Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last few months, you’ve seen the commercials. “DROID does,” they say. So I asked Verizon for a DROID. I wanted to see how it would stand up to the iPhone. They let me spend a month with the latest would-be iPhone killer.
A Robotic Kind of Pretty
I had seen the DROID in photos and commercials but not really up close. What shocked me was that several times, I saw people referring to blog posts claiming this was an ugly phone. It’s not curvy like the iPhone and it’s not quite as shiny as the LG Chocolate Touch, but it’s definitely better looking than the G1. DROID pulled off just the look you would expect from a personal assistant robot phone. It’s hard, cold metal. It’s not a warm elegant aesthetic. It’s a robotic kind of pretty. While I prefer the soft roundness of the iPhone, I don’t dislike the DROID at all.
One of the notable features of this phone is the built-in keyboard. It’s something that many iPhone owners have complained about the lack of, so it’s welcomed with DROID. In addition to the slider keyboard is a slick little navigation pad. Both the face and the back of the phone are completely flat. There isn’t one button sticking out. There are four buttons on the face of the DROID, Back, Menu, Home, and Search. Under the battery cover is the SIM card, the microSD card and, of course, the battery, another “does feature”. I would rather have the microSD slot more easily accessible, but at least it’s tucked away safely. The sides of the phone include the standard volume buttons, micro USB connection and a dedicated camera start/shutter button. The power button is located at the top, where I like it, but I found it harder to use than other phones. I really had to try to get it to turn on or off. I don’t want a phone that will turn off or on unexpectedly through an accidental brush of the power button, but it shouldn’t be too hard to do, either.
The touch screen was very slick and easy, unlike most touchscreen phones, and it surprisingly seemed brighter than my iPhone’s screen (which I keep at full brightness). The screen and its response to human touch is very important in a phone of this caliber and DROID really impressed here.
A Good Smart Phone Makes You Forget It’s A Phone
Smart phones aren’t for everyone. All the features would probably be more in the way for my mom, for example, because she’d never use them. For everyone else a smart phone is an extension of their online or work life. It allows us to continue to check email, tweet, update facebook and browse the web while on the go. A smart phone is really just a super-portable computer that makes phone calls, so it should feel a little like one. The DROID does a pretty good job of this. With the built-in slider keyboard, software keyboard, GPS, 5 MP camera, WiFi, integrated turn-by-turn (which I loved, by the way), and everything else, it really lives up to the claims in the commercials that it will help you with just about everything.
One of the things I noticed as well was the notifications for new emails, tweets, etc were tucked up out of the way in the status bar at the top. We iPhone owners were happy to finally get push notifications, but they’re still often in the way. When I get a text, it jumps up in front of whatever I’m doing on my iPhone. If I’m sniping an eBay auction, too bad. With DROID, any new text messages, emails, or tweet notifications are placed visibly at the top where I can see them and deal with them on my own terms. Well done, there.
Because the DROID marketing campaign was centered around the idea that it “does” what (presumably) the iPhone doesn’t, I tried to do things on it that I couldn’t with the iPhone. One such example (and the only one that failed me, really) was Adobe Flash elements in web browsing. I hate that I can’t view/use Flash in my iPhone browser and really had my hopes up for DROID, but Flash was not available at the time of my review. At least there’s a planned date for it. I also was a little disappointed to find no “pipe” (|) key on the keyboard. For those of us who work on unix/linux servers, it’s sorely missed. The other 99.9% of you will never even notice it.
The web browsing experience was very smooth. Not only was the scrolling seamless, but it also pops up a sneak peek of the complete page shrunk way down so you can see where you are in the page and if you need to scroll up or down to get to what you’re looking for. I need that on my desktop, too! The browser offers up all the typical options like bookmarking emailing a page, etc. The zooming was not all I’d hoped for. It worked, but just wasn’t as intuitive as on the iPhone’s pinch-zoom. The screen is a good size, and pretty clear, so zoom isn’t that much of a concern, though.
