Truck is trashed when drunk driver strikes me!

You are not going to believe what happened to me last night. We decided to trade in our mint condition Chevy Silverado Z71 pickup for a crew cab Chevy so that our daughters were not so crammed in the back seat. On the way to the dealership, my daughters and I were in the truck and my wife was following in her Acura. 1/4 mile from the dealership a guy drove right out from a side street and T-boned my truck. It turns out he had a pipe in his car and spilled his alcoholic drink all over the front of his shirt in the accident and was arrested on the scene. My kids and I are fine, just a little sore from the impact. My truck is trashed. The entire driver's side, every single panel, is dented and bent up. The steering wheel is now tilted 20 degrees to the right and steering feels a bit loose. I am pretty ticked because now my truck is not worth close to what it was before. I should find out early next week what the insurance company thinks as far as repair or total loss. I just thank God that my family, especially my girls, are fine and were not injured.

When I was 16, I put my own engine and transmission in my Dodge Duster and added some wheels and a stereo. After about 5 months, a drunk driver plowed head on into the car when my friends and I were going to the drive in. My car was totalled and of course, the idiot did not have insurance so I received nothing for all my work in my car. I had liability, but the car wasn't worth enough for all the other insurance at the time. Thankfully, this recent driver has insurance.

I thought one accident with a drunk driver in a lifetime was enough and can't believe they have now hit me twice. DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE!!!!!!

PSHUG meeting, initial headset thoughts, BT driver

We had a decent PSHUG meeting last night and I think people were generally fairly pleased with the Dell Axim X50v. Jeff also brought in several new HP iPAQ devices including the 4700 and 3000 series. I had to split at the end to go pick up my wife's lost cell phone so I didn't get a chance to play with them like I wanted to.

That C500/Audiovox SMT5600 looks better every time I see it and I can see recommending it to family and friends. I think this may be the device to get people into using the Microsoft Smartphone platform and definitely think HTC has created a big winner with this device. Bill and Jeff, along with Jason G, seem to really like the device and are happy using it in a two device solution. I am still a big fan of my MDA III Phone Edition since data is more my thing than voice is.

I started using the Bluetake G3 headset last night and found that the Widcomm stack in the Dell X50 and X30 support handsfree mode so I was able to listen to music, etc. over the headset. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this is in the MDA III, but the people over at XDA Developers.com seem to be close to figuring out the correct registry setting to get it working as I have seen a screenshot with the correct option.

I hope to pick up a set of the new Bluetake stereo Bluetooth headphones to see how that works and think it would be great to listen to tunes without any cables.

I also discovered last night that the Stowaway Bluetooth driver I use on the MDA III does not work on the Dell Axim devices and I have to reload the actual Dell Bluetooth keyboard driver to use the Dell branded Bluetooth keyboard.

T5 and new BT headset are here

I think we have reached resolution of the issue in our church so I am getting some sleep again. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.

The Tungsten T5 arrived today and it actually is quite a nice unit. I am giving a demo of it tomorrow and will really be checking it out as much as I can.

I also just received the new Bluetake G3 Bluetooth headset to review and think it looks very cool and other reviews I read state the battery life is great.

Sorry, life has been BUSY!

I have been swamped and stressed out with an issue at our local church and have been losing sleep and not getting a chance to do anything dealing with PDAs. I hope that the issues are resolved here in the next week and I can have my life back again.

BTW, I upgraded my email account and won't be pursuing a hosted Exchange solution at this time because I really can't justify another $10 to $15 a month when everything works fine for me now and email syncing via AS is not that urgent or anything.

The T5 should be here on Monday and then I am showing it and the X50v at the PSHUG meeting on Tuesday.

Hosted Exchange service and Tungsten T5 review unit on the way

I returned from my whirlwind trip to Homer and now have a trip to Minnesota and Ontario scheduled for November 7th through 10th. I had minimal access via the hotel's service and was only able to check email. However, with my Mailblocks email service and limited 15MB mailbox I keep running into full mailbox issues. I can pay the $10 to upgrade, but since AOL bought Mailblocks I am not certain of its future. I am now going to test out a hosted Exchange service to see if that is worth it. If not, I may go back to my Yahoo Plus account with 2GB account. However, Yahoo Plus doesn't support IMAP, which is very important to me for managing emails on mobile devices.

