This email can safely be deleted.  This is, however, a great time to remind everyone that legitimate websites, including your bank websites, should never send your passwords to you in any format unless you’ve requested them to do so.  Random emails such as these should always be deleted.  If you have further concerns you should contact the customer care center of the service provider.

– Dan Thompson

>

    It seems I get asked at least once a month if I think someone should buy a netbook, or a notebook… and to be honest, I’m always hesitant to answer that question because I’ve never had the chance to really put one through the paces.  The specs on them “look” okay and the prices are generally awesome, but how would they really perform on a normal everyday use basis?  Well, in mid-January Verizon Wireless was kind enough to let me borrow one for a month so I could get a better feel for them.  Before we dive in to what I think about it though, first lets take a step back and define “netbook”, and look a little closer at the unit I tested.

Sooo… what is a netbook?

   So what makes a netbook different from a notebook?  Well, not much these days.  When the netbooks started showing up in stores in late 2007 / early 2008, they admittedly got a bit of a bum rap because the manufacturers built them severely underpowered; in many cases with just enough power to run a browser and maybe an email client, proving frustrating to even the most novice of users.  Since the form factor has caught on though, the power battle has taken hold and most models will hold their own quite nicely next to a standard notebook.  The major delineation at this point is size and subsequent lack of peripherals (optical drive, tons of ports, etc., etc.).  With a netbook, you will see screen sizes of anywhere from 10.1 inches (like the one I tested) all the way down to smallest of the small with 5 inches; any smaller and you’d call it a phone.  There comes a point where they are just too small, in my opinion… not because of screen size, but because of the size of keyboard that goes along with that ultra small screen.  As I mentioned earlier, you will also notice that in the name of conserving size and cutting weight, some things you are accustomed to have been shaved off; like a CD / DVD-rom drive.  Another common trait you will find as of late is the addition of a built-in mobile broadband card letting you connect to the internet virtually anywhere, and truly putting the “net” in netbook.

   The particular netbook I got my hands on is a HP mini 1151NR.  This unit comes equipped with an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz (single core) processor, 1 GB of RAM, and an 80GB hard drive.  It also features a 10.1 inch screen, 802.11 b/g WLAN, LAN, Bluetooth, 2 USB ports, stereo speakers with built-in mic, built-in web cam (640×480), and of course, built-in mobile broadband… all wrapped up into a 2.4 pound bundle of computing joy.  This particular device ships with Windows XP SP3 Home Edition, but other models are available with Windows 7 (and I actually loaded this one with Windows 7 Professional just as a goof).  Now here is the really awesome part; as tested, this device is priced at $199 with a $50 mail-in rebate and a 2 year service contract from Verizon.  $200 for a laptop.  That ain’t too shabby in my opinion!

Well? Did it work?

   Not wanting skimp out and do a half-way test scenario where I just use the system as a toy when I had time to play with it; I actually decided to push my other systems to the side and use this as my only computer for a whole month.  That meant loading all the applications I commonly use like Microsoft Office 2007 (as well as 2010 beta for part of the test), VMware vSphere client, TweetDeck, our corporate VoIP call manager, Office Communicator, Microsoft Live Writer, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Fireworks (yeah, I like it better than Photoshop), and our corporate antivirus client to name the ones I can think of off the top of my head.  Additionally, for half the test (two weeks) I ran the system with Windows 7 Professional installed, complete with desktop gadgets and Aero, AS WEL AS the applications I listed above.  My job and my hobbies have me on my computer at the very least 10 hours per day, so it is fair to say that this little guy didn’t get much of a break.

    So how did it work?  Pretty darn good actually.  The keyboard, while not too much smaller than a standard sized laptop keyboard, did take a little getting used to.  The buttons of the built-in touchpad are placed on either side instead of below, and I quickly found myself using it with two hands (one hand moving the pointer and the other doing the left clicks) which also took some getting used to, but ultimately wasn’t a deal killer… I actually got pretty quick with it and in fact using it that way made dragging and dropping easier than one handed (I never use a mouse, much to the dismay of my co-workers).  I found the speed of the machine, believe it or not, to be actually better with Windows 7 than with Windows XP, and I think I know why.  HP builds these laptops with a 42k RPM hard drive, which is SLOW by anyone’s standards. Windows 7 is optimized to work more from RAM than Windows XP is, thus in the heat of battle at the office that hard drive was getting thrashed in XP and caused noticeable lags, whereas it was much more tolerable in Windows 7.  Windows 7 did run out of RAM on me a few times while I was doing some photo editing, but that is to be expected with 1GB of RAM.  The nice thing about this is that all the performance bottle necks of the system are easily fixable.  For less than $200 more you could add a smoke’n fast solid state hard drive and another 1GB of RAM (for a total of 2GB, which is the maximum supported) and I’m confident you wouldn’t be feeling any slow downs.  That would make this a REALLY nice laptop for right at $400, a good value for sure.

