Spassmeister

Screen sizes

Spasssmeister — 2005-12-27T18:49:00Z

I got a PSP for Christmas. Whoopee. Just what I asked Santa for. I had been talking with the president of Intercasting Corp. over the holiday's. They just released a Brew app, Rabble, that allows user mobile content to be easily posted...sort of a "myspace" for mobile devices....which got me thinking again of screen sizes.

The folks at lunch were raving about the PSP screen. I'd seen one before, but having my own was a bit different. I'm a fan of PS2 and XBOX driving games and tried one on the PSP. It's a bit of a challenge. I suppose I need to try one on the phone now. as for video playback, a bigger screen is nicer, but I've been having no trouble ripping content onto my iPod video.

One blog reivew comparing the PSP and the Video iPod concluded:

It is very close to being a toss-up. The PSP has its strengths, and so does the iPod. Of course we didn’t try to watch either of them hooked up to a TV — something that you can’t currently do with a PSP — but the resolutions of the files lead us to believe that the difference would have been negligible. Really, it’s all about what you want. If you want super-sharp video and can stand the small screen size, the iPod isn’t a bad choice. If you want the larger screen and don’t mind losing a little bit of the image clarity, the PSP is your gadge

We never stop working for you

Spasssmeister — 2005-12-26T19:40:00Z

Well, that was fun. Long blogging haitus due to much work and little time. But I digress.

After telling my friends and family for years that they should switch to verizon as they have the best coverage overall, I've converted to really disliking them immensly. I'm more of a VerizonPathetic visitor now. This story captures what's happend with the Samsung A890 story.

Can you see it to the right in the phone graveyard? Well, there it rests in peace never to be charged again, maybe. This was an early death brought about by poor design and worse support. What happend to Samsung anyway?

Rather than go through the whole litanny of issues, let me summarize this wonderful experience:

I purchase a TREO 600 to do email and voice calls on the same device. I'd seen Stewart Alsop rave about the treo years earlier at a BREW conference, and I assumed it had to be better than the wireless Palm device I'd been using. Well, it too sucked. It begain a bit of a saga documented earlier.
Well, that was problematic to say the least. After a $4300 phone bill and lots of problems, my company installed Goodlink software and the problems were reduced. they did not go away, however, as a new issue arose: I missed abotu 50% of my phone calls as the push email service had taken over my phone.
to keep the email productivity going, but also stop missing phone calls, I switched to a family plan and put all the phones, including the new Samsung A890, on the same plan. In total I had the following on my 3000 min plan: treo 650, EV-DO card, my daughter's Kyocera Slider, an other daughter's E815, and the others. Well, I had to forward my calls from the Treo to the Samsung, and carry two phones, but the problem SHOULD have been solved. but no. The MALLOC error surfaced.
I've been on the phone countless hours with Verizon about the Malloc error. I've recived 3 "new" A890s all with the same problem. I've been told repeatedly by Verizon that "...the only choice you have is to pay full price for a different phone, or keep getting replacement A890s". this despite the fact that I pay Verizon like $450/month for the family plans, I've been a loyal customer, and their equipment is faulty.
I ordered a new e815 from the web site to "upgrade' from the A890. After a few weeks with no phone I look into why it's taking so long only to find out "...you must have listed a PO box as your address". Huh? I did no such thing. Moreover, why was I not contacted about this issue by phone or email?? I told them "...cancel the order. I'll buy one of these new Razr phones instead". my reason was for the bluetooth and to try yet another new phone.
well, when I tried to go back to the web site, I was unable to order it online since my "canceld" order on the e815 was preventing me from doing anything else (it's still that way by the way). So they told me to upgrade a different phone and then switch when it came in, which is what I did.
I finally spent another 30 min on the phone yesterday since I had to activate the Razr on one account, move it to another account and switch ESNs back to normal. What a pain. I was not able to do this online for some reason (you can switch ESNs on line now, most of the time).

Well, so far no MALLOC errors, but the video quality sucks compared with the Samsung, which was not all that great to begin with. Oh yea, you cannot send videos to/from the Razr like you could with the MOT and Samsung phones.....but that's a story for another day.

Driver Distractions

Spasssmeister — 2005-09-03T19:09:00Z

the women in the photo above is driving north on Interstate 5 in Southern California (specifically, just north of the Santa Fe Drive exit in Encinitas) at about 75 mph while jotting notes on a pad she is holding to her steering wheel with her left hand. Neither hand is "on the wheel", and, her eyes are apparently switching between the road and the notes she's making on the pad. Note to her friends: buy her one of those "voice recorders" for her next birthday. It would lower the danger factor to that of the cell phone while she drives....

That old scapegoat the cell phone - can't live with it, can't live without it. Few would argue that it's completely safe to talk on your mobile phone - let alone send text messages or otherwise go through some painful IVR during your drive. During a recent international conference on driver distraction the point was made that lots of issues can distract a driver other than (and including) the mobile phone.