I just faxed in my form to get a Tungsten T5 to review for 30 days and that should be arriving soon. I am not thinking it will sway me to it, but it will be interesting to check it out anyway. I have only used my UX50 device about 20 minutes in the last couple weeks as my MDA III and the review X50v occupy my time. I watched Pirates of the Caribbean and Gladiator on the X50v while in the airplane to and from Homer. The X50v went from 100% to 41% with brightness at about 35% while watching Gladiator at maximum volume. That seems reasonable to me, but I am still keeping my eye out for the Mugen Power battery upgrade.

I also just received the Piel Frama MDA III case and am checking that out as I write my review. They use a plastic piece over the keyboard to hold the device in the case. Right now I am using the slip case provided by T-Mobile so I am looking forward to seeing how this one works out.

Trip to Homer

I am in the airport waiting to depart soon for a quick business trip to Homer to inspect an aluminum boat. I may have internet access and plan on working on some reviews during the trip.
-Sent from my awesome MDA III!

Axim X50 reviews everywhere! What is better, the iPAQ 4700 or Axim X50?

There are several reviews of the new Axim X50 models out now since Dell did such a good job seeding the enthusiast community with review samples. Check out the Aximsite thread with a link to all the reviews online that I could find yesterday.

I want to do some more testing of the infrared to see if it is consumer grade and also test out WMP10 Mobile some more as well. I have seen some people knock the device for USB host functionality, but after thinking about it some more how many people would actually use this functionality? If you want to hook up a USB keyboard and mouse, why not just use your desktop? I prefer to use a slim keyboard like the Dell Bluetooth model and my stylus to move around on the screen.

Battery life has also been a big issue and I regret that I did not have time to conduct many real-life tests since I only had the device for a short time period before the launch. I plan on testing out the battery life a bit more as well. I read someone state that the price with the Dell extended life battery puts it up only $60 or so less than the 4700 and then got to thinking maybe the 4700 is a better alternative. However, the Dell is quite slim and feels great in the hand so if you are looking for something portable it may be the better choice. Then again, the 4700 looks to be quite the powerhouse and you may be able to find it online for around $600. I haven't played with one myself so I can't tell you which one I would buy with my own money, but with Dell's coupons and the fact that they include WMP10 Mobile while HP has stated there will be no upgrade for the 4700 the X50 is a good choice.

I also received a comment from a PDAGeek reader that the intent of the big arrows on StuntCar Extreme was for a user to use their thumb for the accelerator and brake and not the stylus. I was using the stylus and it felt awkward playing the game and can't believe what an idiot I was for not thinking of my thumb. The game is now much, much more playable and I am excited they included it since that was one of my favorites on the Tapwave Zodiac.

Dell announces Axim X50 devices

OK, you can go check out my review of the Dell Axim X50 Mid and X50v now. I will be bringing the X50v to the next PSHUG meeting and giving a demo where people can get their hands on the device since they won't be shipping to buyers until mid-November. I will also have more time to check out the WMP 10 Mobile software and other features of these amazing devices.

Less than 3 hours for some great news!

I can't officially say what I have been reviewing the last few days, but check out this thread on Pocket PC Thoughts to get a hint. In about 3 hours, 11 am Pacific, check out PDAGeek.com for all the juicy details:)

New devices under secret review:) MDA III still ROCKS!

I haven't had the chance to post an entry for a couple days because I have been hunkered down with a couple new devices that will be announced soon. Keep on eye on PDAGeek for my full review soon and all I can say now is that they are IMPRESSIVE!

That said, they still can't knock the MDA III from my hands since this device is awesome and I love the 128MB of RAM. Now that it is in English I am loading it up with essential software and it keeps running like a champ.

T-Mobile's GPRS service came back up this weekend, but in the meantime I remembered I could just dial into my ISP and with free weekend airtime I took advantage of that while I was out of the house.

T-Mobile down, Blue Angel coming to the USA, new review units

I didn't get a chance to check out Bluetooth connectivity on my MDA III last night, but was able to use WiFi and it connected without any real effort. The range is less than what I have seen with the Axim X30, but about the same as the CLIE UX50.

I am feeling a bit disconnected right now since it appears that the T-Mobile GPRS server is down in the West. I was unable to connect yesterday afternoon and thought the ROM update messed up my device, but then I popped my SIM into my Orange SPV E200 and Nokia 3650 and neither of those could connect either. I called T-Mobile this morning and they are working on it, but didn't have an estimated time of repair. I posted my experiences on the Howard Forums and others are chiming in saying they cannot connect either. Oh well, I only pay $5 and can still use WiFi to connect now that I have the MDA III.

