Ryan Trembath (dot) Information

So I’ve been installing apps on my Blackberry and getting a feel for what’s out there. So far, I’m disappointed.

First shot, the facebook app. Hype around the web called this one Blackberry’s big reach for the consumer market. Unfortunatly, the missed the grab.

While the app let’s you do a lot of regular facebook’s functions the interface is clunky and linear. It’s a pain to check mail messages and does not sync with your web based account. So if you log in on a computer after checking messages on your phone, don’t expect things to balance out. I was back on the browser pretty quick after installing this app.

Next up, Gmail. I don’t have much to say about this one yet (I just installed it this afternoon) but I do have 1 question.

Why is big G trying to access my phone book info? And why, when I refuse access, must it crash the whole application and erase the mail I was composing?

Given that I used nearly a quarter of my monthly bandwidth to download these two cr-apps, I’m left saying: I want my bandwidth back!

Despite my complaints about the Rodgers service I receive, I decided to stay on with them.

What does this matter?

Well with Rodgers (less than stellar) upgrade incentive I hooked myself up with a new BlackBerry pearl.

I’m curenetly on the bus, on my way home from the office. Overall i’m pretty impressed with how well wordpress works in the blackberry browser.

After about two weeks on the keyboard I’m getting faster and am well on my way to cramped thumbs and anxiety attacks.

Anyway, sorry for the lack of substance in this post. I just wanted to see how it would work out.

Onward!

Ever since Winnipeg’s Millennium Library opened they have advertised that free wi-fi was coming to the building. Well, it’s finally here and through an exclusive deal with MTS Allstream it costs $3.00 an hour.

Hold up. That’s not a public service. Rogers and Telus already provide internet/fee service in the area. The marketed benefit of using MTS is “a portion of the revenues back to the City of Winnipeg to support ongoing technology needs and the purchase of library materials”

We’ve officially leapfrogged back into the future.

My friend Goldburg says anything typed with thumbs probably isn’t that important.

I was doing some reading online today and found Juan Damia’s Blog. Though he usually focuses on research and analytics, a topic I’ve come to hold dear to my heart, he recently posted this list of text messaging slang.

A couple favorites I’ve never encountered and wouldn’t have understood:

A3 - Anytime, anyplace, anywhere
AAMOF - As a matter of fact
AFAIK - As far as I know
EOD - End of day
FWIW - For what it’s worth
FYEO - For your eyes only
IANAL - I am not a lawyer - Careful how u lead up to this 1
JAM - Just a minute
WRT - With respect to
YW - You’re welcome

I didn’t realize I was so out of the loop, I’ve been wasting my productivity time spelling words.

I’m still trying to get my new soft phone up and running. The firewall built in to my DSL modem causes it to lag, drop calls and, in one instance, call me back 30 minutes later to freeze my computer.

Collin, my tech support friend at the VOIP company established that I need to open a port on my connection for the phone to use. Unfortunately “the instant help pages” MTS supplies are almost completely useless and the information I did finally manage to find didn’t solve my problem.

I tried calling this one in, but the customer service is worse than the ad campaigns.

After waiting 30 minutes on hold I was questioning if my call really was as important as the robot voice kept telling me it was. Of course, it was prime time, and since I’m not a bundled subscriber I was paying for every minute.

On side note: What’s the deal with talking animals pushing wireless service?

Telus - bunny’s and birds
MTS - bison
Fido - Dogs

If anyone can point me to the market report these guys are sharing I’d like to read it.