    One of the things I really appreciated about the HP was the built-in mobile broadband.  I used it multiple times, but it really saved my butt twice.  Both times I was driving down the road and got that oh-so-dreaded afterhours phone call from someone needing technical help.  In both cases I was able to quickly pull over and let the wife take over the driver’s seat while I logged on to the internet and started working on the problem servers.  The convenience of being able to ride down the road and work online is unspeakably valuable.  Sure you can accomplish this by tethering a cell phone to a standard laptop, but then you have to deal with remembering to bring the cable with you and trying to manage a cell phone sliding around while you work.  You could also just get an air-card, but again, you have to remember to bring it with you and then hope you don’t accidentally knock the antenna or device itself off.  Having the air-card built right in to the laptop is the way to go in my opinion.  Nothing else to keep track of; it just works… which in my mind is what a netbook is all about. Computing convenience.

Who should buy one?

    So is a netbook right for everyone?  Well, probably not.  Lets be honest here; these machines are not going to be great video editing machines, hard core photo editing machines, or gaming machines.  They would, however, be a perfect fit for those “average computer users” (i.e. email, IM, internet, word processing, etc) or people who are on the go a lot.  I personally enjoyed using it and was a little sad to see the little guy go.  I’ll be giving some serious thought into purchasing one in the future.

– Dan Thompson

    Basically foursquare is a location-based social network.  Users load an app on their iPhones, Androids, or other phones. When they visit somewhere like a local restaurant or park, they “check-in” which then announces their presence at the location (and can then be broadcast on your twitter and Facebook profiles). 

Now, here’s the hook. 

    With the app, you can search for locations near you that other people are talking about and see tips they’ve left like “be sure to try the Bang Bang Shrimp at BoneFish in Bearden”.  At the most basic level, Foursquare is a centralized forum for local consumers to tell others about good places to eat, shop, and enjoy.  The idea for businesses is that your location could go “viral—meaning suddenly a lot of people could be coming through your doors because of the buzz being generated online.  Pretty neat idea.

    Because businesses want people coming through their doors a lot, business owners incentivize foursquare users for frequenting their stores.  Users get points for checking in and doing various activities, and they get badges (think Farmville awards) for various accomplishments.  The top foursquare users who visit any given location have the chance to be “mayor” of that spot.  The idea is that businesses would offer loyalty rewards to mayors like free or discounted products.  The natural extension for business owners is that it would generate competition among Fousquare users to earn discounts and drive them to participating stores and restaurants.  Knoxville’s Foursquare community is young but growing.  As a matter of fact, if you’re heading to the Healthy Living Expo at the Knoxville Convention Center, check-in to foursquare when you get there and you’ll get $2 off the admission price at the door!

    Obviously with technology like this there are certain security concerns.  Linking this to your various Twitter and Facebook accounts, while contributing to the “viral-ness” of the site, also subsequently could open you up to cyberstalking.  Users should definitely take  a step back and consider just how integrated they want this in their digital lives and how much information they want to be broadcasting before taking part.

Till next time!

– Dan Thompson

    Let’s start from the top.  Since the Feb 2008 acquisition of Danger (creator of the Sidekick device) by Microsoft Corporation, the internet has been much abuzz about the possibility of a “Microsoft Phone” or Microsoft branded device… much the way Google is running with its new Nexus One device.  These rumors were further substantiated late last year when sketches, spec sheets, and finally product images were leaked to the internet (above images from Gizmodo).  In the middle of all this we’ve learned from Engadget and Gizmodo that Microsoft’s code name for the project is, bizzarely, “Pink”. 

So what’s the skippy?

