Design vs. Functionality

The BlackBerry Storm 8 Months Later

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:55:48 -0500

I really wanted to like this Smartphone. I've tried so hard. People ask me on a daily basis how I like the Storm. I can't tell if they ask out of general curiosity, or pity, but I lie either way and say it's great. It's terrible, but I have my reasons. Primarily, I really hate to admit failure in my investment of time and money. Secondly, I really did hope things would get better with upgrades. It's now been 8 months. There's been a few OS upgrades, and there is reports of a new model possibly surfacing in November. It's time to set things straight.

Official review from someone that used the BlackBerry Storm extensively for 8 months:
Run, don't walk away from this BlackBerry.

It had so much potential, so much promise... so many bugs. When I wake up to the alarm on my BlackBerry Storm every morning (that it decides to work), I glance over at my night table and all I can think about is the "F" word.

Frustration.

No wait... Failure. No, maybe Flop. Or maybe... nahhh can't say that here.

As soon as I depress the screen (multiple times for it to register) to activate snooze for the 5th time, I know all I have to look forward to with my hand-held headache is a full day worth of cursing as my little black and chrome friend refuses to work, lags out, hangs up, or just turns off for no reason. Sometimes I don't even get to hit snooze. Those are the mornings I wake up on my own due to the failure of the device overnight. Those mornings are my favorite. And by "favorite" I really mean the phone is lucky to still be in one piece at that point. Those are the mornings that some type of battery or hardware failure occurred overnight and I am greeted with a white screen and an icon of a battery with a blue lightning bolt through it.

Those are the special mornings that I get to take the next couple of hours trying to get the phone to take a charge, pulling the battery, and holding buttons on boot screens, until finally I hit the perfect combination of random events that tell my BlackBerry Storm to come back to life.

Speaking of battery pulls, it's a daily occurrence. Sometimes multiple times a day. The damn Storm should just have an eject button to make it easier for me. Pulling off my protector, the rear panel, and then digging out the battery, just to replace everything a second later gets old real fast. What kind of gadget requires you to yank its power source out daily just to keep it limping along?

Want to read your email? Press and wait 2 minutes. That's the average time I have to wait each time.

Need to make a phone call? I'd love to, but the little green button doesn't seem to register the request until the 12th time I press it.

Yesterday I snapped. I wrote to Verizon and explained that I'm about 12 hours from giving up on them and switching to AT&T and an iPhone unless they attempt to fix my problem. Early termination penalty or no, I'm that fed up. I asked for a replacement BlackBerry Tour free of charge, so I could continue with the Verizon service, but I could shed myself of this epic disappointment of hand-held technology.

They explained that because I have never reported a problem previously, and I have not replaced the phone yet, that they could not accommodate my request for the Tour. Instead they are sending me a new Storm in the mail to replace my "problem". Yay. I'm overflowing with excitement...

The first hick-up this new phone experiences will result in me marching it right back to Verizon. I've dealt with it long enough and I refuse to continue. They can keep replacing my problem Storms until they get that it would just be cheaper to give me something that works. Maybe I'll be able to run their stock dry to save the rest of you from making my mistake.
]]> Tags: AT&T, BlackBerry, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Tour, iPhone, Smartphone, Verizon

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Will the BlackBerry Storm blow the competition away? - Oct 02, 2008
Verizon Redeems Itself with 4.7.0.148 - Jun 05, 2009
Pandora for the BlackBerry Storm? - Jan 07, 2009
Interesting "First Reactions" to the BlackBerry Storm - Oct 08, 2008
Time to Abandon the BlackBerry Storm? - May 15, 2009
Pandora for the BlackBerry Storm Finally Released - Apr 16, 2009
BlackBerry App World is Here! - Apr 01, 2009
Google Latitude is Just a Bad Idea - Feb 19, 2009
Weather the Storm - Jan 27, 2009
BlackBerry Storm Not So Touchy With TalkLock™ - Jan 02, 2009

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Comments on this Entry:

(Chris on Aug 28, 2009 1:39 PM) Well, I’d say you have a bad unit. Btw, I know a few people with iphones who have bad units too and had them replaced more than once. I got my Storm shortly after it came out (dec 08) and I don’t have any of the problems you are describing. In fact I think this is the best first generation anything I ever owned. The only thing I’m missing is WiFi.

IE6 Needs to Go

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:38:27 -0500

I seriously dislike Microsoft products for the most part. Especially their browser. As a web designer, Internet Explorer has been a thorn in my side for the better part of a decade. But, as sad as it is, the world needs Microsoft. What we no longer need is IE6.

If you've read any of this blog, you know that I am a big proponent of using the next best thing. Moving forward with technology, ideas, solutions, and standards. Right now, supporting IE6 specifically is the biggest hurdle I have to overcome on a daily basis. It's old technology that doesn't support current web standards, yet 15-20% of web users still use it as their primary browser.

