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About me

My posting summary

1 to 10 of 18

My comments

• I have been running Windows 7 beta for about a week now and I agree that it is faster than Vista and better in my opinion. I am running it on an HP TX1205US 12" tablet laptop. Turion 64x2, 2 gigs ram Nvidia geforce go 6150 graphics. I keep my machines pretty well, no programs at start up, minimal processes running (25-30). When I first got the laptop I cringed at how slow it was compared to my HP dv1000 w/ XP.... also has 2 gigs ram but is a CELERON POS w/ intel integrated graphics....I couldn't believe how much smoother the celeron w/ XP was than the Turion 64x2 w/ Vista when it came to watching videos. I decided to "downgrade" the tablet to XP and had driver issues....I was able to get it all sorted out but was upset to find that it was no faster than Vista on this particular computer. Then came Ubuntu Linux. It runs very smooth and has never given any problems other than web browsing is painfully slow (primary use of my laptop). Then, along came Windows 7. Wow. Installation was easy, it even automatically downloaded my graphics, HP quick launch & wireless drivers automatically! Start up time is about the same as XP or Vista, main difference being it is useable as soon as its up...not like the others where I wait 2 more minutes after the initial 50 second boot. I have a Windows 7 theme for aero and classic and there isn't that big of a performance gap anymore. I have pretty much been running my laptop nonstop since the 7 install and its been flawless (until yesterday). I was watching a streaming Hulu video 480p fullscreen on g wireless and about a half hour in I got a random blue screen of death for no reason. I restarted and its been fine since. Vista never gave me a blue screen, but it also was never as smooth running and enjoyable as 7! They better release a second beta or the final version by August...I cant go back to Vista! In reply to: "Why I can't get enough of Windows 7"

  January 23, 2009

  0 replies

• I have definitely noticed signal problems as well as an obvious drop in music sound quality. I have been a subscriber for about 5 or 6 years now. About 6 months ago I decided to sell my Sportster 4 radio and call to cancel my service since I found myself listening less and less. I called to cancel as soon as I sold the radio. They didn't want to let me go. They offered me a Sportster 3 and 2 months service for free to reconsider. I accepted. I don't know if it is the radio but the sound quality and signal of late are horrible! I have tried the FM transmitter, that pretty much sucks, so I plug into an aux cable direct. The sound quality difference between the Sirius content and my little SanDisk Clip MP3 player is night and day. The satellite sounds hollow and tinny, no bottom end. It sounds like its been compressed then compressed a few more times. I am not comparing the quality to audiophile stuff...I'm comparing it to MP3! I have also seen alot of "acquiring signal". I live in Phoenix and as we all know, there are manly sunny, dry conditions here. Now that I have Slacker on my Blackberry I think I will finally get rid of Sirius for good. In reply to: "Sirius' on-again, off-again signal problems"

  January 14, 2009

  0 replies

• I first tried Slacker on my computer a few months ago and was impressed. I was thrilled when I got the email from them telling me the app was available for Blackberry! I think this is a pretty bold move on their part considering if they had someone on the fence about buying the Slacker Portable player, they pretty much just helped nudge them in the right direction! Now I just saved $200 that I almost spent on their portable player and I dont even have to carry another device with me! The app works and looks really nice. It seems that all features of the "PC" version are still there. It can be a little sluggish for a few seconds every now and then but overall very smooth most of the time. This is on a Sprint 8330 using whatever factory OS that came installed (4.2 or 4.3?). I finally discovered how the "cached" stations work. All you do is select the station you want to cache by selecting the option on the menu. Then you plug the Blackberry into your Internet connected computer and select "mass storage mode". In Windows it will give the pop-up box and you select to connect to Slacker. I have 4 stations saved and it took 6 minutes to update my stations and settings. After this, go to the stations list and select "cached stations". This is where you access your stored stations for use without an Internet connection, thus where they claim significant battery savings. I will say that skipping songs is much faster when theyre cached. I just figured this out this morning so I cant confirm the battery claims, however, if its not streaming non stop using EVDO then its a no brainer that this will save battery life. I did test my battery life the first full day that I had Slacker installed by leaving the app running in the background for faster start up and by playing music for a few songs here and there throughout the day while using Opera Mini at the same time and my battery still had 40%. I charge it over night and had it on from 7:00am until 2am so thats fine with me. Slacker also automatically paused when my phone rang... nice! Volume could be louder (I plug into a direct AUX jack in my car) but this is probably more to do with the phone since MP3's play quiet also. Overall, the question isn't if you should download this, it should be WHY HAVENT YOU DOWNLOADED THIS YET?!?! Sorry Sirius Satellite Radio , but my service will be cancelled shortly! In reply to: "Slacker Radio brings BlackBerry a neat caching trick"