I posted a news blurb about the HTC Blue Angel (MDA III/XDA IIs/iMate PDA2K, etc) coming to the US through AT&T and Cingular soon. My MDA III is now really an iMate PDA2K, except for the slightly off thumb keyboard and actually considered selling this one at a loss to get the PDA2K with English keyboard and same ROM I have now. The only thing I lost from the ROM update was ClearVue PDF and PowerPoint, but I owned the ClearVue suite and the Adobe Reader is free so I have them back on my device now.

A FedEx box arrived at my house this morning and another may come tomorrow so I will be spending some serious time doing some reviews this weekend for devices to be announced next week. I may have to catch the bus home early to get started or else my nights will be very long this weekend. My wife and I are probably going out for wings and dancing tonight too so one night may already be shot:)

Updated MDA III with English ROM, success!

I just performed the English ROM update and so far everything is working like a champ! I need to test out WiFi and Bluetooth more when I get home tonight, but it sure is refreshing to have all my menus in English. There are a couple of minor issues; you lose ClearVue PDF and PowerPoint viewers, you lose the T-Mobile splash screen at startup and gain the iMate one, and the keyboard is in English so not all the keys and the letters and symbols they make will match up. Someone may come out with a way to map them back to the German keyboard, but I should be able to adjust to the standard QWERTY keyboard without having to really look at it. The period, @ key, - key and some other symbols are a bit different so I have a photo of the iMate English keyboard to refer to until I can memorize the changes. Overall, I think the update is worth it as long as Bluetooth and WiFi work.

MDA III English ROM available with minor issues

I knew it was only a matter of time before those excellent developer on the XDA Developers site figured out how to crack the English ROM so the MDA III buyers could flash it over. I am still waiting on confirmation from the seller I bought it from to see if my warranty is voided if I do the update, but I may end up doing it anyway since I rarely use warranties on my mobile devices as it is. It looks like the keyboard though will be flashed to the English keyboard and in addition to my Z and Y being back to normal yet different on the keyboard there are some other keys that will be shifted around as well. I wish the ROM update would switch to English yet leave the keyboard alone and read that there are developers trying to create a utility to remap the keyboard back to the way it is in on the device.

I would like to have all the menus in English so I could use the device to its fullest, but also do not want to screw it up. I'll let you know how the update goes if I perform it later today.

New device on the way for review, thoughts on T5

I am pretty excited about what I will be doing later this week as a new device is coming my way to review. I can't say anything about it, but have dedicated time this weekend to spend taking it through the ringer and my full review will go live early next week on Geek.com. Something new that has not been announced on ANY Windows Mobile device will appear on this device so stay tuned for some excitement next week.

I sat in on a webcast for the new Tungsten T5 and have been reading the online forums in the last few days. I think the device is nice for those entering the Palm world, but is not compelling enough for most people to upgrade. I think most people prefer WiFi over Bluetooth since Bluetooth is just taking too long for people to discover how it can be useful to them. The specs are quite impressive, except for WiFi, but PDA enthusiasts want to see the Cobalt OS with multi-tasking in a device such as this. I don't know why it is taking manufacturers so long, it has almost been a year since they have had it, and wonder if there are some real compatibility issues. palmOne or other Palm Powered manufacturers need to come out with a killer device or I think you will see more and more people moving to the more powerful and now less costly Windows Mobile devices. The Treo 650 should be out at the end of October and I am sure it will do quite well, but again it is lacking WiFi integration. If you can add the WiFi SD card then that may help and palmOne should consider bundling the card for a lower price.

MSN Search Champs program

I mistitled my last entry and forgot to put in the Search part. I was lucky enough to be selected as a member of the MSN Search Champs team. As we all know Microsoft is attempting to enter the search engine race and invited us to Redmond for a preview of what is to come. All the content was under NDA, but let me just say I wasn't blown away like I was hoping to be. I primarily use Google and am satisfied with it at this time, but think competition is always good since it helps drive innovation. Now, on Day 2 Microsoft Research came in and showed us some things that I wanted to see the first day. This was not under NDA and you can actually check out some of their work on the MS Research site. They ran a search and then at the top of the window there was a slider bar that would filter the results for your personal preferences based on your email folder, documents, etc. that you setup on a small utility. This Personalized Search program seemed to work slick and was impressive. The MSR answerbot, AskMSR, was also a cool program that helped answer specific questions rather than searching just keywords.

