The Droid Bionic: My New Favorite Phone

My philosophy is that every new cell phone that I get should be the best cell phone that I have ever owned. Unfortunately, that has not always been the case. However, it is certainly the case with my new phone the Motorola Droid Bionic.

I have the Bionic through Verizon Wireless. Verizon is not perfect, however, I have used them for several years now and, for the most part, I am pleased with the service that I receive from them.

I have had the Bionic now for a little over 2 months and I thought I would jot down my thoughts about the phone, both good and bad. On the whole, I am quite pleased with my purchase and, if I had it do to over again, I would buy the same phone.

Below are some of the things I like about my Bionic:

It’s fast. This may have more to do with my old phone, which at the end seemed to be painfully slow. Regardless, the Droid is much faster and responsive than any previous phone I have used.
4G. Yes, it is not available everywhere yet. However, when it is available, it is great.
Hotspot. I love being able to use my phone to create a wireless hot spot. It is much more convenient than my MiFi ever was, simply because I always have my phone on me. I use this feature at least twice a month.
The screen. The screen is big, beautiful, and bright.
Operating System. I still like the Android operating system. This is my second Android phone and I have no real complaints about the operating system nor have I had any problems with it.

Some of the things I don’t like about my Bionic are:

It is big. The weight is actually too bad, especially considering the size of the phone. However, this is a large phone.
The data connection. The 4G is great. The 3G is pretty good. However, if I have lost a data connection while traveling, sometimes, I have to restart the phone to get it to obtain a data connection again.
Contact Pictures. I still don’t understand the issue here. In Outlook I have pictures for a large percentage of my contacts. With my original Droid, all of those pictures synched to my phone (through Exchange Server). With the Bionic, these pictures do not sync. I know that this seems like a small thing, however, I have used these pictures in the past to identify other attorneys in court that I had not yet met.
Battery life. In general, the battery life on the phone is about what I expected. Which is not great, but I can usually make it through the day (please note, however, that I have desk chargers both at the office and at home along with a car charger, just to make sure). However, when I use the phone as a hotspot, I can practically watch the battery level drain.

I recognize that, for the most part, the battery life issue is one that most smartphones have and it is something we have to live with while we wait for battery technology to improve. I would love to see either Motorola or Verizon, or the two together do something to fix the data connectivity problems. The disconnection happens often enough that it annoys me.

Regardless, if you are looking for a new Android based smartphone, I will tell you that I am quite happy with my Droid Bionic.

Why Newspapers Are Going Out of Business

I am not one of the people who ran out to buy an iPad when it was released. However, given how much I like my Kindle2, I believe that there is a market for a device like this. One of the useful features of a device such as the iPad is the ability to read news and magazine stories. There was a time when I read 3 newspapers a day (actual paper newspapers) as well as a handful of magazines a month. Those days are long gone. Although some magazines show up in our mailbox every once in a while (why I don’t know), I haven’t read one in ages. Similarly, I check out the headlines on 3 or 4 newspaper websites regularly, but I couldn’t tell you when I actually read a physical newspaper last.

Obviously, if these organizations are to succeed in the future, they will have to embrace, at a least to some extent, the new media available. Ernie the Attorney, who did get an iPad, decided to try out the Wall St. Journal app. Ernie explains:

I downloaded the free Wall St. Journal app for the iPad, just to see if there was something worthwhile. I used to subscribe to the print version of the Journal and liked it a lot. I got the iPad app to work, after chopping through the thicket of registration screens and admonishments.

I figured I’d get about 2 weeks of hassle free time to check out the app and see what kind of content they are putting out for the iPad. No dice. I kept getting a registration screen. So I deleted the application.

This is not an uncommon phenomenon. A company decides to try to move its product to a digital version and makes it too difficult or cumbersome to use. When it is not adopted, then the provider declares that attempt a failure, blaming the media, not their poor design. Ernie laments that many companies spend millions of dollars trying to build a following. Newspapers, however, (at least right now) already have that following:

Newspapers have large audiences in the print world and can’t seem to figure out how to tease a substantial portion of that audience into the online world. The production and delivery costs of online media are much lower, and so you’d think that the newspapers would be desperate to transport their paper readers to online media.

And then comes the iPad, a device perfectly suited to making that transition possible. And what do newspapers like the Wall St. Journal do? They want to charge almost the same amount of money for the online version as the print version. And they can’t figure out how to let early adopters on the iPad consume their content free to get them hooked.

Ernie then concludes with one of the best lines I have seen in a long time:

Maybe they should fire all the executives at the newspapers and replace them with drug dealers. At least the drug dealers understand how to get new customers hooked on a product before exploiting them.

JukeFly and Bubbles, A Great Combination

Let me admit now, this post has nothing to do with the practice of law. However, somedays I am still amazed at the things that technology allows us to solve our problems. In this instance, I have approximately 40GB of music sitting on my computer at home. While at home, I can easily serve this music to the other computers in the house. Recently, however, I was thinking that it sure would be nice to be able to do listen to all of that music while I was at work as well.