Some more comprehensive analysis has concluded that there are, as most of us experience, and increasing amount of distractions in our vehicles. Combine grooming to children (or worse, grooming your children), watching porn?, eating, drinking, changing the radio station or CD track, watching your navigation system, etc., there are plenty of reasons that one can become distracted while driving. A comprehensive study indicates that fiddling with your stereo was the most common, and tending to your infant the most distracting.

New Travel

Spasssmeister — 2005-08-21T12:44:00Z

New and old travelers mix together during the summertime like no other. During the school/work year, one can see the "typcial" mix of pushy business travelers who've consumed far too many Starbucks beverages, and can often be as a result remarkably rude, and their cousins, the grumpy/greedy geezers who, despite all of their travel, still get really nervous when they travel.

But ahh in summer. It's more crowded, but the TRUE road warriors: moms with at least one baby, a toddler and a 5-7 year old are out in force. These poor souls are too busy to complain or wear their "platinum traveler" status like some sort of bizarre badge of honor. No matter how even tempered one is it tests one's patience when the "I'm platinum!" guy literally shoves his way past our frazzeld parents to get some precious overhead space since "only an idiot checks their bags". Yes. it's more convenient not to check. the tonic of books or ipods, activities that calm the mind and soul, are used by less stressed among us and reflect somewhat more contemplative traveling demeanors that would benefit all.

Malloc error - Samsung A890

Spasssmeister — 2005-08-20T11:35:00Z

In the continuing saga of the curse of the early adopter, I've been once again stung with a recurring problem: my Samsung a890 freezes about 20% of the time I receive a call. to be clear, the phone rings, and when I hit "send" to answer, it locks up. totally. blue screen of death...ON MY PHONE! How annoying is that?

So, naturally I call Verizon and they tell me...drumm roll..."...gee, never heard of that problem before...you need to bring it in to the store..."

....AAAGGGHHHH.... I need to go to the Verizon store! Is there a more delightfull experience than sitting, I mean standing, in a Disneylandian wait line at the Verizon store to get something fixed that's Samsung's fault in the first place? I've got a better idea. How about the ship me a new phone set up as I've customized it with a return envelope like amazon would do? It would be simple enough to store my settings and address book information on the network side (since we dont' have SIM cards for that purpose). this would also make phone changes simpler.

LIve from Atlanta

Spasssmeister — 2005-03-14T20:46:00Z

Yawn...

Ahh...standards meetings. 1000+ engineers in a room at the 802 meetings in Atlanta GA discussing if they should use the word "Primary" or "initial" for 30 minutes. 802.16e is nearing clean up mode, 802.20 is apparently still moribund, 802.22 is just getting moving.

There are a few well known standards groups:

IEEE - A group of individuals who participate in a non-exclusionary basis to develop a wide range of standards..examples include 802.3 (ethernet) and 802.11 (wifi). In this group, the vote in the committees goes with the individual, not the organization they represent.

3GPP - The group that brought you GSM (under the ETSI name)

IETF - the group that creates the internet standards.

A question raised frequently is - which is the best way to create a standard?

the answer is left to the reader..

Treo saga

Spasssmeister — 2005-03-01T04:17:00Z

I'm on jury duty today...so while I've not had computer access today, I've had mobile phone access with my Treo and Goodlink software...except..for maddening problems with the basic phone itself! I was finally happy with the RSS reader for palm and the good software, and then my phone had the following symptoms:

- constantly thought it was going in and out of service. No matter how many bars of digital coverage I had, the phone kept shutting down indicating "no service".

- worse, when service returned (seconds later) I'd try to place a call. sometimes this worked ok, but other times the phone would dial the number, and then the seconds would begin tracking call time when suddenly (sometimes after 2-3 seconds, sometimes longer) the screen would freeze completely and the call would drop.

So, after putting this off, I called customer care. The first call was a good CSR who had me do a "factory reset". On the Treo600 this means holding down the "K" key and the "<-" (backspace) keys simultaneously while pressing in the reset hole with a paper clip in the back of the phone. That was fun, but, still the dropped calls....whereupon I was transfered to Betty (CSR#2) the data phone expert. sometimes I think these 'data phone experts' are actually just CRSs with more tenure. She had no good ideas, but did have me do the OTA programming (*228) followed by "additional programming":

#*#000000

this gave me the typical cell phone parameters (MIN, MDN, ESN (Hex), SID) that she had me read to make sure "I had the correct phone". huh? This made no sense at all, but it was another step. I then was transfered to "tom". he did not take too much time. Asked me a few other questions and then made sure my address was correct. So this time on Wednesday I expect to be using yet another Treo 600. I suppose I shouldn't complain - a friend of mine is on his third.