Taking the Touchdown Challenge

Over the past year I have been doc­u­ment­ing my epic smart phone saga, switch­ing between the BB Storm and the Motorola Droid.  For the most part the Droid has per­formed up to my high stan­dards and been an amaz­ing device.

How­ever, there are some glar­ing prob­lems with the Droid.  Luck­ily they are due to the Android oper­at­ing sys­tem as a whole and less of the actual device (unlike the Storm).

The biggest prob­lem the Droid needs to over­come is the lack of SEARCH for its exchange/email app.

The Gmail app has it.  HTC built it into Sense.  Why does the Google devel­oped Exchange/Email app lack this abil­ity?  Keep in mind this is a glar­ing over­sight from a com­pany that has built an entire empire on THE ABILITY TO SEARCH FOR THINGS!

So.  That is why I have decided to take the plunge and install Touch­down Exchange for my Droid.  It is an email replace­ment app for Android with spe­cific pur­pose of giv­ing more con­trol and options for Exchange users.  Today is the first day of the 30 day trial, and I am dub­bing the next 29 days the TOUCHDOWN CHALLENGE where I will be only using Touch­down Exchange for my non-Gmail needs. I will (hope­fully) con­tinue updat­ing on my expe­ri­ences with the app over the next month.

What are you using for email on your mobile device?  Are there things you wish it did better?


November 3, 2010  Leave a comment

Blogging & Twitter – Indiana Nonprofit Resource Network Presentation

First and fore­most, I would like to thank every­one who attended today’s “Guide to Social Media — Hands On Work Ses­sion” pre­sented by the Indi­ana Non­profit Resource Cen­ter. It was truly inspir­ing to work with such moti­vated indi­vid­u­als, and present such an engag­ing topic to every­one that attended. As promised, I have posted my Pow­er­Point slides online for those to view and review.

As always, if you have any ques­tions, con­cerns, or feed­back feel free to leave a comment.

October 14, 2010  Leave a comment

I’m sick.

Plugged ear? Check. Runny nose? Check. Puffy eyes? Check. Cough? Check.

Hur­ray! Allergy sea­son has returned, and with a fury of a thou­sand spar­tans. Every year from May until mid-June my sinus cav­ity decides to wage war against the rest of my body. My nor­mal course of action usu­ally involves a good mix of benadryl, and sudafed. I’ve tried every long term allergy relief med­i­cine from Clar­itin to Clar­inex to Zyrtec, and none of help in any sort of last­ing relief.

Now, this sum­mer those nor­mal symp­toms have decided to gang up and make things worse. It seems like I have been bat­tling a sinus cold/infection for almost a week now. I took some time off last week to sleep and try and get bet­ter, but it doesn’t look like that has helped. It looks like this guy will be need­ing to bounce over to a doc­tors office some­time soon.

Gross.

May 26, 2010  Leave a comment

Quick Tech Review — Entourage eDGe

What is it?

The Entourage eDGe is a hybrid ebook and mobile tablet device that com­bines both plat­forms into a com­pact net­book for­mat. Offer­ing clamshell form fac­tor for users to read e-books, or use an android touch tablet, the eDGe is the self pro­claimed first “dual­book” device on the market.

The device itself includes two 9inch screens that fold as a clamshell body, with a total weight just a lit­tle over 3lbs and 1in thick. This is a large device, and is 3 times thicker than the Kin­dle DX, and 2 times thicker than the iPad.

What does it do?

Listed as the first ever Dual­book, Entourage is try­ing their hard­est to attack mul­ti­ple device mar­kets with one device. With the eDGe, Entourage looks to be attack­ing both the ebook mar­ket (ie. Amazon’s Kin­dle) and tablet/mobile (ie. Apple’s iPad) device mar­ket with their hybrid dualbook.

Entourage has installed Google’s Android OS for their mobile device, mak­ing it one of the first Android alter­na­tives to the iPad.  How­ever, the eDGe is mak­ing use of Android ver­sion 1.6, and is cur­rently behind the major­ity of Android devices as the cur­rent OS ver­sion is 2.1.

eBook Expe­ri­ence

The eDGe offers a nice 9.7in screen for it’s e-reader, and allows for more text to be dis­played on the screen com­pared to many 6in e-reader com­peti­tors like the orig­i­nal Kin­dle, or Barnes & Nobel’s Nook.  The fonts are crisp, clear, and easy on the eyes with the option to choose both serif or sans-serif fonts depend­ing on users preference.

Page turn­ing and refreshes are a bit on the slow side com­pared to the Kin­dle, but right on par with the Nook.  Read­ing on this device was pleas­ant, and it was easy to thumb through pages using the back and for­ward but­tons.  How­ever, it is unfor­tu­nate that the eDGe offers no touch page turn­ing abil­ity a la iPad.

Tablet Expe­ri­ence

Entourage makes use of the open Android OS plat­form for their tablet expe­ri­ence, and fall short in their offer­ing.  As a user of an Android mobile phone (Motorola Droid on Ver­i­zon), I was look­ing for­ward to see how Android would per­form on a larger screen and device.  Unfor­tu­nately, in a world where “Droid Does”, the eDGe just “doesn’t” and really fails to make an impres­sive showing.

Hav­ing more than one App open brought the device to slug­gish halt, and Mobile brows­ing with more than one tab open isn’t rec­om­mended.  It is nice to see that Entourage has pre-installed some pro­duc­tiv­ity apps for doc­u­ment edit­ing with Doc­sToGo.  How­ever, the lag in typ­ing on the vir­tual key­board make them almost unusable.

Wrap Up

As a device that touts its abil­ity to have the best of both worlds of eRead­ers and Tablets, it sur­pris­ingly doesn’t do either very well.  It would be easy to for­give the awk­ward size and weight of the eDGe, but the lack of per­for­mance power keeps it from being a true con­tender in today’s fierce mobile mar­ket.  With a price point of $499, most con­sumers would be hard pressed to to choose the eDGe over other com­pa­ra­ble eRead­ers or mobile devices.

May 19, 2010  Leave a comment

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