No one wants to build a site that doesn't work properly for 1/5 of their target audience, but the time and money wasted on building a site that holds up in today's markets and is IE6 compatible is ridiculous. It's 2009! Designers and programmers should not have their creativity and ingenuity handcuffed because people still choose to use a browser that doesn't support advanced CSS or XHTML. The research, the hacks, the workarounds, the extra lines of code, the extra processes that slow the site down... they aren't worth the money spent by companies and developers. Especially when their user base can upgrade their IE browser for free. Yeah that's right, it's FREE.

Afraid of upgrading your IE browser? Upgrading your OS to Vista left a bad Microsoft taste in your mouth? I don't blame you. OK, here's another solution then. Download Firefox... it's FREE. Download Chrome... it's FREE. Hell, download Safari... that's also FREE. No it's not just for a Mac. They all support the latest web standards and make an attempt to continue upgrading on a semi-frequent basis.

If you won't do it for me or the benefit of the designer community, do it for the economy. Abandon IE6 so clients don't insist on being compatible, and designers like myself can charge them less for development time. If you'd like to further support bringing down IE6, check out this site to get involved.
]]> Tags: Browsers, Chrome, Firefox, IE6, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Safari, Web Design, Web Development

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SEO for Bing - Jun 15, 2009
Poor Web Design - Jun 12, 2009
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Netflix on Xbox 360 Frustrating - Dec 20, 2008
Songbird 1.0 puts media playing innovation in your hands - Dec 02, 2008
Rethinking the Designer Holy Triangle - Nov 20, 2008
Mac based web developers may want to check out Coda before Dreamweaver - Nov 07, 2008

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Comments on this Entry:

(looksgood on Aug 11, 2009 12:32 PM) never. in fact using ie6 to write this comment.

Cancelling eFax, sort of

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:06:01 -0500

I had a need for an internet faxing service earlier this month and after a little research, I decided to try the eFax trial service. Basically, you sign up for a full eFax account, give them everything including your billing information, and if you decide you don't want it, you cancel your account before the 30 days are up.

Today, I decided it's time to cancel before I get nailed with a fee. While eFax proclaims "Easy Faxing Anywhere", it should also state "Canceling Near Impossible". There is nowhere, I repeat NOWHERE, on the eFax site that gives you an option to cancel. After much frustration, I decided to try contacting eFax to get it done. On the top navigation on the site, I went to "Contact" and then clicked the live chat link.

This is the conversation I had with a delightfully blunt customer service representative. Actually with the speed of the replies, it might have even been a bot:

Please wait for a site operator to respond. You are currently number 1 of 1 in the que. Thank you for your patience.

You are now chatting with 'Soi'

Soi: Welcome to our sales chat. How may I help you?

Scott Bouchard: Hello Soi, I'd like to cancel my eFax account and can't seem to find the option on the website account page.

Soi: I am sorry to hear that you wish to leave us. We have a special support team to assist you with the cancellation process. Please use the following webpage to get Chat support for cancellation. https://www.efax.com/en/efax/twa/page/chat

Soi: https://www.efax.com/en/efax/twa/page/chat

Soi: Thank you for contacting the Sales Team. Hope you found the session helpful. Goodbye!

Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.

Well... I tried the link, and it didn't work. I tried on Safari, Firefox, IE... none of the browsers were able to launch the chat after I filled in my name and e-mail. Fun times. So I decided to try the "FAQs" option at https://www.efax.com/help/faq.

In the search I typed "Cancel" and received 2 choices for an answer. I chose "How to Cancel your eFax Account (2901)". This page stated the following:

How to Cancel your eFax Account

If you are considering cancelling your eFax account because you are having a problem using the service, keep in mind that the solutions to many common problems can be found in this "Help" section.

If our online help is insufficient or you wish to cancel your eFax account for another reason, please click the blue "Chat Now" button below or click HERE and a Customer Service representative will assist you. Please note that your account should not be considered cancelled until so confirmed by Customer Service.

If you are an eFax Plus user, and you are cancelling your account near the end of your billing month, please be aware that you may still be charged for the next month. If this occurs, simply contact us and we will issue a refund.