   Microsoft’s Pink project has developed two devices according to rumors on Gizmodo and Engaget and others; one targeting the younger crowd and one for the older crowd.  The aptly named “Turtle” (pictured left above) will be initially targeted towards the Sidekick crowd, and apparently resembles a pack of birth control pills… not sure what they’re going for there.  This device is rumored to be slightly smaller than the Palm Pre… so yeah… birth control pills.  The “Pure” (pictured right above) is being geared more towards the Droid and iPhone users.  Both feature slide out keyboards and touch screens. My source would not confirm this other than to state that the pictured devices were early design mock ups which may or may not resemble the devices that are in development.  Early speculation was that HTC would be manufacturing the phone, although it seems logical now that Sharp may actually be building them… but at this point we just don’t know.  As for carriers, my source was tight lipped, but I’m going to take a guess that T-Mobile and Telstra would be logical starter carriers; this is purely speculation on my part though.

   According to internet rumors the devices will be part of the launch platform for Windows 7 Mobile Edition. My source would neither confirm nor deny, only to state that obviously these devices will not be running on Gekko/NetBSD like their Sidekick cousins. This means that both phones will have all the features you’ve come to know and love from WinMo, like easy Exchange Server synchronization for your corporate email, etc. Also in the works are several SaaS (software as a service) type apps which may or may not be running on Microsoft’s Azure platform (I got the big “no comment” on that one)… unfortunately though my source wouldn’t give me any hints as to what functionality they would bring to the party. We’ll have to see on that one. I’m going to go ahead and say this will be yet another “iPhone killer”. Development on these phones is currently wrapping up, so the thought is that they’ll be available in 4 to 6 months.

Why Pink, and what the heck is #TMD?

    Okay so now for the fun part… and this my source felt comfortable commenting on since "the truth is so strange and at the same time mundane as to not be believable anyway."  Along the way there has been lots of speculation about the project code name, “Pink”, and what it could stand for.  As usual, people’s imaginations tend to run a little crazy and they forgot to keep it simple… the code name “Pink”, my source tells me, is actually the SVP of the project’s favorite color and recording artist.  Yeah, I know… you were hoping for something a little deeper, right?  Something else that has been under a lot of speculation is the Danger team’s popular Twitter hashtag of #TMD or #TMDP (as a matter of fact, engadget.com posted an article about this just yesterday).  So what’s it stand for???  Well… apparently this same SVP’s favorite movie is ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’; and so TMD stands for *drum roll*…. Truly, Madly, Deeply and Truly, Madly, Deeply / Pink. Again, I know… you were hoping for something a little more interesting.  While we’re on the topic of the engadget.com article, my source also tells me that their hypothesis about these new tweets from “danger” being from a “Pink” device is speculative at best. Microsoft has been careful to strip that sort of identifying information out of the devices. Whether or not the tweets are coming from these new gadgets they wouldn’t tell me.

That’s all for now… but you know how I love phones, so you can bet I’ll be all over these as soon as I can get my hands on one.  Stay tuned!

– Dan Thompson

Just the Facts Ma’am

   Google has long been the king of the search engines, and you probably knew that Google had an image search… but now with Google Goggles, you can search images!  Let me explain.  If you’ve got an Android powered phone (and maybe more phones soon) you can download the Goggles application from the Android Marketplace and it will allow you to take pictures of things, and then do searches based on those pictures… meaning it can tell what it is you’ve taken a picture of.  As an example the company uses a picture taken of the Golden Gate bridge or the Eiffel Tower, and then the application returns search results of those landmarks; such as things of interest nearby, the history behind the location… you know, normal Google search goodness.  Other examples given by the company are pictures of a book which can yield things like the name and author and where you can buy it.  I’m particularly interested in this functionality because it could potentially allow you to walk into a store and ensure you’re getting the best deal on anything you’re buying.  Pretty cool stuff.

"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?”

    Call me crazy, but this is also a little scary.  Why?  Think “facial recognition”.  “But Dan”, you say “they’d have to have a HUGE database of images to pull that off!”  Let me paint this picture for you.  A short while ago Google announced that it had inked a deal with Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter that would allow them hooks into the respective sites to bolster their new real-time search functionality.  Now, on first go around the point of this integration is to allow you to get search results that show up-to-the-second results of what people are saying about what you’ve just searched for.  Type in a search about New Moon, and it’ll hand you back Twitter comments about New Moon as well as the usual links you’d expect from such a search.  But lets think about that for a second.  Facebook and MySpace… hmmm… at last count there were some 251 pictures of me tagged on Facebook (and who knows how many on MySpace… haven’t been to that site in AGES) of which depict about every imaginable angle of my face.  I have personally provided them with a database of pictures of myself, which I have verified are me by tagging myself in them.  So could Google expand it’s search to tap into that?  Why not!?