After a few minutes of research (also known as Googling), I found a solution that I like quite a lot. The first component of the solution is a program called JukeFly. JukeFly describes itself as:

a social music player designed to play your music collection anywhere.

As long as your “anywhere” includes high speed internet access. I think this is an accurate description. After you create an account (which is free). JukeFly installs a small server app on your computer with the music that allows you to access it when you are away. The server applet is quite similar in concept to those found in programs such as LogMeIn.

Once you install the applet, you simply tell the program where to find your music. The program then indexes your music in a short period of time. My 40GB of music took only a couple of minutes to index. Once indexed, the music is available for you to listen to anywhere that you have high speed internet access. You simply log in to your JukeFly account and listen to your music through your browser.

JukeFly could not be easier to use and by allowing me to listen to my music collection regardless of my location, it provides me with an invaluable benefit.

The only issue I have ran into with JukeFly is that I would like to see a shuffle feature of some sort to shake things up a little.

JukeFly also includes some social media aspects to it as well. However, I have not yet explored any of those.

I quickly fell in love with JukeFly, but I had a problem where I was repeatedly closing my web browser, and thus closing JukeFly. I found a great solution for this problem in a program called Bubbles. Bubbles describes itself as:

an application platform, based on Browser technologies. It detaches Web Applications from the classic Browser and offers them with the familiar accessibility, capabilities and always-on nature of Desktop applications.

In plain English, Bubbles detaches certain web applications (in my case JukeFly) from the web browser an lets you run them as a stand alone application, just as though the web app was a regular desktop app. With JukeFly, I can listen to my music and not worry about whether I am closing my web browser. Instead, when minimized, JukeFly sits as an applet in my notification area, taking up no space on my task bar, but giving me ours of music pleasure.

Bubbles works with many web apps, including GMail and Facebook.

For more information about JukeFly, click here. For more information about Bubbles, click here.

A Great USB Drive

Of course, there is no substitution for encryption to ensure that your information remains secure. However, you can add additional layers of protection by making your data difficult to find or recognize. To this end, ThinkGeek has a great product that they call the Hacked And Frayed Spy Flash Drive. The device is described as a “2GB flash drive cleverly disguised as a frayed and broken USB cable.”

Bruce Schneier notes:

This is a 2 Gig USB drive disguised as a piece of frayed cable. You’ll still want to encrypt it, of course, but it is likely to be missed if your bags are searched at customs, the police raid your house, or you lose it.

The comments on Schneier’s post raise a question I had, namely whether it would be better to have a complete cable rather than a frayed cable.

If you want to make your own cable, check out this post from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

Gadgets Killed by the Cellphone

I recently ran across a couple of posts dealing with the effects of the cellphone: Five Gadgets That Were Killed by the Cellphone and Seven (More) Gadgets Killed by the Cellphone.

The first five:

The PDA
The Camera
The UMPC (ultra mobile PC)
The Phone
The MP3 Player

The next seven:

The Pager
The Wristwatch
Pocket Calculator
Alarm Clocks
SatNav (stand alone GPD)
Books
Handheld Consoles

Some of these I definately agree with. I think we can all agree that with very minor exceptions the pager is dead. I personally quit wearing a wristwatch several years ago when I determined that it was not worth my time to get the battery replaced. Since then, I have encountered many others who reached the same conclusion.

Similarly, I know many people who use only a cellphone and no longer have a landline.

I supposed it depends on the type of phone that you have, however, I know that the calculation on my Treo can do more than any pocket calculator that I ever owned.

On the other hand, I think that, although the UMPC is dead, the concept is not. Netbooks are becoming more popular. In fact, Ross Kodner has declared that a netbook is now part of his perfect laptop equation.

A New E-Reader

I am a big fan of ebooks. They are certianly more portable than regular books. Although I read my ebooks on my Treo, I am always happy to see advancements in e-reader technology. engadget has a post about a new e-reader from Plastic Logic. This device is thinner than the Kindle, plus it is flexible. Additionally, it’s display is 8 1/2 x 11. This means that it likely won’t fit in your pocket. However, it should fit just fine in a briefcase. This decision seems to make sense in that Plastic Logic is marketing this to the business market.

Of course, the downside is that it does not connect direclty to Amazon to download books over a cellular network. Instead, you connect to your computer via a USB cable, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.

Although the video below is a sales presentation, it does give a nice overview of the product.

Also, you can find some pictures of it here.

A Great Hard Drive Solution

If you have ever complained about having to swap a hard drive out of an external hard drive enclosure, I have found the perfect solution for you: The SATA HDD Multi-Function Dock.

