My BlackBerry Just Got Cooler

I tried out Google's Sync for my BlackBerry, and it was horrible.  I never kept up with my Google contacts, only my Outlook/BBerry contacts, and Google overwrote all my data with it's old data, and then when I would fix it, it would just reinstate it's bad data.  Thankfully I was able to preserve my Outlook data by not syncing.

Removing Google Sync turned out to be quite a pain, and I wound up having to wipe my BBerry, and clear all the software, and reinstall from scratch.  In doing so, I also updated my device software, and now it's looking better than before.

One of my few complaints about the AT&T Curve (8310) was that I couldn't download AIM or Yahoo! Messenger.  I could only by third party software that was always slower.  That is fixed, and now I can log in to all my IM accounts.  One of my other complaints - no HTML emails.  Now I have HTML emails.  Also, if I have a picture saved in someone's contact, that picture shows up in the header for emails from them - just like in Outlook.

There's also multi-folder support.  If you have two calendar folders, you can sync both, but new entries you make in your BBerry will only go on the default folder.  But you could always make a note to yourself to transfer that entry over.

I haven't been able to play with it much yet, so there are probably other new things I have yet to discover.  But I'm excited all over again.

Bobby's HTC died a couple weeks ago.  A friend got the BlackBerry Storm, and after playing with it a bit we were both quite envious.  Bobby has been telling me he needs a new phone, and I was telling him that no, he needs to wait - he can't just get a new phone because he wants one.  But then, it proved to be insane.  The phone.  He turned it on, and it just started beeping, as if someone were pressing buttons, but no one was touching it.  He set it on the counter, and it dialed a number on it's own.

If we had Verizon, or our AT&T contracts were up anytime soon, we probably would have switched to Verizon for the Storm, and so the contract could be in the company's name instead of ours, but we already have contracts with AT&T on two of our three phones - one with a year left, one with almost 2 years left.

I was pushing him to get a BlackBerry, just because I love mine so much, but he wound up choosing an iPhone instead.  So far he likes it.  He's got another 2 weeks before he has to commit, so we'll see.

Good Riddance

That's it!  I give up!  I am removing my MSN Instant Messenger account from Trillian because all I get is spam messages.  "My cam still isn't working, message me so I can send you a cam invite."  Um, no.  All day.  And if I leave myself logged in overnight, then I must have 10-15 spam messages when I get in.

I should know better, I guess.  Many, many moons ago, when I signed up for hotmail way back in the day, it was soon so overwhelmed with spam it was practically unusable.  I think I'll stick with AIM and Gtalk.

Really?

None of my interns have ever used Microsoft Outlook before. I could understand if they don't use it on a regular basis, but they didn't even know what it was! These are college business students. WTF?

New Camera!

Bobby received a few Best Buy gift cards for his birthday, and was told not to use them for something he needed for the business. He thought a lot about what Best Buy would have that he really wants. He could think of two things - a camera, and a PS3.

We both need and want a camera, since both of ours have recently died. Although it is also something we need for the business, Bobby has been wanting to get a good camera to take scuba diving with him (he'll still need the underwater case before that can happen), and we have been sad that we have not been able to take pictures for events like his birthday. With his sister's high school graduation tomorrow, and the fact that a PS3 would mean putting some extra cash down as well, he decided to go for the camera.

We'd been doing a lot of research lately, knowing we would need a new camera. We both agreed on the make and model we wanted: the Canon SD870 IS. Bobby was particularly interested in the wide zoom of 28mm, and I was looking for the largest screen.



When we got home, Bobby had to take care of some things in the garage while I brought the goods in. Once he made it into the house, he expressed surprise that I hadn't already opened the box and assembled the camera.
"But it's your camera, not mine."

I didn't like the idea of taking over his birthday present, but Bobby said that since he'd taken over the use of my camera so much over the last year (since his had died), that this was definetly our camera, not just his. I still let him put it together, then I took to trying it out by photographing one of our favorite subjets - our furchild, Lucas. He'd taken a liking to the wrist strap, so the flash was a little close to his face, but I kind of like how it came out.