I realize that the link here sent me to the same page that Soi tried sending me to that didn't work previously, but for some odd reason I decided to try it again. To my surpirse, it worked on the first try and the bottom of my page launched a chat. Here's what followed:

Welcome to chat.
The session has been accepted.
{- Stanley K.}    Hello, Scott. Welcome to j2 Global online support. I am Stanley, your online Live Support Representative. How may I assist you?
{Scott Bouchard}    Hi Stanley, I'd like to cancel my eFax account and am having difficulty trying to do so.
{- Stanley K.}    You can cancel your account through this chat session. Do you wish to cancel your account now?
{Scott Bouchard}    Yes please.
{- Stanley K.}    I am sorry to hear that you wish to cancel. Could you please provide me with your Fax number and PIN for verification?
{Scott Bouchard}    1-###-###-####
{Scott Bouchard}    ####
{- Stanley K.}    Thank you for providing your information. Please type the number corresponding to your reason for cancellation:
1) Moving to another provider
2) Bought a Fax machine
3) Business or role changed
4) Short term project completed
5) Financial reasons
6) Problems with Faxing or Billing
7) Dissatisfied with Quality of service
8) Too Costly
{Scott Bouchard}    8
{- Stanley K.}    Thank you very much for your prompt reply. Please give me a moment.
{- Stanley K.}    Scott, we understand that currently you may find it expensive to pay the monthly fee. In this situation, we will waive the monthly fee for the next two months. This will allow you to use the fax service without a monthly fee for the next two billing cycles.
{- Stanley K.}    Your eFax account will be credited with $33.90. We are suggesting this so that you can give it a second thought, as you will not be paying any monthly fee for the next 2 billing cycles, usage charges applicable for sending faxes.
{- Stanley K.}    As you will not be charged the monthly fee for the next two months, you could keep the account till then. If you still feel that you do not have any use for our services by the end of the two months credit period, please feel free to contact us anytime. Will that be fine ?
{Scott Bouchard}    That sounds fine, as long as I am not charged until then.
{- Stanley K.}    Scott, as stated above in these 2 months credit period you will not be charged the monthly fee of $16.95 for 2 months, usage charges applicable for sending faxes and this amount will be credited to your eFax account and not to your credit card. After the end of the 2 months credit period, you will get charged the monthly fee, so, all you would need to do is contact us before the end of the 2 months credit period and we will process your request immediately.
{- Stanley K.}    I'm glad that you have decided to stay with efax. I will update your account with the offer right now. I'm sure that you will have a great experience. Your account will remain open until we hear from you.
{- Stanley K.}    Is there anything else I may assist you with today ?
{Scott Bouchard}    No that's all. Thank you Stanley.
{- Stanley K.}    You are welcome.
{- Stanley K.}    It was indeed a pleasure assisting you.
{- Stanley K.}    Thank you for contacting j2 Global online support. Good bye and have a nice time.
The user has ended the session.

Yeah, yeah... I know. I'm a sap for free stuff. But in my defense, I know I'm going to need another fax service next month and was just going to sign up and try another service in another week or so. But, I did finally discover how to actually cancel the eFax account.

I've also found (but have not confirmed) that you can cancel your efax account at this number: 1-323-817-3205]]> Tags: Canceling, eFax, Free Trial, Internet Faxing, Live Chat

Michael Jackson Dies and Takes the Internet with Him

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:06:12 -0500

A handful of the largest sites were brought down last night by the surge of traffic that ensued after news of the death of the King of Pop hit the wires.

Google went down for over a half hour for some users due to the weight of traffic, and many were receiving the message "Your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application". The search term "Michael Jackson Died" had bombarded Google's servers so fast, so frequently, and in such a volume that it's automated system shut down the keyword. It wasn't until the term was manually released that users could receive their news on M.J.'s death again. Google trends described the "Hotness" of the search term as volcanic: http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?q=michael+jackson+died&date=2009-6-26&sa=X 7 of the top 10 searches had something to do with Michael Jackson throughout the day.

The Michael Jackson Wikipedia page also had to be brought down do to the increased traffic and the bombardment of requests to update the page. As conflicting news reports were released, users and fans began an editing war on his page trying to get the latest and correct information up.

Twitter also crashed (not a big surprise actually), with unconfirmed reports stating that there were 66,500 tweets containing the words "Michael Jackson" within an hour of the first news of his hospitalization. Supposedly twitter registered that M.J. based tweets were 15% of the global total yesterday, the highest ever single subject tweet volume.

TMZ.com broke the news, and later that night broke itself when the traffic became too much for it to handle. The LA Times was the first to confirm the reports, and also succumbed to the influx of traffic shortly after.

One site that managed not to break was Bing. But, that's because Bing didn't pick up on the story for hours after the event.

While I think M.J.'s lifestyle and choices became somewhat questionable later in life, I can't deny that his talent and music were a large part of my childhood and he will be sorely missed by millions. Rest in Peace M.J., you left your mark in more ways than we ever thought you could.

]]> Tags: Google, King of Pop, LA Times, Los Angeles Times, Michael Jackson, TMZ.com, Twitter, Wikipedia

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Comments on this Entry:

(Portia on Jun 27, 2009 9:41 AM) to me this is a big shocker to everone he is a VERY motivational person and did so much he is someone that is known all around the globe with out a doubt. HIS DREAM WILL LIVE ON FOR EVER R.I.P MICHEAL JACKSON YOU WILL BE MISSED AND LOVED BY EVERYONE...... HIS DREAM WILL LIVE ON FOR EVER

Bing Isn't Too Friendly to Other Search Engines

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:16:15 -0500

I found an interesting feature of Bing this afternoon.