An original concern I had with the Android platform and the phones that run it was the selection of applications. While there’s still room for growth, the Android application marketplace is now full of all kinds of apps for most needs. There’s a few missing gems still, but all the basics are covered, including a few I’ve never seen on the iPhone. I loved the bar code scanner (an early Android app) and one that acts as a metal detector. I’m not sure how it did it, but it could detect metal objects I placed over the phone. I was showing that off to several people. Needless to say, my original fears about the app marketplace are no more. The ones that don’t yet exist soon will and the open platform development opens the door to all kinds of possibilities.
Should I Buy A DROID?
I already have an iPhone (and the contract that comes with it), so I won’t be shelling out the money to move just yet. However, DROID has me thinking about my options. I moved to the iPhone after years with Verizon and definitely noticed a drop in coverage. DROID is on a great network, for sure and is a great buy for anyone looking for a hot smart phone on a reliable network. A friend of mine wanted to buy the review phone I had and eventually ended up buying a DROID in the store to replace his iPhone. Verdict : If I didn’t have a phone right now, I’d probably be in the Verizon store buying a DROID.
Early this month, I announced how you can Get Organized And Win $500 With The Qwest Hectic Holidays Sanity Contest. There were several great entries, too. In fact, it was pretty hard to judge. I made a point to not read any of them until judging time so as to not form a bias towards anyone I know. In the end, I asked my wife to help judge and between the two of us, we selected a winner. So who did I tell Qwest they should give $500 to?
Who Won?
There were a couple very close contenders, but the winner was ConnieFoggles with her thoughts on how to stay organized during the holidays:
I use a 3 way system that creates a no-fail system. All info is kept on a main calendar that the family sees and checks. My Yahoo calendar is set to email me reminders of things I need to do, right down to paying bills and buying a gift on sale. A permanent To Do List is posted on our fridge. That includes appointments and what is needed at the store when we run out, when a school project is due, when we want to have a meal out, etc.
It would be nice to have everything in one place and Qwest seems like the answer for my busy family. And the photo storage would really make my life easier too.
We found her ideas bet met the judging criteria: Creativity (50%), Uniquness (25%), Ability to help organize (25%), although like I said, there were some great comments to compete with.
You Can Still Get Organized
As mentioned in the contest, Qwest partnered up with Microsoft to offer Qwest High-Speed Internet customers Windows Live from Qwest. The service brings together your online world all in one space, with everything from news and weather to your calendar, social networks to your blog. It’s pretty handy and isn’t just for the holidays. Think about all the things coming up like New Years Eve gatherings, birthdays, family reunions, etc. Now that the contest is over, take a minute and check it out. And thanks again to Qwest for putting up such an awesome prize. If you want to keep up to date, just follow @TalkToQwest on Twitter.
This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of 123 Media Max. All opinions are 100% mine.
I love watching movies. I have a ton of DVDs and I’m pretty careful about how I treat them. Still, I’ve backed some of my movies up in the past with other software, so I am not unfamiliar with how it’s done. I was given the opportunity, today, to review some software that not only copies DVDs, but is also a Blu-Ray Copy Breakthrough. I don’t have a Blue-Ray player (although I should by now), but I wanted to give it a try anyway, so I did.
Why Should I Back Up My Movies?
Like CDs, DVDs are prone to getting scratched up. All it takes is for you to have a movie night and leave one out while swapping movies because the case wasn’t immediately available. The probability of scratched DVDs and Blue-Ray movies increases exponentially with each child you have in the house. At $15, $20, or more per DVD and Blue-Ray disc, it’s a good idea to back them up.
Copy and Burn Blue-Ray and DVD Movies
The core functionality of 123 Media Max is copying movies, so right after installing, I threw in my Napoleon Dynamite DVD and fired up the software. After choosing to copy a DVD straight, it prompted me for the media I wanted to copy, including my DVD in the list. The selection box was a little small, but I chose my DVD and it told me that my DVD may have copyright protection on it and asked if I wanted to look for a plugin that would get past it. I opted to look and seconds later, I was downloading Boooya to get around the copy encryption. After another quick install, I was copying.
