I had an iPod Touch, which is basically an iPhone w/o the actual “phone” part. I liked it while I had it. I basically used it for the music player, but I did have some apps on it that I used on a regular basis. I say had because I sold it just before Christmas. I got $150 for it, which covered the cost of my Droid 2.

My biggest beef w/ the iPhone/iPod Touch is the fact that it doesn’t have an actual physical keyboard. I was never able to type very fast w/ the onscreen keyboard.

I got my Droid 2 in August of last year. I pretty much love it. Yeah … I do have some issues w/ some things (like the crapware that Verizon put on it that starts up all by itself even though I never use it, and when entering symbols, the cursor backs up a space), but they’re things I can live with. They’re not deal breakers.

Plus … w/ my Droid 2, I can take the battery off & replace it. I can get a bigger media card and put more stuff on it without having to get a new phone. I can’t do that w/ an iPhone. If I get the 16GB version, I’m stuck w/ it. Whereas w/ my Droid 2, it has 8 GB internal memory and came w/ an 8GB media card. One of the first things I did was replace the 8GB card w/ a 16GB card. If I need/want more space, I just need to get a bigger card (up to the limit, which I believe is 32GB, but I could be wrong on that). If I got a 16GB iPhone and found out I needed more space, I’d be screwed unless I wanted to pony up the cash to get a new 32GB phone. Talk about ridiculous.

So … you can keep your iPhone. I’ll stick w/ my Droid 2.

Even if Apple added a physical keyboard, removable battery, and removable media cards, I’d still stick w/ my Droid 2.

The main reason I was waiting was because getting the phone would require me to get a data plan of at least $30/month. I wasn’t sure I could afford it since I was planning on buying a car, and I was close to being eligible for health insurance (so that would be taken out of my paycheck).

I bought my car toward the end of April and made my first car payment this month. We switched to a new insurance company at work with a cheaper premium. After working the numbers, it’s clear that I’ll easily be able to cover the data plan.

My intention was to order the Droid today. I usually get my phones online with Verizon because it ends up being cheaper than getting one in the store. I get a $50 discount for the New Every Two program, and there is a $100 online discount. The discounts brought the price of the Droid down to $149.99. That is until today. I was on the site looking at phones one last time before buying one, and the site was running ungodly slow. I couldn’t even load up the pages for the Droid or the Droid Incredible. Needless to say, I was getting pissed. I tried again about 10-15 minutes later and things were running like normal. So I pulled up the phones and looked at things. Then I took a look at the price for the Droid. It was down to $99.99. I was confused for a bit until Twitter and a Google search confirmed that Verizon dropped the price on the Droid today. I’m sure glad I didn’t order it earlier today or last nite.

Then @stevedrees told me the Droid 2 is rumored to come out next month. I had seen a couple articles earlier today about the Droid 2, but none mentioned a release date. The pictures in those articles showed a keyboard that caught my eye. It looks a lot nicer that the Droid’s keyboard (which I don’t really like). The articles didn’t really have a whole lot of additional info other than pretty much saying the Droid 2 is just the next generation Droid.

Now I’m torn. I want a new phone now, and I’ve decided on the Droid. But I’ve already waited a little over 2 months since I became eligible for an upgrade … what’s another month. But when the Droid 2 comes out, it’s gonna cost more than what the Droid dropped to today. But how much more? I don’t know what to do.

If you were in my situation, what would you do? Would you wait for the Droid 2, which has an unknown release date but is rumored to be released next month, or would you get the Droid right now?

AccuWeather
The Weather Channel (TWC)
WeatherBug
iheartradio
Facebook — I need my social media.
Brightkite
WordPress — In case I get the urge to blog (a short post).
Lose It! — I ♥ this one … it’s helping me lose weight.
IM+ Lite
Twitterrific — My fav … I gotta have my Twitter.
Around Me
iBowl — Not as fun as Wii Bowling, but still kinda fun.
Magic 8 Ball — Yes, I’m a dork.
Sol Free

Yeah, yeah … I know I’ve got 3 weather apps plus the weather one that comes already installed. But I do have a degree in meteorology, so does that surprise you?

Now comes the survey part (and hopefully some reader participation). If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, what applications do you have? Which are your favorites? Please share. Maybe I can find something cool to download on mine.

My plan was to do some research online to figure out what I wanted. Well, I never got around to doing that. But I was looking through the Best Buy ad and noticed that they had several kinds on sale this week. I did check out a couple of them online and decided to get the Western Digital 250GB My Essential Portable Hard Drive. So I went to Best Buy this afternoon and bought it. I couldn’t pass it up. It’s normally about $150 and it was on sale for $99.99. I also bought a case for it. That way I can take it with me if I go on a trip and not have to worry about keeping it safe.

