Today's Blog Is Brought To You By The Letter W and the Number 7

So, a few weeks ago I finally made the decision that it was time to break away from using Windows XP. I had never really heard anything good about Vista, so I never made the switch to that. My fiancee's laptop has Vista (because that's what it came with) but I never really get to use it, so I really have no comment about Vista. But I knew it was time to update my OS. I'm not a developer nor a programmer, and my computer is used mainly for entertainment in the form of games, so I really didn't want to go with a flavor of Linux. So, I thought about getting Windows 7; thought about it for a long time actually. I was reading good things about Windows 7 online, which was interesting considering how much bad I had heard about Vista when it came out. What finally sold me on it was when a buddy of mine from college posted on Facebook about how much he actually liked Windows 7 and how easy the install process was. To put this in perspective, when I was in college, you had basically two choices for browser – Internet Explorer and Netscape; FireFox, Opera, Chrome, etc. didn't exist yet. Sam used Netscape because he hated Microsoft that much; so, to hear him praise Windows 7 kind of sold me the idea that maybe it was a good, stable operating system.

Being a little smarter than the average bear when it comes to computers (I built my last two computers myself, as well as my fiancee's desktop computer), I usually don't buy full copies of an OS if I don't have to. My copy of XP was what is called an OEM edition. When I found that TigerDirect had Windows 7 in OEM, I was very pleased. So you understand – at BestBuy, for example, or anywhere else that sells the retail version of Windows 7 Professional you are going to pay $300. By ordering an OEM edition, I paid half that. OEM stands for Other Equipment Manufacturer. What it means in a nutshell is, I bought the version of Windows that normally is sold to companies like HP, Dell or Compaq. It's the exact same Windows as the retail version except the key code you get doesn't entitle you to any tech support from Microsoft – you're supposed to call whoever built your computer for that. So, in my case, I'm my own tech support since I built the thing myself, but it's worth not having MS's tech support available to me to be able to have paid half what I would have if I had gone to the box store up the street. Besides, support.microsoft.com is actually pretty good if I get a cryptic error code or something happens I don't quite understand and I need a reference source to tell me how to fix it.

Now, as far as my review, I'm not going to get all techie/geeky on you here. There's enough on the internet already written about Windows 7 vs Vista vs XP vs whatever to keep you busy and entertained for days if you so choose to Google it for yourself. Suffice it to say that I'm very pleased I made the switch. I'm finally able to take advantage of the 64-bit dual core processor, the 3GB of RAM and the 1GB 3D Video Card I put in this thing when I built it. I can notice a difference in speed in terms of how quickly applications load, and to be honest, I didn't find my computer to be all that slow when I was running XP. The graphics are pretty crisp, although at this point I've not had the chance to re-install all my games to get a full comparison going.
Don't get me wrong, I have had a few trip-ups with some older software not wanting to run or install correctly. The interesting thing is, Win7 has a lot of built in help when it detects a compatibility issue. If you've got Professional or Ultimate, you have the option to run things in Vista or XP mode if necessary. I've only had to do that with one application, and it turned out that that wasn't even really the issue (I missed a setting involving telling Ventrilo that I was using a 5.1 surround sound card... oops). When installing drivers, anytime there was a compatibility issue, Windows 7 managed to find the fix on its own (a feat I never had any previous version of Windows accomplish even though it supposedly had the ability to do so). I did have one piece of hardware that Windows 7 just would not recognize because it is to old (a very old NIC card), but I can let that slide as even I have to admit that it's to old to still be trying to use.

So, aside from some very minor issues, and just trying to get used to the new interface, I have to admit that I really dig Windows 7 so far. It gets a thumbs up from me (like my opinion means shit to you). My only real regret is that I probably should have gone ahead and paid the extra $50 to get the Ultimate Edition instead of just Professional.

Until next time,
~ JC

Next week's planned blog: a comparison of Runes of Magic to World of Warcraft and some commentary on overcoming MMO addiction and my subsequent partial relapse.

Droid Part 2

About a month ago I wrote a blog about my new Motorola Droid, which I had only had for a day. I've now had it for about thirty days, so I'm here to give you an update on how it's performed. Hope you find it helpful. If nothing else, I've updated my blog as promised :-) (again, sorry this is a week late).