In software I tried in the past, I had to run a tray application (all the time) before I even thought about backing up a DVD. Then I would run a second application to do all the work. I like that this uses a plugin that loads only when needed. After about 20 minutes, the DVD data was copied and I swapped the DVD for a blank DVD to write to.
After about 40-50 minutes total, I had installed both the application and the plugin, copied the DVD, and burned it to a blank disc. This was also faster than software I had tried previously and easier, too. I tried my new backup and before I knew it, that goofy 80’s kid was distracting me from my review.
Additional Features
123 Media Max has, so far, proven to be better than the software I tried in the past, but here’s where it slaps that other software around and makes it cry uncle (well, almost). After you’re done backing up all your movies, you can get more out of the purchase price by converting videos from one format to another and even downloading and converting videos from the Internet. In about two minutes, I told 123 Media Max I wanted to find video online, searched (within the program) for the Tron trailer, found it on MetaCafe, and downloaded and converted it to an AVI on my drive. The only problem I had was that it didn’t find videos on YouTube that I know exist. Hopefully that will be fixed in another version, but it’s pretty cool even without YouTube. Although I haven’t tried it, 123 Media Max also boasts the ability to convert from DVR and TIVO files as well, which I think is a great feature for anyone with one of these devices.
Conclusions
This software should copy your Blue-Ray movies while maintaining the great quality. In my tests, it performed great and did more than expected. If you don’t want to worry about losing your Blue-Ray or DVD collection, or find that they often get scratched up, 123 Media Max is a good investment for your collection at just under $70.
Yesterday, along with my normal blog spam I clear out daily, I found one that stood out. Instead of the script that was being used actually formatting the spam as it was intended, it dumped the whole spam template as a comment on one of my blog posts.
{hi|hello|howdy|greetings|gooday} there, i just {stumbled|came across|discovered|found|saw} your {blog|website|site|web portal} via {google|yahoo|bing}, and i must say that you write {exceptionally|pretty|interestingly|awesomely} {well|good} on your {blog|website|site|web portal}. i am really {impressed|taken|moved|motivated|struck} by the {way|mode|method} that you write, and the {content|message|subject} is {superb|good|great|quality|excellent}. {anyway|anyhow|anyways|in any event|in any case}, i would also like to know whether you would like to exchange links with my {blog|website|site|web portal}? i will be more than {happy|willing} to reciprocate and {put|enter|insert|drop} your link off in the {link exchange area|blogroll|link section}. {waiting|looking|anticipating} for your {reply|answer|response|respond}, thanks and {cheers|have a great day|enjoy your day|gooday}!
To other bloggers, this may look a little familiar. It’s the popular complimenting blog spam. The idea is to compliment the blogger so that he or she will want to approve the comment. Once the comment is approved, the spammer has a link back to their site and, depending on the threshold of the blog, the spammer has a previous comment and may be auto-approved for future comments. The script seems to choose randomly from each of the variable pieces of content to eventually form a comment that is supposed to appear to be hand written for your blog. Don’t get fooled by this junk.
The spam I got was from michaelwoo.net, which is the web site of some kid who seems to think he’s on the right track in online marketing. His contact email is me@michaelwoo.net which he spells out on his site as “me@michaelwoo dot net”. I find it funny that he’ll use a script to comment spam popular blogs, but takes measures on his own site to prevent spam-harvesting scripts from getting his email address.
This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of LG Chocolate Touch. All opinions are 100% mine.
Last week, I got an LG Chocolate Touch in the mail to review. You’ve probably seen a commercial for it featuring musical artist, Ciara. The commercials have really been pushing the sound quality of this phone, so I decided to make that the focus of my review while still touching on everything else you look at in a phone.
Sound Quality Worth Bragging About
Fresh out of the box, my objective was to get my own music onto the phone. I plugged it in and in no time, I was moving over music. With a microSD card, there was plenty of space, so I moved over a bunch of music to test with. Honestly, LG makes some nice hardware, but I didn’t expect a lot in the way of audio quality from a cell phone. Somehow, though, they managed to get really clean sound and despite my expectations, I could tell the difference in audio clarity between the Chocolate Touch and other phones. My iPhone, for example, has pretty good audio for listening to music through my headphones, but the music playing through my LG seemed to have more depth to it.