I couldn’t believe how small it was. I have an external hard drive for my work laptop. It’s HUGE. And it has to be plugged in. The one I bought is tiny (see the pic below). It’s not much bigger than my digital camera. The pic shows it relative to my mouse and cell phone.

Click to enlarge

And the other thing that I like is that it doesn’t have to be plugged in. It’s powered just by plugging it into my laptop via USB. It’s exactly what I wanted. It did have some software installed on it to set up a sync program as well as a few other things. I removed all that stuff … didn’t want it. I did copy it to my laptop in case I change my mind later. But for now, I just want a hard drive that I can copy my stuff to. I don’t want to set up any syncing software.

I copied all of the pictures I have on my desktop to the drive this afternoon. That didn’t take long. A while back, I burned a bunch of pics to CD because I was running out of disk space. So I don’t have much left on my desktop. Now, my mp3s on the the other hand, that was a different story. I have around 5GB on my desktop. That took a while to copy over. But it’s all on the portable drive now. I need to get busy ripping the rest of my CDs. I have a bunch that I wish I had on my computer. I’ll get to that eventually.

I sure have been busy getting tech toys lately. Since Christmas, I have gotten my laptop, my digital camera, and now the portable hard drive. My next new toy will come toward the end of July. I’ll be eligible for a new cell phone (using Verizon’s ‘New Every Two’ program). I’m contemplating getting a ‘fancier’ phone … one with a qwerty keyboard, maybe even a BlackBerry or a phone like that. I just don’t know that I need one that fancy. And I don’t know if I could justify the cost of a plan for internet access. But I have time to decide.

I’ve been wanting to get a new camera for a while now. I have a Canon PowerShot A75 that has served me well for years. Almost 4 years, to be exact. It still works, but the display is starting to peter out. Some times I have to whack it to get it to come on. Other times, you can see some discoloration around the edges of the display. And still other times, I get lines through the display. All that and the fact that it’s only a 3.2MP led me to finally get a new one.

I wanted to stick with the Canon model. It’s a name that I trust. I did decide a month ago or so to get the SD1000. But, of course, as soon as I decide that, it gets discontinued. I then started leaning toward the SD1100 since it was the replacement for the SD1000, but it was about $300. I didn’t want to spend more than $250 or so on a camera, so I decided to wait a little while.

Well, in the Best Buy ad for this week, the SD1100 was on sale for $250. I then checked NewEgg.com, and lo and behold, it was only $219 there. Since I got paid today, and I should be getting my stimulus rebate around the end of next week, I decided to bite the bullet and get the camera now. I did go to Best Buy tonite to get my hands on the camera and play around with it a bit to make sure it’s what I wanted. And it is. I also priced out a spare battery and a larger media card. Also cheaper online.

I stared at my shopping cart on NewEgg.com for close to an hour, debating if I should really get it or not. I also did some comparison shopping. Everything pointed to getting it from NewEgg.com. So I did. This is what I got …
Camera: Canon SD1100IS – $219.99
Extra Battery: Dolica DC-NB4LA Li-Ion Battery (Replaces Canon NB-4L) – $12.99
Media Card: SanDisk 4GB Secure Digital High-Capacity (SD/SDHC) Flash Card – $29.70

Shipping (Guaranteed UPS 3 Day) was $11.04 and there was no tax on my order. So all added up, I paid $273.72. If I would have gotten the same stuff at Best Buy, it would have been around $360. The only difference between the 2 was that Best Buy doesn’t have the same battery as NewEgg. But they’re still pretty comparable.

So now the waiting begins. If they ship it out tomorrow, I should have it on Monday. Hopefully they all show up the same day. They split my order into 2 separate orders. And each item shows up as being shipping from a different location. The camera is coming from NJ. The battery is coming from TN. And the media card is coming from PA. I guess that means that they’re drop shipping from different vendors. It would be nice if it all came in one box. But I’ll be happy if they all show up on the same day. Then I’ll get to play.

So … my faithful readers. Do I have readers … as in plural? LOL I hope so. Anyways, I’m hoping someone out there in cyberland who is reading this might have some suggestions for me.

I was initially thinking about sticking with Canon. I really like the one I have. I was just hoping to upgrade to a newer model and maybe get one that’s slightly smaller. I had taken a look at a Canon ELPH at Target. I like the size of them. But don’t know anything about them.

My first digital camera was a Fuji. I really liked that little thing and used it ’til it broke … literally. I had to take it apart to fix it. And somehow, after all this time, it STILL works. I had given it to my sister and she still uses it. Poor girl gets my castoffs. And she’ll probably get my current one when I get a new one … as long as the display doesn’t die completely.