Organizing My Life

I often think that companies should hire me to review their products - kind of like what Tom Hank's character does for that toy company in Big. Reviews from an average, everyday user's perspective. I have a lot of "this would be so much more useful if..." moments, and I so want to share them with the manufacturer/provider that I have actually written emails in the past to Google and others about what changes they could make that I think would make the product better. Some ideas would just be nice, others seem like basics that have been overlooked and are quite frustrating.

For example, I use Outlook for my contacts so I can sync nicely with my Blackberry, and I like to fill out the records completely (contact management was one of the main reasons I wanted a Blackberry so badly). I feel like there are some improvements that could be made, like instead of having just spouse and children fields, you were given the option to select another contact from your contact list.

Right now, if I happen to have a full contact record for say, my brother AND his wife, then I have an calendar entry for their anniversary for EACH of them. If I delete one and alter the other so that it indicates that it is THEIR anniversary - then any time I make any change to either of their contact records, I have to re-make my changes, and delete duplicates. You should be able to define relationships between contacts.

Also, I want to be able to put people's appropriate salutations, middle names (for some reason, I love knowing people's middle names), nicknames, etc. in there, but I don't necessarily want that showing up as the Full Name. In fact, sometimes I want to a record to appear under the person's nickname. I can manually change the "File As" name, but when Outlook makes the entry in my calendar for their birthday or anniversary, I don't want it to display "Mr. John Q. Public, Jr.'s Anniversary" and "Mrs. Jane R. Public's Anniversary," I want it to read "John & Jane Public's Anniversary."

And on the subject of email (admittedly what most people use Outlook for) why does it require so much effort to mark an email as spam in Outlook? You should just be able to click "junk" button. Unless you have a seperate spam filter that has that functionality, you have to junk messages one at a time, right click on the message, select the junk email options, and then select the option to block that sender. Oi... I'm tired. I could create a toolbar for it, but how many people know how to do that? This should be a basic.

I would like if Outlook incorporated the function Gmail uses in organizing emails - I love that emails are grouped with their string. Instead of listing out every single email, each string is listed. I don't know about you, but I wind up with long email strings at work, often about where lunch is going to be that day.

I got a little worked up on Friday and downloaded some toolbars for Outlook: the Xobni toolbar, and the LinkedIn toolbar. If you are constantly looking for some file that someone sent you awhile back, Xobni is awesome. When you are in your Inbox, it displays information about the sender of that email - phone number, frequency of emails, people included on emails between you (in order of frequency), and my favorite, files that have been exchanged via email between you. It doesn't seem to be something I need all the time, but when I do, it saves a great deal of time.

The LinkedIn toolbar just connects my Outlook to my LinkedIn profile. A link is shown for others' LinkedIn profiles, and I can click a button and Outlook will navigate me to my page. It's not something I use extensively, but so far it seems kind of neat.

Google's products have been the target of much of my pseudo-reviews too. I use Gmail to manage my personal email and my email for Bobby's business - but I can't open vCards with it. If someone sends me a vCard, I can't even forward it to my work address so I can open it in Outlook and enter the information into my Gmail contacts. vCards are not proprietary to Outlook either - they are the standard. I'm not sure how Google intends to do well with GAFYD if you can't even utilize vCards.


In fact, I find Gmail Contacts pretty lacking. I do like that you can enter contact information as Work or Home or even another category, but I wish it had more fields, and cross functionality with the calendar. And most importantly, I really, really, really wish I could sync my contacts with Outlook. I so hate having to maintain two seperate address books, and so my Gmail Contact will likely remain out of date.

On the topic of Gmail/GAFYD - syncing with Outlook is such a pain! You can't sync contacts at all, and syncing calendars has only led me to a crashing Outlook or duplicate (triplicate, quadruplicate, and centriplicate - yes, I just made that word up - entries). In Outlook I use categories to organize my calendar entries (and everything else), but in Google Calendar I have to create whole sperate calendars for things to show up in different colors. Syncing that seems to present a problem in itself. I've abandoned Google's Calendar altogether.

Oh, and I signed up for the Blackberry Owners Lounge, because I'm in love with my phone and want more stuff I can put on it - but for some reason they send out their emails in HTML... which I cannot read on my Blackberry. How does that make any sense at all?

