New title

I think I finally found a good title for this page. I feel like if I’m going to keep up with writing, I have to start at the top and that’s where the title is located. Musings is probably not the most original title ever, but I think it’s appropriate because if I can make my posts someone longer than a tweet or facebook update, then my writing can be considered “food for thought” for any given topic. As always, we’ll see how it goes. There must be a good reason I keep trying this over and over again. Glutton for punishment? Maybe, but I’d just like to think I’m optimistic about keeping something going.

So my musing for the day is “do one thing at a time.” We all lead such busy lives and are always on the go, but if you want to do things well, focus your attention on one task at a time. Consider it a list instead of a pile. Perspective is key. I often have to remind myself of this fact and this is the kind of thing that allows me to do my job.

P.S. Samsung just announced their new Android based tablet, the Galaxy Tab. Should be an interesting holiday season as everyone tries to compete with the iPad. Stay tuned folks!

Behind again…

What a surprise…once again, a lot of time has passed since my last post. I’m starting to wonder if I should just give up on this page. Part of me is saying that I should because I never post, but another part really wants to have the forum to write about whatever I want when the inspiration strikes. Another nagging voice is telling me that writing is good for me since I will soon be writing a series of self-reflective essays that will help propel my career forward. Let’s see where this goes.

My last post was about a month and a half ago. Recapping every single relevant life and news event since then would take up a lot of space and require a lot of time, so I’ll try to cover the basics for all my major categories. In my general (uncategorized) category, I’m happy to announce to all 2 of you that read this that my bf landed a really great teaching job. He is very excited and I am proud of him for all the hard work he put in to get there. To celebrate his success, we went on a cruise to the Caribbean and had a wonderful time. Pictures are on facebook. What else? I just started my new externship. So far, it has been a slow start with most of the time being spent learning new neuropsychological tests. On a more somber note, a close family friend of ours passed away last week. He was a stand up guy. He always put others before himself. He was warm, caring, passionate, and friendly and he will truly be missed.

Onto the world of android. I don’t even know where to start. I’ll have to keep this brief. The Droid X came out a little over a month ago and it is a sweet phone. It is just a tad too big for my petite hands. The Droid 2 just came out last week and while many things were improved, there were some disappointing aspects of it too. I think the froyo OS still has a few bugs and flash needs some tweaking. Also, when speaking into the phone, you can hear yourself in the earpiece almost as if you’re speaking into a microphone in front of an audience. Plus, there’s a really strange bug where things are laggy/buggy when the phone is plugged in vs when it’s off the charger. Verizon just put out a patch, but it mainly addressed other issues. In addition to Motorola phones arriving on the scene, Samsung’s Galaxy S series hit the markets on AT&T and T-Mobile. Sprint and Verizon are up next. I’ve tried out both the Vibrant (T-Mobile) and the Captivate (AT&T) and was really impressed with what I saw. Samsung’s UI makes the phone very intuitive to use and the phones are both very responsive. Of course there are a lot of rumors going around too. My baby (the Incredible) was supposedly supposed to get froyo a few days ago and that didn’t happen. Then there are a bunch of rumors about android based tablets coming out later in the year to compete with the ipad. We’ll see how that goes. I may want to consider getting one of these for myself if the price is right and I feel like one of them would suit my needs.

I haven’t talked about Glee in a while on this blog. I’m still hoping to write a couple paragraphs after each episode of the upcoming season though. We’ll see. But for all you Gleeks out there, the season 2 premiere is on Tuesday, September 21st at 8 PM. There has likely been a lot of Glee news and spoilers this summer, but I honestly haven’t followed much of it. I’m sure I’ll get back into my obsession once the new eps air!

Websites. I haven’t done one of those in a while. Hmmm. That I’ll probably have to save when I have enough time to sit down and do the research. I want to make sure it’s worth the read.