First, go to Google and do a search for Bing. My search found about 47,800,000 results and displayed the first 10. Now do a search for Yahoo!. This search turned up about 2,460,000,000 results for me. That's a lot of real estate Google allows for other search engines in the market, and rightfully so. A search in Google gives you everything you could possibly want that it has in the index in a fairly logical order of importance. The user gets to choose what to ignore. Sounds like a true search to me.

Now go to Bing and search for Google. I don't know about you, but I get 1 result displayed. It says it found 184,000,000 results, but only opted to show me 1. No supporting stories, no news listed underneath, no other websites, just Google. You have to click the link below to "search for other results containing Google" in order to see more. Now search for Yahoo!. Again, I get 1 result displayed. It's the same for Ask.com. However, if you search for Bing, you get a full display of the first 14 of 6,270,000 results.

I also found that a handful of news sites are treated the same way. CNN, Fox News, ESPN, The New York Times, and probably more. Thankfully my main source of news, BBC, has been excluded from this treatment, which actually helps me prove my point. A search for BBC gives you a ton of results on the first page including, sub sites, news articles, and video clips.

Seems like Bing has restrictions built into it that greatly limit the exposure of certain competitive companies in its search results. I'm not sure who the genius is behind that one, but come on Microsoft... do you really have to be that petty? You want to be the next best search engine next to Google? Then take a page from their book and treat just about every search the same. Find everything you can, lay it all out there for us in an order that makes some kind of sense, and we'll figure out what we want from the results. Hell, we might even learn something new a few pages down.

]]> Tags: Ask.com, BBC, Bing, Google, Microsoft, Search, SEO, Web search engine, Yahoo

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SEO for Bing - Jun 15, 2009
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SEO: Where to Next? - Mar 24, 2009
IE6 Needs to Go - Aug 11, 2009
Michael Jackson Dies and Takes the Internet with Him - Jun 26, 2009
Poor Web Design - Jun 12, 2009
Twitter Needs Filters - May 01, 2009
The Brand Bubble - Mar 26, 2009

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SEO for Bing

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:53:02 -0500

Hooray another search engine... sorry "decision engine" according to Microsoft. What's does Bing mean for people like me? New rules, new headaches, and more importantly new research. While it's still a fledgling at this point, Bing has sparked enough interest to make me actually care about trying to devote extra effort into gaining ranking somewhere other than Google, which still holds 60% of the search engine market share.

Don't get me wrong, I always try to rank everywhere. But, with such a fickle science as SEO, once I gain optimal ranking on Google, I stick to whatever I'm doing until I see a fall off. Sort of a "If it's not broken, don't fix it" mentality. If you try to do too much you can sometimes get nailed with a penality. While a lot of us who spend a substantial amount of time with SEO know what will and will-not affect our ranking... sometimes you just get blindsided. Personally I feel maintaining ranking is somewhat simple, but fixing something I accidentally broke is an absolute nightmare.

That said, I don't see too much difference so far in the ranking of sites I maintain on Bing versus the old ranking in MSN Live Search from a few weeks ago. Either I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing for every search engine (which is highly unlikely), or the algorithm hasn't changed that much. While Microsoft has gone from a 9% share to an a 11% share in the search engine market with Bing, I'm going to treat it as a new wrapper for the same product. Well... that is until I see some major issues with the ranking of the sites I manage. I will however start running tests of cause and effect in Bing for some of the sites that don't do so hot on either search engine.

There is one change I can tell you for sure though. The old link for submitting your site to Live Search is dead, and it doesn't direct you to where you need to go (which in my opinion is pretty half-assed by Microsoft). For those of you not in the know, this is a tool for submitting your site to the Microsoft web crawler, MSNbot, to hopefully have your new site found and indexed faster. Does it really work, who knows? But, I'm all for using every tool at your disposal. The new link for submitting your URL to Bing is here.

]]> Tags: Bing, Google, Live Search, Market share, Microsoft, Search, Search Engines, SEO, Web search engine

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SEO: Where to Next? - Mar 24, 2009
IE6 Needs to Go - Aug 11, 2009
Michael Jackson Dies and Takes the Internet with Him - Jun 26, 2009
Poor Web Design - Jun 12, 2009
Twitter Needs Filters - May 01, 2009
The Brand Bubble - Mar 26, 2009

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Comments on this Entry:

(search engine optimization firm on Jun 16, 2009 6:43 AM) SEO really helps increase business profit. the more advertisement or exposure to the company, the more the company will become popular from their products/services.

(Rob Abdul on Jun 26, 2009 9:46 AM) I don't think that Bing will be successful until Microsoft sort out their indexing issues. For example, sites that have almost all their pages indexed in Google have barely 20% indexed in Bing. Therefore Bing is not seeing most of the web. I wish Microsoft would sort this out - they have millions at their disposal and the brightest people working for them.

