All posts by jetrotz

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Gadgets, technology

activesync coming to the iphone?

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So much for the lines. A buddy of mine just called, saying he waltzed into the Lenox Square Apple Store at 8pm EDT and simply asked for and was handed his iPhone. No camping required, which is a good thing, because his wife threatened legal action if any urban camping was involved in his quest for this gadget

Well, I may have to eat my words. First, ZDnet blogger Mary Jo Foley who covers Microsoft reports rumors of ActiveSync licensing to be announced at any time for the iPhone. That means, for those companies who enable this feature on their Exchange servers, OTA sync would be possible for email and calendars on the iPhone – glory be, hallelulia! I want to see Apple confirm this, but this basically blows away the issues around corporate integration. Second, uber-tech writer from the WSJ Walt Mossberg makes an offhand comment in his video review of the device that Exchange integration is possible “if your IT department cooperates by enabling a setting on the server.” Now he didn’t specifically talk about ActiveSync, and may have simply been referring to the capability of Exchange servers to support outside-the-firewall IMAP, but I am keeping my fingers crossed on iPhone & ActiveSync. Mary Jo reports confirmation in both the Times and WSJ on the issue of Exchange IMAP support, but still stands by her report that Microsoft is licensing ActiveSync for the device. And there is an outside chance the gadget fairy may bless me with one of these for testing. Now I’m interested again.

Food

toss the booty

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Wanted to pass along this nation-wide recall of what I know is the fave snack of a lot of the toddlers (and their parents) – Veggie Booty, produced by Robert’s American Gourmet. In a note from Robert (PDF, Adobe Acrobat required) says that they have decided to temporarily stop all manufacture and sale of the Veggie Booty product. They have more detail on this page as well. Per this story in the LA Times today,

Robert’s American Gourmet Food Inc. recalled all its Veggie Booty snacks across the U.S. and Canada because the mix might be contaminated with salmonella, regulators said Thursday.

Veggie Booty, which include both kale and spinach, seem like a sneaky way to make sure the little ones are getting vegetables when they snack, has been the subject of controversy in the past. Back in 2002, a Good Housekeeping staffer exposed their labeling as being inaccurate, reporting only a third of the actual fat content of the treats. They have also run afoul of other labeling around their Fruity Booty being ‘mostly’ fruit. Turned out that wasn’t entirely accurate either. Anyway, our just-opened bag of Pirate Booty (in the cheese flavor), another of their products, is going into the trash now, until we hear more.

Gadgets

what iPhone?

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iphone_curve_vx6700
Bah, humbug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you’ve heard it all before. I’m sure you were expecting to hear that I’m skipping work, camping out at Lenox Mall to get a shiny new iPhone Friday afternoon. Well, for many reasons, I decided weeks ago that without the integration with with my company’s Microsoft Exchange systems for over-the-air calendar features and push email, the first generation iPhone was not going to be on my shopping list, at least for now. I’ll wait for the bugs to get ironed out, true 3G network support, and better corporate support. I’m now (as of a couple of weeks ago) the proud new owner of Research in Motion’s latest offering, the spiffy new Blackberry Curve/8300 (middle, above).

And let me tell you, I feel like I’ve entered the 21st century when comparing this smartphone with the horrendous Verizon/HTC VX6700 Windows Mobile (far right, above) device I’ve been using for over a year now. Lack of usability doesn’t even begin to describe the issues with the Vx6700. Resets required two and three times a day, calls going directly to voice mail, horrible battery life, and the form factor of a brick. I had such high hopes for Windows Mobile as a breath of fresh air over what I’d been using before – the third in a series of Palm Treos I’d been using since 2002 or so. Before that, I’d lived with a series of the very early and sometimes somwhat crude Blackberry devices for several years. I may be a power user, with thousands of emails in my inbox etc., but no commercially available device should perform as poorly as that VX6700.

What do I want in a smartphone? I’ve already said it’s an absolute must to have the OTA calendaring and overall Exchange integration. The iPhone is admittedly an amazing device, but without a hack to provide these features, I remain tethered to a laptop or desktop somewhere to keep my crazy calendar in check, and that’s what having one of these phones is all about. The new Curve is very satisfying. It’s got a great screen that adapts surprisingly well to changes in ambient light, the camera is great to have and offers decent quality for a phone, and the web browsing experience is actually quite good. Perceptually, web browsing on this device seems faster than the sluggish overhead from Windows Mobile on the VX6700, particularly on mobile-optimized sites.

Like the iPhone, the ‘full-web’ experience on the Curve is pathetic – using AT&T/Cingular’s pokey ‘Edge’ network for fully broadband-optimized web sites. But I find this all a small price to pay for the convenience, reliability, and generally instantly-responsive behavior of the Blackberry Curve – not to mention corporate tech support at the office being behind it 100%.

technology

rock n roll

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guitar hero
In keeping with the gaming theme of recent posts, I must share the photo above. I used a gift certificate from my sisters-in-law they sent as a thank-you for helping them with their new jewelery business (their site will be unveiled soon) to buy the much-heralded Guitar Hero II. There is no doubt this is an amazing game – do not pass go, do not collect $200 – go out and get this game if you have an Xbox 360 or the Playstation. Sam, of course, loves it as well as you can see! Amy also manages to mostly kick my butt at this one – hmm, perhaps her years in the music conservatory finally paid off? Anyway, I’m just trying to figure out how to hold the darn guitar in a way that doesn’t result in the tips of my fingers on my left hand going numb and staying that way for going on 48 hours now. It seems to be getting better, but I’m so uncoordinated that I have to mash the buttons on the guitar neck far harder than necessary. I seem to keep playing Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend over and over again, but my scores are far behind all my Xbox Live buddies. I’m somewhere in the 350,000’s on the leaderboard, while my friend Juanita Winters is up around 25,000 worldwide. Scary, really. Can’t wait for the reported 2007 Summer release of their update with only 80s music, or the late-year Rock Band – where multiple players will be able to join together online on bass, drums, vocals and guitar.