Other than those 2 brands, I’m not sure where else to look. Basically, I want a compact digital camera. Mostly “point and shoot”, but maybe with some manual options as well. I’m hoping for a 6 or 7MP camera. Something that will last me another 3 and a half years … And as I said, I’d like to keep it under $200 or around that mark (I would like to save a little bit of my tax refund).

So … any suggestions? Either brand suggestions or actual camera suggestions? I would be eternally grateful.

There have been times when I’ve actually spent more money, but that was either because I had to or I had tax refund money to use. My couch is actually pretty nice. Don’t remember the name of the place I got it, but it was an actual furniture store. The only real bad thing is that it’s over 4 years old. And for my bed, I did get a nice mattress and box spring. But I skimped on the bed frame … went with the cheapest thing they had … it’s just the metal frame to put the box spring on.

And my most recent spring was my laptop. But it took me forever to save up for it. Bills and groceries and other necessities kept getting in the way. But it did replace my nearly 8 year old desktop (which is still running and will be turned into my media center after I finish removing all the other stuff that it doesn’t need anymore).

Since I got the laptop, there are some accessories that I’ve wanted to get. I already got a wireless optical mouse. But I needed a carrying bag for sure. And now I’m thinking of getting a KVM switch so I can use my monitor with my desktop and my laptop. And the mouse too. Then I could get rid of that corded beast … LOL. Not sure about the keyboard though. I actually don’t mind the one on the laptop. The only beef I have is that there is no number pad. But that’s what you get when you get a 15.4″ laptop … there’s no room for that separate number pad. But I’m getting used to the embedded number pad (if that’s what you call it) on the keyboard. When I do use the keyboard for the laptop, it takes some getting use to again. I was also thinking about getting a cooling pad, but I’m not really sure I need it. That will be the last thing I get, I think.

But the main thing I needed was the laptop bag. I wanted the messenger bag style one. I really don’t like the backpack ones. My work laptop has a backpack. I find it really awkward. I wanted to get one here in town so that I could actually get my hands on it to check it out. If I got it online, all I would have to go by are the pics. I went to Best Buy first. They’ve got crap for bags. Didn’t have much for KVM switches either. They only had one brand and 3 models of that brand. They had very few bags to choose from. So, I was outta there in less than 10 minutes. I went to Office Max next. They only had one KVM switch there. But they did have more bags to choose from. And some were even on sale. I think I spent 15 to 20 minutes looking at them. There was one that just kept calling my name. And it was one that was on sale. I was hoping to get one for around $25. This one was regular priced at $62.49 but was 25% off … so around $46-47. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to spend that much, but I thought about it. I paid over $900 for my laptop. I want a bag that will keep that investment safe. So I got the bag. Now I can’t wait ’til I go somewhere with the lappy so I can use it. This is what I got …

Targus 15.4″ Urban Messenger

Click to enlarge

I think I’m going to get a KVM switch from Dell. I got a $25 coupon from the earlier this week. It was a “thank you” for buying a laptop with us kinda thing. I looked at what they had for KVMs the other day. I was hoping to pay around $25 for one (as I started this post saying … I’m a cheapskate). So with the coupon, that means I could get a pretty nice one if I still go with that. Or maybe one even cheaper. But I really don’t know what to look for … what brand to get … what’s good. I’ll just have to see what they have and then see if I can find some reviews on them. Anyone out there reading this have a KVM? Any pointers on what to look for?

But lately I’ve started getting the itch to work on things again. I haven’t updated my racing websites since April. But with Jr’s sponsor and number announcement, I’ve gotten the itch to work on my racing sites again (I even fiddled around with a header image last nite) … consolidate them into a single site for all my favorite drivers.

At work, we have php5. I’ve gotten so used to working with it, I thought I’d finally bite the bullet and switch to php5 for my own sites. I checked out the forums for my host, and it turns out that all I needed to do to switch over to php5 was put the following in my .htaccess file:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php

Talk about easy. So I am now running my websites on php5. I looked things over, and everything looks like it’s working. This blog is working … my photo gallery is working … and even the crappy guestbook script I wrote several years ago still works. Woohoo! But if you happen to run across any issues while visiting, please let me know so I can fix things.

I have several things that I want to do:

• write a database connection class (I already wrote a basic one, but I want to expand on it)
• write a recordset class
• update and improve on my guestbook script (who knows … maybe I could even make some money on it)
• update and improve my weather script … expand it to get the forecast as well as the current conditions

When I do dive back into my sites, I’m going to have to transition working with MySQL again. At work, we use mySQL. I have gotten so used to it, it’s going to be interesting working my MySQL again.

