Phoning Home

I received my Sony Ericsson T-610 phone on Thursday and charged it up, and activated my T-Mobile service… So far I have to say this is a very impressive device, in fact the the T-610 phone is killer…

It can pretty much do anything — browse, email, bluetooth, photos, SMS, MMS, contacts, calendar and oh yes make phone calls. It has actually made me question or at least rethink my somewhat intense desire for the Treo (for now…). This phone is so much smaller than I expected it to be. I had actually not seen one in person until mine arrived from Amazon. It’s like the T68 series though a tad longer and the screen is much bigger. If I had a keyboard/bluetooth palm device I could easily use the phone as GPRS modem when I needed to and check do email on the palm. This phone very easily fits in any pant or shirt pocket so you can easily carry it anywhere you need to be.

I am still waiting on my T-Zones (flash) Pro service which allegedly will allow me to get my Lotus Notes email over the phone. It can take T-Mobile up to 24 hours to authenticate so I probably know if it works until tomorrow.

I picked up a bluetooth headset which is now charging…Now that I see how small the phone is I felt I needed to have a wireless headset so I could voice-command certain dials and easily answer the phone from wherever it might be stashed at the time.

I can’t wait now for my machine to come back so I can do an official bluetooth based iSync. I used PhoneAgent to transfer a group vcard from my address book to my phone over IrDA which is very slick. No way unfortunately to do calendar over IR… so I will be waiting to get a handle on the calendar functions. I did add a note about an appointment I had today and while it was easy enough to do, it will be much better to have iCal be the originating source.

I feel as though I’ve been living in the cellular dark ages a bit. While my Nextel i90c phone has had good data services and generally speaking a nice set of features, it’s immediately clear how much ahead the Series 60 OS is and in general the overall design – hardware and software.

The other very cool aspect of this and many other new phones is the camera! It’s only been one day, but already I can see using the camera all the time! It’s so easy…and right there. Too bad the resolution is not better, but I guess you can’t have everything… not yet anyway! I took a shot as Ashley and I were heading to her doctor’s appointment today and was able to add that nicely as my screen background.

Next… get the moblog thing happening. It’s great to have a connected smart device!

Time Warner OK with VoIP regulation

The company plans to begin selling Internet phone service in California next year and will cooperate with regulators by seeking a telephone operator’s license in the state, if necessary. [CNET News.com]

Prediction… if you don’t switch your landline to wireless, you’ll be using VOIP next year.

My old Friend…

I am back with my old 15 inch TiBook for a few days while the white spots get removed/replaced by Apple on the newer Aluminum. It’s actually nice (though damn slow) to be back with a machine I am so familiar. Not nice enough that I want to use it permanently of course! When my newer system returns it will have a fresh install of Panther in addition to a nice clean screen.

Through the magic of iSync, I have my current address book, safari bookmarks and calendar. My new phone arrived today (tracked through Fedex) and I will be looking forward to connecting it via Bluetooth for some wireless sync and connectivity.

Hello MacSurfer!

Yesterday I posted a feature request for Safari which has now been picked up by Macsurfer which has been generating a great amount of traffic my way…

First – wow – and thanks!!

Second – there are some additional features being requested/discussed within the comments you might also be interested in checking out. I don’t usually get many comments, so getting a dialog going is pretty exciting.

Swap videos and music for the Treo 600

Just makes me want it even more…though I want it more for messaging that for AV. Of course that may all change when I get a picture phone…

One of our favorite features of the new Treo 600 is that we can watch videos on it (they’re a bit pixelated, but it works). So you can probably understand why we’d be happy to discover that just this past Monday someone created a Yahoo group specifically for talking about creating and sharing music and video files for the Treo 600. [Gizmodo]

Friendster rivals merge; Evite enters

InterActiveCorp says its Evite service will compete with Friendster, and a San Francisco start-up acquires a competing personal networking service. [CNET News.com]

Evite 2.0, which will launch as a test or “beta” version, will mimic social networking sites, such as Friendster, with the introduction of personal profiles, called “My Info” pages, and bulletin board messages. The test phase is scheduled to end in the first quarter of the coming year.

“This new version of Evite (Evite 2.0) will then become a close competitor to Friendster, Craigslist, Emode, Meetup, etc., but still maintain a unique service,” Evite said in a statement.

Consumers Ready and Waiting for ‘e-Hubs’

Picture this: You’re sitting in your living room at home, watching a digital movie that you ordered wirelessly from your laptop computer. Your son barges in the room with some friends and pauses the flick so he can show his buddies a home movie he’s taken and stored on the family entertainment server. Undeterred, you head for the bedroom, where with the flick of a few buttons on your remote, you can access the very same digital movie your son had turned off, and pick it up in the exact spot you lost it when he barged in. [internetnews.com]

Feature Request for Safari ….

I’d love to see the addition of a warning for windows being open when you accidentally hit Apple+Q instead of Apple+W. Sometimes I move too quickly and lose a window full of open tabs… Mozilla asks if you are sure you want to close the XX tabs.

Modern Day Men’s Club: Manicures and Beer

After reading about Rosecrans Baldwin’s visit to the Elizabeth Arden Salon & Spa, Gothamist wonders what he would make of John Allan’s, a midtown and downtown men’s salon that has haircuts, shaves, massages, manicures, and a generally clubby atmosphere (pool table, beer, etc.). [Gothamist]