T-Mobile

I love T-Mobile.  There is simply no other way to define the feelings I have for this company. To build the proper context, I need to go back a bit. In college, I was a Verizon client. At the time Verizon was the best and had amazing phones.  The most amazing feature on this phone:

You could see the caller on the outside without flipping it open! w00t! This was a big deal, and was a specific reason I went with verizon.

I made the switch to T-Mobile because Verizon had a significant price increase about 7 years ago.  We needed phones for our new life in CT, and I did a full comparison and landed on T-Mobile. In the time since I have had multiple cell phones and T-Mobile's home phone service. Phones have included flips, sliders, Blackberrys, Windows Mobile and Androids. I am one of those clients that work the system.  Emboldened by a friend with connections at a T-Mobile store I learned tricks about how to get into the right section of customer care, and have over time found that there are multiple ways to tweak your account for the best cost savings. I also abhor contracts, so for many of my phones I have gone without a contract further complicating our account history with phone swaps and the like. All of this to say I am an atypical customer. When you look at my account, it is painful to figure out what is going on with it. However, I have never had a situation where the first or second person I talked to at customer care was not intelligent, English speaking and capable of fulfilling my request to my satisfaction.

In contrast, I had to work with the AT&T customer service for my former employer.  It was always trouble. I had to tell them where to look in their own system to find my information. Noone knew what they were doing.

So imagine my delight when the news broke that the AT&T deal to buy T-Mobile was officially canceled, and that T-Mo's mother company would get $4M out of the botched deal!  More importantly, they will get their joint roaming agreement.

T-Mobile has been ranked for 4 years as the highest in customer satisfaction.  They have the least expensive plans (less now with "value" plans). Call quality and coverage matters if you live in a major city.  Otherwise, most carriers have similar experiences in smaller cities. There is simply no good reason to go with a more expensive plan when T-Mobile has such a strong phone offering and quality service.  It simply is a great company, and I love it.

Please.  If you are considering cell phones this Christmas, think T-Mobile. I have no stake (I own no T-Mobile stock) except that as a customer I would really like to see this company succeed. With the AT&T deal off, T-Mobile will need to produce more sales. Fortunately, switching will save you significant money, so take the plunge.

Synergy

I found this wonderful tool to share your mouse and keyboard over multiple machines.  I use this when I have two computer (like my two laptops) so I never have to take my hands off the one keyboard/mouse.  When I am in the main room, this tool allows me to control the house computer without VNC since I can see the monitor fine, but am too far to use the mouse and keyboard.  It is very easy to setup (though some settings do not make themselves obvious).

I have not played with the cross platform options, but it sounds great if you have a serious setup at home.

This is a great open source app.  Simple, clean, and just works.  Well done Synergy.

Our Future is almost here....

This, in my opinion, is the single largest innovative game changer for our generation.  The ability to generate small but consistent electricity using motion takes us to the point where our bodies can generate through our normal livelihood the energy required to do the things we want to do.

Obesity opponents should be all over this as more activity means more energy for our disposal.  Reminds me of the game station in the 90's that made you ride a stationary bike to power it.

A/B Testing

Have you heard of A/B testing?  The internet is amazing.  Since there is very little real cost to displaying websites (as opposed to billboards, or other forms of visual marketing) you can do A/B testing and statistically know if your change is going to be better.

In life I wish I could test things this way.  Imagine if I could A/B Test my recent car choice.  I could know through real data which car would fill my requirements better. Web designers have a real tool in their arsenal, and they should be using it a lot!  For me, I'll just have to rent the other vehicles and see if I still think I made the right choice.

Torch

My Blackberry Bold has been rebooting on me regularly, so today I got an upgrade.  The Blackberry Torch is a nice... Blackberry.  It is not an iPhone.  It is not an Android device.  But in the world of road-warriors and government officials, there is no business device better than a blackberry for real mobile productivity, and the Torch is the best Blackberry yet.

The good:
Touch - Welcome to the world of touch screens (lets pretend the Storm never happened, 'kay?).  The interesting thing about this User Interface is that you have options.  You have so many options that I can't figure out which way I am supposed to do a particular task.  Users of Blackberries have been used to the wheel/ball movement for years now, but with the use of a good touch interface, it is no longer required.  However, Blackberry left the mini-magic-scroll-thingy just to confuse us.  I find myself trying to navigate with the scroll feature while knowing full well I could just touch the screen.  Its weird, but the touch is good and responsive.  It was the first soft keyboard I did not hate.  My fat fingers only miss-typed about 10% of the time, which means if I made the effort, I could get good at it.  I do not have to.

Keypad - My favorite part of a Blackberry.  A like a real keyboard on the phone, not a soft keypad.  More than that, I like having it small enough to type with one hand.  Most hard keyboards make you flip the device landscape and use two hands.  Having the slide out for the portrait oriented keypad is a great mix. I am still uncomfortable with sliding the touchscreen up to reveal the keypad because I am concerned about pressing something I am not supposed to.  I'm sure this is just a familiarity issue that will go away over time.

Speed - feels faster than the Bold.  Faster is better!

The Bad
Resolution - Devices out there today have really small pixels.  I feel like I could measure these with a standard ruler.  You just can't get as sharp as you can with the iPhone, or other devices (Atrix, Galaxy S, etc.).

Opera - To be fair this is not Blackberry's fault, but the blackberry browser will have to do for now since Opera does not recognize the Torch's touchscreen.  Disappointing to say the least.


All told, its a good phone.  For Blackberry users, it is a HUGE leap forward, while still maintaining a business feel.  A few years ago, BB pushed hard to pitch themselves as a young/hip alternative.  It didn't fly then, and its not going to now with the phones that are available, but for business, when your phone is primarily a phone/email device, BB wins.

Perhaps when the Blackberry Playbook comes out, I can figure out a way to need one.

Cleaned out the old tech

My project for Saturday was to clean out the desk and get rid of some old tech items.  This was long overdue.  The computer the kids use was painfully slow. I had a machine that I was playing with ubuntu on, but since that project is over (i.e. I'm giving up trying to learn linux... again) I loaded windows back on it and got it all set up for home use.  Chrome browser with application shortcut to Webkins.  Pandora One for Veronica.  And I have our data share automatically copying to a mybook for backup purposes.

Our inkjet printer died a while back, so I installed a new one.  In the mix, I somehow fried the Dell Laser.  I will take it to work to see if it can be fixed.

I then took all our old tech items and threw out what was out of date.  Included was an old router, usb hub, and a joystick that had an actual game port connector.  I gave the girls some old cell phones, and we are officially cleaned out of any old technology.  This is hard for me, since I typically hold onto everything, but its a new day.