It's Incredible

The folks at Verizon have been kind enough to let me play with one of their new HTC Incredible phones. And I'm loving it! They may have a hard time taking it back when the trial period it over :-)

First off, the touch screen interface is gorgeous! There are several themes, but the default screen offers animations for the current weather and a large digital clock. This phone by Google runs the Android 2.o operating system. This version offers quick processing and quick graphics. Like the iPhone, it offers multi-touch screen navigations. In other words you can "pinch" the screen to zoom in or spread your fingers apart to zoom out. There are other gesture that allow users to navigate other features and screens.

The voice recognition for search and even entering text is extremely accurate - perfect for use in the car. Speaking of the car, there's a Car Panel app that provides the top six most useful apps for your car, including maps, voice search and navigation.

The Android market offers a wide variety of free and inexpensive apps that download and install probably 10 times faster than on my old T-Mobile G1. Some of my favorites include GPS Essentials (speed, altitude, lat/long and bearing to destination), UrbanSpoon (easily find local restaurants using a variety of criteria) and Key Ring which scans all the barcodes on those little plastic tabs on your key ring. Retailers can then scan the code from your phone.

So far, this rates way up there. I think it surpasses the third generation iPhone and will most likely hold its own agains the fourth generation iPhone.

More to come! We'll look at upload/download speeds around town, signal strength and more.

AT&T Changes Data Plan Rules

According to an MSNBC article AT&T is doing away with its unlimited data plan just in time for the release of the new iPhone. There is some good news: if you currently have an "all you can eat" plan for $30/month you'll be able to keep it. The bad news is that if you're a new subscriber you'll be paying for the amount of data you transfer. If you just check email and don't watch video or download lots of apps you'll probably save some money. But power users beware. You could find a BIG surprise in your bills this summer!

Business Blastoff on a Budget

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Business Blastoff on a Budget

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My Favorite Hobby

I enjoy lots of things outside of work, but one of the things tat I always enjoy is flying. I can't afford a real plane (yet) so I use Microsoft Flight Simulator X and planes downloaded from Fly Away Simulations to see the world. It's fun to play with different aircraft - most are modeled on real planes and handle like their real-world counterparts. I can start from any airport in the world and choose to fly in real-time weather conditions or choose my weather. If you enjoy flying I suggest you check it out!

Watch Your Phone Bill

Word to the wise: make sure someone checks your phone bill from front to back every month. There may well be unexpected and unauthorized charges hiding on there.

Last week I got a call from the folks at Verizon. Somehow the change of address notice I sent out in October didn't get processed. I expected a big hassle, but I only had to explain myself to two people with one transfer in between. Quite a pleasant surprise.

The second person I talked to, Gina, asks me a bunch of qualifying questions. But she was friendly and professional. Finally, she asked if I knew my bill was over $50 a month. I said no, I should only have the charge for forwarding my number to my AccessLine - about $20 a month.

Gina explained that there's a company who has added it's Web hosting services to my bill at a cost of $50 plus tax per month. Seems this happens frequently, and the charge shows up on the back of the last page of the bill. Obviously this slipped by us. Seems that's what these scamsters count on. Gina worked on my account for about half an hour, then called me back with the good news that I now have a $568 credit on my bill. Great work. Great service.

"Valuable" Service

I've had my Capital One VISA card since I opened my business eight years ago. Always paid on time. Always kept the balance reasonable. I've got a credit score over 750. So I was flabbergasted to receive a notice yesterday that "due to extraordinary changes" in the economy they are adjusting the interest rate on my card. They're pretty much doubling my interest rate from 8.9% to 17.9% effective 1/28/2009 (notice I got this yesterday 2/18.2009). Gotta love it. Even if I could do it, I can't imagine doing something like this. I guess they really don't need my business. I understand there's a bill out there somewhere that's supposed to curb this kind of nonsense. But in the mean time I guess greed is the top priority for these folks. Good thing they left me the right to cancel my card. The good news is my shredder accepts VISA.

What's your take?

Facebook - It's Not All Fun & Games

With the popularity of social networking (and particularly Facebook) it was oinly a matter of time before the chain letters started appearing. I was doing some research for an upcoming workshop and ran across some interesting info. This is one hilarious article. It's also a bit scary because it's 100% true. I'm not going to suggest it should be forwarded to 25 of your friends, but it may be worth if. You be the judge.

I also read a story about Facebook's new data policies that isn't quite as funny. I've always encouraged people to be careful with the information they share on the Internet. This article is a sobering reminder that you can't "un-ring" a bell. Once you share something in cyberspace it takes on the half-life of plutonium.