Poor Web Design

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:17:24 -0500

What is poor web design? How can you tell it's not good? Why does it matter? How do I fix it? These are a few of the questions I'm asked on a weekly basis by clients and sponsors. Here's my take on things.

Well for one, if it's poor design, it's not design at all. An actual "design" has a plan and a goal behind it, and if those are not represented in the final product... you failed and didn't really design anything. You manufactured a waste of everyone's time and money.   Well, that's not entirely true. There's plenty of poorly designed websites that work out there, but they definitely do not work to their potential and in the end drive users somewhere else. I really debated citing a few examples of what I mean, but it's probably best that I don't. I don't want to hurt the feeling of any past or potential future clients.

The internet is the best media source at our disposal for marketing right now and it's all because the internet has given consumers the ability to find whatever they want, whenever they want, from whomever they want.   In turn, it also gives advertisers the ability to push their products to a more targeted audience. The other sources of media that aren't able to follow suit are suffering. Print - dying. Direct mailers - dead. Radio - a joke. Even television has changed. Television production companies have to compete with streaming Online Videos, Tivo's, DVRs, and the shortening attention span of consumers who can find what they want at the touch of a button. Commercials are increasingly directed at advertising more television shows, and less products. The product advertising is more focused inside the shows as product placement.

I'm off subject, sorry.

There's 4 essentials to keeping your site from being a failure.

1) Brand Yourself
Everyone has a brand. Your colors may be offensive, your logo may be terrible, but you can still make it all work without redesigning them. Even if you only have 1 color, there is a series of other colors and hues that complement it. Pick 2 - 4 colors, and make those your branding colors. These are what you use whenever you are creating something that applies directly to your brand. Unless your logo incorporates a rainbow, don't waiver. It's not necessarily always a bad thing, but if you use every color, it becomes very hard to use it as a branding tool.

Even if your logo isn't present, you can use the colors to remind them. Like... "Black and Yellow". What came to mind? I'm a dork, so I thought Batman, but for arguments sake and due to the industry I work in, let's say you thought Sprint. But that's what you want, instant recognition.

Regarding the logo, don't be afraid to use it or parts of it everywhere. If the logo is simple and clean, stamp everything with it. If it's complex and nasty looking, use a piece of it. Even if it's just a word, pull a defining letter or character out of it, and use that as a shape or accent around the site. Fade it back. Use an outline. Make it a bullet. There's a million ways to do it. But never give up on your logo. Even if you don't like it, use it and find ways to make it work.

2) Make Your Objectives Clear
The following sentence is poor marketing on my part, but it's necessary. Click off this page and go to any other site for 5 seconds, then come back. 5...4...3...2...1. Thanks for coming back, I appreciate it and so do my bosses. What did that site want you to do? What was their main offering? You don't know? Epic fail.

Every site has an objective. Sign up for this, watch that, download this, click here, fill out this form, learn more, BUY SOMETHING, etc.   If the user doesn't get hit with that message within 5 seconds, there's a 99% chance that the site impression was worthless. Sure they may stick around and read something, but generally if the objective didn't catch their eye off the bat, it's not going to entice a click later (unless you have some seriously persuasive editorial skills).

3) Deliver on Your Promises
This one's simple. Someone clicked on your objective because it said, "SIGN UP FOR FREE STUFF". So they voluntarily sign up for all your free stuff. Weeks later, the only free stuff they received was spam e-mail...   Bad dog. You duped them. This basically means that consumer, if they have a grade school education, will never sign up for anything you have to offer again.

Now if you give them free stuff AND spam, I'm all for that. That's beneficial for you and them. Just make sure the free stuff gets there.

Oh, and one other suggestion, don't force people into signing up if you can avoid it. No one likes being forced into anything, especially the American consumer. Let your impressive marketing skills entice them. Make them want it. If you've got skills and they still don't want it, they probably aren't your target audience.

4) Be Organized
There's two types of consumers. One is looking for something, and the other one is just passing through. If your objectives are clear as in point #2, that markets to the people that weren't looking but are now interested. The rest of your site needs to be designed and laid out to market to the other consumer. The one doing research and comparing products. The one looking to find out where their money would be best spent. If they can't find your information fast and easy, you lose. Off to another site they go.

Your navigation has to make sense. It has to be simple and tiered. Another good practice is to make it so that there is only one way to get to each item in the navigation (minus a footer area, which has become a TOC for a lot of sites). Don't have 9 links all over the page in different areas, all with different names, but going to the same place. It's confusing and frustrating. People are unsure if the link is really going to bring them where they want to go, and if after they click they are still unsure, they'll want to click everything else that also might be the right link. They end up spending more time looking instead of seeing.