Finally the yankees. They’ve been playing ok lately. The pitching rotation is treading on thin ice right now, which isn’t good. Pettitte is injured, and Burnett and Vazquez stink. I’m surprised they’re even winning as much as they are. A-Rod just went on the DL today. Luckily, other people are hitting and bailing out all our stinky pitchers right now. Nick Swisher is having a great season. I’m happy for him. Robinson Cano should be the AL MVP. I know I’m biased but the guy has had a monster season. Jorge Posada is declining in his ability to catch. Even as recently as a few years ago, he had solid numbers throwing out baserunners. Now, any old person can steal on him. Additionally, a lot more gets by him and he has made some really questionable decisions with the ball in play. Brett Gardner has really become a solid member of the team. With the exception of a couple of slumps, he has played well all year. Phil Hughes has emerged as a reliable starter and even when he gets beat up a little, he still manages to keep the team in the game. Joba Chamberlain stunk himself out of the setup man role. That’s disappointing because when he first came up, he was unhittable. The Yanks got some quality people at the trade deadline for basically nobody in return. One quick comment on Kerry Wood. I saw him dominate the yanks in 2003 in a 1-0 matchup (that the Cubs won) between him and Roger Clemens, who lied to Congress (idiot). Ever since that game 7 years ago, I wanted him on the Yankees. I didn’t even care that his ERA was 6 something when they traded for him. He’s Kerry Wood, a fierce guy that has a lot of talent and who can really help the bullpen if he pitches well.

Alright, I tried to address all of my major categories. Ideally, I won’t have to play catch up all the time but with my track record, who knows. I really do like writing and I thought doing a blog would be a fun way to put my thoughts out there, but it has just taken a back seat to other things. Maybe I can integrate it into my routine once the school year starts up again. My schedule will be varied by day, so any constant would be welcomed.

Have a good night!

Initial Impressions

By some minor miracle, I actually received my new Droid Incredible before the 4th of July holiday. There is A LOT to learn, do, and talk about. If I were to post about everything right now, I’d have you guys sitting at the computer all day. So I’ll make this short and talk about my initial thoughts. Don’t worry though. This won’t be the last time you hear me raving about my new phone!

The first thing I noticed after taking the phone out of the box was that it fits very well in my hand and that it’s light, but not light enough to feel cheap. I like the feel of it a lot. Going through the initial setup of the phone was a piece of cake. All I had to do was follow on screen instructions and log in to my gmail account. Then all my contacts, calendar events, and emails were synced up. Beautiful. I went to work a little bit on personalizing the phone. I get 7 screens to work with, and so far I only have use for 5: Home, a favorite contacts page, calendar page, most used apps page, and a page with a few power saving widgets on it. What else? I changed the background, customized the home screen, and of course downloaded a few apps. One of my favorite things about the phone is the default HTC clock/weather widget on the home screen. Every time I unlock the phone, the current weather floats across the screen. So if it’s cloudy, clouds appear and float across the screen. If it’s sunny, the sun shines in your face, and so on. Very cool! Let me talk about a couple of the apps I downloaded…briefly! A couple games I have are mahjong and abductions (which interestingly enough is a game where cows try to jump onto different platforms in order to elevate to a UFO in the sky). Thank you to my wonderful bf for that one!   I also have the ESPN score center app which is a solid app for getting scores from any sport. It even has the famous ESPN ticker on the bottom with current news. For news, I downloaded the NY Times app, which is a solid app that will convey top stories from all different sections of the NYT and format it nicely to fit the screen. There are also a few others. A couple of apps that could be improved are the native gmail app (I want the option to turn off/on mail previews) and the native facebook app (this is possibly the most bare bones app ever and it lacks the functionality of uploading video).

There is obviously a lot more to the android platform than what I’ve just covered. I’m still learning the ins and outs of the system in terms of navigating around and finding the functionality that I want/need. This is just the beginning. As I said before, this isn’t the last time you’ll be hearing about my phone. I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to say when I get more acclimated. But for now, I’m lovin’ up on it and can’t wait to see what else I discover!

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July. As always please feel free to comment on anything, even if it’s not directly related to my post.

Customer Service

I bet some of you think you already know what this is about. But actually, I’m not planning about launching into an angry rant about customer service. I simply want to make a few observations and put my thoughts out there. So here goes.

