Category: Tech

Feeling Good

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I’m in a good mood which is sorely needed after the way I’ve been feeling lately. I think it’s at least in part due to the weather which is currently sunny and warm. I hate winter and I hope it’s behind us. The forecast has us in the 70’s the rest of the week. Woot!

I’m also excited because we both have Friday off. Three day weekends are the best!!! I don’t even care what we do – we don’t have any definitive plans but it’s going to be nice out so that’s all I care about.

Wow, what a pointless blog post, eh? Ok, here’s a few random thoughts rolling around in my mind.

What’s the deal with iTunes Home Sharing? It stopped working at some point after the last iTunes update. I spent some time today trying to figure it out. Then the router spontaneously rebooted and suddenly it was working again. Weird.

Speaking of Apple, it cracks me up how when I plug my iPad into my computer it says “Not Charging” in the upper right-hand corner. I imagine it’s thinking “haha sucker, you are not going to charge me that way”. Ironically, it is charging, albeit slowly. It was at 35% battery when I plugged it in and now it’s at 39%. Silly little thing.

I think we’re going to be changing our Fall trip to ensure we maximize our time on the East Coast. Even though we’re passing through Pennsylvania we probably won’t stop as originally intended. Since it’s closer to us than Boston or Portland we could always make that its own trip since I’d love to visit Pittsburgh, Hershey and Philadelphia. However, since we’re going to literally drive right through it, we’re going to spend a day in New York City. A day is all I can wrestle out of the hubby since he has zero desire to visit New York. It’s low on my list as well but it would be silly not to stop. All I care about seeing is Central Park Zoo anyway. Is that weird? Maybe we should visit the Empire State Building too. And the Statue of Liberty. And Times Square. And the Brooklyn Bridge. Hmmm, maybe one day is not going to cut it. Joe is going to kill me when he sees this list… ;)

My latest iOS addiction – Draw Something. It’s Pictionary without rules!

iPad 2 Review

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As much as I love my new iPad, it irks me a bit that for the price Apple can’t throw in a pair of headphones or a cloth to keep the screen clean. Even Joe’s Android tablet came with a nice cleaning cloth and it cost half what the iPad did. Not that I’d want anything from Android. I never thought I’d become an Apple fangirl like I have but when something works so well it’s hard not to. Even Joe is starting to feel iPad envy. After reading rumors that the iPad 3 will be announced in just a couple of months I told him I could always upgrade and give him my iPad, hehe.

I’m surprised that so many of the apps I own do not take advantage of the iPads larger screen. No way am I running an app that opens up at the same size of my iPhone screen. All those apps got deleted because choosing to make them 2x bigger makes them look crappy. I found suitable free replacements for most of them anyway.

My Birthday

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Considering the fact that I worked both days this weekend I still had a nice birthday. Thursday evening Joe surprised me with an early birthday gift – an iPad 2! He really wanted to get me something nice because I’ve been so stressed at work with a recent promotion and last year when I came into some extra money I didn’t buy anything for myself but bought him a PS3. It was really sweet and despite my reservations about the 10″ screen being too large it is actually the perfect size.

He got me the 32 GB version since I had mentioned regretting only getting the 16 GB iPhone. I’m in love. With Joe, of course, but also with my iPad. I knew I wanted to get one eventually but I wasn’t in a hurry. Little did I realize just how much I’d love it since I had described it as nothing more than a oversized iPhone on this very blog. Which it is in so many ways but it’s much more fun to use than I could have anticipated. Not only can I type better and faster on it (I’m typing this entry on it right now), but the apps designed with the iPad in mind are amazing. They are both functional and beautiful. I’m also really digging the multi-tasking gestures to move between apps and whatnot. But I digress…

E is sick so we only had K this weekend. Friday we went out for dinner to our favorite Chinese place since K loves the place as much as we do. Saturday between me doing some work we visited two different malls – one for K so she could look for clothes and I could visit the Apple store for a case for my new toy, and another so I could redeem my free birthday burger from Red Robin where Joe made certain they knew it was a special day for me so that they would sing to me. Talk about embarrassing! My entire face was bright red and my sister in law was there too since she’s visiting from Arizona. Luckily there is no video evidence of the event because Joe didn’t think to record it on his phone until it was too late. Whew!