Now that I’ve actually put my plans in writing, hopefully it’ll be motivation to stick with it. And I’ll hopefully have techie stuff to post about (since I am a High Tech Redneck Woman … LOL). So stay tuned …

Product: Creative Zen V Plus 2 GB mp3 player
Amount Spent: $138.39 (after $10 gift card) at Best Buy
Pros: Small, Rechargeable Internal Battery, Durable
Cons: Capacity a little low, Controls take a little bit to get use to

I have had this mp3 player for exactly one month. (I’m writing this a little later than I had planned, but I’ve had more time to play with it.) I love it. Where to start …

I mainly use it at work, but I do use it some times at home (I’m actually listening to it right now while I’m typing this up and watching Busch Series qualifying on tv … nothing like multi-tasking … LOL). I also listen to it in the car from time to time since I bought a (6ft) stereo mini cable. That’ll come in handy when I take road trips.

My Ratings and Reasoning:

Sound … The sound is great … or at least as good as the mp3 quality. But I’ve been very happy. I’ve generally been ripping my CDs at 128kbps. It’s good enough for me.

Ease of Use … For the most part, it is fairly easy to use. When I first started playing with it, it took a little getting use to … mainly the “joystick”. Once I realized I was being a TOTAL blond … I realized it was pretty straightforward. It is a little annoying at times to have to scroll through everything to get to what I want. It would be nice if you could select a letter and get all the artists for that. But otherwise, not too many complaints.

Durability … I have been VERY happy with the durability of this little thing. I have accidentally knocked it on the floor a few times … once on carpet at home and a few at work on a hard floor. The one time it was a pretty good drop … enough to separate the player from the headphones. But I picked it up and it kept on playing. That is definitely NICE. I have been more careful ever since …

Portability … It’s small, so it’s very portable. I use the pouch that it came with to take it to and from work. Works very well for me. It holds the player and the headphones with room left. I tried the lanyard that it came with, but it doesn’t work very well at work … it hangs down onto the keyboard. But I have discovered a use for that little ‘coin pocket’ that usually in the right front pocket of jeans … this player fits PERFECTLY in that little pocket. It’s great. Now I don’t have to worry about knocking it off my desk at work.

Battery Life … I haven’t really tested this yet. I listen to it at work … probably around 7 hours or so (depending on how much Justin bugs me during the day … LOL). There’s still a good amount of battery left when I get home (according to the indicator). I charge it every nite to make sure that it won’t die on me the next day at work.

Other Thoughts:
I really like the size of this player. It is nice and small. And like I said above … I love that it fits in that little pocket.

Another thing that I love about it is that it displays any CD art that is attached to the mp3 files. AWESOME. And when I use Windows Media Player 10 to rip my CDs, it automatically associates the CD art to the mp3 files. The only thing I noticed is that the CD art for a couple of my CDs is messed up. I’ll fix that eventually.

The main reason I went with this player was because it has an FM tuner in it. So I can still listen to the radio when I feel like it and then switch over to mp3s. I generally listen to the radio in the morning ’til about 9 or 9:30 (gotta listen to the Froggy Gang Morning Show).

It also works well with the stereo in my car now that I have the stereo mini cable. I just have to remember to turn the volume on the player DOWN after I’ve listened to it in the car. In the car, I have the volume as high as it will go … 25 (I believe). When I listen with my headphones, I have the volume at 2. I did forget once … my ears were NOT happy … LOL.

Any Regrets?
Only one … that I didn’t get the 4GB version. LOL I have the 2GB almost all used up. There are 459 songs on it right now. That’s a good amount, but in order to add any new CDs I buy, I’ll have to take something off. I already had to do that when I bought my last CD a couple weeks ago.

Overall:
I am VERY happy with this little player. It just goes to show you, that you don’t really have to have an iPod to have a nice mp3 player. It just wish I could squeeze more music on it. Maybe I’ll get a new one in a year or so and pass this one on to Lisa (don’t know if I’d just give it to her to make her pay me for it … LOL. Nice sister, ain’t I? :G-razz3: )

Now I have to decide which songs to upload. I already have a pretty good idea of which ones I HAVE to have on it. And it’s got a radio too, so I can still listen to Froggy.

I’ll put up a review after I’ve had time to play around with it. Probably not until early next week, after I’ve had a chance to use it at work. Now I need to go eat. I was gonna order a pizza, but if I did that now, I wouldn’t get it until after 7pm … and I’m hungry now. I guess that’s what I get for playing with my new toy. :G-LOL: