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Excuse me while I geek out for a minute…

My constant complaining has paid off. One of my birthday gifts this year was a new phone, but it wasn’t until today that I finally picked one up. Bright and early I headed out to the AT&T store and finally got the Tilt I’d had my eye on.

As much as I loved my old Treo and disliked Windows Mobile after replacing my old 650 with the iPaq from hell, I’m giving it a second shot. This phone’s pretty slick. It’s a bit chunky in comparison to the iPaq, but that thing was as wide as a serving plate and this thing is only about 3/4 as wide as my iPod, so it seems like a fair trade. It also does everything the iPaq did, but faster. It’s also got a much better camera on it, which should do Trainstalking some good.

I spent most of the day playing with it, loading software on it, and thanking it for not being an iPaq. So much time, in fact, that I never got around to popping GTA:IV into the 360, or listening to the new Nerf Herder CD (thanks, Mom, for the Best Buy gift certificate). When a phone can keep me away from new games and my punk-pop all day, it’s either a huge piece of crap I can’t get to work right, or it’s got enough going for it to keep my attention. Fortunately, in this case, it was the latter. As of this moment I’ve got the GPS working despite refusing to pay AT&T $9.00 a month for their service, Skype’s working great on the 3G network, everything’s all synced over from the iPaq, and I’ve themed stuff to the point that it’s looking way cooler than it did when I first turned it on.

I still have no idea if it can actually handle phone calls, though. It just occurred to me that, after an entire day of screwing with my new phone, I haven’t actually tried using it for a phone yet.

I’m shopping for a new phone. After being saddled for a year and a half with the piece of flaming shit that is my iPaq 6945, I’ve decided it’s time to find a phone that doesn’t shut itself off every 15 minutes, that has a volume level high enough that I can take a call outside, and that doesn’t take 30 seconds to do almost anything. I’d also like one with a backlight that doesn’t mysteriously keep resetting itself to off no matter how many times I turn it back on, that doesn’t destroy SD cards when I pop them in, and doesn’t like to randomly lose its connection the network, usually at the worst possible time.

There are a few phones in the running right now. I’m a victim of AT&T at the moment, and the Tilt doesn’t look too awful. It’s a Windows phone, though, and I’m pretty heavily biased against Windows Mobile right now, having despised version 5 for all of 2007 and half of 2008.

I’ve considered going back to Palm and getting a new Treo, but the newest ones also only run Windows Mobile, and again, I’m not a fan.

At the top of my list right now is the Nokia E90. It’s got all the bells and whistles of my 6945, but without the blight that is Microsoft’s mobile OS. It’d be nice if it had 3G capabilities here in the states, but I think I can live with that. I’ll also miss my touch screen, and the organs I’d need to sell to be able to afford a nearly-$1000 phone, but a grand seems a small price to pay for my sanity, and a phone I can actually use.

Considering how rarely I update things around here I’m not really expecting anyone to ever see this, much less anyone who’s an expert on what’s currently available on the cell phone market, but if you’ve got any opinions on what I should get to replace the iPaq from hell, I’d love to hear ‘em. Unless, of course, you think I should keep the pile of crap I’m using now, in which case I will gladly and firmly stick it in your ass.

Kris watched the announcement of the Apple iPhone a few days back. Now, I just got my new HP phone yesterday, but on pondering what to do with a few thousand that just came my way, Kris asked me “Why don’t you get an iPhone?”

“It’s not available yet,” I mentioned.

“OK,” he says, “Get one when they’re available, then.”

“They’re only going to available through the cell phone provider you constantly deride as the minions of hell, and will lock me into a two-year contract with them. So we’re looking at a half grand and a large chunk of my soul.”

“Yeah, but they’re cool.”

“Oh?” I ask. “What’s cool about them?”

“Uhhh…”

He had no clue. Other than “they’re shiny,” he didn’t even know why he thought they were cool. He’d totally fallen for the hype. Now, they may end up being the coolest damn phone on the planet, but Kris was ready to run out and blow $500 on one based on having seen it spin in circles in front of Steve Jobs a few times.

I don’t know how Apple does it, but I suspect that if you crack open an iPod and dig around far enough, you’ll find the mind-control device in there somewhere.

You already know I’m a geek. I try to make that clear up front to prevent people to falling in love with me based on my irresistible exterior, only to find later that I have a raging inner nerd.

Like most of my fellow geeks, I have a few toys I can’t seem to live without. Here are some of them:

My Trēo

My current Palm Trēo is a 650; I upgraded from a 600. This thing’s my lifeline. I use it to make calls, as my instant messenger client, to play my MP3s, and to SSH into servers I administer. I do so much with it that sometimes I wonder how I got along without it.

Multiple Monitors

I’m not monogamous when it comes to my computer’s displays: the more I have, the happier I am. I currently use three on my primary home PC, and I’d probably hook up a fourth if I had a bigger desk. I’ll keep a browser on one screen, my mail on another, and still have one left for anything I might be working on at the time. For a multitasker like me who’s often trying to work in several programs at once, it’s a major time saver not to have to minimize and restore constantly just to keep the application I want on top.

The Trackball

Why people still use a mouse is beyond me. Who has the desk space? Give me a trackball that sits in one small space on my desk and never moves. Mouse officianados may complain that they’re less accurate, but I couldn’t disagree more. Once you’re used to a trackball, a mouse just seems clumsy.