So the question is: How do I get this started? What are the first steps?

Of course I had the option between iPhone and Android. I choose Android because it was not on the AT&T network. I was a loyal (if not foolish) customer of AT&T for several years but felt burned by my last customer service experience. So I moved to Verizon once the Motorola Droid was released. Best decision ever!

I lived in Los Angeles at the time I got the phone and had no issues with any of the 3G or voice networks. I have since moved to Las Vegas and the network is still strong. People who visit and use the iPhone have trouble making calls and getting text messages. To be honest, that totally blows, especially in a 24 hour city where you are bound to get separated from your main group. In the past 9 months, I have also visited Seattle, WA, the coast of Alaska (via cruise ship), and Portland, OR.; in each location there are strong data and voice networks.

The Android OS has had two major updates in the past 9 months. The most recent version being Fro-yo (Android 2.2). Here is where I can start to complain. The Droid is on the Verizon network and monitored by Motorola. So when an Android OS update is released, I have to wait for Motorola and Verizon to modify the OS and make it “Droid Ready”. This usually means the disablement of certain features and OS functions. For example, the current version of the OS allows for wi-fi hotspotting, but the Droid OS does no. This is a carrier issue as the Nexus One (T-Mobile) does offer free wifi hotspotting. Overall, it’s a small concession and something Apple US users also deal with. But I would rather have the Android OS be released by Google and not have to wait for the Moto-Verizon version to be “released”.

The Droid is an amazing phone overall. As I mentioned before, the audio is fantastic. Even when using the built-in speaker, it’s crystal clear. The camera takes amazing pics (especially during the day; at night, not so much). There are a few issues I have with the hardwear. First, there is no line-out option. When I bought my phone, I also purchased the car mount kit. That kit came with a dash mount and power adapter. However, unlike the iPhone or iPod, the USB plug on the Droid does not pass audio. This means that I have to plug an mini-jack audio cable into the headphone jack of my Droid. Then  I have to crank up the volume. I would rather have an audio source that is not pre-amplified by the device.

My second complaint is getting music onto the Droid is not a pleasurable experience. This disappointment stems from the 5 years I used iTunes. Although iTunes is a resource hog, it does what it does real well. Getting music onto my iPod was easy. No drag-and-drop needed. Just tell it what to sync and it did it. There are several apps in the market that try to replicate this, but I think they all fall short and that is disappointing.

Currently, I carry my iPod (fully loaded with music, video, and misc. audio books) and my Droid (loaded with the music, podcast, and audio books I am currently listening to) with me on road trips. I no longer carry a point-and-shoot and don’t need a separate GPS device. If you are on the fence about moving to a smartphone, I have to suggest getting an Android based phone on the Verizon network.

So here is my guide to buying an HDMI cable:

Step 1: Find out how much cable you need. Usually you only need about 6′ (six feet) to get from the component to the TV or receiver.

Step 2: Go to your local Fry’s or Radio Shack (avoid Best Buy at all cost) and find the cheapest cable in that length. You need to ask the sales associate where all the cheap cables are located. They will not have an end cap or special display. They will be in simple packaging with ho-hum colors and information. These are the cables you want. The in-store cost is about $1.25/foot.

Step 3: If you don’t have access to a Fry’s or Radio Shack, please buy a cable online. Most will have free shipping and no tax (if it’s outside your state). I like Amazon.com or NewEgg.com.

So why can you buy a cheap cable for your high-end stereo system? Why don’t you need a double shielded cable with gold connectors? It’s very simple: HDMI is a digital signal cable and regardless of the environment, there is no signal loss. Digital signals are on or off, one or zero, black or white. There are no shades of gray (like in analog cables). So when you plug in a $100 HDMI cable to your system, you’re getting the same ones and zeros that can easily pass through a $6 cable. There is no difference and no proof that the $100 cable is better or that the $6 cable is worse.