Battery Life

I'll begin with the battery life, because that's usually a sticking point for a lot of people on their mobile devices. Let's just call it like it is: the battery life could be much better. However, this is true of all modern mobile devices and cellphones, most especially with smartphones. To put it simply, my take is that the technology available for mobile phones has reached a point that they are surpassing the battery technology available to them. The first couple of days I had the Droid, the battery life just plain sucked. The device would be down to 20% of battery life by the end of the day, almost without exception. Keep in mind, though, that I was spending a lot more time using and playing with the phone that first few days than would be considered normal usage for me as I familiarized myself with how it worked and downloaded various apps for it. By the end of the second week my usage had become a bit more normal, and now the battery is down to only about 50% by the end of the day (by end of the day, I mean by the time I'm plugging it in to charge and heading to bed).

Smartphones in general have shorter battery lives than the average, standard cellphone mainly due to the fact that they are performing lots of tasks in the background even when they are not actively in use for a phone call, surfing the web or text messaging, etc. So, the lesser battery life isn't a deal breaker, it just means you'll want to make sure you have a way to charge it often (vehicle charger for example) even if you are away from home.

Bluetooth Functionality

I've been using Bluetooth enabled headsets for years. I've always used a headset while driving, and I loved when Bluetooth came out so I could have a wireless headset and not have to worry about getting things tangled up while in the car. The Bluetooth functionality on the Droid leaves a little be desired, however. The sound quality is just fine; it's really neither any better nor worse than the sound quality I've had with other phones. The issue I have with Bluetooth on the Droid is that there appears to be no support for the headsets multifunction button. I cannot answer a call with the headset, control call waiting with the headset, or activate voice dial with the headset. This is rather annoying to be honest. One of the things I've always loved about Bluetooth is being able to tap the button on the headset and say something like “Call Rob” and the phone would call my friend Rob without me having to touch the phone itself. With the Droid, I have to tap the voice dial icon on the touchscreen, then say “Call Rob” then select it from the list of items the Droid thinks I meant. Not really very safe if you're driving at 75mph on the interstate, y'know? So, I'd like to see Google fix that in future patches of the Android OS. Those of you who don't use Bluetooth, of course, probably won't care about this though.

Music Player

This is the one where I take some umbrage with some of the reviews I read about the Droid prior to buying it. The music player works exactly as it should; it plays music. What else do you want? Some reviews panned how the music player's UI looked or functioned. I see no issue with it. It lists your music by artist, song, album or by playlists. I fail to see how a music player could really do anymore than that. Do you want it to display album covers too? Why? You're not really going to be looking down at the thing while lisetnig to music, it's going to be in your pocket or holster. In short, it functions as a music player and that's all that is really needed – moving on.

Volume

Without going into a long diatribe on this, I'll just say that the volume on the Droid is beyond impressive. I actually have to turn the volume down when I'm at home and the phone is sitting on my desk. At full volume (actually, not even quite full volume) I can hear my phone ring when I'm at work, and I work in a leather shop where we have some pretty loud equipment running at times (air compressor, belt sanders). I even was able to use the music player in my car one day when I was unable to find a suitable radio station and the generic cradle I have basically covers up the phone's external speaker.

Touchscreen

The touchscreen is very responsive and very easy to see, even when standing outdoors. In fact, it's almost to good. I've found myself tapping icons by just hovering my finger over the screen to close. My only real beef with the screen is that it is very prone to smudges and I have to clean it fairly often.

Apps

Ok, let's get down to the nitty gritty here, the Apps for Android. The real reason anyone would get a smartphone like the Droid (or the iPhone) is the ability to customize it with apps, right? Ok, maybe that's not the driving reason for getting a phone like this, but it's definitely a big factor in how this phone functions for its individual owners. When I got the phone, there were an estimated 10,000 apps available in the Android Market; there are now around 20,000. So, there are lots of things to choose from, some bad, some good, some great, and some just downright stupid/useless. In the last thirty or so days, I've downloaded dozens of apps. Some I still use, but I've also deleted several. In fact, I'd say I've deleted more apps than I've kept. I don't want to drag this out, because I realize that I've probably lost a few readers by now, and, let's be honest, I've already written one blog on this topic, and this one is getting a little long winded itself. So, I'll give you my list of what I'm currently using and let you deicide for yourself.

