My New Blackberry Tour Smartphone

From engadget Mobile

After much deliberation and shopping around, I finally bought a Blackberry smartphone. With so many to choose from, it wasn’t an easy task, but in the end, my wife and both got new phones from the carrier we’ve been with for several years – Verizon. We have had good customer service with them and it is a large carrier with an enormous presence.

These devices are pocket computers and can do so many things. You can send and receive e-mails, post on your blog, surf the net, shop on-line, pay bills, and the list goes on. I like technology.

My clerk told me a story today about a man who has nearly 4,000 contacts on Twitter (I don’t have that and have never used the app). A short while ago, while sitting in his church, as the pastor was preaching this man was on his mobile device. After the service, the pastor asked about it and the man replied “Pastor, what you said was so good and I wanted all my contacts to hear about it, so I typed and sent it. Another friend did the same thing for about 3,000 contacts. In the church, your message was heard by about 135 people, but in a matter of a couple of minutes, about 7,000 people were able to read about what you spoke.” That’s good enough for me!

Some of you may know of my disdain for Apple products, and I wasn’t about to put money into their coffers again. Admittedly, the iPhone has a certain appeal, and there are scores of apps to choose from. The people I know who own them say nothing but good about quality and ease of use. Those aspects of the Apple design are probably very true, but Apple turned me away some time ago. Their choosing to purposely break the iTunes database so it wouldn’t work in Linux was the clincher for me.

Anyway, after researching for a while, my list came down to the Blackberry 8900 from T-Mobile, the Palm Pre from Sprint or the Blackberry Tour from Verizon or Sprint. Having never used any one of the devices very much, I had to rely on research, and occasionally, users who had similar devices. One of the pastors at our recent PCG Facilitator’s Retreat had the Pre, and it certainly looked nice. The video features alone had me nearly convinced to go with Sprint, but it didn’t happen. I actually got to look at the Tour a few days before it went on sale. I was pretty convinced when that happened.

The folks at the local Verizon store have been very helpful and patient with me as I let the questions fly. After a little over a week, I’m getting the hang of it and am even being productive. There’s lots to learn and new apps to try out. Actually, the salesman I spoke with today at the store was impressed I had so many apps installed; he said most new users take a long time to get the full potential out of their mobile devices. I am no expert, and that’s verifiable.

Here’s what I’ve got installed now in no particular order:

• Bolt – a fast browser
• Slacker Radio – internet radio
• Facebook – you know what this is
• Blackberry App World
• Opera Mini – another browser
• AP News – news from the Associated Press
• Google Sync – Syncs my Google Address Book and Calendar to Blackberry
• WeatherBug – gets weather for cities you assign
• QuickPull – Simulates a battery pull in order to reset the device – very handy
• Google Maps – free maps that uses the GPS function of the Blackberry
• Viigo – RSS, Weather, Sports, and tons more. Very nice app.
• Bible – This is from YouVersion and is an extremely versatile Bible app. Lots of helpful resources.
• BuzzMe – Buzz and ring together
• Poynt – GPS enabled app including Yellow Pages, White Pages and Movies. Excellent.

Here’s something I’ll be installing shortly: LifeInPocket

Do you use a Blackberry? Which one? What are some of your favorite apps and why?

Another Reason I Don’t Like Apple

My first and last piece of Apple hardware was purchased a couple of years ago for me at Christmas by my lovely bride. It is a silver iPod Classic 80GB model, and it’s a wonderful gadget. What? How does that sync with the title of your post? I’m glad you asked, and by the time you finish reading this post, you will understand.

Those of you who read my blog regularly know by now my computer operating system of choice is Linux with Simply Mepis being the particular distribution. A quick look through my Computer Category will show you several posts written on the subject. Several of those posts have been published in a various internet computer magazines, for which I’m grateful.

The first time I became upset with Apple was shortly after unwrapping my iPod to populate it with music and videos. I dutifully booted into that vastly inferior OS called Windows XP, fired up iTunes, and loaded music to my heart’s content. I had to register the iPod that way and thought that would be as good a way as any to upload content. What a mistake!

It wasn’t long until I had booted back into the safe confines of Linux. I fired up one of my media applications to continue uploading music, but to my dismay, the music I had spent time uploading didn’t appear on the device. Here we go! Back to Windows again to fix the database, then back to Linux and the same thing happened. Grrrrrr! Come to find out it was the insidious nature of Apple’s proprietary ways that caused all the commotion. They purposely added some code to the database that made sure you could only use iTunes for Apple or Windows; nothing in Linux. It was iTunes or nothing at all.

