Happy Holidays to you and yours.  We’ve had a wonderful time with the family, and so far have:

• ate
• drank
• gone Christmas caroling (yes, outside with candles to the neighbors)
• played countless games of cards
• cooked a big pot of posole
• unwrapped many presents
• saw Santa
• played with the dogs
• ate and drank some more

A wonderful time so far - next we head out to WV for some time at the cabin, and are planning on climbing Ice Mountain, making a big fire in the fireplace, contemplating our resolutions for 2007, and having a big dinner.  Good times…

Categories: Family
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Now that the great “pre-Christmas wind storm” has come and gone in Seattle, life has gotten back to normal for the most part for us.  Luckily, we were only without power for about 12 hours, which is great considering that there are folks on the Eastside that are still in the dark.  Our roof lost a bunch of shingles, so I climbed up there and tarped it over the morning after the storm, while I called around to roofers in vain attempts to get the roof patched up.  Needless to say, we were at the bottom of the list behind folks who lost whole sections of roofs to fallen trees, etc.

Luckily, I found a local company (Lau Construction through Judy’s Book) who came out on Monday to inspect, and then had a crew out here on Tuesday to repair.  They did a fantastic job, and now my roof is good as new (well, as good as it was before the storm) — just in time for the next weather system to come through the area.

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I retired my Audiovox SMT5600 right before Thanksgiving in favor of the shiny new Cingular 8525 (aka HTC TyTn / Hermes). It’s got all the neat bells and whistles, and also marks my migration from Windows Smartphone to Windows PocketPC platform.

Things I like:

• Speed - I am showing 500-800kbps in speed tests, occasionally busting over 1000. Not too shabby, and now that Cingular looks close to launching a new rev of HSDPA in Seattle, it will get even faster. Plus, it’s got WiFi b/g…
• Flexibility - it’s a good phone, a good web browser, a solid OS (although it, like all MSFT devices, needs a reboot every now and then), and lots of software available.
• Sync - now that the phone supports push email, I get all of my email, calendar items synced from the Exchange server to my phone instantly. Nothing new there from the 5600, but I’m also getting my Tasks and Notes synced over the air too, which required me to do a USB sync on my 5600.

Things I don’t like:

• Web connect latency - it was taking me ~10 seconds to “Locate” web sites that I wanted to go to. After troubleshooting with Cingular and reading the many support forums, I ended up changing my DNS servers to point to those at OpenDNS.com. So far so good…
• No Profile Manager - my 5600 gave me the options to set the phone to “Meeting” or “Silent” or “Normal” or “Outdoor”, etc. The PPC doesn’t have such a beast. It’s either ring or no-ring. Grrr…
• No Ringer, No Music - I found this out the first day when trying to set up my phone to only vibrate on incoming calls. If you set the phone volume to “Vibrate”, it does that fine, but it also cuts off all volume from the music player. Frustrating.

However, I’ve gotten past those issues now, and I’m digging the phone. Here is my quick list of software that I’ve found to be key on my 8525:

• SPB PocketDiary - this replaces the home screen, and shows you all meetings, tasks, contacts, notes, etc etc. You can also control/access all elements from the home screen - no need to flip between different apps. Very nice.
• Batti - Neat little battery gauge that sits at the very top of the title bar (a couple of pixels high). This allowed me to remove the standard battery icon on the home screen using…
• fit4cat Hermes Tweaker - a solid utility that allows you to edit many hidden registry settings (turn of SMS sent notification, remove battery tray icon, etc.)
• Total Commander - File Manager on steroids. Also a Registry editor.
• vxUtil - all the network tools you want and need - ping, telnet, ipconfig, etc.
• Kevtris - a free Tetris clone for the PPC (and SmartPhone). Great game, and did I mention that it is free?
• Ephemeris - this might be an app that I use very infrequently, but it has some great applications. It basically calculates the phases of the moon and sunrise/sunset based on your location, but it has a cool compass to show you which way is North based on your current location relative to the sun/moon. Neat.
• StopTime - from the same author as Ephemeris, a very handy timer/stopwatch utility.
• Windows Live Search - it’s in Beta, and I admit I’m Google-biased, but this app kicks Google Maps’ butt. Much quicker, cleaner, and more fully-functioned than Google Maps for Mobile
  (which was my prior fave in this area and saved my bacon a couple of times when I was lost).
• 1-Calc Lite - super simple calculator that has functions for splitting the bill and calculating tip.
• MortPlayer - my music player. I’m not super-pumped on this, but it is better than the built-in Windows Media Player…

I think that’s it. I’ll add if anything jumps to mind. Now all I need is to find a solid pair of (reasonably priced) stereo Bluetooth headphones, and I’m golden. Until then, the wired headset that came with the phone (retrofitted with my Jabra EarGels) works just fine to turn my phone into a MP3 player. Add in a 1GB microSD card and a bookmark for the RadioParadise MP3 stream, and we’ve got MUSIC!

Enjoy - Noah

P.S. For hardware accessories for the 8525 (and your phone too), I recommend Boxwave. I like their VersaChargers that can use the existing USB cable to charge from the wall, car, or airplane. Neat!

Technorati Tags: cingular 8525 windows smartphones pocketpc ppc htc hermes tytn

Categories: Geek
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