PictoBrowser

I was just looking at a new blog post, and the poster had use PictoBrowser to display them. It allows you to create little photo galleries from your Flickr pictures to post on your blog. It looks so nice, I almost want to switch to from Picasa Web Albums to Flickr so I can use it. I have to see if I can find a comparable service/tool for Picasa...

So I Have This Idea...

I have a business idea, but I don't have the tools necessary to follow through with it. I don't have the technical knowledge to implement it, the capital to fund, market, and support it, or even a network of individuals with the technical and industry knowledge necessary. I just know that the opportunity exists, and that consumers and vendors would like the service on a number of levels. Of course, I can think of a segment of the business community that would not be so happy about it, but that's often the way change works.

I see businesses that offer a pieces of the puzzle, but I haven't found anywhere that they have been put together, and the full service would be much more useful than the individual pieces. I can see where ancillary services would be called for, and have already thought about where those services could be found.

Maybe I should write up a business plan, and think of things I can do to make it real...

Aspiring Tech Product Reviewer

Remember the job that Tom Hanks' character gets in the movie Big? I need a job like that - but for tech products like smartphones and online services and stuff. I have way too many opinions about how products could be improved, but I'm not sure who to tell. I'd even review stuff for free, especially if I got to try it out for free.

Of course, some of my recommendations are going to conflict with the system in any case where the system benefits the producer or carrier at the expense of the consumer. For example - the whole business about cell phones tied to a carrier. I wouldn't mind if you were given the option of signing a contract in order to get a better deal on a phone, but the fact that the phone only works on a given carrier is absurd. If I bought it, I should have the right to decide how to use it, and I shouldn't have to find a way around the system to make it work. If I find I hate the service, I should be able to pay the severence fee and take my phone to a different carrier. I think all consumers want to be able to choose the phone and carrier they prefer, without the choice for one limiting the choice for the other.

But I personally think that in the long run, companies and products that best serve the consumer have a leg up in terms of competition. If the products and services were equal, the consumer friendly company should win out. (This is of course affected by the sheer size and resources of some of these companies, unfortunately).

My Blackbery Curve
After a little over a month with my Blackberry curve, I know a little about what I love about it, and what could use some improvement. For the most part, I love it and wouldn't trade it in right now, but there are a few things I would add or change.

Things I love:

The reasons people get Blackberries - having all my contacts, tasks and calendar entries with me at all times, syncing up with Outlook so I don't have to enter the information twice. Being able to check and send emails wherever I am.

I have a full time job, and on top of that I have some duties for Bobby's new business as well, so I have email addresses for both companies. I'm able to set up my email with his business on my Blackberry, and filter my sync so that only tasks marked with specified categores are synced. This allows me to keep my Outlook at work (which is where I sync, as Bobby has commandeered my laptop) focused on my job, and my Blackberry focused on my personal and side work stuff.

Blackberry Messenger and Google Talk. These work great - I wish everyone had a Blackberry because of the former, and I love that both show up in my Messages section. A conversation in either shows up as a single entry in Messages, so I can select it to open that chat window.

Google Maps with the GPS for this thing is fantastic. On our recent trip to Park City, I was the navigator. We were able to go anywhere without having to preplan.

But there are some little things I would change. Mostly little things that can be overlooked, but if fixed would drastically increase my satisfaction with the product. Some of it can be fixed with add-on software, but I'd rather it were great out of the box:

• This is my first time with a screen this big, so I didn't realize how much I would love having the Internet available to me. The EDGE network is on the slow side, so 3G would be nice - the faster the better.
• Also relating to the Internet - I wish there were a faster way to scroll down on some sites - a touch screen in addition to the scroll wheel would be lovely. I wouldn't want just a touch screen, because that makes it harder to use the phone single-handed when necessary. The addition of a touch screen would make games like solitaire easier too.
• AIM. There is no Blackberry version of AIM available for this phone. I have to purchase additional software to use it, but then it doesn't show up in my Messages like BBM or gTalk do. I would rather it did.
• I would change the way Tasks are displayed on the Blackberry. The sync is great, but I'd like to see the due date, or filter the view so that only current tasks show up, and a checkbox would be nice so I could mark them complete.
• The way it acts with Microsoft Exchange (although after further research I think it may be the way MS Exchange acts with it). We've just switched to MS Exchange at work, and if I set up my work email address up on my Blackberry, then as soon as the Blackberry checks my email, then my Outlook marks the emails as read. So even if I don't read them on my Blackberry, they are read in my Outlook. I come in each morning, and I have no new emails, but that's not really true. I've given up, and my work email stays at work for now.
• I wish I could set more than one alarm. At least two. I would like to keep my daily one the same, and be able to add an additional one for whatever reason.

