And the winner is.....

After much reading of reviews, comparing of price plans, features, and coverage, the winner is the Palm Pre! Saturday morning, we braved the small crowd that gathered at the local Sprint store in Pearland and Jen and I each scored ourselves a Pre...and something else that I'll mention later.

So, the tech geeks are asking "Why didn't you wait to see what Apple is going to annouce for a new iPhone on Monday???" Well, I'll tell you. First, a lot has already leaked about what Apple will be delivering for the third round of the iPhone and it just doesn't sound like too much of a leap over the current one. Sure, there will likely be a 32GB version that could probably serve as my main music device and it's going to have a compass...which will be cool if it can geotag photos with heading you are facing when taking a picture. Still, I've always been leary of the phone/mp3 player combo. My trusty 60GB iPod has outlasted several phones and there's really no need to replace it on that basis. Plus, I'm comfortable taking my Ipod out pretty much anywhere, knowing that, at this point, it would be pretty cheap to replace if I dropped it off a cliff or ran over it with a lawn mower. Not so much with a phone. Sure, they are fairly cheap with a two year contract subsidy. But, not so cheap to replace.

Also, AT&T just doesn't compare to Sprint for my family. We've got a family share data plan that gets us unlimited messages and data, along with 1500 minutes a month to share (and free time starts and 7pm and weekends, so that's a lot of time that minutes won't even get used!). We're now a three phone family - yes, the Princess has beaten us into getting her first phone (Jen and I were late in college before we got our first brick of a cell phone!), so that's three lines. It's going to be several hundred dollars a year less than AT&T and even more so than Verizon. So, the iPhone would have to be a whole lot better for the deal to make sense. Really, it's the two years of service that are the bulk of the cost, so you can't just focus on the hardware alone.

Which gets me to the hardware. Reviews are available everywhere and I read just about every single one of them since they started hitting on Thursday. All sounded good, save for two areas of concern - the keyboard has drawn a lot of criticism, and the battery life has been dissed. When we went to put our hands on it, these were my main things to check. While there's no doubt the keyboard is small, it is effective. It's taken me a little getting used to, but my speed is picking up nicely. As for the battery, if I can get through a full day and charge each night, that's something I can live with. I pulled it off the charger early this morning and have been using it fairly heavily today (as much as I would expect on a heavy day) and now near 10pm I've just hit the 20% warning. I don't expect to use the WiFi radio very often and I will pretty well just use the Bluetooth radio when I'm in the car, so that will help me battery life as well.

So, with the major concerns aside, the rest, as I've said elsewhere, is about 95% pure awesomeness. The screen is simply fantastic - sharp, clear, gorgeous color. Palm spent a lot of time on the ergonomics and it shows - it feels good in the hand and, unlike so many "smart phones" it is pretty easily workable one handed. The connection with my Google mail and calendar, at least with the flow from Google to the phone, is pure joy. Today, I when through my photo album, finding good head shots of friends and family to crop out and attach to my contact entries in Gmail. As I check the phone less than an hour later, all of my contacts have been updated with their new photo ID's. I can see all the Google calendars (one each for myself, Jen, the Princess, and the Tornado) color coded on my screen to keep up with our way too busy lives. The included applications work well and the multitasking is simple and effective. I can't imagine having to shut down an application to use another. It's like using a real computer. I've generally found it to be quite responsive.

As a phone, it is a big step up from what I had been putting up with. I know that you can assign a calling shortcut to each key on the keypad. I had originally planned to take advantage of the letters for some logical mappings (H for home, J for Jen, etc.) But, I've not bothered so far. Why? Universal search - slip open the keypad and start typing. The Pre automatically starts filtering contacts and within three letters I've pretty well got my intended contact narrowed down. While, I'm sure just pressing a holding a mapped button might be faster, I just don't see it being worth the effort to memorize letter keys. On previous phones, even with 99 speed dials available, I never used more than three as I couldn't remember what any of the others were. No more with that on the Pre. Between contacts, the calendar, pictures, the internet - the Pre makes it easy to locate information.

What's not too like? Well, nothing is perfect. I do have to agree with the observations that this thing is a magnet for fingerprints, both on the screen and the body. However, I've also found that slipping it into the simple pouch that comes with it does an excellent job and cleaning the prints off. I've gotten into the habit of carrying it around in the pouch. Probably the biggest complain I have is with volume. Even maxed out, the ringer volume is not very high. The speakerphone volume is also pretty low and the earpiece volume is fairly low as well. I would expect to have trouble using this in a noisy environment.