That's my take on web design. It doesn't have to be pretty to work, but it needs to make sense and it needs to represent EXACTLY what you want the consumer to see and do. It's not a perfect science, and there's a lot of potential to get carried away with a web site. Determine what your main goals are, make a plan, and stick to it. Good luck.

]]> Tags: Advertising, Bad Design, Business, Good Design, Google, Marketing, Product placement, Television, Television program, TiVo, Web Design

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Bing Isn't Too Friendly to Other Search Engines - Jun 16, 2009
SEO for Bing - Jun 15, 2009
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Verizon Redeems Itself with 4.7.0.148

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:35:01 -0500

If you read this blog semi-frequently, you know about my love / hate relationship with my BlackBerry Storm. I'm normally fairly quick at announcing my reaction to the latest releases regarding this phone, but I purposely did not announce the release of BlackBerry Storm OS 4.7.0.148 last Sunday.

Why you ask? Because I don't trust Verizon anymore, and I didn't want to suggest downloading anything that could drive a BlackBerry Storm user closer to launching this phone off a cliff. I wanted to put in a few days of testing and see if this really is the update we were all waiting for. I'm happy to say... it is!

How do I know? Because for 5 days straight my BalckBerry Storm worked. Yeah that's right, it worked. No Joke. No hangups, better response time, no battery pulls. I know to all of you other smartphone users, this doesn't sound impressive. But, for a Storm user, having the phone work is a blessing in itself at this point.

A few people have had issues with the new OS erasing their contacts and addresses because of how they completed the update, but you should always back-up your BlackBerry before an update. I had the same issue, and with a quick restore from my latest back-up, everything loaded back in.

Other than that hiccup, I haven't had another issue. The phone is much more responsive especially on the home menu and with scrolling. It just feels like a much more stable program all together. The accelerometer is still not perfect but it's much, much faster. I don't type in portrait mode much, but I can at least use the new QWERTY keyboard effectively and easily. I'm pretty sure I looked like a monkey with a math problem when trying to use the old portrait mode SureType keyboard. I don't use my camera a lot either, but the camera functions have been mostly fixed as well. There use to be a white screen delay of nearly 3 seconds between when you snapped a photo and when the camera actually took the picture and displayed the image. It's now virtually instant, just like a real camera.

I guess that's my whole point about this update. The Blackberry Storm now works like a REAL smartphone. I honestly feel like I bought a new phone last Sunday.

A full list of the fixes included in 4.7.0.148 is below:

]]> Tags: BlackBerry, BlackBerry Storm, Operating system, Smartphone, Verizon

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Racing for a Cause

Wed, 20 May 2009 23:43:04 -0500

I took Tuesday off this week to take part in a very special charity fundraiser event to support the Special Olympics of Connecticut. 7 friends of mine, 4 of whom where stationed in Iraq last year, and I put together 2 teams to take part in an Endurance Karting challenge. The challenge took place at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, where 14 teams of 4 drivers raced for 4 hours straight. The only requirement was to have 15 driver changes throughout the race. All proceeds from the team entry fees and anything else we could put together went to supporting the Special Olympics of Connecticut being held at Southern Connecticut State University this year. Thank you to everyone who helped out.

You couldn't have asked for a better day to race, the weather was perfect. The karts in this race are not your average kart. These use a DINO Racing Chassis and are mounted with a torque 10 horsepower 270 cc Honda Engine. Top speeds on these karts reach 50 mph. The race began with a Le Mans start at 1pm, and for the next 4 hours we drove full throttle (mostly), drifting and sliding and screeching around the various hairpin and blind turns around the track. As pathetic as it sounds, I'm still sore and cramped.

We were up against some steep competition (4 out of the 8 of us were rookies), but the main aim of this was to just have fun and support a good cause. There's not much a bunch of rookies can do against a handful of teams of professional drivers. Some of these teams brought helmet communication devices, full racing apparel all the way down to the shoes, personal lap timers that plugged right into the transponders on the karts, and various other pieces of racing equipment that brought this to a whole serious level I hadn't expected. Our teams placed 7 and 12 out of a field of 14.

Standings and lap times can be seen here, and additional photos of the event will be hosted here soon. If you are interested in further supporting the Special Olympics please check out their planned giving website.

]]> Tags: Auto racing, Honda, Iraq, Lakeville, Motorsports, Southern Connecticut State University, Special Olympics, Sports

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Time to Abandon the BlackBerry Storm?

Fri, 15 May 2009 15:16:08 -0500

I've been a strong supporter of the BlackBerry Storm since it's announcement last year, but it may be time for me to cut my loses. I expected a buggy phone with it being the first generation model. But... I also expected RIM and Verizon to fix said bugs with OS updates. The last update for this phone was firmware version 4.7.0.75, back on December 5, of 2008.

