Summer at the Beach

I'm looking forward to spending some summer days at Waukegan's north beach this year. As a previous life-long Waukeganite I never paid much attention to the north end of the beach (the side north of the pier). This is a beautiful stretch of beach reminiscent of the white Florida beaches I visited when on business there a couple of years ago.

I really hope Waukegan does something nice this side of the beach to make it even more enjoyable.

We hope to be there the next couple of weekends or as much as possible!

Training Week End

In Schaumburg again this month for more Microsoft software training.

There's never a shortage of free food at this place. I'm surprised I haven't gone into cardiac arrest from eating all this junk!

I think today is ice cream Friday.

Yum.

Treo's in the house

I've been babysitting a V.P.'s Treo 650 this week trying to get it to play nice with our corporate email server.

The response from said VP after taking it in for a firmware update? "Take care of my treo. It's my life!"

I know the feeling.

UPDATE: Firmware updates on Palm devices are nerveracking experiences. The update involves completely wiping the Treo's memory and refreshing it with the latest version by the carrier. Low memory space can foil an update and cause havock with the device. Fortunately, this one went well!

A Bluesy Weekend

It was a nice weekend overall. Spent Saturday afternoon at Chicago's Bluesfest which is a personal favorite of mine to visit each year. We were a bit skeptical that the rain would put a damper on things, but it turned out to be a nice day despite a chilly wind off of the lake. Grant Park was muddy as all heck so we stayed away from that. The side stages were a nice treat and featured some great local talent.

I've got some photos up on my Flickr page, or just clicky on the little "Flickr Badge" down on this page along the right.

It's 6-6-06 and I'm close to hell

Of all things, a critical server had to die early this morning. I spent about 9 hours at the job in recovery mode. All turned out well which is a good thing!

Bluetooth headsets cut the wires

I got an email from a user of a Treo based forum I follow concerning bluetooth headsets and the new Treo 700P which I'll include here just for fun:

"I am new to the bluetooth world so this may be a dumb question. Does the JX10 do stereo? Obviously it only has one earpiece so the answer should be obvious, but I had to ask. If not, then what in your opinion is the best stereo (bluetooth) headset? I don't want to carry around a bunch of gear on my motorcycle or anywhere else. I like to travel light (hence the 700P). And up to now the phone has been my primary use, but going from the (Treo) 600 to the 700 and given all the additional options that come with it, I want to optimize my new toy.
Thanx"
Danny

The Jabra JX10 is a mono headset and won't do stereo. It's a gorgeous device and it performs well with the 700P. There's a lot of talk of the 700P's bluetooth losing connection with headsets, but it hasn't really affected me. This seems to be a phone problem and hopefully it can be fixed with a firmware upgrade later on if there really is a problem.

As far as bluetooth stereo headsets go I've tried the Motorola HT820's and the Jabra BT620.

Both work nicely as phone headsets.

In order to hear stereo music through these headsets, you'll need Softick Audio Gateway (www.softick.com), but you'll have to wait until the 700P version is out in 2 to 3 weeks. This is an amazing piece of software and works rock solid on both headsets with Pocket Tunes or other audio player. I highly recommend it to take full advantage of these headsets.

The Motorola HT820's were a bit uncomfortable after about an hour of use, and I didn't like the way they looked on my head overall. Very nice headset and rock solid.

I kept the Jabra BT620's simply for its slimmer profile headphones and comfortability. The only problem I have with this headset is that the control buttons on each earpiece are large and very sensitive when pressed. They get pressed easily in a bag by accident which may cause them to drain the battery. Putting them in a CD sized hard carrying case solved the problem. There is a bright blue light the flashes on each earpiece when connected via bluetooth, but there is a way to turn this useless feature off unless you want to walk around looking like a flashing robot.

Taking full advantage of the improved bluetooth features of the 700P really make this smartphone shine and makes your experience with it truly wireless.

Treo 700P in my hands!

My new Treo 700P has arrived! My first impressions after a day of use?

-Super fast broadband and internet browser are very impressive.
-Hard to get used to the new keypad layout.
-Camera is 1.3 megapixel and much improved.
-New Pocket Tunes and Documents To Go come pre-loaded
-Sprint TV is pretty cool!
-Streaming video and audio of all formats supported- I can now listen to WRLR 98.3 on my phone!
-A lots more...

Overall a very impressive device and it tops the 650 by a mile!