Amazing Footage Of Meteor

Found this on YouTube today. An amazing video capture of a meteor strike from a police car cam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_2aX-784sw

MILF rebels at it again...

MILF are becoming a huge problem.

Two Weeks With The G1

I have had my T-Mobile G1 Android phone for two weeks now. If I was rating it on a scale from 1 to 10, I would give it a solid 8. I'll start with the negatives first:

The battery life is unbearable. I use the phone for work 80% of the time and it won't make it through an 8 hour work day with moderate use. I have disabled the battery guzzling features, like wi-fi and GPS, but I need the bluetooth for work. I have gotten into the habit of pressing the hang up key when not in use to turn the screen off and this has made a huge difference. I can go about 6 hours now before I have to charge up.

I don't mind the size of the G1 -- it is only a bit bigger than my old Blackberry Curve. However, it does seem quite a bit heavier. A minor complaint, but it feels heavy in my sports jacket pocket whereas I used to never notice the Blackberry.

The camera is fairly useless. There's no flash and apparently no stability control. Expect a ton of blurry pics. The good pics I have taken are rare exceptions.


Other than that, the phone is an incredible tool. The 3G coverage in the Sacramento area is exceptional. I haven't found a place yet, downtown or suburb, where it doesn't work. The web browsing is great and the messaging works very well; e-mail or SMS text messaging. The Google integration is nothing short of amazing. This is a nearly zero-cofiguration phone. Plug in your Google credentials and the phone syncs calendar, contacts. and e-mail seamlessly.

The applications I have tried from the Android Market have worked well. The phone hasn't crashed a single time.

All in all, the phone has exceeded my expectations. If the battery life was better, I could forgive just about all the other minor flaws.

Olbermann on Prop 8

Sammy's Favorite Game

Prop 8 Bummer

My disappointment in the results for prop 8 are best summed up by my friend Kevin here.

New Phone - T-Mobile G1 with Google

I've had one form of Blackberry or another for the past 6 to 7 years or so. Recently I decided to make a change to what I call the next generation of phones. This generation must have real-time e-mail, a realistic web browsing experience, and simple to use, touchscreen controls. The huge seller out there is, of course, the iPhone. Being locked into my T-Mobile contract, that wasn't really an option, especially since AT&T is the sole vendor for the iPhone and due to a serious disagreement I had with them a couple of years ago, I will never do business with them again.

When I heard the G1 was coming out, I was very interested. It's based on the Android platform, a mobile device OS made by Google. I decided to try it out and it arrived yesterday.

I'll write more about it in the coming days, but suffice it to say I'm very impressed with the OS and the phone in general. A lot of peeople on Internet forums complain about the weight, size, and the keyboard, but I found all of these to be not only acceptable, but preferable. I watched many videos of the device in use on the Internet and it looked a lot bigger than it does in person -- it is only a bit larger than my Blackberry Curve. The one SERIOUS complaint I have is the battery life. With moderate web browsing and e-mail, the phone lasts a good 6 hours, maybe. My Blackberry could make it to bedtime with about 10-20% to spare. News that relief may come in the form of software updates is encouraging.

The Google Apps integration is great. I use the reader, docs, gmail, and search with no problem, although the read-only docs is a bummer. That should be fixed in an update, too. Another key feature is 3G. I have found the coverage in the Sacramento area to be excellent and even works way out in the suburbs, i.e. Elk Grove.

The Android Market for applications is growing like crazy everyday and I've tried a few out. My three favorite so far are:

Any Cut - Let's you place certain types of shortcuts on the desktop above and beyond the one's the OS restricts you, too. It's not a very sexy app, but so far has been the most crucial.

TuneWiki - Shown in the pics. It's a music player that has a lot of nice features and displays the lyrics as the song plays.

Compare Everywhere - This is one of those applications that makes you feel like you're living in the future. Very, very cool. Just hold the camera up to a barcode on a product and the phone vibrates when finished scanning it. It then goes out on the Internet and price compares with online and brick and mortar stores. Hit the map button and it will use the GPS to identify where you are and the closest stores that have that product.

I have only had the phone one day so I'll post more as I go along.