Unless you’ve been living in 1997 for the past 48 hours, you’ve probably heard that Apple has announced their new, breakthrough device called the iPhone (at least for now). They’re billing it as an iPod, Phone, and revolutionary internet communicator all in one device. Since I’m currently a Treo 650 user and a gadget junkie in general, this has me really interested.

Some basics. It is scheduled to be released in June 2007. There will be two versions–a 4 GB model for $499 and an 8 GB model for $599. I’m fairly sure that the 4GB model won’t sell nearly as many. Without having spent any time with the device, nor being able to read any third-party reviews, I am giving a tentative very positive review.

There are some really cool things that Apple has done. First off, it looks sweet. There are no hard buttons. Everything is touchscreen and done with virtual buttons or tap-scrolling. Another breakthrough they’ve done is having the ability to have multiple touches at the same time. That means that you can use two fingers at once to navigate the phone. You’ll have to see the demonstration. The other thing that seems really cool is the random-access voice mail. That means that you can choose which voice mail you want to listen to when you want to listen to it, in any order. That would be really nice to have TODAY!!!

There are only two negative things I can see from the beginning. First is the “small” storage space. I say small because the normal iPods have 30GB+ of storage. For people who have 10,000+ songs and want them all the time this will not be enough space. But this is A LOT more than my Treo has built in (32MB, yes megabytes). The other is the lack of a removable battery. Two things that worry me about this are running out of juice on the run and reseting the device if it locks. I know, you mac fanboys will tell me that Apples don’t freeze, but my brother-in-law would disagree. His iPod has frozen/locked up on him two or three times. Granted, this won’t be a big deal day-to-day, but it is something to think about.

Service will only be available from Cingular, so us Sprint users will have to make a switch if we decide to get it. You’ll also have to sign a two-year contract. My initial suggestion is to wait at least three to six months before you buy one. Most first-generation devices will have some minor, but annoying, bugs to work out and the price will most likely drop after a year or so. However, if you just have to have it, you’re probably safe to go ahead and buy it. Just make sure you let me play with it for a while!!!

Last month Palm officially announced that the next Treo would be released in the UK in partnership with Vodaphone. Today they set September 12 as the day they will officially unveil the new device. In a story by Reuters today, there was a very odd quote. [Read the News Story Here]:

The company is hoping the move to the Windows Mobile will help alleviate the concerns of Treo users who have long complained of Palm’s own operating system crashing the handsets on a regular basis.

If this statement was made by a Palm representative then they are moronic. Why in the world would you say that one of your competitor’s software is more stable or reliable than your own? You’re giving the impression that you’ve done everything you can, but there is a superior product on the market. If Palm thinks this than the Palm OS is dead.

But another thought I’ve had. When has a Windows product been more stable or reliable than anything else? Windows XP, while being a vastly superior product than the its predecessor Windows ME, is full of flaws and still locks up on occasion. I have had no experience with Windows Mobile, but I would be shocked if it is more stable than Palm OS.

What causes Treo users problems with stability is usually the third-party software they install. There are a number of programs available that are considered hack programs. They manipulate the intended operation of device, which in turn reduces its reliability. The only way this is eliminated is by not allowing programs to hack the device. Having the ability to customize the Treo is one of its most desirable features.

I’ve been a Palm OS user since the Fall of 1997. It would be a shame to see it buried by its own company. Palm, if you are planning on ditching the OS, please give it to the open-source community. They will be able to make it what you have not been able to do.

I’m testing out an app for my treo called plogit. I don’t think I’ll use it to post very often, but it’s free, so why not try it.

I previously posted about how it’s annoying to get a ton of hot sauce from Taco Bueno, even though they ask you if you want any and you tell them no. I ticked off Jamee, who apparently used to work at a Taco Bueno. Here’s the comment she left about that post:

Okay quit crying like a little girl…i’ve worked at taco bueno before and yes when u order a combo we automatically ask for your drink first…why because on the computers we cannot move forward in the order until we have your drink request, when a customer starts saying they want no this and no that and they want to add this but take this off, it is much easier to get the drink out of the way first…and sometimes the customers act like we can read their minds like when they want no tomatoes we will put no tomatoes on everything and then they throw a hissy because they just wanted no tomatoes on one thing…although they didn’t specify we just have to grin and bare it. Heaven forbid taco bueno isn’t a magical place were they just get everything right. and please man it’s just hot sauce remove it and throw it away it’s not like it tainted your food.

Jamee. I do throw the hot sauce away. My point wasn’t to complain about Taco Bueno being perfect. My point was that it’s not fun knowing that the employees don’t listen to you.

And get to work on the mind reading thing. That would speed things up a lot.

I found this video because my brother Brian had dugg it on digg. Click play to check it out.

Direct link to the download page.

read more | digg story

It’s really easy to start using computers today. For the most part, all you have to do is take everything out of the box, plug the cables into the right place, power up and you’re ready to go. It’s not unusual to never think about your set up again. When you do this, you might be selling your computer short by not fully utilizing all the computing power that you have at your fingertips–in particular your screen size.

One thing that you can do to make sure you’re having the fullest experience you can have with your PC (new or old) is to make sure your screen resolution is at the best setting to utilize it’s full potential. There are some factors that make it impossible to suggest the best resolution, but the general principle is that you should set the resolution to the highest setting that you’re comfortable with. Why should you do this? Check out a few screenshot comparisons that I did on my laptop. I could only choose either 800 x 600 (first picture) or 1024 x 768 (second picture):

NBA.com

ESPN.com

Amazon.com

Yahoo.com

If you look closely at each picture, you’ll see that for the most part websites are being designed more for the 1024 x 768 size than any smaller resolution. To find out what works best for you all you need to do is experiment with your resolution settings. To do this in Windows XP (sorry Mac users), you right-click on your desktop and click Properties. Click on the Settings tab at the top. Click and drag the arrow in the Screen resolution area to choose your desired setting. Click OK or Apply (the screen may go black temporarily). A window will open asking if you want to keep the settings, choose yes. That’s it!

I’d suggest trying out a few different resolutions and make sure you run the programs you normally use to decide which setting works best for you. There are some font settings that you can adjust to make reading text easier, but that’s for another post. Let me know if you have any questions by commenting in this post.