• Dolphin Browser – the stock Android browser appears to be Safari Mobile. It works, but I really like Dolphin better since it has tabbed browsing and supports the ability to use dual touch for zooming in and out like the iPhone does. It also has shortcuts to various Google services built into it.

• Documents to Go – available in both a free and paid version. The free version allows you to view Word and Excel documents. The paid version allows you to not only view, but also edit Word, Excel and Power Point documents as well as view PDF documents. It normally sells for $29.99 USD, but I managed to catch it on sale for only $9.99 so I bought the full version.

• Astro – this is almost a must have app. The one thing about the Android OS that falls short is that it has no built in way to manage files on either the device or the micro-SD card without plugging it into you computer via the USB cable. Astro gives you that ability.

• Astrid – simply put, it's a to do list app, but the reason I chose this one over others is because it has built in sync capabilities with the very popular Remember the Milk web based to do list without having to subscribe to the full version of RtM in order to use RtM's own app (if you subscribe to RtM, then you'll probably want to use their app as I would think the sync and integration would be better).

• MySpace Mobile – self explanatory I think. I actually almost like using this better than the actual MySpace (to bad Facebook mobile isn't as well done).

• Yellowbook – basically an app for using Yellowbook.com

• Assistant Free – for those of you who use Page Once, you'll want this one as it is there mobile app for Android. It is also available in a paid version. I went with the free version because, while I like Page Once, I don't use it extensively.

• Pandora – free Internet radio. You do have to create an account, but then you can log into at home or work via any web browser in addition to on your phone (caution, this is one of those apps that will drain the battery over time because it is streaming music over either a 3G or Wi-Fi Internet connection)

• Aldiko – one of dozens of eBook readers available in the Android Market – if you especially love classic literature, this a good thing to have.

• Bible – there are tons of Bible apps in the Marketplace. The one I chose simply calls itself “Bible” and contains pretty much every English translation of the Bible that I've ever heard of, plus I few I didn't know about. Has a daily reading feature for those of you who try to read through the entire Bible in a year, bookmarks, and adjustable font size. For those of you who are Catholic, however, it does not include the Apocryphal Old Testament Books. In fact, I'm not sure if I remembered seeing one that did.

• Games – I've downloaded three games; two different chess apps and one solitaire app that has four different versions of solitaire (standard, spider, free cell and one called “forty thieves”)

• Barcode Scanner – allows you to scan a barcode on an item and then searches Google for the items so you can do price comparison shopping while standing in the store

• Zedge – a great app for free wallpapers and ringtones to customize your phone

• Key Ring – eliminates all those little cards on your keyring by allowing you to scan them and store them in your phone instead.

• Twidroid – syncs with Twitter for those of you who like to Tweet

• Weather Channel – an app by The Weather Channel – need I say more? (it will use the phone's built in GPS to give you weather for your current location, or you can manually enter a city or zip code)

• Quick Tip Calculator – enter the amount of your restaurant/bar bill, the percentage of tip you want to leave, and how many ways to split it, and voila! It tells you how much each person needs to leave to cover the tab and tip

• United States Constitution – like the Bible app, there are dozens. The one I have also includes The Declaration of Independence as well as other historical documents (I just think everyone should have a copy of the US Constitution)

• NFL and NHL – both of these “apps” basically are shortcuts to those league's respective mobile sites for scores, standings and news

And that pretty much covers what I'm currently using. Note, this is just the list of apps I've downloaded; it does not include the apps that came pre-installed in the device. If you compare this list to the list in part one of this series, then you'll see that there were some that I no longer have listed. As I mentioned above, I've had a lot of apps that didn't make the cut, some didn't even stay on my phone more than five or ten mintues (like the virtual bubble wrap – fun for a minute or two, but then just useless).

So, there it is, the final in my two part series on the Motorola Droid. I hope you enjoyed it and that it helps you make your own informed decision on next cellphone upgrade.