    Let’s take Facebook and MySpace out of the argument for just a second, and take a look at Google Profiles.  Google Profiles are something Google invented a while back to help manage your digital identity.  With the profile you can add links to all your websites, blogs, Twitter stream… anything you want… as well as places you’ve lived, worked, and gone to school.  Additionally, you can provide a picture (which by the way increases your “search-ability”) of yourself and link to your Flickr account… yet ANOTHER database of pictures.  All this to help you dictate what people find about you, when they search for you.  You have to be signed in to Google for it to display these results, but go ahead… search for my name… you’ll see my picture on the first page.  See where I’m going with all this?

   So how could something like this play out?  Let’s say you’re walking down the street with your phone and you snap a picture of someone walking by… Google Goggles, or some iteration of it, could feasibly instantly return to you the name of that person, where they are from, where they live now, their marital status, their political party affiliation, their birthday, their blogs, what the last 5 comments they made on Twitter were (which could possibly tell you where they just ate… or are headed to eat), who their friends are, and even people you may know in common.  YIKES!!  With all that information it’d be awfully easy for a crook to convince you that they know you, wouldn’t it?  Consider that our phones can know our exact location at any given moment with the built in GPS functionality and Google could combine that with the picture search for an even higher confidence level that the person you just searched for, is in fact the person Google is telling you they are because you’re standing in their home town and the place they work is just right down the street!  Holy CRAP! 

   It doesn’t stop there.  Google has a long history of creating super nice programming APIs for developers to tap into the neat tools they’ve created.  So if you wanted to, you can make your own program around something like Google Maps and essentially create your own version of Google Earth.  Now, Google Labs has yet to say whether or not they’ll be creating such an API, but if they do, it would be easy enough for Law Enforcement to tie in their own camera systems to this visual search engine and get a real-time feed of who is walking by their camera.  Creepy. (Oh.. don’t even get me started with where this could lead with Google hacking)

Delete Everything!

    Before anyone gets totally freaked out, lets calm down and realize that the only way this works is if we provide “the system” with the information it needs.  As of this writing, and in the foreseeable future, Google can only search that which is open to the world.  The good news is that, when used correctly, the new security features that Facebook is rolling out this week will allow you to decide at a granular level what is searchable… and what is not.  If you’ve got all your profiles set as securely as possible… you’ll definitely be limiting your search footprint.  Ultimately if you’re REALLY concerned about this, you should probably start deleting all your pictures, web pages, blogs, and Twitter accounts… like yesterday… but that might not even work (check out www.archive.org yep…still there!).

   So what do YOU think, am I just being paranoid?  I’d love to hear your feedback.  Oh, and remember… just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!

– Dan Thompson

    Alright, I’ve thumbed through loads of leaked Black Friday ads, been privy to some insider information, and the best deal of the season I’ve seen so far is at (believe it or not) Staples.  They’re going to have an early bird special on an HP laptop with a 15.6” screen, 3GB of RAM, 160GB Hard drive, and pre-loaded with some Windows 7 goodness for only $299.98!!!  This deal will only be available in stores, so I’d recommend showing up early.  I have talked to a representative of the stores and they claim they’ll have plenty in stock for the morning rush… but I’d count on those going fast.  While you’re in the store, check out the Garmin Nuvi they’ve got for $119.99 if you’re in the market for a GPS (that’s $100 off!).  They’ll also have an HP 8GB flash drive on sale for $12.99… and you KNOW those make great stocking stuffers for computer geeks.

   If that is not quite what you’re looking for, here are some links you’ll want to check out before you go shopping to make sure you’re getting the best deals:

black-friday.net – Check out the bar down the right-hand side for the stores you are thinking of stopping by.  The links take you to all the known sales they’ll be having.  This site is updated regularly, so pay close attention!

bfads.net – Click the ad scans link at the top to check out all the leaked ads that will be in Friday’s news paper.  This is a great way to start planning your morning shopping sprees.  Also check out the guides link at the top for some helpful information on the differences between products.  This might help you make up your mind if your stuck on something.  This site has been around for a few years and is always a reliable source for good information.  Write this one down for next year!

cybermonday.com – If you know exactly what you’re looking for but want to make absolutely certain you’re getting the best deal; check out this site.  Put in the item you’re looking for in the search bar and it will go out and find the sales on that particular item that are currently going on.