According to the website,

This SATA HDD Dock allows you to plug any 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA Harddisk to your computer via USB or ESATA port, a powerful tool for data transfer, backup and cloning. It functions as a 2-port USB hub and card reader as well. The device is compatible with both PCs and Macs.

Hat tip to Wired for bringing this to my attention.

My Freedom GPS and TomTom Maps: I’d Be Lost Without Them

I have written before about how much I like the combination of my Freedom Keychain GPS and TomTom Maps. Until this last week, however, all that I had really done with the system was play around with it. On vacation, however, I had the opportunity to use it in several situations. In each situation, the system came through with flying colors.

The first situation that I had the opportunity to use the GPS was on the interstate between Indianapolis and Cincinnati. While traveling through Indianapolis, we saw a message that said that there had been an accident on I-74 and to consider alternative routes. Given that traffic had not been too bad until then (it was night by the time we hit Indy) we decided to continue on. Once we got on 74, however, the message had changed. Now, the message was warning that the road was closed ahead. Sure enough, up ahead, we could see brake lights ahead, where traffic was stopped.

I indicated that there was a roadblock ahead and that we needed an alternate route. The software instructed us to exit at the next exit (which was fortunately before the stopped traffic) and then routed us down a frontage road and through a small town, before taking us back to the interstate. Along the way, we saw a very long line of cars just parked on the interstate. Had we not navigated around the area, we would have set on the interstate for probably hours. As it was, our detour added 6 minutes to our trip.

Further, if I did not have the GPS, we would never have found our way back to the interstate in any reasonable length of time. All in all, it was a huge time saver for us. Plus, it was unbelievably simple to use.

When we arrived at our destination, I had to stop at the rental office to pick up keys to our cabin as well as directions. Unfortunately, the map that the rental office provided was poorly designed, not to scale, and difficult to follow. Fortunately, however, all that I had to do was enter the address in my GPS and it led me to the front door of the cabin. Without the GPS, however, we would likely have wandered around the mountain for quite a while looking for the cabin.

In sum, I love the convenience of being able to carry the GPS with me at all times. I also love the simple interface provided by the TomTom software. The maps are accurate and easy to use. I would recommend this set up to anyone who uses a compatible device.

Freedom 2000 GPS and TomTom Navigator 6: A Great Combination

For quite a while I have wanted a GPS. This desire comes not from the fact that I tend to get lost, but instead from the fact that I think they are really cool. One drawback was that I really didn’t want to have to keep track of another device and have to decide whether to take it with me everyday or leave it at home. Despite the coolness factor, it seemed like a bit of a hassle.

For my birthday, however, I recently received the most hassle free GPS I can imagine. It is the Freedom Keychain GPS 2000. This device is only the GPS receiver. To use it, you must connect it to your Treo via Bluetooth. Also, the device comes with no maps. You have to decide on your own what maps you wish to use.

What makes the Freedom absolutely hassle free is the fact that it is tiny (it weighs .77 oz). In fact, it is smaller than the key fob for my wife’s car. It charges via a mini USB port (all devices should have to do this) and it comes with a car charger. The battery life is 9 hours and my use of it shows that this is likely the case.

To be able to get around, I need more than the GPS, however, I also need the software that goes with with it. The map data is not cheap. However it is available from a variety of companies, most of which produce versions compatible with a Treo. In my case, I first tried DeLorme’s Street Atlas USA. After trying it for a few days, I didn’t like the interface that it had with my Treo. Thus, I returned it, and bought TomTom Navigator 6.

I love this software. It was easy to install and it works flawlessly on my Treo. Also, it integrated easily with the Freedom GPS and I have had no connection problems between the two devices at all.

The aspect about this solution that I love the most is that I have a full GPS solution, yet the only additional thing that I am carrying with me is a key fob. How great is that.

I bought my copy of Navigator 6 from Amazon and saved a few bucks over the price direct from TomTom.

I plan on doing a more in depth review of the Navigator software later. In the meantime, you can find a great review on the Freedom GPS at Treonauts. You can find a review of the earlier version of the Freedom at treocentral.

Keep Your PDA Firmly in Hand

Have you ever had trouble keeping your PDA from slipping out of your hand? If so, Sean Bonner has a solution for you. Sean lost his new iPod Touch in a cab. That prompted him to find a solution to prevent this from happening in the future.

He bought skateboard grip tape and adhered it to the back of his iPod. This solution would, of course, work for any similar device.

In an update to his original post, he details how well the grip tape works:

Quick Update: It’s been about a week and this keeps getting linked to so I thought I’d update folks on the antislippageness of this mod. So far it works awesome. And it’s not causing nearly the pocket or finger wear I was expecting. Turns out, and I never would have guessed, but a skateboard is way heavier than an iPod which makes it easier to scratch you when you pick it up. The iPod barely resists at all so there’s never any “scratching” going on. So far I’m pretty happy with this.

Check out his entire post to see pictures of the finished product.