not only did I renew, but i also
purchased a new Treo 650.  It is well known that verizon hobbles
the bluetooth in its phones so that it can upsell its "get it now"
product.  However I have been playing with it for that last 26
hours and I am very happy with my desicion.  i can now check my
email and surf the net on my phone.  I can sink my phone via the
cable and bluetooth, as well as use the phone as a modem for my
powerbook on verizons national access network.  I will likely post
more about the phone, using it with a mac, and my trials with verizon
in the future so I will leave this post here.

I hope that soon, I will have some free time to invest in the community
projects that i am committed to, but for now I am very thankful for
this moment to breath the fresh air.

Ok, back to coding.

So as best as i can tell, I am the last person on the planet to pick up
a hd Ipod, and i want to hear some feedback from you all.

My thought process goes like this, and I need someone to help me
rationalize the purchase.  I like my shuffle but i dont like not
being able to pick the songs that are being played.  So this
brings me to want a mp3 player with a screen, so I can select the songs
and such things.  Currently I only have a couple gigs of
mp3′s  on my computer, but I have a few hundred cd’s in the
garage.  So in truth I could get away with having a mini. 
But one of the pulls of the Ipods with hard drives is using it as a
portable drive.  So with that being the case, it makes sense that
i should get a bigger one than the 4gb available on the mini. So then I
look at the 6gb mini, because its only $50 more.  But if I go to
the 6gb, why would I not want to go for over 3 times the space for just
$50 more.  And under that rational I found my self holding the
60gb Ipod Photo because its only $50 more than the 30gb photo which is
only $50 more than that silly b&w 20gb.  How the hell did I
get to considering spending $449 on a stupid mp3 player? I can’t
believe I would even consider it, but I am very close.

So anyway, I need some help.  Does anybody have the Photo? 
Do you like it?  Does anybody who bought the smaller Ipod ever
wish they bough a bigger one?  How about the other way, bought the
big one and wish you had kept the cash and gotten a smaller one?

Internet I need you!

I mean just imagine driving through the cube farm seeking your buddies tank. Then out of the corner of your eye, you spot him. A quick turn and … SHOOT! bullseye, you know because you hear him squeal like a girl from the next row over.

Geek life is so good sometimes.