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How cool. Tonight there was a lunar eclipse. It was very neat to watch the moon get covered with the Earth’s Shadow but as soon as the moon eclipsed, the clouds rolled in. I didn’t get to see much til I went to bed and the clouds opened up a little bit and I could see the moon moving back out of the shadow. It was really neat especially when you think the next time this is going to happen is in 2007. Nite! Music playing during post: Rush - Depeche Mode The update of the site is progressing. I got the blog template done. The main template done and I just gotta get the homepage template done and and start converting the pages. I hope to be done by the end of the weekend. Tonight and tomorrow I won’t get much done but hopefully Thursday I’ll be able to start again. Zya Well I’ve had my Ogo now for about 72 hours and so far I have to say I love it. I mean it does have an issue or two but over all I gotta say…Get one. Here’s my review (for lack of a better word) I went to the AT&T store in Exton on Thursday afternoon to take a look at the Ogo. Of course no one in the store knew about it and the Ogo on display would not boot up. I decided to ask one question that would make up my mind as to whether I should buy it or not… Can It be returned? The salesperson said yes that I had 30 days to bring it back for a refund. I figured what did I have to lose. Now some of you may be asking what is an Ogo. An Ogo is a device that allows you to send and receive emails and to chat via AIM, Yahoo! or MSN from anywhere. It’s basically a phone (although AT&T disables the phone piece) with it’s own number so it can be also used for text messaging. I originally wanted a T-Mobile Sidekick II which is a mobile communicator as well as a phone, however I am in the beginning of my Cingular contract and the only thing they are offering that comes close to the Sidekick is the Motorola A603 and that’s not out yet and even when it does come out it’s going to cost me $349, the Ogo is 100 bucks and I don’t need to sign a new contract. I got home about an hour later, very excited. I opened the box and truthfully they put WAY to much thought into making this product trendy but it mattered not to me as long as it worked. I put in the battery, plugged it in and sat down to activate the product. I figured this would take 20 to 30 minutes…I was wrong. First thing the Activation Wizard did was to ask me for my Personal Information and how I wanted to pay, when I hit the activation button however the Ogo informed me that Activation was beginning and it could possibly take SEVERAL hours. What? This should be something they tell you sooner than this. I was bummed, I wanted to play with my Ogo!!! But I patiently waited for 5 hours, continually checking to see if th e activation had completed, but alas it had not. I figured after 5 hrs something must be wrong. I went on to AT&T’s webpage and joined their Java support chat. They were very very helpful. Within 15 minutes “Charles” the AT&T support rep had me reset the Ogo and sent the activation acknowledgement and I was off and running. Once that was done I’ve had nothing but a positive experience with my Ogo. The trick is this…you get ONE major service (AIM, Yahoo! or MSN) for your 17.99 a month, and if you want to add a second or third, it’s 3 bucks PER service. This does get you IM and Email. You can check your AOL mail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail via the Ogo. I decided to add AIM and Yahoo. The best part however is…you can add as many POP3 emails as you like for free. This was a little advertised feature but exactly what I wanted. Set up of each item is via a wizard which although is easy to follow and understand, I’d love to see an advanced settings choice where I could just fill in the information but it’s good because before you finally accept the settings it shows you what your costs will be so there is NO suprises. This is great because it seems that every company these days are always trying to trick you into paying for something. I quickly got AIM and Yahoo set up and 4 email accounts. I signed into AIM and was chatting away. Here is however one f my complaints. AIM does take a while to get you signed in and via testing, your messages take a bit of time to get received on AIM. Basically, you hit the Sign on Key and enter your username hit enter two more times… and you get a Signing on to AIM screen. Next you get a message saying Retrieving your Buddies… well at this point you ARE signed on via AIM. People can see you on AIM but you can’t see anyone yet. Next you see your buddy list on the Ogo but everyone is offline. It can take up to 30 to 40 seconds after your buddy list appears for people to show up as Online. During this time however they can see you and send you messages but you can’t reply. You cannot send a message when the Ogo thinks your buddy is offline. This is worse in Yahoo but I’ll get to that. Finally your buddies are “online” and you can start chatting. Now please understand the lags are not that bad. And since everyone on AIM can see you’re on a Mobile device they seem to be understanding. Of course iChat does not show that u’re on a Mobile device and the Ogo does not support Available messages only Away messages. Once you’re on though it’s very easy to use and type and switch between chats the “Ogo Button” brings up a list of your current items and you just move down with the Navigation buttons and click Enter. You can totally change screen names as many times as you want and sign on to as many different AIM names as you want. Yahoo is better and worse to be on. It is much quicker to get signed on to Yahoo and getting your buddies online but the functionality needs some work. You can be on Yahoo invisible and see your whole buddy list but again you cannot send a message when you’re invisible. Worse is that if someone sends you a message while you are invisible, you get the message but can’t reply! I am hoping this is a 1.0 issue and it will get better. One lacking feature is no synching. It’s not the worse thing in the world but you have to enter your contacts by hand. It does drive me nuts that there is a Bluetooth chip inside and