I don't care about having a camera on my phone - it needs good lighting and I never use it anyway. If I want to take pictures, I'll use my regular camera. I'd rather have resources directed at these other issues.

Setting Up

When I got into work today I was completely distracted by my need to set up my new Blackberry Curve.

Because I'd only been using Outlook to track my work calendar, and Google Calendar to track my personal stuff, I had some consolidating to do. And some clean up. I had to update some personal contacts' information to be current, add in some birthdays, delete any duplicate calendar entries related to the contacts, etc. Then I went through my GMail contacts to make sure they were all there.

And categorizing. Oi, I categorized tasks and contacts and calendar entries and notes. I added some personal tasks and tasks relating to Bobby's new business to my task list. It was all a very cleansing exercise. Like cleaning up your desk.

I installed the software and synced up my phone. I filtered the tasks so that only tasks marked Personal or for the new business would sync. This way I can use my blackberry for Personal and New Business management, and keep my work computer focused on work tasks. I still need to go through my old phone and make sure I have everyone's phone numbers. But it is so nice not having to scroll through 3-5 entries for every person...

My Christmas Present

My Christmas present finally arrived today. I don't know what it is about shiny new gadgets that is so exciting.

I've been so busy lately, and always on the go, that it was becoming a problem that I didn't have all of my contacts' information with me all the time. Bobby has hijacked my laptop because he's regularly off at job sites and needs it, so I really don't have a computer of my own outside of work.

This usually isn't a problem - all our media is on Bobby's desktop (since my little 40GB laptop couldn't handle it all anyway), and I use GMail, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets, so I'm fairly mobile as it is. The only downside was managing and not always having access to my contacts and calendar. What I needed was a smartphone.

I hate GMail's contacts. While there are definitely some improvements I could suggest for Outlook, I still prefer it to GMail's contacts. I was really hoping that Google would buy out Plaxo, or even just integrate Plaxo's service into GMail contacts. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen, especially if the rumors about Facebook acquiring Plaxo are true.

I had spent a decent amount of time deciding what kind of phone I wanted. The perfect phone just doesn't seem to exist. I like all the bells and whistles - 3G (or better!?), email/contact/calendar integration, GPS, Wi-Fi, full QWERTY keyboard, etc. I really like Bobby's phone, but it's kind of large and not very sexy. I love the touch screen, and that he can open attachments, but it's also pretty pricey. I really like the look of the Blackberry Curve, and everyone I know with a Blackberry seems pretty happy with it. Unfortunately, the Curve doesn't have 3G, so it's still on the slower EDGE network.

I was not interested in an iPhone. Sure, it's a pretty product, but of the two people I know that bought one, one has already given it away and purchased a Blackberry instead. The other likes it, but admitted that it really wouldn't be for business use, and mentioned some of the iPhone's drawbacks. Between not having 3G or copy/paste capabilities, and the fact that it's so proprietary, I just wasn't interested.

I decided that the Curve would be enough to fit my needs. I don't surf the web on my phone that much so I was comfortable with not having the 3G or Wi-Fi. Since we were going to be buying it outside of a contract I figured that worst case I could resell it on eBay and get something else.

I was glad to find that the battery had a slight charge to it when it arrived, because that meant that I didn't have to wait to switch my SIM card over and play with some of the functions. But the phone shipped to my house, and like I said, the computer that is really dedicated to me is at work, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to upload everything...

Christmas 2007

As has become the norm, Bobby and I came over to his parents' house on Christmas Eve and hung out for the day, had dinner with his extended family, and then stayed up watching movies while his siblings wrapped presents until 4am.