  In addition to these, I’ve recently reviewed two products I think are going to be a big hit this holiday season: the MiFi mobile hotspot and the Motorola Droid.  Give those a look if you’re struggling for ideas on what to get those hard-to-buy-for techie people!

Keep your eye on this blog as I’ll be posting the videos from my WBIR morning show interviews on all the Black Friday deals real soon!

– Dan Thompson

    There seems to be a whole lot of buzz surrounding the new Motorola Droid phone, so much so in fact that people are now referring to it as the “iPhone Killer”.  With all that hype I just had to check one out for myself and try to answer the question; does it have what it takes to knock the iPhone off it’s perch as the coolest phone on the market?  Since I’m including it in my Black Friday series for the WBIR Morning Show, you have probably already guessed that I like it… but just how much do I like it?  Let’s take a look around the device and see what it’s strengths and weaknesses (Hint: there aren’t many) are, and I’ll let you decide for yourself.

What did you say?

    Before we dive in, lets take a quick vocabulary break, as this has the potential to get a little confusing.  Android is an operating system, designed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, to run on phones and like devices… much the same way Microsoft Windows runs on your PC.  Droid actually refers to a model of phone manufactured by Motorola and is currently available on the Verizon network in the US.  So, while there are several phones on the market running Android, there is only one Droid phone.

    Now that we’ve got that cleared up, I know there is another question looming in everyone’s mind… YES, there is a fart app.  Moving right along.

It slices, it dices!

   Lets cut right to the chase.  From a feature standpoint, there was nothing I wanted the Droid to do that it couldn’t do.  The Droid can be configured to check multiple email accounts, including your corporate Microsoft Exchange account (Android 2.0 supports this natively now), and then leaves it up to you whether you want see all those emails in a combined inbox or in separated mailboxes… and you can easily change this view at any time.  In the combined mailbox configuration, email accounts are assigned a different color flag which is displayed to the left of each message, so even though all the emails are displayed at the same time you can still decipher which account the message came in on.

Composing emails can be done with an onscreen keyboard in either portrait or landscape layout, however if you don’t particularly care for the touch screen, slide it over and there is a keypad underneath (although, call me crazy, but I swear I can’t find the question mark on the keypad).  This is a particularly nice feature as some people seem to just not quite get the hang of the onscreen keyboard. I would suggest that new users at least give it a shot though, as the word recognition seems to be pretty intelligent at determining what it is you were meaning to type… even if you fat finger the word pretty badly, and doing so in portrait mode is really the only way the phone can realistically be operated with one hand. 

    If you are using an Exchange account, all your contacts and calendar events can by synced to the phone in one easy step, which greatly simplifies day one of using your phone.  You will note, however, that you now have a “Corporate Calendar” and a “Calendar”.  The “Corporate Calendar” is obviously the one from your Exchange environment.

 

    Surfing the internet is extremely easy as a Google search bar is built right in to the home screen.  Tap twice and your recent searches are displayed.  Favorites can be saved and placed right on the desktop as well, so you can quickly get to the websites you visit often.  Non-mobile enabled websites render very well in the built in browser, and while the zoom feature is nice, I will admit it’s not quite as sexy as the iPhones’ two finger zoom in / out feature.  Zooming is done by double-tapping the screen and selecting the zoom in / out button for the function you’re after.  The browser will also log in to Google Wave as well, despite there being pretty stern sounding warning that it is not yet supported on the Android browser (apparently this is possible on the iPhone as well).  While I was playing around with Wave on the Droid, the browser did crash a few times during certain actions, so clearly this is still being sorted out, but the mobile version of the page promises to be very user friendly and easy to navigate.

