Category Archives: Technology

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Technology

Positive Confirmation for Blackberry Curve 8900 Release Date

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My favorite unofficial T-Mobile news site (TmoNews) has confirmation from a T-Mobile spy mentioning that they have some more positive confirmation from their forum stating so far (unless subject to change) the date is pretty much solid.

Mark your calendars Blackberry fans and Blackberry Curve owners wanting an upgrade… Unless there are things that delay the release… the date will be February 18, 2009. For those who don’t know how long that is… here’s a countdown clock for poops and giggles. Keep in mind, this is based on me being on Central Time (-6 GMT), if you’re on other parts of nation… Adjust accordingly!

Personal, Site News, Technology

Zero’s Feature Article Coming Soon to BerryTastic!

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Since my Blackberry romance… It’s opened some doors for checking things out and learning a lot about one of the industries best devices. I ended up putting myself available to contact directly via Blackberry Messenger and that turned an interesting curve (no pun intended – Zero). I ended up talking with Jess from BerryTastic and she just had asked me if I could write a Blackberry lifestyle article. I would gladly oblige to sharing my talent and passion.

After a tiresome day, I managed to punch one out and got it submitted. It just now is pending some final details and soon it should be gracing their pages! Stay tuned here and once the the article goes live… I’ll post a link to it!

Much love,
zeroxr_sig

Technology

Blackberry Blitz Clears – One Phone Emerges: The Blackberry Curve 8900

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A while ago, I had posted in my “Blackberry Blitz” article saying that T-Mobile may be gutsy enough to swing for 3 Blackberry devices to be sold ’round February. However, ’round Christmas, there were confirmations that T-Mobile decided to nix the idea of buying up the Blackberry Bold. Places like PinStack and Blackberry Forums were reporting that they had confirmed reports from T-Mobile spies saying any hopes of the Blackberry Bold coming aboard were very much dead.

Then this little gem popped up on TmoNews:  “Blackberry Curve 8900 Release Date…” and a similar article over at Boy Genius Report. The summary of both articles is really more or less positive confirmation of T-Mobile shooting for a release date of 2/18/2009 for the Blackberry Curve 8900. This is rather awesome news as I have enjoyed my Blackberry Curve 8310, but on (hopefully) upgrading to an 8900 series I want to go to a phone that I know will satiate me for a fairly good while. Should all go well and T-Mobile not encounter any other snags, I will silently wait for the release of the Blackberry Curve 8900.

Then the rumors of the Storm for T-mobile have gone cold… but I don’t mind it so much. Cause well… I am not much for a touch screen Blackberry! LOL! Though some speculate from Crackberry’s posting that the Storm 9520 series heading to Rogers of Canada may be a sign that the Storm could be heading to T-Mobile. I personally think it has a fair shot of landing with AT&T as well… However in that posting… I am far more interested in their release of the Blackberry Pearl Flip 8200 that has wi-fi AND GPS! Oh well, I suppose that’s a rant for another time…

Site News, Technology

ZeroXR 13mg is now MOBILE PHONE compatible!

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I decided to install Alex King’s WordPress Mobile Edition plug-in to the site after viewing a post over at PinStack and the site shows up very nicely via my Blackberry! This plug-in should also be compatible in the most minimalistic phones like Motorola RAZR2’s to even Windows Mobile phones. I hope this will allow users who don’t have a laptops/desktops/iPhones to view my site the ability to have entertaining reading on the road.

Let me know how some of you all like it!
-Zero

Personal, Technology

Ode to Blackberry

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Research in Motion, who’d have thought I misunderstood your devices… The most time initially I had ever spent on a Blackberry device was, at most, 20 minutes. After spending almost 48 hours with my own Blackberry Curve 8310, I now understand why the corporate types love them. They are rock solid. They are logical and tactile. They are very work/business focused. It’s no wonder that people go absolutely love them after the slight learning curve. I mean to have a device and not have it crash when it’s your alarm clock is absolutely beautiful.

For those wondering what I got… It’s a Blackberry Curve 8310 (GPS model) and I just got the USB sync/charger cable and the sleeve for it.