In the morning we held back, patiently waiting until we could pick Emma up at 10. When she arrived, she told us about the larger of the presents she'd received in the morning with her mom: a laptop and an iPod. She'd brought the laptop, it was one of those green One Laptop per Child ones they are distributing in impoverished nations. It's pretty cool actually.

Then the festivities began, and everyone started opening gifts. Emma added on to her booty with a load of toys and clothes, a Ninetendo DS, and another mp3 player. Bobby's big present was an XBox 360 complete with 2 extra controllers and Halo 3. He was pretty excited about it, and he and Brian almost immediately unpacked it and worked to set it up to play. Unfortunately, my big gift was still in the mail on the way here.



We stayed over for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, Bobby's mom had to work the night of Christmas Eve and of Christmas Day, so we were trying not to distrub her when she could get some sleep. No one really wanted to cook anything, so we drove around at lunch time looking for anywhere that was open. All we could find was a very crowded Jack-in-the-Box. But we made it through the day, and enjoyed each other's company into the evening...

Busy Week

This week has been one of the busiest weeks I've ever had at work. We've been making the switch from an old Novell server to a new MS Small Business Server. Not only did we move over all the files, but we set up Exchange Server and 16 new desktops - and we are changing from Office 2000 to Office 2007. That's a lot of change to happen at once.

There have been some kinks along the way, and our email was down Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And for some reason our phones were down on Monday. When stuff stops working, I'm the first person in the office that everyone calls. I was working late and pretty stressed out most of the week. Yesterday was the first day that went relatively smoothly, so now I'm catching up on my normal work.

Hopefully I can relax this weekend...

Long Night

So remember how I wanted to go home? I didn't, for awhile.

My work finally made the jump and purchased a new server and 16 new desktops. I've been working on getting competing bids and setting this up for over 6 months, and it's finally happened. Last night we started switching the office over.

I worked until 4am. At around 3am, all I could think was that I was going to have to field questions from co-workers starting around 7am (all their computers had gone from not using a password to having a password I'd created for them, and that was just the beginning). I was half tempted to just pass out on the couch in the president's office, but I'd already not showered that morning, and my contacts were really bothering me. I left a note indicating the time, that I was going home to sleep, and would do so until one of them called me with a question. I was not concerned with coming in on time.

When I got home, Bobby was still up. He'd been up since 4am the previous morning, spent the day installing, and was now working on plans. Aside from passing out in his chair for 30 minutes, he didn't sleep at all last night. He wanted to get some plans in to the City of Big Bear Lake as soon as they opened, so he left at 5:30am to drive up there.

I got a phone call at 2 minutes to 7am. I was dreaming about copying files over from one computer to another. I gave my co-worker some info to pass around, and said I was going to sleep a little longer before I got up. Unfortunately, once I'm up - I'm up. I finally gave up and started getting ready for work.

I walked around, had a little chat with everyone whose system I'd changed to see if they were having any issues or had any questions. Now I'm heading home.

Bizarre...

When I came home from visiting Gpa, I decided to test out my camera. I expected to be disappointed. I put in the battery... and I saw an LED flash. At first I wasn't sure. I pressed the power button but nothing happened. I pressed the power button again, this time holding it down a little longer, and... it powered up!

I was so excited. I can hardly describe my joy. I know many people would have been excited to purchase a new, improved camera - I'd started to do some research into what camera to buy for a replacement - but I'd really just wanted my old camera back. Now I had it.

The screen said memory full - I didn't have the memory card in it. My camera can hold a few images on it's own. I usually clear the pictures off fairly regularly, and sometimes I'll take like eight pictures, and then it will tell me the memory is full. That's usually when I remember I need to put the memory card back.

I didn't expect there to be any pictures left on the camera, only on the memory card - especially since I'd had to reset the date - why would it hold pictures in the memory and not the date. I scrolled through the pictures, and this is what I found:



Even though I know I didn't take these pictures, I know exactly whose hands they are. That is my younger sister holding my dying Gma's hand. I can tell because I know the coloration of my Gma's skin as she was dying - it had an unusually yellow/orange tint. Jessica was sleeping when Gma died, and we left her body alone afterwords, so I know it was before. I'd never seen these pics on my camera before, though I can imagine my sister and her husband snapping a few pics with my camera.