you can’t use it to synch with your Mac. I must be honest, E-mail and Text Messaging are amazing on it. I love to be able to get and send my email anytime anywhere. The email function gives you a combo inbox that shows you all your messages (SMS and Email) in one box. It leaves your mail on the server and you can choose to delete messages off the server right from your Ogo. This means junk mail is just a click to be deleted and you don’t have to deal with it again back on your PC/Mac. I also love texting because it’s so easy to type on the thumbboard. Battery life is not bad at all and what’s neat is that it can be charged off a USB port (gotta get your own cable though and it does not use a normal cable but one with the trapezoidal adapter on one end). What’s even cooler for me is that the AC adapters that I have for my Palm Zire 71 work with the USB cable so I don’t have to bring ANOTHER charger on my trips. I disagree with a lot of the issues David Pogue had with the Ogo, it’s just the right size, comfortable to use, fits nicely in your pocket. He said “…What’s really frustrating, though, is the way it turns off every 30 seconds, even if you’re in the middle of reading something. You restore the light by pressing any key, provided you can get past the uneasy feeling that your key press might do something unexpected in the dark. In any case, the Ogo is probably the only color palmtop that doesn’t let you specify how long the backlight stays on…”. I could not disagree more. It’s not a big deal any key you hit is ignored it just starts the screen up and it really helps keep the battery from dying. He also said “…The software is also ludicrously insecure; whenever you make a choice or change a setting, the Ogo asks, ”Are you sure?” Clawing your way down to the Yes button requires still more cumbersome arrow-key navigation…”. Again I disagree. I like that it asks me because my big ass fingers have from time to time hit the wrong key and if it hadn’t been for the “insecure”-ness of the Ogo I’d have lost some messages. Overall, it’s not a Blackberry or a Sidekick II but it also costs 1/3 to 1/5 the price of those and I don’t think it’s intended to be them. A calendar would be nice so would a phone and a to do list but then it’d be a Blackberry. Compare it to the Motorola IMFree. That’s a device that does ONLY AIM is black and white AND is bigger than my Ogo when it’s open. Now true it’s only 50 bucks but the Ogo is to me obviously targeting that product not Blackberry’s and Sidekicks. It’s exactly what I needed. I love it. You gotta try it. Zya Music playing during post: Irish Blood, English Heart - Morrissey Well I got my ogo today and I like it alot. This is a test of my Ogo to blog. If this works I can blog in real time. Zya Well… I saw the surgeon this morning about my cyst. I was sure he was going to schedule me for surgery right away, however his original doomsday approach was much more laid back today. He suggested we wait to see if it come back. Apparently a large percent of people have it once and then never again or not for a very long time. So now I am waiting and doing some maintenance to keep it from coming back. People have said that I was too graphic about the cyst so if you really wanna know about the maintenance. So good news no cutting me open yet. Music playing during post:Don’t Rain on My Parade by Barbra Sreisand Okay. I will vent. I am happy to be home. I missed Shawn and Willow so much but let me say… TRAVELLING SUCKS. The travel agency from work told me my flight was at 1150. WRONG…1015. I barely made it. Then they did not CONNECT my flight from SFO to Logan to my Flight from Logan To PHL. I had to recheck in at Logan. And let’s talk about that place. What a portal to hell. I walked sooooo far and then I couldn’t get my freaking e-Ticket. I went to the counter to get my ticket, and they sent me to a terminal where I was put on a bus and shipped to a “satellite” terminal where I was told I was in the wrong terminal and put be back on the bust and shipped me to the main terminal again. Thank goodness when I got to the terminal, the flight was delayed. Once on the plane things were good. The flight attendant (Juan) was cute and I think he flirted with me! It coulda just been that we were both “family” and he was being nice tho. Once home I was so tired I passed right out. Today it’s back to work albeit from home. Zya… Music playing during post: First of The Gang To Die - Morrissey Well today’s sessions were good. I got to meet a coworker who I’ve never met before who was really great. She had so much information and was so friendly. I had a great session about unleashing your creativity. After the conference I met up with Chris and he bought his iBook. We dropped it off at my hotel room and went to dinner in the Castro. I had fun, bought Shawn a little stuffed animal and we ate at this place called Fuzio. It was a good pasta place. Then we came back to the hotel and played with his iBook. He seems so happy. I am exhausted. I had a lot of fun in San Fran and in Anaheim with Vu but I am so ready to go home. I am not looking forward to the travel but seeing Shawn will be worth it. Nite! Music playing during post: Gloria - Laura Branigan Congrats to Chris another member of my Mac Family!. HE bought a brand new 12″ iBook G4. Enjoy. Welcome to the family. Day two of the conference was as good as Day one. The keynote speaker was great and talked about Blogs and Wiki’s in his speech. He was funny and really got into his presentation. The sessions I attended were informative and fun. I stopped at the Apple store on the way home and got to watch a class on iLife. I also bought a new iSight adapter which I was told would work with my PowerBook but it didn’t. So I went back tonight with Chris and returned it. He’s drooling over an iBook. I think he might buy one! We had dinner in the Castro area at a place called Sparky’s. It was a good burger joint! I had fun laughing and talking with Chris. He’s such a nice guy. He’s so good to hang with me. After that we came back to the hotel and he asked a million questions about my Mac. I feel another convert! Nite. Music playing during post: None |
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