Sure, the caveats are things like you have to get a Blackberry Internet Service plan to really enjoy things like mobile web, Blackberry Messenger, Facebook Mobile, AES encrypted e-mail transactions, etc. Even minor things like for MMS, you need net plan too. However, for the majority of things the device offers… I could tolerate looking into a Blackberry net plan. Hell, I may consider it highly considering how much I am now tied down to my e-mail with either light fan e-mail or some insider news.

I will end this post with my humorous “remix” to the “club tune” of yesteryear, Crime Mob’s song “White Tee”

“Fuck an iPhone, I look clean with my Blackberry” – Zero

Technology

Rumor Mill – The BlackBerry Blitz May Be Coming to T-Mobile…

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So… With RIM making an aggressive attack and failing badly cause 2 mobile phone companies somewhat screamed at them to get the BlackBerry Storm out to market… (ahemVodafoneGlobalVerizonbastardsahem) This has caused RIM to have a bit of an issue of creating a negative image for the Storm. However… some have made mention that with the new firmware upgrade that was officially available from Verizon and Vodafone, it seemed to clear some issue up. However, there is the issue reported on various users on the web saying that some of the hardware buttons have fallen off! If you want to see some of the bad press generated… Check out Wired’s Blog from their Gadget Labs here.

However… Lucky for RIM, their BlackBerry Bold has gotten them quite good praise. To have wifi, GPS, and 3G while being as stable as it’s predecessor the 8800 series… RIM has hit the person who wants a powerhouse corporate communicator. It both has corporate beauty as well as casual beauty. There’s also the matter of the BlackBerry Javelin (or it’s other name, the 8900 series Curve 2) pending its release soon to the US. So far, Rogers Telecom Canada has it, but rumors shroud its US release. The Javelin is one of the devices that follows more the principles of the 8300 series Curve, it’s not quite as hardcore as its cousin the Bold.

I was reading this post over at TmoNews and some of the users mentioned corporate tidbits that February 2009 may be the month of the BlackBerry for T-mobile. The reasons for that being…

  1. Verizon didn’t pay big money for a 6 month exclusivity for the BlackBerry Storm 9530 in America… They only paid enough cash to get 90 day exclusivity. So for the GSM release, it was a bidding war between AT&T vs T-Mobile and T-Mobile won the battle. The day that Verizon’s 90 day exclusivity ends would (in theory) end 2/21/2009. Three months would be plenty of time to let RIM perfect the Storm as well as engineer one for the GSM/3G bands for T-Mobile. I would make an assumption that for T-Mobile, based from the forum posts and things around the web (like other users) that T-Mobile’s version may be called the BlackBerry Storm 9520 with stuff like myFaves, HotSpot@home, wi-fi and possibly GPS on the phone. I just hope the GPS is REAL GPS and not that sorry excuse of GPS found on the BlackBerry Pearl Flip.
  2. The speculated release date of T-Mobile’s BlackBerry Bold has been speculated from first quarter to even second quarter of 2009. The only thing is… November was when AT&T got the Bold 9000. It seems AT&T fell into the same trap as Verizon with not fronting enough cash to get a 6 month exclusivity period, but managed to get just 90 days. I don’t remember the exact release date for the AT&T BlackBerry Bold, but I would assume it’d be close to 2/21/2009 that the Bold’s exclusivity to AT&T wears out. Should this be true… T-Mobile’s Bold may be called the BlackBerry Bold 9020 but just bundle a few additional features like HotSpot@home and myFaves; while hopefully leaving alone the fact that it has true GPS on it.
  3. Floating rumors say that because T-Mobile Germany has the BlackBerry Javelin, that it is destined for T-Mobile USA. There was also some rumors that another BlackBerry was supposed to come out end of the year for T-Mobile in conjunction to the BlackBerry Pearl Flip. However, it doesn’t look like the Javelin is coming out this Christmas. Naturally, I could see it coincide with the February blitz of BlackBerries and possibly some promo around then too like a possible rescaling of BlackBerry net plans.