Now, it's been announced that the long awaited next official update to OS version 4.7.0.113 was rejected by Verizon. However, Canadian service providers, Bell and Telus, approved and rolled out the update. Apparently it failed Verizon certification testing, but with how buggy my phone is, I can't imagine it could have been worse than what I am running right now. If it's good enough for Canada, it's good enough for me.

Hey Verizon, just give us something. You don't have to get it perfect, infact I doubt you could even if you wanted to. Just start fixing a few things at a time and send us a small update every once in a while. Show us that you're doing something, hell... ANYTHING to make our investment feel worthwhile.

With the speculation that Verizon will be rolling out a Storm 2, possibly as soon as next year, I'm really loosing faith. I'm not sure who is running the show over there, but I can tell you this for sure... If they don't try to fix this first model, I'm not buying the second model. Actually I'll guarantee you this. I'll abandon Verizon all together.

]]> Tags: BlackBerry, BlackBerry Storm, Firmware, Operating system, Research In Motion, Storm 2, Telus, Verizon

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Comments on this Entry:

(Voss on May 18, 2009 11:48 AM) Verizon is crap, so is the Storm.

(Stuart on Oct 15, 2009 10:26 AM) And now the storm2 is officially here, lovely, except for the fact that I am left high and dry by their original storm, stuck in an 18 month contract for a useless, slow, crashing, unresponsive phone. I was taken in by the 'iphone competitor' speil only now to be wishing for the end of my contract. Its backlight turns off for no reason and takes minutes to come back, sometimes it refuses to connect to the phone network and needs a battery removal restart to re-connect, rotate the screen it can take a minute to respond, try to answer a call and it can take 5 seconds to connect - or drop the connection (I ring more people back than I ever answer because of this), dreadful battery life, unresponsive interface, non-intuitive interface - as in a call fails, but instead of taking me back to the contact book, it takes me back to the OS home page, taking 3 clicks and search to get back to my contact to try another number. It locks-up and takes 3 sometimes 4 battery removals to re-start - so sending a text can take 20 minutes if it's crashing! I tried to record a video, the first time I ever used this feature of my brother opening his birthday present from my mother (she lives 100s miles away), and yes, IT FAILED TO SAVE, unknown error! Oh yes and I forgot to mention - I'm on my 2nd replacement screen. Useless, useless piece of junk and I am stuck with it - and I feel abandoned because instead of helping their previous victims they release a 'new' version with fanfare. Get stuffed if you think Blackberry get any more of my money.

Kindle DX: Big Screen, Bigger Price Tag

Fri, 08 May 2009 09:22:56 -0500

The third version of the Kindle was announced this week, featuring a larger screen and an even larger price tag. The Kindle DX is designed specifically for making newspaper and magazine reading easier and more familiar for the Kindle user. It features a 9.7 in screen versus the 6 in screen on the Kindle 2, but it also costs $130 dollars more with a price tag of $489.

While I've never used one, I'm very interested in the Kindle. I love gadgets, and I love to read. But, there's something comforting about having a paper back that can fit in my back pocket and that I can dog-ear to hell. Then there's that price tag... I couldn't bring myself to buy the Kindle 2 at $359, and now this bigger and better version is being released with an even steeper price.

Now I'm not frugal by any means. I'm one of those dumb consumers that loves his tech. Big, shiny, fast, HD, Wireless? I love it all. I buy the newest, I buy the biggest, and I buy it as soon as I can, way before the reviews come out that would warn me not to. But this Kindle thing I've held back on, because I just feel like it's going to fail. I have no proof, in fact I have quite the opposite.

Kindle sales are up. There are currently 245K books available for the Kindle, and 35% of the sales for those titles are Kindle sales. That's huge. If it does take off, it could save sections of the Publishing world that are currently drowning. The most expensive fixed cost of printing a magazine or newspaper is the paper. Editors and writers come through like there's a revolving door, but that press runs ever day. Entire publishing companies could end up being exclusively Kindle.

The Kindle is an interesting little piece of tech, but I don't see Amazon convincing people like myself to abandon our paperbacks unless that price starts dropping.

]]> Tags: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Business, Kindle, Magazine, Newspaper, Publishing, Publishing and Printing, Shopping

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Comments on this Entry:

(Aryana E on May 12, 2009 3:58 AM) Its always gonna be a talk of the town for the Amazon’s The Kindle DX is coming out and this new edition of the Kindle means that things are going to get worse. Amazon released the Kindle DX just recently, and it's a vast improvement over the previous edition. It's nearly twice the size of the original Kindle, and it has twice the storage space. It will take quite the cash advance, as it retails for about $500. It will download entire books for pennies per page, New York Times Bestsellers could go for as little as $10 or less. The newspaper industry is in dire need of debt relief, which the Kindle DX is probably not helping – but it sure is cool.

Twitter Needs Filters

Fri, 01 May 2009 15:09:15 -0500

I jumped on the Twitter wagon a month or so ago and like almost everyone else in marketing, I used twitterfeed to abusively spam topics of interest across the Twitter interface in an attempt to gain exposure and social prowess in my field of expertise. I've had a change of heart.