~ JC

This is the DROID I've Been Looking For

Like most people, every two years I get a new cellphone whether I really need to or not. My last phone, the LG Voyager, turned out to be a bit of a let down in terms of its ability to access the Internet. So, for the last two years I've bided my time until my next upgrade date and read reviews of various smartphones. Until recently the choices for smartphone operating system were Windows Mobile, Palm OS or Blackberry. None of these particularly appealed to me. When the iPhone hit the market, it seemed to have set the mobile device world on its ear and showed that a hand held device really could be both a phone and a solid device for accessing the Internet. The problem with the iPhone was (and in my opinion still is) the fact that it is exclusively on the AT&T network. I remember reading a lot of reviews of the iPhone complaining about this fact and that Apple had signed a five year exclusivity deal with AT&T. So, when I found out that Verizon had launched a new smartphone a few weeks ago that utilized the Android Mobile OS developed by Google, I became quite excited. No other smartphone in the VZW catalog has appealed to me as much as the Motorola DROID, so I embarked on doing a lot of research on this new device. I read reviews, watched YouTube videos, weighed all the pros and cons and finally made my way to the nearest Verizon Store to check it out for myself (which means, I went to go play with it *grin*). It didn't take long for me to be hooked and within a few minutes I had made up my mind that I wanted to use my upgrade eligibility to get the DROID. I've had it now less than twenty-four hours, but I want to share my first impressions.

First of all, I love the size of the phone. I've heard a few people say that think the phone is to big. I love the fact that this device is not the tiny, small-buttoned phone that seems to permeate the market. I'm a big guy, with fat thumbs; I need the keyboard (be it virtual or real) to be large lest I hit the wrong keys. The DROID has, essentially, three keyboards; one physical, slide-out keyboard and two virtual on-screen keyboards (I say two, because the virtual keyboard can be used when the phone is either vertical or horizontal). The dimensions of the phone aren't really that large; it's essentially the same size as my Voyager (perhaps slightly wider, but also a bit thinner). It just appears larger because of the generously sized 3.7 inch screen (to put that in perspective, my Garmin Nuvi 255W GPS has a 4.3” screen, so it's not much bigger). The phone also has some heft. That's not to say it's heavy, but it's not feather-light either; personally, I like that too. I would prefer that the physical keyboard's keys were a bit larger as I have hit a few wrong keys (again, fat-thumb syndrome), but I'm sure I'll get used to the layout soon. Overall, the phone feels very solid and is very easy to handle and see. In fact, most of the reviews I've read seem to point out how easy the screen is to see both in terms of it's size and it's very vivid resolution.

Ok, enough about how the phone looks, let's move on to function. I'll start with the phone functionality itself, since that's probably what it will be used for the most. I have to say, it's very different not having a send or end key (even the Voyager had that even though it is also a touch screen device). Other than that it is pretty straight forward to use the phone on the DROID. Simply press the phone icon and up comes the dial pad. Dial the number, press the green phone receiver icon, and there you go. When you're done, tap the red phone receiver icon and the call is ended. It's just that simple. The contact list is very impressive thus far. It automatically integrates and syncs with my Google Contacts, which means I didn't have to spend an hour manually transferring my phonebook from the Voyager to the DROID or trying to use the wireless backup service from VZW (which doesn't work the same with the smartphones as it does other phones). Of course, the fact that I had put everyone's email addresses and phone numbers into Google some time ago helped, but it's still pretty cool that the sync feature works so smoothly. Dialing a number from the contacts list is pretty easy, even it does require more screen taps to pull off. I also like the fact that I can set Favorites in my contact list so that the people I call most are placed in a shorter list rather than having to scroll through all of my contacts looking for them. The only cons I can think of here are the lack of a speed dial list (at least, I haven't found one yet) and that the phone does not support one touch voice dialing via my Bluetooth headset. The phone does have a voice dial app already built in, however. You just have to tap it first, so I've put it in a very easy to find spot on the home screen should I need it while driving. So far, I've really only made one phone call with the DROID, but the sound quality was superb. I switched from the Bluetooth to the speakerphone seamlessly with the controls on the screen that come up while in a call and the I have to say, the speakerphone on this thing is loud and clear (on the Voyager, the sound was muffled unless you opened the flip to expose the speakers).