It seems incredibly bizarre to me that these pictures would just appear on my camera, five months after the fact. That my camera's near death experience would bring back these pics. I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

Goodbye Old Friend?

In the summer of 2005 I purchased my favorite toy - my first digital camera. I was going on a trip through Europe that September and I wanted to be able to document my trip so I could always look back on all the places I'd been.

I wasn't picky; I only wanted three things from a camera - a large LCD screen, a compact frame, and a rechargable internal battery. Other than that I didn't look into digital v. optical zooms, or serviceablity, or anything. A co-worker of mine had a Casio Exilim and couldn't stop singing it's praises. It had been a tough little camera, had a giant screen (2.7"), and a slim, compact design. So I took his recommendation and purchased a Casio Exilim EX-Z57.

I has been a great camera. It made the rounds with me through Europe, then Vegas; it documented many parties, family gatherings, trips to Disneyland and the beach, and was there to welcome new additions to the family. It has been such a great camera that my mom often ditches her own and borrows it when she wants to take pictures. I occasionally go through lulls when I don't take very many pictures, but I always come back.

Yesterday Bobby, Emma, and I went to Disneyland for a few hours. I'd packed us some snacks and drinks so we wouldn't be tempted to eat there - we've been disappointed by the food there too many times. Just before getting on Star Tours, I closed my Gatorade and put it in my backpack. When I grabbed my bag getting off the ride, I felt wetness.

The cap of my Gatorade had been cocked to the side and so had not closed all the way - the entire contents of my bag was soaked... including my trusty camera.

I immediately dried it off as best I could and pressed the power button, but alas, it would not turn on. I opened it up and took the battery out - it was wet. I was instantly sad - I felt this was truely the end.

My camera had recenlty had a problem and would not start - the screen would read "Lens Error" and shut off immediately. I took the camera in to a repair shop and was told that they would try but made no promises - Casio's are notoriously difficult to repair and the company offers little support. A recent trip to the beach meant sand had likely weaseled it's way into the lens. But they had been able to clean out the sand, and I my friend was back.

Now I fear that it is really done for. I am going to let it dry out for awhile before I just purchase a replacement, but I don't have high hopes. I am sad, I will miss my friend.

Normally I would have taken my experience with this camera and just purchased another Exilim. But I'm afraid that may be a bad choice.

My co-worker that had originally recommended his camera to me had since lost his Exilim and purchased another. He not only had problems with this camera, but with Casio. When he tried to have his camera fixed under the warranty he was met with nothing but road blocks. Casio finally agreed to send him a new camera, which they did not - they sent a refurbished one that also had problems. By the end of the ordeal he'd been through a few Exilims, and had taken Casio to small claims court.

I don't want all that. I just want another trusty little camera with a compact frame, internal rechargable battery, and a large LCD screen. The camera repairman said to avoid Casio and he prefers Canon and Olympus. I'll have to look around.

One thing AT&T seems to be good at

Cancellations.

When we purchased Bobby's new phone we signed up for AT&T's DSL service. It was cheaper than what we were currently paying for Time Warner's cable internet, and it was going to give us a $75 rebate on his phone.

We received the box in the mail shortly after, but didn't get around to switching out the equipment until about 2 weeks ago. Since then, we;ve noticed the service is unstable, inconsistent, and poor. This DSL was supposed to be relatively on par with our cable internet, but it was clearly inferior.

Luckily I had yet to cancel my account with Time Warner, making it easy to simply cancel AT&T. Not only was the girl I cancelled with the most competant person I've dealt with in the company, but it was a very easy process with no hoops. She asked the reason I was cancelling, but never tried to talk me out of it.

Seems like AT&T would do much better if there services and the rest of their customer service were that high of quality.

AT&T Update

So we received the Tilt that was promised us. Bobby's pretty sure it is not new but rather a refurbished phone that was returned by someone else. The data cable was not to be found in the box. Luckily Bobby forgot to return the data cable that came with the 8525 and was able to use that.

Again - AT&T sucks.

AT&T Customer Service Sucks

About a month ago we got Bobby a new smartphone - the AT&T 8525. In the time since, it has ceased being able open Word and PDF documents and has crashed multiple times - as much as once per day. We decided that this was likely a faulty device and went in on Saturday to exchange it since we were within our 30 exchange/return policy.