Should the speculation and rumors be true… I may just hold on to my phone until February and wait for the BlackBerry Blitz. That would give me much more equal footing to things like giving BlackBerry devices equal footing to the G1. oi vay… Decisions, decisions…

Personal, Technology

Zero needs your help! Help me pick a new phone!

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The Zero Corporate Communicator is due for an upgrade… My AT&T Tilt has taken quite the beating from me. For 7 months of loyal service, being subject to my drunken rages every now and then, but also being hacked to fit my needs… I am amazed it has last me 7 months. I mean with respect to things… Check out my phone chronology! (Disclaimer: Times are approximate…)

10/2004 – 10/2005: Nokia 3120 (1 Year)
10/2005 – 1/2006: Motorola RAZR V3 (3 Months)
1/2006 – 3/2006: Motorola SLVR L6 (2 Months)
3/2006 – 5/2006: Motorola MPx 220 (2 Months)
5/2006 – 7/2006: Sony Ericsson T637 (2 Months)
7/2006 – 10/2006: Motorola SLVR L7 Unbranded without iTunes (3 Months)
10/2006 – 1/2007: HTC Wizard as a T-mobile USA MDA (3 Months)
1/2007 – 5/2007: Nokia E62 (4 Months)
5/2007 – 10/2007: Palm Treo 680 (4 Months)
10/2007 – 4/2008: DUAL PHONES – Sony Ericsson P990i AND Sony Ericsson w300i (6 Months)
4/2008 – Present [12/2/2008] – HTC Kaiser as an AT&T Tilt 8925 (7 months onward…)

Lately, my phone is going through issues… The slider mechanism is getting loose, unless I lock it in the angular position if I somewhat slack with the screen angle. I am going through a RAM leak issue that my phones go through… So something like the phone’s alarm or an event reminder will lock up or even crash my phone. I have to reboot the phone every other day now rather than every 4 days to keep the phone functional. The worst part… I have tried almost EVERY cooked and stock OEM HTC TyTN II ROM possible to flash into my phone in hopes of having a functional phone that was stable since the maladies happened… But alas… even a bare stripped out BASE ROM that is on the original HTC TyTN II without the garbage still has my phone crashing and locking up.

So yeah… I have been looking at new phones. At the moment, I am eligible through T-Mobile to enjoy the same deals as new users from being eligible for an upgrade as long as I do the 2 year hitch. However, should I choose to hop back to the Death Star and be subject to their funny taxes, rollover minutes and etc… I’d have to wait until around until June of 2009. Time is not of the essence, yet… Unless my phone just purely becomes dysfunctional that it is unstable. I do need a smartphone, as the ability to see my calendar of events and keep my contacts at ready access. Messaging is highly important to me as I do a lot of mobile contact when voice is not an option. Internet plans are being considered, as e-mail and instant messages are my alternative lifelines other than texting and voice calls.

Here’s the line-up… so far that is:

BlackBerry Bold (To be unlocked…)
BlackBerry Javelin (aka 8900 Curve) [Unfortunately no official link yet, link from Boy Genius Report]
Nokia XpressMusic 5800 (The wicked touch screen music phone)
Palm Centro (Unlocked from Palm)
HTC/T-Mobile G1 by Google

My common themes seem to be phones with physical keyboards that are exposed, the only exceptions being the G1 and the Nokia Xpress Music 5800. The G1 has a slider keyboard like my Tilt, while the Nokia has a soft keyboard and it does support written input via stylus.

The issue of billing is not too bad… cause at the moment, I pay $70 for my current plan after taxes and such. However should I go with any device with the optional net plan (for the G1, the net plan is MANDATORY), the price totals out at $80. So it’s about 1 take out meal a month less. Not a big deal, cause I don’t have much time for that anyways. The only pressing issue would really be the $35 activation fee and the device prices.

The BlackBerry devices may be fun, but the Bold, for example is only available in the US as a locked AT&T phone and I would have to spend a little extra coin to get it unlocked for use. The Javelin is not known if it’s coming to T-Mobile USA, but there is already an AT&T unit under testing. For either the Bold or Javelin, this is probably the most expensive route ranging from sniping one off of craiglist at $450+ before any unlocking services.