Last week, the new iphone 4 came out. As usual, people were waiting in lines as much as days in advance to be among the first group to get their hands on this sexy new device. So finally launch day comes and there is massive coverage all over the internet. With that kind of coverage, you can expect that people are going to voice their opinions, good or bad. So of course there was a lot of positive feedback. Less calls are dropping, the clarity of the display is breathtaking, multi-tasking is a great new addition, etc etc. But there was also a list of negative things: proximity sensor doesn’t work, there’s a yellow discoloration on the screen, and the biggest of all: when you hold the phone a certain way, all your reception bars disappear and you lose service and the ability to browse the internet. I will come back to this.

The HTC Droid Incredible has been a hit since it first hit stores at the end of April. In fact, multiple Verizon reps have told me that all the handsets sold out on the first day and they haven’t been in stock since. I believe it because I’m one of those impatient people who is waiting to get my hands on this phone. Everyday that I’ve checked Verizon’s website, the ship date gets pushed back. Every time that I call Verizon, the robotic reps look at their chart and tell me that based on the date of order, my phone should ship by June 29. It’s June 30th at night and still no tracking number for me. I know what is holding up the process, but that’s not much consolation. Then earlier today, an email comes out to all people who have the Incredible on backorder. It says that shipping could be delayed another 7 business days (which essentially means a week and a half) because of inventory shortages. Annoying, but let’s move on.

Let’s talk about customer service. When you think of a phone losing reception, you immediately think that the carrier is having network issues. It’s the first thing that comes to mind because they provide the cell service. But with this new iphone, the dwindling reception issues are actually a pretty serious design flaw, regardless of whether it’s the hardware or software. This is Apple’s fault, not AT&T’s (for once…). But I would bet that there are many people out there who just want to crucify AT&T because they haven’t read about this problem and they immediately associate network problems as being the carrier’s fault. I actually feel a little bad for AT&T, but let’s go back to apple. For those of you who live under a rock, Apple’s response to the reception problem was, “You’re holding it wrong.” Yes, they actually had the balls to say that to people. Then to make matters worse, they released instructions to their employees telling them how to deal with disgruntled customers on the phone. This document was leaked onto the internet and was capped off by telling employees not to offer any freebies to customers to remedy the issue. That my friends, is BAD customer service.

There are plenty of impatient people waiting for their Incredibles to arrive at their doorsteps. I’m one of them. I’ve called Verizon a number of times and while they’ve been nice, they haven’t exactly been helpful. They told me about the screen shortages that have been holding up production, but I already knew that. I just wanted to know when the phone would ship. I can’t back this up with certainty, but I’d imagine that HTC is not hearing too much from people about the phone because people are ordering it through Verizon, which puts the ball in Verizon’s court. So with regards to that email I spoke about before, in addition to telling people about additional shipping delays, Verizon apologized to the customers and offered a $25 gift card as a token of their gratitude for the continuing patience of the customers. Now that is GOOD customer service. Still, I want my phone Verizon!

Ok, this post got really long. I hope you all enjoyed my little novel.

Motorola and Verizon

Whatcha got for us Motorola and Verizon? The biggest news of today was about 2 new upcoming android phones: the Droid X and the Droid 2. In a somewhat embarrassing post, one website I check reported that these phones would be equipped with a 1 ghz snapdragon processor, got everyone all excited, and then retracted their post and went back to reporting that the phones would indeed have 1 ghz OMAP processors. This is what it’s like to be a tech geek, people! Lol. Also, someone posted video comparing the Droid 2 to the original Droid…except it was done outside where there was a glare and the dude didn’t even bother to turn the phones on. Very helpful.

Here’s the thing. Last year, Motorola and Verizon paired up to give the world the Droid. This was a game changing device at the time and it was advertised up the wazoo. Motorola wanted to make a name for itself again in the cell phone world after it got drowned out by companies like Apple, LG, and HTC. And Verizon wanted to draw more customers away from other carriers with a device that nobody else had. I found out recently that no handset with a “droid” in its name can be on a rival network. Verizon has exclusive rights to the “droid” name. Interesting. Fast forward almost a year and we’re 2 days away from hearing about the continuation of the droid brand. On Wednesday, there will be an event hosted by Motorola, Verizon Wireless, Adobe, and Google to announce the eagerly anticipated Droid X and Droid 2. Finally all the rumors will be put to rest. I fully expect that these 2 phones will come with a lot of hype and air time. These companies are going to make these phones seem like the best thing since sliced bread. Oh, and how convenient is it that this event occurs the day before the scheduled release of the iphone 4? This is absolutely no coincidence. They want to take a bite out of Apple and overshadow their release. Kinda busted if you ask me, but that’s how the game works.

