My Blog

This is my blog. It's old. Interests: live music, simulations and modeling, languages, iPod, social and business networking, systems thinking, history of science, management, BBQ, trivia, good coffee, organizational learning, traveling, personal histories.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

I have joined Blackberry Nation.

I received my new Blackberry Pearl from wirefly on Monday. It is a beautiful little phone/PDA. I had never been attracted to the bulkier BB units, and the previous non-full keyboard models didn't do much for me.

I had been with Sprint for many, many years, and was "out of contract". I had called Sprint several times over the last few months to see what kind of customer retention plans they would offer me. Nothing seemed to say "we love you" very much. So I started shopping around for services and phones.

The service options I was confronted with is worthy of a separate post. For now, a quick review of the Pearl after having it in my hands for 3 days, and operational (connected to network) for 2 days.

It's wonderful. It'll take me a few weeks to fully try out all the features I'd like to try out. And there are some features that I may eventually get to. It is packed with stuff! Here are some of the "why I'm already starting to love my BB Pearl":
  1. Email set-up was super easy. I couldn't believe how easy it was, for both my gmail and work emails. for work email, I typed in my email address and password, and it did the rest. I was receiving email in 15 minutes. For gmail, I pointed my browser in Pearl to gmail.com/app and it did the rest. Setup was typing in my gmail userID and password.
  2. The screen is wonderful. I had (still have) the Palm Tungsten T3, which of course has a larger screen. But the resolution on the Pearl rivals the T3 (which has "hi-res" pixels). The Pearl also uses some kind of sensor to auto adjust the brightness.
  3. The trackball. When I visited the T-Mobile store, I tried out a real Pearl. I thought the track ball was a"simulated" track ball, that was more like the "eraser-head pointer" on the IBM Thinkpads. The Pearl has a real track ball. You can roll around and click. AND, it lights up with this cool glow. Hence the name "Pearl". We'll see what happens if we get dirt in there... I recall some old "ball" mice I had to clean out frequently.
  4. It's sexy. I've never been the one to consider the phone as a fashion accessory, but this is the most fashionable accessory I have. Plus, I was flipping thru Vanity Fair and saw an ad and a review for the Pearl. If it's good enough for Vanity Fair (with Brad Pitt on the cover)...
  5. Ask me how much I paid for it! Had I gone thru a retail store (either the T-Mobile "corporate store" or a independent store), I'd have to shell out hundreds of $'s. Even with rebates, it would be at ~$200, plus tax. Thru wirefly, I got it for $50 after rebates, no tax. Just reasonable FedEX shipping.
  6. SureType® keyboard technology in a QWERTY-style layout. OK, so I copy/pasted the previous sentence from the BB website. The SureType seems to work. It "learns" two ways. You make corrections if it guesses wrong, and it somehow "reads" emails or other stuff you have. After a few days of email, I saw that it had learned a bunch of words I hadn't typed but were in some emails and documents I had received.
I imagine that the list will grow. I had read on-line of 2 items of dissatisfaction. One was that the back cover would come off and would loosen the battery. The other is SW glitches. I have had the SW hang up once, and it came back fine after I rebooted, no data lost. The cover seems fine for me.

So, now I have to go excercise my thumbs to reduce the likelihood of BlackBerry thumb syndrome.


|| hcpark, 10:45 AM || link || (0) comments |

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

our mail today

Our mailman must hate the days that InStyle gets delivered. Have you seen the size of this magazine?!??

Today, when I picked up all the mail that had come thru the mail slot, it felt REALLY heavy. I saw the InStyle, but then I saw Ophrah! And the deluge of a holiday catalogs have already started! When will it end.

For fun, I stacked today's mail and weighed it. 8 lbs.
|| hcpark, 10:21 AM || link || (1) comments |

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Pics from from Nigeria

Mostly pictures from my ride back to the airport. A few views from the hotel.


Read the start of the journey here.
|| hcpark, 6:51 AM || link || (0) comments |
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