 

    These days, everyone is concerned about the amount of apps that are available for a particular phone, and this is certainly an area where the Droid doesn’t leave anything on the table.  Verizon claims there are over 10,000 apps for the Droid, and while I didn’t count them all, I can say there are a LOT of them out there.  Android has a “market”, which is similar in functionality to the Apple App Store, that allows you to download apps and install them to your phone (which, like the App Store, may be free or have a small fee associated).  One edge the Droid has over the iPhone (unless of course you want to void your warranty by jail breaking the phone) is that you don’t have to get your apps from the Android Market… you can download them from anywhere.  I personally appreciate the openness of this platform in that light, however users need to be aware that installing apps that aren’t written very well could cause overall stability issues.  All the popular apps; like Facebook, Twitter (checkout Twidroid), Pandora radio, YouTube, and so on, are readily available from the Market… some even come pre-installed on the phone (like Facebook and YouTube).  Want to tether your phone to your laptop so you can surf the internet there (queue famous and now trademarked slogan regarding apps)?  Check out an app call PdaNET.

    An app that really stood out to me as a “game changer” was the total integration with Google Voice.  If you haven’t checked Google Voice out yet you should really give it a look.  The service allows you to consolidate all your phone numbers in to one number which can then forward to all your phones should you choose to set it up that way.  The (free) service also provides visual voicemail and call blocking just to name a few.  With the Android phones, you can configure the dialer to dial out as your Google Voice number or  your actual cell number and there are no extra apps to launch before dialing… just open your address book and call someone.  This is a great improvement over Google Voice integrations I’ve seen with other phones out there (read: Blackberry and iPhone).  Additionally, the integration can be configured where it does not even prompt you, it simply dials everything through Google Voice (or not at all). 

     GPS / Navigation, while not singular to Android phones, is also another cool feature of the device and one of the more impressive apps.  Using the maps from Google Maps, and audible turn-by-turn directions, it is as good or better than any of the dedicated GPS units on the market today.  Turn on the satellite layer and zoom in and it will take you all the way to “street view” where the image on the screen is literally what you’re seeing out our windshield (FYI, this image doesn’t advance forward as you drive, you actually have to zoom back out to continue with the visual navigation.  I would venture a guess that as hardware and connection speeds increase, this will be changed).  Pretty amazing stuff really… so much so, it could be a little dangerous!  I’m kind of a map geek anyway, so playing with all the functionality is best done in the parking lot… or the passenger seat.  Oh, and by the way… because I know someone will ask, I had my wife drive me around while I was jumping between nav views and grabbing screenshots.  I was not operating a vehicle AND doing all that at the same time.  I have to draw the line somewhere.  Note to entrepreneurs out there; someone make a windshield mounted holder for the Droid like all the other GPS units have and you’ll make some sales I promise (I require a 10% royalty fee for the idea though).  In addition to driving routes, you can also search walking routes, bus routes, find local favorite restaurants, movie theatres… you name it. 

 

…But is it the iPhone killa?

    I could go on and on about the features, but really, you get the idea.  The phone is awesome.  So how does it stack up against the iPhone?  In my opinion it fares very well against the iPhone.  It might not be as rounded, and some would argue it is not as pleasing to the eye; but does it do everything that the iPhone does? Absolutely yes.  Would this be a good alternative to the iPhone to people who want better coverage than AT&T has to offer?  I mean, after all, Verizon is going to great lengths to tell everyone their network is better (to which I would agree).  Absolutely yes.  So will the Droid knock the iPhone off its perch as the coolest phone in the land?? No.  Why?  Because in my opinion there is so much more to the iPhone than just the device.  I think people who make statements like that miss the fact that Apple turns each of it’s products into a franchise.  Their marketing people are geniuses, their brand recognition is off the charts, and THAT is something that can’t be outdone by simply releasing a device that “does the same thing”.  Six months (or less) from now there will be another phone, by a different name, and probably running Android, that will hit the market… all the while, there will always be an iPhone.  Is it possible that the sum of all Android phones sold will be greater than that of iPhone sales? Absolutely… unless of course Apple adds more networks to the fold and then I would say you can forget it. 

Should you check out the Droid if you’re considering the iPhone? YES!

   Okay, so let’s talk price.  As of this writing, the Droid can be had for $199 with a mail-in rebate and a contract commitment.  The plans for the phone start out around $69 a month ($39 / month voice plan + $30 / month data plan), which lines it up exactly with the 16GB 3GS iPhone (which I might add here that the Droid comes with 16GB of storage but is upgradable… try THAT with an iPhone. Oh yeah, and you can replace the battery yourself instead having to send it off).

That’s what I think… what do YOU think?

– Dan Thompson

P.S. Special thanks to my friends over at Cellular Sales for hooking me up with a Droid to demo… I promise I’ll give it back one day.