I will comment fully on these phones more after I hear what happens on Wednesday, but here are some preliminary thoughts. The Droid X will be a sweet phone. Huge touch screen, great camera/video capabilities, and great multimedia phone. Personally, I don’t think it’s the phone for me because it will be massive with the huge screen and weird ridge in the back. Plus, my Incredible (which I should receive in 9 days) has a snapdragon processor, and that’s the coolest name I’ve ever heard for a processor. Core 2 duo? Boring? Athlon? Not so much. OMAP? What does that even mean? Snapdragon is where it’s at! But back to the phones. The Droid 2 is definitely intriguing, and I’m especially interested in it for my guy for when he upgrades his phone. It has a nice touch screen and slide out qwerty keyboard which is noticeably improved from the last rendition. It will also run at 1 ghz and there is a chance it comes preloaded with the new version of the android OS, Froyo. If the original Droid was any indication of the kind of success its successor could see, then I can’t wait to see this phone!

That’s all I have for today. Oh, wait. I could mention that the new version of the iphone OS was released to existing customers today. So far, this is the feedback that it has gotten: photos synced to the phone are blurry, no push services for gmail, contacts are gone and cannot be restored via backup, MMS doesn’t work, push functionality in general doesn’t work, inability to change the device’s auto-lock from 1 minute, and update fails/device reboots a lot (on its own). I know new software is often in need of bug fixes, but to have all these problems surface in one day? That’s pretty bad. And to add insult to injury, since the phone runs on AT&T’s network, you’ll probably drop a lot of calls. I feel bad…

Why hello there!

Hello! It’s been a long time since I posted to this blog. I’ll just skip the excuses this time. I guess it’s just inevitable that I can’t be consistent with updating this page despite me wanting to post on a daily basis. I’ve tried thinking out loud about how I could make myself more consistent but nothing has worked to this point in time. So I’ve decided to just post whenever I’m inclined to. I still hope it will be at least a few times a week though because if I can get myself into a routine, there’s a better chance that I’ll stick with it. We’ll see.

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I added another category to the list of potential topics that I could post about. Android. Why, you ask? I’ll give you the short answer. In the last 3 weeks or so, I have become “very into” Android, or for those who don’t know, the mobile phone operating system created by Google. Droid, anyone? Ok. Anyways, I got into Android enough to make the decision to ditch my blackberry in favor of this up and coming platform. However, the phone I ordered (HTC Droid Incredible) is so popular right now that it’s on backorder for 3 weeks. If you were to go on Verizon’s site and order this phone, don’t expect to get it until mid-July. Yeah, it’s insane. Mine should ship on 6/29 though due to order it almost 2 weeks ago. But I digress. The point of me saying all this is that I’ve been reading a few Android related blogs and I find the news interesting, so I think it could be cool to post thoughts about what I read on my own blog. I am by no means the person on the front lines of this news. Other people do all the work. I’ll do my best to credit my sources when I comment about news. For anyone interested in technology or Android, you may find this interesting. I’ve learned a lot in the last few weeks.

As for my other categories, I’ll keep them for now and see how things evolve. Maybe I’ll add more. Variety might be the thing to spice things up. We’ll see. Right now, I have the opportunity to use my summer time to start being more consistent with my writing. That’s step 1.

Tomorrow, I’ll do my first Android post assuming that there is something newsworthy out there. Also, sorry I stopped short on the Glee reviews for the second half of the season. I got feedback that the reviews were good and I just got caught up in other stuff. I feel like that’s something I’d like to continue in the fall once the episodes restart.

Ok, see ya tomorrow!