Sunday, December 07, 2003 #

Don't they make normal phones anymore?

I've been a Sprint customer for years, and a primarily happy one. Unfortunately I get basically zero signal here at my new house. It's just a dead spot -- 100ft up the road is fine. So with number portability available now (which some folks have had trouble with, but mine was super smooth), I've switched to T-Mobile, which is good so far. I've wanted to switch to GSM for a while anyway. Only real thing I've noticed is that calls seem to take a little longer to connect.

I got this phone, the Samsung E105. It's got lots of good things about it: it's tiny, is a flip phone, has nice calendar functionality, etc. But it seems like they're trying to cram so much stuff into phones they don't work well as phones anymore. My complaints are as follows:

  • No normal ringers. Just goofy songs. I can't even find the normal rings to pay for and download.
  • The rocker switch on the side doesn't adjust ringer volume but rather keypad volume. Huh? Can't seem to change it either.
  • The color screens take so much juice to run they shut off all the time -- I kind of miss my old LCD phone that was always showing what it was up to.

I loved my old Samsung Sprint phone...it did exacly what I wanted. I'll get used to it.

posted @ Sunday, December 07, 2003 4:29 PM | Feedback (0)

Don't they make normal phones anymore?

I've been a Sprint customer for years, and a primarily happy one. Unfortunately I get basically zero signal here at my new house. It's just a dead spot -- 100ft up the road is fine. So with number portability available now (which some folks have had trouble with, but mine was super smooth), I've switched to T-Mobile, which is good so far. I've wanted to switch to GSM for a while anyway. Only real thing I've noticed is that calls seem to take a little longer to connect.

I got this phone, the Samsung E105. It's got lots of good things about it: it's tiny, is a flip phone, has nice calendar functionality, etc. But it seems like they're trying to cram so much stuff into phones they don't work well as phones anymore. My complaints are as follows:

  • No normal ringers. Just goofy songs. I can't even find the normal rings to pay for and download.
  • The rocker switch on the side doesn't adjust ringer volume but rather keypad volume. Huh? Can't seem to change it either.
  • The color screens take so much juice to run they shut off all the time -- I kind of miss my old LCD phone that was always showing what it was up to.

I loved my old Samsung Sprint phone...it did exacly what I wanted. I'll get used to it.

posted @ Sunday, December 07, 2003 4:29 PM | Feedback (0)

Demolition Man

I bought myself a real grown up house in September. It's great but doesn't really have a ready-made spot for a Ridiculously Larger Than Necessary Television®, so I'm redoing a rooom downstairs to be a Media room. Erick, Fred, and Chris have front-projectors and they are totally the way to go if you've go the space (nevermind the money...). Chris has a good idea -- buy the reasonably priced InFocus X1 now, wait for the coming projector price collapse, then replace it in 18-24 months with a "nicer" one and still come out ahead. When I moved in, there was this built in down in the rec-room that had a TV in it.

I'm ripping that out so I can put a screen on the wall. I was going to wait until Kevin was in town but decided I'd do the demo today. It's fun breaking stuff.

Oh, and when people say how much work owning a house is, they're not kidding.

posted @ Sunday, December 07, 2003 6:47 AM | Feedback (0)

Demolition Man

I bought myself a real grown up house in September. It's great but doesn't really have a ready-made spot for a Ridiculously Larger Than Necessary Television®, so I'm redoing a rooom downstairs to be a Media room. Erick, Fred, and Chris have front-projectors and they are totally the way to go if you've go the space (nevermind the money...). Chris has a good idea -- buy the reasonably priced InFocus X1 now, wait for the coming projector price collapse, then replace it in 18-24 months with a "nicer" one and still come out ahead. When I moved in, there was this built in down in the rec-room that had a TV in it.

I'm ripping that out so I can put a screen on the wall. I was going to wait until Kevin was in town but decided I'd do the demo today. It's fun breaking stuff.

Oh, and when people say how much work owning a house is, they're not kidding.

posted @ Sunday, December 07, 2003 6:47 AM | Feedback (0)

It's a Boy!

So here I am in the blogsphere. After Cap'n and Pepe have been doing it, I started feeling left out. So here I am.

Before I do anything else, I need to thank said Pepe (Brian) for setting me up here. I owe him a burrito.

posted @ Sunday, December 07, 2003 6:16 AM | Feedback (0)

It's a Boy!

So here I am in the blogsphere. After Cap'n and Pepe have been doing it, I started feeling left out. So here I am.

Before I do anything else, I need to thank said Pepe (Brian) for setting me up here. I owe him a burrito.

posted @ Sunday, December 07, 2003 6:16 AM | Feedback (0)