This week at Mobile Tech Manor

This week at Mobile Tech Manor

This week has been full of ups and downs as I have been fighting a cold or whatever crud I have. It makes me go from "full speed ahead" to feeling wiped out in a span of just minutes which makes working difficult. This week the tech news has been filled with the imminent arrival of the Blackberry Storm and one crossed the portal at Mobile Tech Manor for evaluation. This led to a 12 hour marathon review session that included shooting a couple of videos in addition to writing a quick review.

The creepy crud

I have been fighting this cold or sinus infection or whatever it is for a couple of weeks now and it's kicking my butt. It's one of those cruds that can have me feeling human and within 30 minutes feel totally wiped out and exhausted. Hopefully my body will start fighting back soon and kick this out of my system. It makes working difficult when you never know how you'll feel in advance.

Gadgetology

The main gadget in MTM this week is certainly the Blackberry Storm from Verizon. It's been dominating the tech news this week because let's face it, a Blackberry without a keyboard is breaking new ground. RIM compensates for the lack of a physical keypad or keyboard with the innovative SurePress on-screen keyboards and whether an individual will like it depends. On-screen keyboards are not as good as real ones but the key is if the on-screen keyboard is good enough for daily use. I have been using it for three days now and I am more than happy with the Storm keyboards. It's not as good as a real keyboard but miles ahead of every other on-screen keyboard that's come before.

Software time

The two utilities that have impacted my work for the better are simple ones each that do one thing and do it so well that they are a boon to my work. The first is the NumberKey for the iPhone which turns the phone into a wireless 10-key number pad. It wasn't free but I gladly paid the few dollars for it and I'm using this almost daily. I don't do so often but when I have to do a lot of number entry on the Macs I always really missed having a 10-key pad. NumberKey is not quite the real thing but I find entering numbers on the iPhone's screen to be better than using the number row on the keyboard.

eBook of the week

This week I have been enjoying a new author and it's been a good ride so far. The book is Precious Blood by Jonathon Hayes and it's about a serial killer. Bet you didn't see that coming. It's not as good as the Smoky Barrett series I've shared recently but it's not bad.

Going to bed now

I am winding down and getting very tired so I'm going to wrap this up. I hope you enjoy our visits and let me know if there's anything you'd like me to talk about during these weekly trips.