As a mobile device enthusiast, I was glad that Microsoft actually had a forum where we could provide our input since there is NO ONE out there with a search engine geared towards mobile devices. As smartphones and connected devices become more popular someone can easily jump into this area and take the market lead. The first version of MSN Search probably won't be optimized for mobile devices, but they could easily make a couple coding tweaks just to get it formatted for mobile devices and take the lead here. I do use the Google/Palm version, but Google hasn't put any efforts into optimizing the search engine for mobile devices. I'll be discussing some of what I want to see in a blurb tomorrow on PDAGeek.com so check there if you want to see more of my thoughts.

MSN Champs kickoff party

We kicked off the MSN Champs summit last night with a great party at the Fox Sports grill in Seattle. Microsoft knows how to throw a great party and the food, drinks, and people were great!

I met some guys from all over the world, including Belgium, Canada, South Africa, Netherlands, and the UK. They were all very friendly and we had a great time. We are all curious about the plans for MSN Search and cannot wait to hear more over the next two days.

-Sent from my new MDA III

MDA III is here, mobile device perfection?

My MDA III arrived home yesterday afternoon and I took the bus home early because I just could not contain myself at work any longer. I opened up the brand new box and inserted the ac adapter to ensure it had a good first full charge. I'll be writing up a full review for PDAGeek, but will give you some of my first impressions now.

It is heavier than the MDA II (7.5 ounces compared to 6.7 ounces), is just about the same width, the III is thicker and the III is shorter with the keyboard closed. The display is blacker when off, but has that familiar yellow tint seen on most all of the iPaq devices manufactured by HTC. It is only yellow when you hold it an angle and this never really bothered me when I had my iPaq 4350. There are a ton of buttons on the device and you can program up to 9 of them for different functions. I reprogrammed my record button to activate the landscape/portrait screen orientation since I use that much more than voice recordings. The battery is larger (1490 mAh vs. 1200 mAh) and has a slight curvature to it leading up to the offset camera and mirror. My Javo USB sync/charge cable fits into the connector and works well so I am happy about that as I can charge the device in my car which will be important until extra batteries and accessories are released. T-Mobile includes a belt slip case that holds the device sideways and will work for now. However, I contacted Piel Frama and asked when their new case will be shipping because that looks excellent. I will have to wait about 3 weeks for them to finish making those cases.

No one has yet figured out how to flash to the English ROM so all the menus are in German. I have been able to figure out most of these, except for the new Wireless Manager I haven't seen on any device before. All my contacts, appointments, notes, emails, and other text you input is all in English and you can surf the internet in English too so the only issue is figuring out what all the menu commands are. The thumb keyboard is also QWERTZ instead of QWERTY, but since I am typing with my thumbs anyway I don't think that will be too big of an issue. One great feature of this keyboad compared to ALL other thumb keyboards I have used on mobile devices is that all the characters that are activated with the FN key are on the backlit key itself so you truly see everything with the cool blue backlight and this lets you type away in the dark. This is important for me because I can now use the keyboard in the vanpool at 5:45 in the morning.

WiFi worked well right out of the box, but I can't get it to ActiveSync yet because I can't understand the error message dialog box that pops up and can't troubleshoot the issue. I can surf and get email via WiFi and that seems to work well. It is such a pleasure to have the excellent Widcomm Bluetooth stack and Bluetooth Manager on this device and I can't wait to test out my headset, Dell Bluetooth keyboard, GPS, and other Bluetooth devices. I also love having Second Edition as I can now browse, check email, and work with spreadsheets in landscape mode.

This device has it all with WiFi, Bluetooth, integrated backlit keyboard, tons of hardware buttons, camera, GSM/GPRS, 126MB usable RAM, 43MB usable ROM (maybe even more with an extended ROM utility), WM2003 Second Edition, and an SDIO slot. The only thing lacking is a VGA display, but I am sure that will be out next year. The MDA II was close to perfection for me, but the MDA III addresses the few minor issues and I think I now have finally reached mobile device nirvana:)

By the way, I had one buyer purchase my MDA II and Axim X30 along with most all the accessories. I still have a couple MDA II things to sell so if you are interested in the thumb keyboard that works on the T-Mobile PPC Phone Edition, MDA II, or XDA II or in an excellent black leather Krusell case with Multidapt system clip then please email me to discuss a price.