]]> http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/11/motorola-droid-the-iphone-killer/feed/ 4 http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/11/hey-look-im-a-wifi-hotspot/ http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/11/hey-look-im-a-wifi-hotspot/#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:03:59 +0000 Dan Thompson http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/11/hey-look-im-a-wifi-hotspot/

   

    For this year’s Black Friday spots on the WBIR morning show I decided to look for a handful of devices that I thought were either going to be a big hit over the holiday season or at least had HUGE potential.  This is different from the years past when we did the “shotgun approach” of doing just quick little highlights of tons of stuff… and to be honest, I think I like this better.  I reserve the right to change my mind down the road, but for now… lets dig in.   The first device we’ll have a look at is the MiFi 2200 Mobile Hotspot from Sprint.

    Manufactured by Novatel Wireless for Sprint, the MiFi 2200 Mobile Hotspot is just what you would imagine it is… a mobile spot.  The device itself is roughly the size of a credit card and about a quarter of an inch thick (guessing here), and is about as simple as you can get.  You push a button; it connects to the internet via Sprint’s 3G network and then begins broadcasting an 802.11 b/g WiFi signal which you can connect up to 5 devices to.  Once connected, you can surf till your heart is content… or until the battery dies (approximately 4 hours of constant use), whichever happens first.  Pretty sweet.  The days of driving around town trying to find a restaurant with WiFi are over, now you can go wherever the cellular signal takes you.  Granted, you could do this with an air card of some nature as well, but four of your friends couldn’t join you (okay… so you could turn your laptop into an access point, but really, only an ubergeek would do such a thing).  Also, consider this: there are no drivers to install!  You’ll never find yourself in a bind because you just reloaded the OS on your laptop and it didn’t occur to you to install the air card drivers until after you’ve already hit the road.  You simply connect to it like you would any other accesspoint and you’re off to the races.

Setup and Use 

    The MiFi setup is as straightforward as any other wireless AP.  On first use, you connect to the wireless SSID (Sprint Mifi 2200…) and browse to http://192.168.1.1.  You will be prompted to login with the default login password (admin) and then a setup wizard takes over.

The setup wizard allows you to configure a new login password, followed by the WiFi profiles setup, and then you are finished!

    The WiFi profiles are actually a neat and interesting feature of the device.  The unit comes with three different profile types available for you to choose from (only one can be in use at a time): Open, Secure, and Temporary Hotspot.  Open is just a traditional WiFi hotspot with no security and any device within “earshot” of it can connect.  The Secure profile allows you to configure a protected wireless network with WEP 64, WEP 128 (seriously people… can we please stop referring to WEP as secure?  It’s not… let it go already), WPA Personal/PSK, WPA2 Personal/PSK, or WPA/WPA2 Mixed Mode (which is nice if you’ve got two laptops, one that supports WPA2 and one that only supports WPA. Otherwise, WPA2 Personal is what you should be using).  Think of this as your own little personal wireless network that only you connect to and one that allows you to do sensitive transactions over the air.  The last option, the Temporary Hotspot, generates a WEP 64 key that you can then share with your friends.  This is great if you are hanging out in a public place and want to maintain some control over who connects and who doesn’t.  Keep in mind though that this is using WEP, so I wouldn’t recommend doing anything sensitive over this connection.  It’s merely an option to keep the casual laptop user off your network.  A determined user will be able to jump on given enough time (which really only requires a few minutes if the person knows what they are doing).

When you go back home, or your friends leave, you can jump back in the administration interface and switch the profile back to Secure.  Really cool idea.

    After the initial setup of the device, you can also enable GPS on the unit which opens up some fun functionality.  With GPS enabled you can do searches, based on your location, for things like the nearest coffee shops, hotels, banks, and of course the nearest Sprint store.

The search results will be displayed on the selected provider’s maps page, which can then be used to get directions from your current location.  Very handy idea for those who’ll be using this as their internet access while on the road.

    Additionally you can do things like setup port forwarding, change the wireless IP settings, manage how the unit uses power, AND backup the configuration.  That is a WHOLE lot more than I was expecting.

But is it fast??