Between the two mall visits we bought cake mix at Target and K baked me a lemon cake. I thought that was very sweet of her. Later that evening we rented Mr. Popper’s Penguins which was a cute movie. Then I worked some more before going to bed.

This morning a coworker came over for training since I’m transitioning my billing duties to her and moving into a new role. I’m excited because this means I will actually be able to take time off during the beginning of a month which I haven’t been able to do in six years due to my work schedule. In fact Joe and I are already planning a two week trip to the East Coast in early October.

iPhone 4S Review

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iPhone 4S Home Screen

Now that I’ve had my new iPhone for five days I feel confident saying I totally love it! It’s so much faster than my old phone; it responds instantly to my commands instead of taking a moment to think about it. I noticed the auto-correct works much better now too which is a relief since I suck at typing on the virtual keyboard. The retina display is amazing too. I even love the feel of the phone in my hand and I was a bit worried about that. Oh and the battery life seems pretty decent too. Not amazing, but then again, what smartphone battery is?

The only thing I’m not happy with is that it’s still hard to hear calls through the phone’s earpiece. The sound level is fine on speaker or through the headphones but the earpiece never seems loud enough and I can’t hear well if there’s any background noise. I’m surprised no one else has complained about this. I have excellent hearing (verified at the doctor office this year when I had water trapped behind my eardrum) so I don’t think it’s me nor do I think I have a faulty phone since I had the same complaint with my 3GS. Luckily I don’t use the phone part of my device as much as all the other features.

The only complaint I have seen online is regarding yellow screens. I compared my new phone to the 3GS and while it does have a warmer look to it I don’t think it’s excessive. I’m guessing it must have been done intentionally to make viewing the screen easier on the eyes.

In any case, if anyone reading this is contemplating getting the iPhone 4S I highly recommend it. Coupled with the awesome features of iOS5 (hello notification center), it’s even better than I was expecting. I’m totally becoming an Apple whore. It’s just a matter of time before I cave and buy an iPad.

Bonus: I highly recommend WhatsApp for SMS-free texting if you don’t have an unlimited texting plan. It works much better than any of the other texting-replacement apps I’ve tried over the past two years.

iPhone Pre-Order

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I tried to pre-order the iPhone 4S today and it was such a hassle. I got up early to make a second attempt ordering from AT&T’s website and it let me through but it gave me this screen:

Since I’m grandfathered into the unlimited data plan I was worried they were trying to change it on me. Notice how the plan doesn’t indicate the amount of data it covers? And when I clicked Change it had a bunch of other options, none of which were unlimited, so I abandoned the idea of ordering online and decided to call instead since the rep I spoke with last night said the data plan would stay the same. Plus now that I think about it there was no display of my text plan either – I am grandfathered into the $5 a month for 200 texts.

I tried calling the number on the website but even though it was the time frame the office should be open, it told me it was closed. It provided another contact number so I tried that one and it led me all the way through to the point of holding for a representative and then told me due to circumstances beyond their control they could not accept my call, told me to call back later, and disconnected me. This happened a few times before I finally got through to a woman who barely could speak English (seriously, I do not say that for dramatic effect) and I could tell was reading from a script. She kept telling me I needed a new data plan and I couldn’t keep my existing one. She would stay real silent on the phone after I asked a question before replying (hence why I assume she was reading a script). At one point I even had to ask if she was still there. I eventually hung up because she was useless.

At that point I decided to forget it because it wasn’t worth the aggravation, but then Joe told me about a Consumerist article regarding the same topic. I learned from one of the regulars that if you pre-order from Apple it shows the unlimited plan right on the order, so I logged onto the site during lunch to take care of business. Not only did it confirm my data/text plan as unchanged, my order was placed in no time at all. Thank you Apple Gods!

Now, I still don’t trust that AT&T isn’t going to mess something up, be it the unlimited plan, or the discount we get through Joe’s employer, but I will fight them tooth and nail to get it corrected if/when it happens. It’s just real sad when the Apple site is more helpful than AT&T’s own site. You’ll be missed, Steve.