Mobi·gas·mic

Sirius-ly Surprising

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 06:00:00 PST

I was surprised to find my husband rocking Sirius radio in his Jeep the other day. I had bought him a radio and a 6-month subscription about 7 years ago but hadn't given it much thought since then. It seems that somewhere along the line, his little first-generation hardware has still kept the signal even though we haven't had an active account all this time. I guess sometimes there are perks to be an early adopter. And quite frankly, Sirius already got a couple of bucks from us- we lost a pretty penny on their stock back in the day!

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:39:00 PST

Yay for 2012! So far, it's shaping up to be an awesome year! I've been overwhelmed by work lately as I led a hefty software transition- fortunately it went splendidly, and it seems that my life may soon return to the pace it was at 5 months go.

On the tech front I have had some minor flirtations with the Acer Iconia A100 and more recently with the Galaxy Tab 7+. I liked the Tab, but in the end I decided to wait for Verizon to release the 7.7 model to see if that is right for me. I really hope so- the non-functioning StylishGirl app is really bothering me more than I thought it would. I'm also convinced that my Evo View is slightly too heavy for my wrist....I know- tech girl problems.
As far as a phone, I really need a QWERTYBar to be released. I was surprised that nothing in that design came out of CES this year! Just more slabs yet again. So, I'm still in the market for a phone- I've had the same phone for a 14 months!! Not that I don't love my Droid Pro, but it has now slowed to a virtual crawl.
I'm excited to see what this year brings!

Hurray for Honeycomb

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:52:00 PST

I had all but abandoned any hope of my View getting Honeycomb so you can imagine my surprise on Wednesday night when I suddenly had an available update to 3.2! I was hesitant to go ahead with it until I noted that it promised I would not lose my data. I applied the update and in a few minutes was enjoying the best that Honeycomb had to offer. The layout is still taking me a bit to get used to- my muscle memory makes my eye flicker to the top right of my screen to check the time.
All the apps I had still work with 2 notable exceptions: HBO Go will not even launch now bit that's fine since I could never get it to actually play videos. The most painful loss is StylishGirl, where I have meticulously and lovingly logged months of outfits only to have it force close on startup.
But, on the bright side, a good number of apps have slicker tablet versions I can now enjoy. Aesthetically I'm finding that I enjoy the overall look of HC. And the scribe pen which could previously only scribble notes can now interact with all aspects of the device. So thank you Sprint and HTC for a pleasant Christmas gift!

AppSnap: Next Issue

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 05:53:00 PST

Last month I wrote about some of the gaps between the iPad and the Evo View. I was especially bummed about the lack of support for the People Magazine digital edition. Then yesterday I stumbled upon NextIssue which is in beta but works fantastically already.

I was thrilled to find that, like the iPad version, I could parlay our print subscription into a free digital edition. Once I entered my number, I was able to get the current issue and I get an email reminding me when a new issue is available. But the best surprise by far was that this app supports all the 'bonus' content. The People app has a good amount of interactive content that makes the reading experience even better.

Acer Iconia A100: A brief affair...

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:51:00 PST

I've had a somewhat unhealthy fixation on Honeycomb for a while now- and eventually just flicking through at my local Best Buy wasn't cutting it. Over the Thanksgiving shopping period I noticed the Acer Iconia had dropped to as low as $189. I didn't act quickly enough to snag one at that price, but I did find one at Gamestop.com for $240 and convinced myself it was worth my while.
The first thing I noticed was how light it is compared to my Evo View. Not that my View is a brick, but I definitely noticed how heavy it was next to the Acer. The body was slick and had an interesting shape. When I turned it on, I spent the first few moments playing with Honeycomb. I didn't like the stock launcher as it wasted a lot of space allowing for the rotation from landscape to portrait. So, after downloading Launcherpro I felt more at home. More exploration led me to realize that Honeycomb is not that much different from Gingerbread on a tablet. In fact, there is a certain uniformity that Honeycomb is missing- everything in Gingerbread happens in the status bar, but in Honeycomb you need to go right for the clock, go left for the task switcher, remember which icon is used to go back.
In the end, the thing that annoyed me the most about the Iconia was the home button. In portrait orientation things were fine, but hold it in landscape and your fingers inevitable brush by the button dumping you right back on the home page. If there is already a home button as part of the OS, please tell me why there is a need for another physical button? I bundled the Iconia back up, but because I wasn't quite sure what the Gamestop return policy is I decided to go to a local store to return it. My first try was unsuccessful but the manager did point me to a store that stocked the Iconia and would probably take a return. So, I was able to return the Iconia, less shipping cost, and finally was able to put my Honeycomb curiosity to rest.

AppSnap: MVideoPlayer

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:01:00 PST

My video player of choice is mvideoplayer. Great features and presents my videos in a great interface. Added bonus- the app let's you look up the selected video in IMDB.

Operation Admiral Fail: Mission Accomplished!

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:42:00 PST

Just stopped by the Sprint store where they refunded my Admiral purchase with no questions asked. As an added bonus today I got an email from Verizon in response to my email and they added back my $5 text plan! Hurray!