It wasn’t long until the bright guys from Linux found a solution and began working on getting the fix out to whoever wanted it. I’ll tell you now, my iPod works better now using a couple of Linux apps far better than it ever did with iTunes. Apple refuses to make iTunes available for Linux, which is another reason to steer clear of them.

I would love to have a smart phone and have been looking at several models. Obviously, Apple’s iPhone is out of the question. Apple is not going to get my money; the more I read about them the more I see how much like Microsoft they are, and that’s not a good thing at all. A few phones that appeal to me are the Blackberry 8900 (T-Mobile), Blackberry Tour (Verizon/Sprint) and the Palm Pre (Sprint). Each one has features which are quite appealing.

According to an AP Hi Tech article posted today by Rachel Metz, those good ol’ boys at Apple are up to their old tricks again. Many would say they saw this coming a mile away, and it’s probably true. Apple purposefully broke the Palm Pre’s ability to sync with iTunes. Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said the update “disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre.” In another article by Jeff Bertolucci of PC World, information is given to help Pre owners work their way around Apple’s kill switch.

To sum it up nicely, I just don’t like Apple’s business model. Come to think of it, I just don’t like Microsoft’s business model, either. Perhaps they make good equipment (many argue there are far superior media players out there), but the way they are so proprietary is troubling to me. Do the words Microsoft, Internet Explorer and monopoly ring a bell with anyone?

The ESV and my iPod Classic

Technology is wonderful and useful in more ways than this post can effectively address.  I did something today I have wanted to do for quite a while, but just didn’t take the time to tackle the task.  Now that it’s done, I’m wondering why it took me so long to take care of business.

Now that you’re interest has been piqued, I will continue with the story. There has to be some background, first, though.  Last year, our Pastoral Covenant Group (PCG) met for our annual retreat, and one of the pastors was watching some teaching videos on an iPod Classic 80GB.  That was very interesting to me, as I had never used one of those devices before, and the thought of putting videos on a portable device like the one he showed me was intriguing.

iPod Classic Silver 80GB

My wife bought me one for Christmas, and I immediately booted into M$ Windows in order to use iTunes.  Honestly, I didn’t know any better; I was under the impression you either had to use iTunes in Windows or Mac in order to populate this new Classic. Well, I quickly grew weary of booting into an inferior operating system just to put music on my iPod Classic.  In case you’re wondering, my operating system (OS) of choice is Linux, and Simply Mepis in particular.

Here’s where the story gets interesting.  Not long after booting back into the safe confines of my Linux OS, I decided it was time to add some more music and videos to my shiny new iPod Classic.  Well, I plugged it, and opened an application that should have handled the task with relative ease – Amarok.  The link for Amarok takes you to a wonderful article about basically the same situation as the one I’m writing about. The problem is, Apple added a checksum to the database so you have to either use iTunes for Windows or Apple, as I previously pointed out. Linux is great, though, and Softpedia has an article explaining the problem and includes some answers, too.

I managed to blow up my iTunes database several times while in Linux before Apple’s insidious behavior was discovered by me.  Others in the Linux community had already run into the problem and had begun to vigorously pursue a resolution.  It wasn’t long until the solution was found, as the article at Softpedia explains.  To make a longer story short, I installed a few packages in my Linux machine, and now I am happy to report yet another reason to stay away from M$ Windows.

Now that you know my iPod Classic 80GB works in Linux, let me get on with the rest of the story. Mark Bertrand at the Bible Design & Binding Blog writes about high-end Bibles, and has several articles about the English Standard Version (ESV).  I had never heard of that version until reading Mark’s excellent blog.  After doing some research and reading several passages for myself, I began to be quite taken by the beauty of this new version.  BTW, I’m looking to acquire an ESV made by what some people consider to be the finest publisher on the planet, R. L. Allan and Sons, in Glasgow, Scotland.  If you want to buy the Bible in the US, the sole distributor is Evangelicalbible.com.

While browsing today, I came across podBible.org. In case you don’t already know, it offers the ESV as a download so you can put on your iPod.  The site offers versions for Windows or Mac, so I chose Windows and followed the instructions.  It wasn’t long before the ESV NT was put on my Classic, and I began to enjoy reading this wonderful version of God’s Holy Word.  For further reading pleasure, you could see Mark Bertrand’s article about The ESV on an Apple iPhone.  Enjoy.