Finally, while I can understand it, it's still a little disappointing that ther aren't more 3rd party apps available yet. I know that Palm is releasing a developer kit to the general community soon, and I expect (especially with the way AT&T and Verizon are scared of Sprint's exclusivity and salivating over getting it for their networks) that there will be a good market of apps. There's only a few that I'm really interested in, most especially Ewallet.

Well, that's the view after a day and a half. I've read on the PreCentral forums of people giving up on is, which I just find mind boggling. It's true, WebOS is different from the old PalmOS and different from iPhone, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile. It does things differently and for the most part, better in my opinion. But, it does take a bit of getting used to. Finally in 2009 I am seeing some change I CAN believe in, and it is the Pre and the future of WebOS.

Which will it be?

It is an interesting time in the mobile phone business. One thing I'm sure of, within a month, I will be done with Verizon. We've been with them for pushing eight years now and it's time to move on. I've put up with dull phones and expensive plans in return for the promise of the most reliable network. Well, I've had enough. For one thing, Verizon's network has gone into the crapper. I don't know why. Reception has always been marginal at my house, but these past few years, I have run into dead zone after dead zone, especially around Pearland. So, why pay a premium for a network that no longer is interesting in delivering?
What comes next? That is where things get tough. We're clear of our latest two year contract and I was pretty much expecting to go with AT&T and Iphones for the wife and I (and the daughter is also supposed to get a phone, God help me). I expected a third generation version to come out this Summer and that looks like it is going to happen. So, that is good.
But.....Sprint looks like they are trying to get very serious with the forthcoming Palm Pre. It escapes into the wild on June 6th and everything I've seen so far suggests that it is going to be a very good smartphone. It's probably going to be cheaper to own over the two years than an Iphone. But, while the Iphone has pretty well established itself as the 800lb gorilla of mobile phone and had plenty of support among application developers, Palm is essentially starting from scratch with an all new operating system and will probably take a while, if ever to get a good base of applications.
Plus, I had been planning on the Iphones replacing our current Ipods. For better or worse, we're married to Itunes and I don't expect the Pre to be an exceptional music platform. Still, our 60GB Ipods have been trucking along for many years and don't really need to be replaced.
For now, I will try to be patient (well, I have to for now since neither one is out yet). My only real deadline is the end of July. We're going to Vegas and I do want to have our new phones, in part so I can use them to post about our trip and also so I can have internet access without having to be gouged for $15 bucks a day, which seems to be the average cost for internet access at Vegas hotels.
Patience.....patience.....grrrr.

My new ride

Even though the 401k has taken a big hit this year, my job looks solid, even with the unfortunate likelihood of an Obama presidency. For 12 years, my 1996 Accord has been a workhorse and was the first new car that my wife and I purchased when we graduated from college. A few weeks back, it crossed 200,000 miles.

But, especially over this last year, it's been having little failures along they way that have been putting it in the shop more often. The most recent forced some appointments to be canceled while we juggled getting the kids to school and me to work. We were going to hold off and replace the car next year. But, the weak auto market lead us to see if we could get a good deal now.

And get a good deal we did. I hate buying cars and dealing with the "stealerships", which is one reason I make my vehicles last as long as I do. This time proved a pleasant exception. For the first time, I walked out knowing that I got a really really good deal on my purchase.

Some of you probably won't be surprised at my choice. The wife and I tested out several cars, and while there were some serious contenders, we ultimately both agreed that we had found our car:



This thing is amazing inside and out. I had done a lot of research and thought I knew a lot about this car. Even I was surprised at the amount of thought, detail, and creative gadgetry that have gone into this car.

The whole experience with this particular dealer was actually pleasant. I'm actually looking forward to the next time I'll be in the market for a purchase.

I could have bought a Benz, BMW, or Lexus. But, I would have been buying something to impress other people. I don't really like any of those cars, for a variety of reasons. This car is a reward for me and I'm now looking forward to the work commute each day.

Nerdgasm - GPS

Yes, Yes...it's been a while. I keep telling you I'm not really a blogger. I also keep saying I'll try to do better. So, I won't repeat myself again :)

Today, I'm having, as my friend calls it, a Nerdgasm. And I'm going to share it with you. I enjoy photography and I'm also a bit of a gadget nut. Over the last few years, I've taken to Geotagging many of the pictures that I take, especially if there from a place that we don't regularly visit. I had been using the built in ability of my Adobe Photoshop Elements organizer to tag photos, and it works well enough.

But, we're going on our first real vacation since the kids have been born and I plan to take lots of pictures in different places. I'll probably come home with a few hundred, and geotagging them manually would be a tedious and imprecise process at best.