So I hope this helps you and saves you some money when you purchase your next HDMI cable. In the end, I spent $5.95 on a 6′ HDMI cable.

What is HDMI:

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is the first and only industry-supported, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface. By delivering crystal-clear, all-digital audio and video via a single cable, HDMI dramatically simplifies cabling and helps provide consumers with the highest-quality home theater experience. HDMI provides an interface between any audio/video source, such as a set-top box, DVD player, or A/V receiver and an audio and/or video monitor, such as a digital television (DTV), over a single cable.

HDMI supports standard, enhanced, or high-definition video, plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. It transmits all ATSC HDTV standards and supports 8-channel, 192kHz, uncompressed digital audio and all currently-available compressed formats (such as Dolby Digital and DTS), HDMI 1.3 adds additional support for new lossless digital audio formats Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™ with bandwidth to spare to accommodate future enhancements and requirements.

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Friends With Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook

I just completed reading “Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook“. Did I enjoy it: Yes. Can I recommend it: Maybe.

If you are totally new to social media (as in you don’t have a Facebook or Twitter page) for your business, you will get a lot out of this book. If you run your own business and are thinking about getting into social media marketing, you will get a lot out of this book. But if you have been on Facebook and Twitter or you have your own blog, you can probably skip this one.

This handbook is written for the newbie (no disrespect) and I was able to only get a bit of knowledge out of it (I’m so advanced). I would have liked more information about using Facebook pages for business and how to Tweet for your business. The topics in the book are elementary (or 101 if you prefer).

The writing style is perfect for the content and explains all the terminology in detail, but fails to dig deep for the advanced user. Just a hit of this sub-surface information would have made the book a lot more useful (for me).

Overall, if you are considering social media marketing for your business or organization, consider “Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook“.

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Sell your product in the title – no matter what the medium, you only have five seconds to grab the readers attention. The title is the best way to do this. Tell me what you are selling and try not to be cute. Example: “Ikea Queen Bed with Mattress Dark Brown Platform Slightly Used“. Now if you read this title, you know exactly what to expect. If I am looking for a platform bed, I’m going to look at this ad, but if I’m looking for a sleigh bed or Thomasville, I know to avoid this ad. This little title will save me the  seconds it takes for me to click the ad and then click the back button. Over time, it’s going to save me hours.

Put in the actual price you willing to take – I realize that there are cheap people who see something for one dollar and will click you ad regardless of what you’re selling. But for people who are actually going to purchase your item, I want to know the price ASAP. CL has a space for the price, use it. Do not put the price in the title field, use the price field. If you are willing to take less (or more) add “obo” (or best offer).

Do not reinvent the wheel – if you are selling a product (new or used) and you didn’t make it yourself, you probably bought it from somewhere else. So when you are selling that used 27″ flat screen TV, do a Google search for the product name and number. What will you find? Only all the details about the product. Copy and paste the important details of the product into your ad. Now I (the buyer) will be able to see all the important specs of the product. How does this help? It will eliminate all the email questions people will be sending you. As the seller, this will save you a lot of hassle. Once again, only serious buyers will be contacting you.

Add a personal touch – after you have all the technical specs in the add, feel free to add a personal touch. If you loved your couch and paid three-times as much as you are selling it for, now is the time to tell me. You can also put in any special notices like “scuffed corner” or “missing pillows”. Some people think that adding faults to the ad will eliminate some buyers, and it will. But some people don’t care and are glad to know what is wrong with your product.

Pictures, pictures, pictures – most of the crappy CL ads are missing images. Please take a picture (at least two) of your item, from different angles, and post them to the ad. When you are taking your pics, turn on all the lights in the house or open all the blinds. I want to see the product and if your camera is a cell phone, this will help the picture a lot. CL offers an option for four photos, I recommend you use all four slots. If you happen to mention that there is a surface flaw in the product, try and take a picture of that too.

The goal of your CL ad is to sell your product. The easier you make it for me to find and fall in love with your item, the quicker and easier it will sell.