Operation Admiral Fail: Phase 1 Complete

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:02:00 PST

Last night was a cold and rainy night as I navigated my way back to my local Verizon store. I was pleased that it only took about 20 minutes for them to port my number back from Sprint. The only real downside is that in my haste I seem to have lost my $5 text message plan. Next phase is tonight when I head to the Sprint store and return the Admiral.
Side note: I have never been so happy to hold my Droid Pro as I was last night when the re-activation was complete!

Motorola Admiral Tried...and Tanked

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:20:00 PST

On Friday afternoon I popped my Droid Pro on my work charger, figuring I would give it a quick boost before the long evening planned. After over an hour I took it off and noticed that the battery had not gotten a boost. But I had no time to investigate further and wrote off the incident as a fluke. But by Saturday morning my battery was at 20% after an overnight charge- I knew I had a problem on my hands. My immediate emotion was anger- it was just too much of a coincidence that I had passed the 1 year mark on my Droid Pro and suddenly almost to the day the phone had its first malfunction. So, I did some research and decided to port my Verizon account over to Sprint and pick up the Motorola Admiral. So on Saturday afternoon I went to my local Sprint store (and with the same agent that sold me my HTC View) I picked up the Admiral and moved my number over.
When I first spent some time with the Admiral I was impressed with the screen resolution. It wasn't the night and day difference that I thought it would be but it was enough to feel that I had upgraded. However, a few swipes in and I noticed that the screen was very finicky- it would select when I meant to swipe all the time. I switched screen protectors but the issue persisted. Next, I realized that the camera had no way to mute the shutter sound. This is a big annoyance to me as I take photos of all my receipts while in my office and do not need it to sound like I'm having a photo session behind closed doors.
Then the little glitches started- Launcher pro refreshes every single time I return to the homescreen, no matter what settings I have it configured to. The screen resolution is challenging for a number of apps (especially homescreen replacements) leaving me with overlapping or weird letterboxing. And finally this morning I had 2 spontaneous reboots for no apparent reason at all.
Now I've decided the aggravation is just not worth it. When I planned to sell the Droid Pro I popped in to Verizon to have them look at it and they were able to clean out the charging ports and that resolved the charging issue. Now, I just have to convince them to port me back over, and hope that I can bypass the ETF fees from Verizon and not generate any from Sprint. More details later!

Netflix Redesign

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:47:00 PST

I am in love with the new look of Netflix for Android! It’s sleeker and makes my tablet look more media-centric. Navigation is much easier and on a single screen you get a great snapshot of all your recent Netflix activity.

Greener Grass....Tablet Edition

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 07:00:00 PST

I've spent some time today with our iPad (better known now as Dean's iPad). Size asides, there are some definite pros and cons when I compare it to my Evo View.Here are some of the things that jumped out at me today:

1. Hulu:

I don't have a Hulu plus subscription but with DroidLu I don't need one to enjoy Hulu on my View. No such offering to be found on the ipad.

2. People Magazine

This one stings- the iPad app for People Magazine looks absolutely stunning. It's free and ties in our print subscriptions.

3. Photobucket:

Again, the Photobucket app for iPad is gorgeous while the Android app is not size optimized for the larger screen.

4. Widgets

I am definitely a widget-holic. This dates back to my Windows Mobile days (when they were known as plugins). I can't imagine not being able to have my mini-apps right on my homescreen. I was surprised that the iOS 5 version of widgets is restricted to notifications.

5. HTC Scribe Pen

I love my scribe pen so much I ordered a second one. Hands down, this is one of my favorite things about my View.

A Plan on Every Carrier

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:18:00 PST

As of the end of last month our household had 4 plans- 1 AT&T plan from my Blackberry days (kept it to have the unlimited data), 1 add-on (family plan) for Dean's phone, 1 Verizon plan for my Droid Pro and 1 Sprint plan for my HTC Evo View 4G. Needless to say, it was becoming quite expensive. 2 weeks ago or so I decided to take some drastic steps to cut our costs- When Dean got his iPhone 4 I had him switch to my old number to take my data plan. It turns out that with his job discount he is eligible for a 25% rate reduction so with the plan in his name we can take advantage of that. We killed off his old number since there was now no need for it.
Since Dean moved to the iPhone we have been using WhatsApp for messaging instead of texting. With that change I was able to drop my texting plan to 250 from unlimited, saving about $15.
After careful consideration I dropped to the $19.99 3G only plan for my Evo View from the $44.99 plan that included 4G. And that's when the fun ended. With the slower 3G data suddenly I wasn't having as much fun streaming video or doing anything data-centric outside my Wifi zones.
So yesterday I decided to add my Sprint 4G plan back to my View. After all, with all the other cost savings I could definitely feel good about that expenditure. Today, just as I was about to hit the button I saw the news that Sprint had changed its plans. For the same amount of money, I could now get a 3G/4G plan and there is an in-between plan of $34.99 for 3GB of data. So, I flipped the switch and am very pleased! We're down to a reasonable 3 plans and 1 of them is only $20 a month and it includes 4G. Winning!