They guy at the AT&T store said that they didn't have any other 8525 in stock, but that they now have the AT&T Tilt. We'd never heard of it, but apparently it was the next generation of the 8525 - now including GPS - and had been out for a whopping four days. They didn't have one available that day, but were expecting deliveries all week. He had one that we could play around with and suggested we call back the next day to see if they had received any.

We called back every day, and on Wednesday they had one in stock. So at the end of the day we went back down to the store. It was becoming dangerously close to the end of our 30 day exchange period, and we wanted to make sure we had a good phone.

When we explained the situation to the salesperson, we were informed that the Tilt was only available for new customers - and not available for exchange. Something about how they are only receiving a few units.

But I've signed a new contract - doesn't this qualify me? No - it's only for new customers.
"So what you are saying, is that current AT&T subscribers that are looking to enter a new contract cannot get this phone. It's only available if you are actually signing up a new number."
Yes.

The rep called around to other stores in the area to see if they had a Tilt available for exchange. I tried to explain to him that I wanted him to find a Tilt period. He should not be indicating that it was "for exchange" because if they did not find us a Tilt - I was cancelling outright.

To be fair, I was irritated with AT&T before I walked into the store for a number of reasons:

• When my grandmother had died, I went through the process of changing all the house bills into my name. My grandfather is in a nursing home, and I am now officially paying rent, so it didn't make sense to keep anything in his name. I had no trouble switching any of the bills except for the phone bill - with AT&T. The first time I called, it went fine. But then the bills kept coming to my grandfather. I called back and was told that even though I had a confirmation number - they were in the middle of switching from "the old" AT&T to "the new" AT&T. Since I was with "the old" AT&T, anything I did with them was for naught.


• So then I needed to make the switch with "the new" AT&T. Even though I had all the required information - account number, last bill, his social security number, date of birth, drivers license, mother's maiden name - they wouldn't make the switch without actually speaking to him. As if they would even know it was him. Because their customer service hours are essentially during my work hours, I would have to take time out of work to go down to the nursing home and make a call so that he could talk to them.


• We have AT&T DSL at my work. I'd called a few months back to see what my options were to upgrade the line - we were looking at installing a MS Exchange Server and needed a faster connection. I had talked with the rep at length regarding the different options and pricing. When I called Tuesday to make the desired upgrade, I was informed that my current bandwidth was the fastest available in my area. Then why did the rep bother giving me pricing for all those plans if I can't even sign up for it. I would have researched other broadband options for my Cap Ex proposal.

So at this point I'm becoming a little irate with AT&T Customer Service policy. I can see the reasoning behind reserving a new phone for new contracts - it assures a conitnued income stream - but not only for new customers. This tells me that AT&T does not value their current customers.

I tried my best to be assertive without making the reps feel like I was attacking them. I know Bobby thought I was being aggressive. I explained that I did not want to be involved with a company with such poor customer service and was ready to cancel not only this contract, but the other two wireless accounts, home phone, and DSL that I have with them. We had just signed up for the DSL and had not yet cancelled our cable internet. I could easily switch the phone to Vonage, and Sprint had called recently offering to pay our cancellation fees with AT&T for the wireless accounts.

Now the manager finally becomes involved. He tries to smooth things over. He offers to have AT&T send us a Tilt in the mail - then have us bring in and return the 8525.

I should not have to go through all this to purchase a phone. I should not have to fight with a company to subscribe to their service or purchase their product. We may still leave AT&T and just eBay the phone. We'll see if they improve at all.

Photoshop Brilliance

Fark had a little Photoshop contest today. This was the original image:

Here are some of the entries I liked the best:

There were some other really good ones. Just amazing what they can do. Check it out.

Body Images

This site has some really amazing photoshop examples. First up is a typical magazine-style pic of a beautiful girl. Roll your mouse over and see what she really looks like. (I wish I could just pull the pics for you, but I'm not that talented.)

I think it's important in this day and age to recognize what is a healthy, practical, attainable body image. We should try to eat well and stay active, but still recognize that it is unlikely we will acheive that airbrushed physique.