I briefly considered laying down the coin for a replacement camera, a Nikon D300 that I've been lusting after a bit anyway. For this camera, I could have laid out some more coin for a GPS attachment that would write the location data to my pictures on the fly. But, I balked at the about $2000 that such a setup would take.

So, I did some more exploring and have found a way that breathes new life into several of my gadgets. The first is my old hand held GPS, a Magellan Meridian that I bought used several years ago when I was into Geocaching. It's been sitting dormat in my room for a couple of years. But, it will be coming with me on the trip, serving as a GPS logger, to record my progress at several places we visit. I've even put to use an otherwise worthless 16MB SD card. It's far too small to be useful for pictures, but it could store track data of me around the world several times. The last gadget is my trusty Nikon D70 that has continued to serve me well as my main camera.

To make it all work, I've picked up two free pieces of software. The first, GPSBabel, takes many of the different ways that different GPS units store track data and converts it into forms that work with other programs. The second wonder toy is GeoSetter - and this thing is truly magical. I made a test run today as I drove to work. I had the Magellan record my track as I drove to work and I took random pictures along the way out the car. Before I left, I made sure that the clock in my camera was set to match the time from the GPS satellites.

After that, I pulled the card of pictures out of the camera, and the SD card out of the GPS and put the files to my computer. GPSBabel took the Magellan format and converted it into a neutral form that GeoSetter could read. Then, I opened the images in GeoSetter and used it's sync function to read the track data and, based on the time stamps in the track, apply GPS Coordinates to all the sample pictures that I took. I had some problems at first, but once I figured out the configuration - WHAM! All those pictures were tagged and tagged quite accurately.

This is huge! We're going to San Diego, and will see the Zoo and the 1800 acre wild life park. On my own, I would have taken all the pictures and given them a common location, likely at the entrance to the Zoo or Wildlife Park, respectively. Now, with this, I can hang the GPS off my back pack and let it follow me around all day and then tag exactly where in the 1800 acres of wildlife park a particular picture was taken!!!!!

Now, if all that has left you giddy, then you've just had a nerdgasm, too. If, not, well, I suppose that's OK, too. Of course, saving $2000 is pretty exciting, as well.

Where have I been?

2008 04 05_kids birthday party_0006.JPG, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's been a long stretch since I've posted. I keep meaning to and I've let a number of topics slip by on me. Truth be told, I've gotten sucked in to playing a good amount of Call of Duty 4 online. I hadn't seriously played an online shooter like this since the glory days of Quake 2.
So, what's been up? Here's the short recap. I made my weight loss challenge. 19lbs dropped in the 10 weeks of the challenge. I've slipped back up a few lbs in the last month, but I've reversed the slipping trend this week and I'm working my way back down again. I finished at 216 on the scale at work. I want to push to get down to 200 by the end of the year. I think I'm on track this time.

Now, as for the picture. That's the tornado taking a swing at the pinata we got for the combined birthday party we had for both the kids. With their birthdays two weeks apart, it becomes a bit of a struggle to do different parties. This year, we're getting them one big present of a playground for the backyard. So, we elected for a fairly simple party at the park for family and friends. It was probably one of the best we've had or been to. The weather was perfect. The kids had a blast on the playground. Everyone had just enough pizza and we didn't get stuck with a bunch of leftovers. And, the parents could hang out and relax and chat for a while. The pavilion is dirt cheap to rent for the day from the city and we didn't have any pressure to be packed up and out after exactly two hours so the next party on the production line could come in behind us.
Where have my weight loss pictures been? Well, I've definitely fallen behind on that as well. Can't post pictures I haven't been taking now, can I? I shall endeavor to start that up again this weekend.

A Perfect Weather Day

Temperatures in the mid 70's, partly cloudy, light breeze, no chance of rain - a perfect Texas day for being outside. And that's what we did. In the morning, we did some much needed cleaning and laundry, but, after that, the kids spent a lot of time out in the sun. I took them to Jake's Grill for lunch, where they have an outdoor eating area and a playground. There were plenty of kids for my two to run around with and I was able to relax in the shade and enjoy the weather while they ran about. After lunch, we came home and Momma opened up some "infinite bubble" makers. The video above was taken by Momma with the kids running around in a shower of them. Some of the neighbor kids came over an played for a while and that took us to the early evening.
Unexpectedly, but not really surprisingly, both of the kids conked out by 7:30 this evening.

Gone Texan? We're already there!

2008 02 29_Go Texan_0012, originally uploaded by ultimate_ed.

It's that time of year, so naturally, the kids are dressed up for "Go Texan" day at school.