A Year with the Droid Pro

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 05:56:00 PST

I noticed a most shocking thing yesterday as I looked at my calendar: I've been using the same phone for a year! This may not seem like much but its a huge feat for me- I've hit pretty close to 9 months here or there, but never the full year.
I've been generally happy with my Droid Pro. The only real gripe I have is with the amount of memory. Every so often it slows down to the point where I need to manually kill apps using SystemPanel. My minor annoyance is that since the Gingerbread update my keyboard light has developed a mind of its own.
But besides that my Droid Pro has really been a champ. I took it to London in January and was able to unlock it and pop a local sim card. In August I took it with me on our family vacation to the Dominican Republic. There I mainly used it as my camera.
Will I be upgrading? You know, I really haven't seen anything that I feel is a compelling step up. My next phone will be a QWERTYBar Android phone with a large memory boost and a drop-in dock like the Nexus One had. Perhaps when the Ice Cream Sandwich phones start rolling out, I'll encounter one I like. Until then, I guess I'll have some more time with my Droid Pro.

App Snap: ChannelCaster

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:39:00 PST

http://market.android.com/details?id=com.handmark.mpp.gateway

Kindle vs Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 08:54:00 PST

When they announced the new Kindle a few weeks ago I was taken with the idea of having an e-reader without a keyboard- I usually push my purchases to my Kindle so I don't really do any typing.
I popped into my local BestBuy yesterday and got to get my hands on the new Kindle. Verdict: not a fan. I'm not exactly sure what rubbed me the wrong way: maybe it was the blockier footprint, or the color which I found jarring compared to the darker shade of my existing Kindle.
In the end I decided that I am content with my Kindle keyboard- it has longer battery life and I know I'm happy with it. As they say, if it ain't broke...

My Hierarchy of Tablet Needs

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:12:00 PDT

Last March I wrote a blog post about my hierarchy of smartphone needs. I would have to say that my list has not changed much for smartphone needs:
A. QWERTYBar
B. Homescreen Widgets
C. Active App Development
D. LED Notifications
E. Battery Life

In recent months my use has shifted slightly- I am using my Evo View a lot more for media consumption and games. My Droid Pro is where I take my calls, text, IM and generally do the socializing that requires data entry. I am generally happy with my Evo View- my opinion improved greatly after I was able to drop from the $45 monthly data plan down to to $20. In general my biggest gripes are the weight, lack of HBO Go and lack of Hulu Plus. Not huge deal-breakers but annoying nonetheless.These niggles have got me thinking about my hierarchy of tablet needs which are:

A. Portability: Most important thing a tablet must do to be useful to me is fit in my purse. For this reason the 7-8 inch is the max screen size. I'd like it to be as light as possible- I'm learning that from my use of the Evo View!
B. Battery Life: while I can imagine carrying around a spare smartphone battery, I would definitely not tote a tablet battery in my bag.
C. Connectivity: Even though I am mostly covered by Wifi at work and at home, there is something about the freedom in being able to connect anywhere.
D. App Compatibility: even though Honeycomb has been wheting my appetite for a while I just think that its not worth it if all apps won't run on it. I want a tablet that can run all the shiny new apps-especially the media-themed ones (Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go).

Gingerbread on my Droid Pro

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 17:06:00 PDT

My Droid Pro is almost a year old...which is virtually unheard of for me! But in the past month it's been really showing its age and has slowed down to an almost unbearable crawl. So I set aside some time today to do a hard reset- and the timing couldn't have been better as I ended up being just in time for the Gingerbread update. I had to flash SBF to get my Pro back to stock, then go through each of the updates from 2.26 on up to 4.8.7. But at the end I got the things that I have wanted most in my phone:

1. Dark notification bar (without having to do any monkeying around)
2. Ability to select text in a normal fashion

So now I've got a snappy phone and I can nearly imagine myself going another year on this phone.....nearly.

Pool Construction Project

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:20:00 PDT

The past few months have been mostly spent doing home improvements. The largest project was the construction of our new in-ground pool. It was pretty cool to watch the entire project as it moved along. It took about a month from dig to dip. I'll update with some more pictures soon since we just finished the landscaping today.

Day One- Excavation 8/11/2011

Re-bar steel framing 8/12/2011

Blasted with cement 8/17/2011

First Swim Day 9/16/2011

New Kindle Layout

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 10:48:00 PDT

App Snap: Stylish Girl

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 13:54:00 PDT

http://market.android.com/details?id=com.ddnmedia.stylishgirl

Color swap....Melkco Case

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 13:48:00 PDT

Real Housewives Tragedy

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:26:00 PDT

Received: Melkco case

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:02:00 PDT

App Snap: Nook Reader

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:13:00 PDT

I use my Nook app exclusively for magazines. http://market.android.com/details?id=bn.

ereader

Testing: HP Touchpad

noreply@blogger.com (LuluGirl) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:01:00 PDT

I have the chance to hang out with an HP Touchpad for the next 2 days. Its a trial unit as we decide what tablet to provide our doctors for electronic health records. My initial impressions are good except for the unreal amount of fingerprints it garners. The touchscreen implementation leavers something to be desired- you need to press precisely for touches to register. More later as I explore it some more.