The Palm is a rather nice and pint sized little smartphone and at roughly $300 unlocked from Palm is a great deal. The sad selection of white only is a little sobering… Though the final issue is compatibility with the T-Mobile mobile web… I am highly considering mobile web, so it puts the Centro on a very thin edge. The Nokia XpressMusic 5800 ($500+) is also on that same thin edge with the mobile web compatibility… Though the XpressMusic is more media centric rather than a corporate looking communicator.

The T-Mobile G1 is probably the underdog of them all… Priced at $180 with a 2 year renewal, fully Linux and open source, and quickly becoming versatile. It’s made by HTC, so I am not too afraid of build issues. Sure, it looks a little caddish and far from corporate professional… But to know that it can basically give me near remote control over my own site is damn near staggering, especially when there are times I’d kill to blog something but only to find that I have to pay for a wireless LAN at Starbucks for an hour I may not use entirely.

I digress…

If anyone has an opinion, feel free to comment and let me know! If you have a recommendation, tell me your reasoning why! Any reasonable insight is welcome and encouraged!

Technology

An Open Letter to The Linux Using Students of Texas A&M Commerce

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Dear fellow students,

Some of you have chosen the past of most difficulty. Some of you have chosen to be free of Microsoft’s tyranny and to open your heart to the power of open source. To you, I commend you! However, I am willing to bet some in our ranks have been unable to enjoy such sweet splendor without much strife. I am referring more to the school network. Some of you may have had to compile the Cisco Network Manager and maybe failed in vain from incomplete dependencies…. Some of you who decided to be like me and run an Ubuntu variant to try importing one of their profiles in order to connect but you were met with the message of “VPN Secrets incomplete”.

I say to you… Fear not! I have managed to secure myself the information on the configuration from the Center of Technology and Information Services center from the McDowell administration building. If you are a student in need of getting connected online, I have done you a favor by compounding the complete configurations as a Cisco Network Profile. If you do, in-fact, need this file… Please send me an e-mail to info@zeroxr.com and I’ll be glad to pass it over! If you want me to help out… Please feel free to inquire and I’ll be glad to stop by!

Power to the people, free as beer! Those are the things to live by!

Regards,

Personal, Technology

Waking the Demon, Walking in Shadows

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So let me say that when computers break… it can be aggravating to me. I am a nice guy with machines… until they anger me. Windows XP has been that thorn in my side that I had to do something…

Click for a link to the bigger image!
Hmm... Eye Sea Wut Joo Did Thar!

I did it… I thought I never could return to Linux but somehow… I did. So with toiling and help from by GREAT friend Maczimus… I am back. To my Ubuntu buddies out in the DFW Area, I am back home again. Home to one of the kindest operating systems ever to have graced its presence to me. I just have to test and make sure if my VPN settings play nice with my school. They’d better, damn it!

Personal, Technology

Ugh… Winter Blues~!

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So I am sick… augh!!! It blows… but to compound more bullcrap… Early this morning, Windows decided that my mouse was not to move away from the bottom corner. On trying to fight and beat the OS to the power of my will… well… let’s just keep it at the fact that things got worse. So once again… my laptop is well… toast with Windows. However… in usual fashion, Linux is like the cute geeky girlfriend who’s like the supportive best friend that saves my bacon again.

Which brings me to a comparison that I talked about with a good friend of mine…

Windows is like the crazy girl who can do all the freaky sexual crap. Stuff that would interest all the wrong sorts of people. At the same time, when you make the threaten to leave… it does crazy dramatic bullshit with empty promises of steak and fellatio.

Linux is like the one cute girl that either you’ve known forever or she’s the one lotus in a myriad of flowers. She’s the one who’s smart, can go to the bars with you, and even play a multi-player role playing game online while being a dork. She’s the one that you’d like to be with, but the real world somehow nags you to go back to the crazy whore called Windows.

Anyhow… My brain is exhausted… damn installations… DAMN IT ALL!!!