Now for the fun stuff (the Android OS, the Browser and the Apps) that make this a smartphone instead of just another cellphone. I won't lie, I immediately starting playing with these features before I made my first phone call or sent my first text message. In fact, the salesperson had me enter my Gmail account information in the store before I even left as part of the phone's initial setup. The touch screen is very responsive (in fact, I may need to see if I can adjust the sensitivity in the settings). I love that I can customize the home screen, not only in terms of what applications are there, but also in how the icons are laid out. Naturally, being a Google Android based device, Gmail, Google Calendar and YouTube are preloaded as applications. Being that I've used Gmail as my primary email for several years as well as using Google Calendar for keeping track of birthdays and appointments, this was a big plus. Facebook mobile is also preloaded, which is a nice touch (although, I'm sure I would've downloaded it anyway). One of the features of Android that I love is how it notifies me of when I get an email or text message. Rather than popping up on screen automatically (which I've always found annoying, especially if I'm already trying to read a previous message or compose one) it uses the status bar at the top of the screen. When I'm ready to view the message(s), all I have to do is expand the status bar to full screen. This has the added benefit of allowing me to read messages in any order I want instead of having to read them in the reverse order they arrived in.

The browser on the DROID is awesome! Unlike the Voyager, it's not limited to WAP versions of websites or simple HTML. So far, every site I've pulled up has loaded just as it would on my computer. Of course, it's much smaller, so I do usually have to zoom in to read the text, but the fact that I can even view sites with dynamic elements like Fash and Java is great. On the Voyager, I eventually dropped the unlimited mobile web feature from my plan because I just wasn't using it. On the DROID, I'm almost glad to start paying an extra $30 a month again since I can actually see my favorite Internet sites as they are intended to be viewed. Again, this is why I love the size of this phone, because if the screen were any smaller, it would be useless for web browsing (of course, any larger, and it would become to cumbersome to carry around).

Let's talk about Apps! The Android Market (which is the equivalent to the iPhone's “App Store”) has been criticized for only having around 10,000 apps compared to the over 100,000 available to iPhone users. So what? 10K applications to choose from is plenty, especially when you consider that both the DROID's and iPhone's users aren't going to come close to using all of those. For every useful app I've found, I've found dozens that have no appreciable use (at least, not to me). Either way, the fact that I can download applications to customize my DROID to suit my needs versus not being able to do that with my Voyager, is just plain awesome. So far, I've found several apps to make life a little easier or fun, especially when I'm away from my computer (like when I have to sit for an hour getting my oil changed or if I decide to go sit at a coffee shop to just get out of the house for a bit). Here's a list of some of the apps I've downloaded so far:

• Aldiko – an eBook reader; came preloaded with The Art of War and The Invisible Man, and has a pretty big library of free, public domain books available. There are serveral eBook readers to choose from in the Market, some free, some that you have to pay for.

• Pandora – a free streaming Internet radio application that is customizable. The fact that the DROID (unlike the iPhone) can run multiple apps at once makes this a very usable music app since I can continue doing other things while still listening to music.

• Barcode Scanner – this turns your DROID's camera into a barcode scanner and links with Google Product Search so you can shop online for the best price on an item while you are still standing in the store.

• Key Ring – this one seems pretty cool, but has gotten mixed reviews, so I'll have to test it out to see if it's worth keeping. What it does is, allows you to scan and save all those little discount club cards you keep on your key ring into your DROID so you can clear your key ring of all the clutter.

• United States Constitution – there are several apps like this available. The one I selected includes not only the Constitution but also the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, et.,al.

• Twidroid – a Twitter app available in both free version and a paid version if you need more features.

• SportsTap – a sports score app that can be configured to send you updates on your favorite team(s) for when you can't watch the game yourself.

There are also a few other apps I'm considering such as “Open Home” which allows for more home screen customization and “Locale” which allows you to use the DROID's built in GPS to set profiles for your device based on where you are located (like automatically going into silent mode when you are at your favorite movie theater). Visual Voicemail is also available on the Android platform and while the app itself is free, to use it I'd have to pay an extra $2.99 a month on my monthly bill, so I'm still debating if that's really worth it or not.

All-in-all, I love the DROID. I finally am able to have an iPhone-like experience without having to deal with AT&T's questionable 3G coverage or Apple's proprietary nonsense. I'm very pleased that Verizon chose to let the Android OS do it's job as intended without imposing their standard VZW UI as they usually do giving me the freedom to do what I want with the device, while still having access to Verizon's superior (in my opinion) 3G coverage and speed. As I said though, it has not even been twenty-four hours, so I'll have to let you know about other things (like battery life, which so far seems low, but I've also been using it rather heavily downloading apps and getting used to the UI, so once I start using it “normally” I'll have to see how the battery does). For now, I have to give the Motorola DROID 5-out-of-5 stars.

~ JC