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Logitech Touch Mouse Turns Your iPhone or iPod Touch into a Wireless Trackpad and Keyboard

Source: http://blog.logitech.com/2010/01/29/new-logitech-touch-mouse-turns-your-iphone-or-ipod-touch-into-a-wireless-trackpad-and-keyboard/

Again, the phone is great, I love the display, the audio is AMAZING. People have been asking me, “If I have an iPod, will I like Android?” In my opinion, yes. There are a lot of apps in the Android Marketplace (sorry, there are only a few FART apps, but I’m sure some more are on the way), and there is a small learning curve, but I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure it out.

Getting my music on the phone was easy, but it got even easier with upgrades to DoubleTwist and SongBird – check them out. You can download music from the Amazon store.

The one thing I don’t miss is having to run Apple’s (bloated)  iTunes software. In fact, you really never have to plug the phone into any computer if you don’t want to. You can transfer media via the micro-SD card, easy on a PC, easier on a Mac.

What do I want from my phone? Some apps are missing and I really want them. First, Mint.com – please build a Android app. Second, I want the OS update to 2.1 (comes standard on the Google Nexus One).

Do I wish I had the Google Nexus One? Yes and no. Yes, because I want the OLED screen and Android 2.1. No, because I love the DROID’s keyboard.
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Car Home

There is an application called CAR HOME on the Droid. This app is a handy little piece of software that puts all your common driving needs on the screen. Similar to a standalone GPS device. You can do a voice search, view your current route, and look up contacts. The apps was handy for getting me from my cousins house to my other cousins house and then to the bar. In addition, when I was at my cousins house I did a voice search for “ICE” and it found a few 7-11′s as well as a liquor store down the street and a Ralphs. Not bad. It’s a great time saver.

Google Listen

While I was driving from house to house, I needed some music. I am a big fan of podcast and have been using Google Listen in place of iTunes. One benefit of Google Listen, downloads the media via 3g (so far no size issues) and then adds it to the playlist. Most of the programs I listen to could be found just by searching from within the Google Listen app. There were a few that I had to copy the RSS URL and paste it into the app, but overall, it was a pretty painless experience. When I was leaving the house, I could add some podcast to the Listen playlist and let it run. My music is playing via the 3mm audio jack in my car stereo, but I can buy a new stereo with bluetooth and transfer the audio in that way. I’m ready to make the jump.

Other Applications I Love

You can fire your radio as soon as you sign up for Pandora. Same great program, all the music you love plus the new stuff. Last.FM, same same. Pick it up. Google Goggles is fun but I don’t find myself in strange areas to often (more of that next week). Google Voice has yet to disappoint me. It handles calls and SMS with out a flaw. If you can get an invite, I suggest you move your life over to it.

Finally…

I purchased the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger. More on that next week as I travel to Las Vegas via car and stay well off the strip with my friends. I am also going to try out a new (to me) application for organizing my media. So far, Songbird is great, but some have suggested DoubleTwist. So We’ll see who wins.

I went to a party Saturday night and I unsuccessfully took some night shots using the flash. I think it was user error regarding auto focus and the flash options. I’m not ready to hate the camera flash just yet. On the bright site, the Droid takes great photos during the day light hours. Here’s the shot I took today inside Best Buy (click the image to see the full 5 pixel glory).

Droid Photo During Day inside Best Buy

Now I would like to talk about the problems I’ve had. One problem really – getting media onto the device. Specifically music and podcast. I’m not going to deny the fact that iTunes, as flawed as it is, is the best media management software I’ve used. As of today, iTunes does not allow Android products to sync or manage media. So that leaves me with sub-par, non-Google, non-Motorola software applications and 3rd party plug-ins to attempt to manage my media.