    The most common question I’ve been asked since demoing the unit is “How fast is the internet connection?”  Fortunately since it connects to Sprint’s 3G network, the answer is a good one.  I found the connectivity to be roughly that of my home DSL connection (the upload speed was actually faster) and have been able to consistently get just under 1Mb download speeds from the device as compared to 1.14Mb download speed on my Bellsouth DSL.  Now, we’re not setting any records here by today’s standards, but it is certainly fast enough to download a song or two from iTunes while you’re at the park or watch your favorite YouTube or Hulu videos.  From a business use perspective, you’ll be able to connect to your corporate email system or VPN without a hitch.

    Another common question is “What is the range of the wireless?”.  Novatel actually advertises it to be around 30 feet but I would say that is a tad conservative.  As I’m writing this, I’m actually connected to the device which is sitting in another room in my house and is definitely farther than 30 feet away and through a couple walls.  I admittedly only have 1 bar from this distance, as compared to my home wireless AP which has 4 bars from the same distance, but it is working just fine considering the fact that the MiFi has no external antennas and is drastically smaller than the ‘ole Linksys (and much more mobile!).  This is great news for businesses as they could send one device with a sales team to use while they are on the road together and it wouldn’t require them to be in the same hotel room in order to share the connection.  A lower number devices obviously equals a lower total cost of ownership for mobile wireless internet connectivity.

Okay… what’s it cost?

    Posting prices of things always gets a little tricky with blogs so I’ll say “as of this writing”; the local Sprint corporate store has them for $199 with a $100 mail-in rebate and the online Sprint store has them at $249 with an instant $100 rebate and a $50 mail-in rebate… either way you cut it, they are $99.  Both the online store AND the local store are offering a $59 per month data plan for the unit with a 2 year contract and the local store also offers a $79 per month plan if you just want to pay monthly with no contracts.  When you consider the cost of DSL plans today and then throw in the mobility factor, that’s a pretty good deal in my opinion.

 

So what’s the final word?  I personally think this is an awesome device and a great value for personal or business use (especially business use actually).  Given the size, price, and the overall functionality of the unit I don’t think you could go wrong picking one of these up for yourself or a loved one this holiday season.  Check one out and let me know what you think!  Also, keep an eye out for the spot on WBIR (and on this blog), it will be airing Thanksgiving morning at around 6:40AM-ish.  Till next time!

– Dan Thompson

P.S. Special thanks to Alissa Phillips, store manager at my local Sprint corporate store, for letting me borrow a MiFi 2200 Mobile Hotspot!

]]> http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/11/hey-look-im-a-wifi-hotspot/feed/ 4 http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/10/windows-7-released-tomorrow/ http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/10/windows-7-released-tomorrow/#comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:26:21 +0000 Dan Thompson http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/10/windows-7-released-tomorrow/     Well the wait is finally over for the general public, Microsoft’s newest operating system called Windows 7 is due out in stores tomorrow.  To celebrate the coming of the new OS, I sat down with our friends on the WBIR morning show to discuss some new features and what we can expect from this release.  All in all I call this OS a win for end users and network administrators alike, with plenty to get excited about for both parties.

    I’ve had fun talking about the OS in BETA form (First Impressions and Introducing Win 7), but our work isn’t finished yet.  Stay tuned for articles in the near future discussing “XP Mode”, which I mention in today’s spot, as well as some insight to the deployment and management of the new operating system.

– Dan Thompson

]]> http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/10/windows-7-released-tomorrow/feed/ 1 http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/09/keeping-it-up-to-date-with-software-updates/ http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/09/keeping-it-up-to-date-with-software-updates/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:28:53 +0000 Dan Thompson http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/09/keeping-it-up-to-date-with-software-updates/     I’ve been wanting to do a spot on software updates for quite a while now, but lets just be real for a minute, the topic just isn’t that sexy.  As is usually the case though, the topic’s relative sexiness rarely dictates it’s importance level (it could probably be argued that the exact opposite is true in fact).  I think by now people get that they should do software updates, but rarely have I seen it explained why we should do them.  On the heels of several major vulnerability announcements from Microsoft, Adobe, and now even the popular website hosting platform, WordPress, I decided it was definitely time to sit down with my friends on the WBIR morning show for a discussion.  The hope here obviously is that if people better understand the ‘why’ then they’ll be more inclined to pay attention when those little balloons pop up on their task bar.  Check it out and let me know what you think… oh, and while you’re at it… do those updates you’ve been putting off for months. 

 

– Dan Thompson

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