More Music Features
Like most music players, the one in the LG lets you poke around for an artist, album or track and has all the standard functions, but it goes beyond that. LG wants people to know this is a phone with music on its mind, so they included a Dolby Mobile equalizer with a handful of presets as well as the option of a manual equalizer. Choosing Bass Boost and then switching to Voice Boost, I could hear a clear change and Voice Boost made my first test song sound a lot better than without it. They also added Rhythmical Beat (the phone vibrates to the beat), Visual Effect (some nice background movement) and Join the Band. Join the Band is a pretty unique feature I haven’t seen before. You can choose between a drum set and a scrolling keyboard to play music along with the currently playing track. When I tried it, it didn’t sound too great because I can’t hold a beat, but if you’re more musically inclined, this is a cool way to remix while you listen. Either way, it was a lot of fun to play along and be a part of the music.
Your music can be managed, too. The added ability to create and manage music library and playlists is a nice step up from the standard player functionality. The Chocolate Touch also kept with the originality by adding an FM tuner with Verizon’s song identification software. I think more phones should offer this and was glad to see it included.
Touch Screen, Design, and Usability
Opening the box, I found a phone oozing style. The red pillow it was on felt like a red carpet. The phone, itself is incredibly good looking with various shaped buttons and a smoky-steel exterior. A little smaller than an iPhone, it feels comfortable in your hand and all the buttons are in convenient places. The back plate is an extension of the rock-star look LG was aiming for (and nailed). It looks like someone spilled gray paint on it, but in a good way, and just in case gray isn’t your color, they threw in a purple back plate as well. Finally, the thing is almost soft, which is kind of calming.
The touch screen required more force than I’m used to or would prefer to make anything happen. Re-calibrating seemed to help a little, but I still had to work just a little harder to select things. That said, the interface seems to be designed to minimize the amount of poking at the screen that would need to be done in order to get to what you want. Beneath the back plate and under the battery was the microSD. I prefer it in a more accessible location, but that’s at the risk of it popping out and getting lost.
This phone also comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera. The camera software is adaptive to the photo being taken and will adjust for too little or too much light. I liked that because I could get a photo of my monitor and it adjusted to be perfectly readable.
Conclusion
The LG Chocolate Touch is a wonderful touch screen phone with some incredible features if your music is important to you while on the go. Just the design and the music features would be enough to help me get used to the touch screen and for the price, it’s a really good alternative to other phones that are battling to unseat the iPhone.
The web browsing experience was very smooth. Not only was the scrolling seamless, but it also pops up a sneak peek of the complete page shrunk way down so you can see where you are in the page and if you need to scroll up or down to get to what you’re looking for. I need that on my desktop, too! The browser offers up all the typical options like bookmarking emailing a page, etc. The zooming was not all I’d hoped for. It worked, but just wasn’t as intuitive as on the iPhone’s pinch-zoom. The screen is a good size, and pretty clear, so zoom isn’t that much of a concern, though.
How Blog Spam Works
Thursday, December 17th, 2009Yesterday, along with my normal blog spam I clear out daily, I found one that stood out. Instead of the script that was being used actually formatting the spam as it was intended, it dumped the whole spam template as a comment on one of my blog posts.
To other bloggers, this may look a little familiar. It’s the popular complimenting blog spam. The idea is to compliment the blogger so that he or she will want to approve the comment. Once the comment is approved, the spammer has a link back to their site and, depending on the threshold of the blog, the spammer has a previous comment and may be auto-approved for future comments. The script seems to choose randomly from each of the variable pieces of content to eventually form a comment that is supposed to appear to be hand written for your blog. Don’t get fooled by this junk.
The spam I got was from michaelwoo.net, which is the web site of some kid who seems to think he’s on the right track in online marketing. His contact email is me@michaelwoo.net which he spells out on his site as “me@michaelwoo dot net”. I find it funny that he’ll use a script to comment spam popular blogs, but takes measures on his own site to prevent spam-harvesting scripts from getting his email address.
Tags: blog, comment, michaelwoo, spam
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