While now unethical in my eyes, my strategy worked. I basically set my Twitter on auto pilot. My twitterfeed would pull from 5 or 6 of my favorite rss feeds every hour or so. It would automatically take a recent story and send the title of the article or blog and a link to with a tweet. I also used socialtoo to auto follow anyone that followed me. Both services combined made it actually look like I was involved and was socializing with the the rest of the Twitter world. My followers were increasing at what I thought was a fairly impressive rate.

But then something happened. I actually wanted to socialize with Twitter. I discovered that people like me were just... spam. Twitter Spam. It's actually out of control in my eyes. People tweeting just to tweet. They don't even know what they are tweeting most of the time by using twitterfeed. It's not original contributions. Robots talking to robots, following robots who followed them.

However, In some cases, I think it's fine. Like with the TMCnet twitter. This tweets every article we publish. That's all it does. It's not meant to be social. It won't direct message you. It won't @ you. It won't RT (retweet) you. If you are following it, you know that's all it's going to do. It will tell you what we published, and if you are on twitter constantly, it may be the best way we can reach you. A glorified RSS feed for our site. We know exactly what we are tweeting, because we wrote it.

I think Twitter could take dramatic steps at stemming the spam abuse while further increasing its user base by adding filters to the interface. Personal preference filters to be exact. Twitter already tracks where your tweets come from. When I tweet from my Storm the tweet comes tagged with "from twitterberry". When twitterfeed tweets, the tweet says "from twitterfeed". As an example, I think Twitter should allow you to have all twitterfeed entries removed from your homepage. In my case it would probably weed out 95% of the tweets that I follow. Now I don't mean to just point out twitterfeed, I know there are a multitude of other services out there, but it's the one I am familiar with. I'm suggesting there could be filters for all.

Now, before anyone calls me out on it, I still use twitterfeed. It tweets my blog entries for me, and it tweets articles from sites that I feel publish some of the best SEO advice out there. But, it does this once a day. I have shut everything else down. Every other tweet you see now is direct from me. While I suppose these filters would still affect my strategy on Twitter, I think it could only make it a stronger social media tool in the long run.

]]> Tags: RSS, Search engine optimization, SEO, Social media, socialtoo, Twitter, twitterfeed

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Best Application for the BlackBerry Storm

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:29:05 -0500

Over the past few weeks I've been browsing through the FREE applications available in BlackBerry App World and I think I may have found the best and most useful App available so far for the BlackBerry Storm.

I introduce to you QuickPull v2 by Steelthorn Software. QuickPull is an app that frees memory quickly by simulating a battery pull soft reset. It even has the ability to schedule to run daily.

Laugh all you want, but I'm still running the latest official OS release (4.7.0.75), which is 4 months old at this point. With all of the new apps I've been downloading, I'm noticing more freezes and little bugs and glitches popping up everywhere. I've become quite good and fast at pulling my battery, but now all I need to do is push a button. To keep the device healthy I can even schedule it to reset once a day.

QuickPull v2 is completely Free, and is available in BlackBerry App World, or as a download directly from Steelthorn Software.

Now hopefully, with the projected release of the new OS (4.7.0.131) within the next few weeks, this app will be obsolete and Storm users won't need to be so well versed at pulling their battery after every download. But, as it stands now, I can say this is the most useful app I've found so far, and I'm apparently not the only one. It's currently sitting at #3 on the top download list on App World.

All you brainiacs at RIM may want to have a think on that. The third most popular download in your beloved App World actually simulates someone taking apart their device and pulling the battery out of it. The simple fact that there is a need for something like this should be setting off some alarms over there.

]]> Tags: App World, BlackBerry App World, Blackberry Storm, Free Software, Operating system, Research In Motion, RIM

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Pandora for the BlackBerry Storm Finally Released

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:07:53 -0500

It's here, finally.

After constant badgering from Storm users and months of delay...

Pandora has released the highly anticipated application that will give BlackBerry Storm users a mobile version of their service. Download information for the Storm is located at http://www.pandora.com/blackberry.

It's a shame I switched to Slacker Radio months ago. If Pandora had been on the ball, I may never have even found Slacker in the first place.

]]> Tags: BlackBerry, Blackberry Storm, Pandora, Smartphone

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Twitter Trash Icon Missing

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:01:42 -0500

Twitter is buggin today.

I just ran through my twitter page and noticed I can't delete my tweets anymore, because there's no trash icon. Careful what you say today, because you can't take it back, at least for a little while. You can follow the pandemonium it is causing across the social network here.

If you're in desperate need of a trash icon RIGHT NOW, this link is the best I can offer you.

Other than that, I'm stuck and waiting with the rest of you.

]]> Tags: Delete, Icon, Online Communities, social network, Twitter, twitter apps, Web

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