If you have less than 16GB of stuff, you’re going to be fine. You can drop all your music and stuff onto you media card. However, I have about 100GB of music, videos, and photos – so I am required to manage my stuff. I found a decent solution – Songbird with the Folder Sync add-on. It’s alright, but it does not replace the thought and development that went into iTunes.

I hope that Google realizes that when the original iPod came out, it was using Music Match to organize the music, and it sucked. So what did Apple do, they built iTunes because they knew that if you can make the management of the media easy, it’s reflected in the product itself. It makes the product (iPod) seem easy to use. Google needs to take a few months and build their own media management software. Either based off the Songbird engine or a stand-alone product of their own for the Android system.

**UPDATE: I was using Songbird ver1.2. The new version, 1.4 was released and supports the Droid and other devices much like iTunes. It does not run in Win7 perfectly, but an update should be out soon. It’s much better then what I was using before.**

But I didn’t buy the phone for the packaging. The device itself is fantastic. It has a good weight in my hand. It’s a hair taller then the iPhone and the same width and height as the iPhone. Compared to my old phone (Sony Ericsson w350), the phone feels like a brick in my pocket. However, eliminating the iPod, phone, camera, and video camera from my bag is a huge benefit.

The screen on the Droid is bright, crisp and sharp. The audio on the phone is loud. The screen is responsive, but there is a learning curve coming from the iPod/iPhone interface. Software for the phone is fantastic. I have several gmail accounts. I put all of them into my phone and added my Facebook account. The phone pulled all my active contacts from all my gmail accounts and my Facebook account and created contacts for each person. I only had to move one or two phone numbers into the phone. That was a killer time saver and now I have all my contacts backed up in the Google cloud.

Having access to a slide out keyboard is awesome. Using the on-screen keyboard is fine, but I prefer to slide out the keyboard and type away. Also, the camera flash is a nice feature. I look forward to documenting this Christmas with just this one device.

I’ve spent that last two days just getting used to how the phone works and researching some apps. So far, this is one of the best smartphones I have played with. If you are in the market, and have never had a smartphone, I would suggest you start with the Droid or some other Android based phone (myTouch, Droid, etc.). If you have been using an iPhone for the past few years, you might want to stick with it.

I have yet to plug the phone into my computer and get some music on it. I will also be downloading some apps from the Android store. I’ll be posting my experiences with these in the coming days.

Motorola Droid Press Photo

So I have decided to enter the world of Smartphones. I’m sure you are all familiar with the iPhone and BlackBerry product lines, but I am going with the newest player in town – The Motorola Droid (by Google). From a user experience perspective, I would like to take this opportunity to give you a day by day, feature by feature journey into this new platform. I will start with my expectations of this new device.

Today I ordered the device from amazon.com. I choose the 450 minute plan and basic data package. I opt’d to not select a messaging plan (more on that later). My monthly price will come to $69.98 + taxes. There will also be a one-time $35 activation fee (whatever Verizon). I am anticipating that this device will replace the following devices and monthly services:

• AT&T Cell Phone with Text Messaging – $55/month
• iPod Touch – no monthly fee
• Point-and-Shoot Camera – no monthly fee but it’s in my bag, taking up space
• Flip-Cam HD – no monthly fee, but another device
• OnStar Navigation – $28/month for Turn-by-Turn directions tied to my car

Out of the box, the phone comes with Turn-by-Turn navigation, mp3 player, video, camera with flash, multi-tasking OS, and high-definition screen. It also comes with a slide-out keyboard option along with the on-screen (soft) keyboard. In all, it’s a hair larger than the iPhone in width and height.

I have a Google Voice account so my voice mail and SMS/MMS will go directly to my inbox. I can also send SMS/MMS directly from the Google Voice web page. Therefore, I will not need a Text Messaging plan from Verizon Wireless.

My order has been placed and I show the phone will be delivered on Dec. 21st (wha!). Next post will be the un-boxing and initial thoughts on the feel and interface.

**UPDATE – my shipping expected arrival date was just changed to Dec. 15th**