  January 10, 2009

  1 reply

• This seems to be the start of a new trend: desperate times call for low prices, although this isn't the best deal Ive come across. Matter of fact, If you happen upon Best Buy's weekly ad you will see not only a $299 laptop, but a desktop as well. Neither will win a speed prize, but never the less, a hard deal to pass up. The laptop is a 14" (usually more expensive than 15") Emachines AMD athalon, 1gig ram, 120 or 160 gig hard drive (don't remember) Vista, dvd burner, etc. I played with one and was surprised it didn't perform half bad. It started up in half the amount of time as my optimized $1500 hp tablet w/ turion 64x2 and 2gig ram! $299 is a great price although I would expect less by now. I actually bought a HP dv1000 @ Best Buy 2 1/2 years ago for on $50 more! ($350 well spent, its still going strong with no problems to date). I was actually intrigued by the desktop deal at the same price. Emachines as well, it was a small form factor AMD Athalon processor, 250? gig hard drive, 1 gig ram, cd/dvd burner, etc....it also INCLUDED a 19" LCD flat panel and keyboard, mouse and speakers. All for what a good 19" monitor will cost by itself! My biggest surprise was to see it was preloaded with XP!! I thought XP was only reserved for low power netbooks, but I guess that is wrong considering I have still seen XP disks for sale on many store shelves recently. I personally think the great deals have only just begun....not only due to the bleak economy but mainly due to the fact that I was at Best Buy near closing time yesterday and they still had a pile of each of these deals out in the wide open! Usually these would be gone from the early birds who saw the ad the night before, forget about walk in customers....that was odd to see them still available with no takers. (the "we have Wii's in stock" sign might also be an indication of whats to come. In reply to: "About that $300 laptop at Wal-Mart..."

  November 10, 2008

  0 replies

• I don't get it.....a police officer drives a police car, a firefighter drives a firetruck, a racecar driver drives a racecar.....whatever happened to ARMED guards driving armored cars?!?! I'm just saying.... haha...That was a genius plan though haha In reply to: "Bank robber hires decoys on Craigslist, fools cops"

  October 6, 2008

  0 replies

• I canceled my Helio service the other day! Helio went in the crapper after the Virgin Mobile buyout....I was receiving constant collection calls for my account which was NOT LATE! They said it was a mistake and the excuse was they're having problems with their billing dept ever since they outsourced to Jamaica! Thanks Virgin Mobile! The only English speaking rep I was able to get on the phone was their last line of defense rep who was trying to get me to stay with the service by trying to waive the ETF in my face like I was scared....I'm not broke! I can afford their "premium" service...what makes this clown think I care about the ETF? New Blackberry Curve: $99. ETF: $175. Ocean: (a year ago) $400. Same Sprint service. $65/mo for Helio. $50/mo for Sprint direct from the source (w/ corporate discount) and FREE TV, Navigation, etc...all on a far superior device! I think I came out ahead. Dont call them a phone company because they're not! In reply to: "Great service and value, very progressive"

  September 23, 2008

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• I dont know if you found a good holster, but incase you didnt I figured I'd let you know that the best once Ive found so far is some plastic Verizon branded holster that the phone snaps into...I had the same problem wanting to mount it sideways, and this one just works....It also still makes the phone come out of standby when you take it out of the case....good luck In reply to: "Good but with some faults"

  September 21, 2008

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• Being a former Treo owner myself, I completely agree that the Curve is WAY better! I figured I would point out (you probably already figured this out though) but when youre done typing you can hit the menu key and use spell checker instead of manually correcting each word.....I think you can set it to automatically do this as well. In reply to: "Excellent smartphone"

  September 21, 2008

  0 replies

• Are you talking about the right phone? I dont know about the Verizon Curve, (sounds like you have Verizon service) but the Sprint Curve does have a speaker as well as a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. In reply to: "1st time blackberry owner, I love this phone!"

  September 21, 2008

  0 replies

• I wasn't happy this morning when I saw the news about a new PSP to be released in Oct as I was planning to buy one this weekend for a trip next week. Then I saw the new "features" and I'm not as upset. Anti-reflective screen?!? Are you kidding me? Call me crazy, but I don't think think this will be much help once a screen protector is applied....wouldn't that kind of cancel it out? .....Output to old school TV's?! Who cares! Anyone who owns a PSP probably has a PS2, PS3 or 360, who needs to play a PORTABLE system on the TV? (Let alone an old TV that doesn't have component?) I can watch my Zune through my TV and it looks horrible unless the file size is huge which also defeats the purpose. Honestly, I don't even know why I'm buying a new PSP....I had one a few years ago and the analog stick broke off TWICE! I hope they fixed this problem since that was a PSP1000...hopefully the slim doesn't have the same issue....I would call it wear and tear if I were a 10 yr old kid playing the thing hours on end everyday for a year straight but I'm a 29yr old professional....I honestly played the thing for maybe 15 minutes a day, maybe 2-3 times a week for a total of 3 months....I sold it after I replaced the second analog stick. I do have to admit that besides the bad controller, the graphics and capabilities were very impressive...thus why I plan to give the PSP a second (or 3rd analog stick) chance. There are a lot of people who say how great the DS is....I just don't see it. Maybe someone can help me out. I own one that I bought with My Spanish Coach game....I got tired of the Mario games right away and haven't used the thing since. I go to the store with intentions of finding a cool game but never seem to find anything that looks decent. Any suggestions? In reply to: "PSP 3000: Another minor PSP upgrade"

  August 20, 2008

  2 replies