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December 18, 2007
Palm Treo
I got a Palm Treo phone about two weeks ago to replace my Motorola Razor. I have to tell you this thing is the BOMB! It does so much and is so versatile, I honestly can't see why anyone would want the iPhone. I myself was in the market for an iPhone when they came out. I saw what it claimed it could do and it looked cool and seemed very cool. Luckily, I wasn't eligible to get a new phone for a couple of weeks, so I had to wait. Besides, the iPhone is exclusively with AT&T and I didn't want to have to change carriers since I've been pretty happy with Verizon.
I went online to look at phones that were similar to the iPhone that were offered by Verizon. And I talked a lot with a friend of mine at work who's got a pretty cool Samsung PDA phone, but I didn't like it because the keyboard layout is horizontal rather than vertical. That makes it difficult to text with one hand if you need to because it's too wide for your one hand. That was a must-have feature--a vertical qwerty keyboard, which meant my options were quickly narrowed.
That's what led me to look at the Treo 700p (the "p" is for Palm--it comes with Windows, but I'm anti-Microsoft when it comes to mobile devices). Don's had one for a few years now and I've seen some of the amazing things he can do with it. I mean, those guys are techno-FREAKS. So because he (and Charly) both have one, I was intimidated. I thought, "I'll never need anything as complicated as what THEY need." But now that I have one, I can't imagine why I ever hesitated.
I mean, I'd maybe had the thing a couple of days when me and a few work friends went to Potbelly's for lunch. Suddenly, Guy Gordon, a local and famous newscaster, walks in the door. Steve wants a picture with him, so I pull out my Treo. It took a fabulous picture (for a phone). And later, I got some pretty good video of my niece and nephew when they came to visit. But that's just the fun stuff.
The cool stuff (for those of you who are new like me to the world of pocket organizers) is that you can do things like: view and edit Word, Excel, and text documents; beam (as in "Beam me up, Scotty") documents, pictures, videos, etc. to others who have the ability to receive them (more on this in a moment); you can check and send email; sync your work calendar; play games; text message (with more ease than on a non-PDA phone); get on the Web; and back up everything to your computer so if anything happens to your phone, you still have all your documents and contacts.
But wait, there's more! Probably the BEST feature of this phone is the Google Maps program. You can go to Google Maps and download their mobile device version and use it to navigate if you get lost, or even view what the traffic is like--it tells you if traffic is moving or slow. You can even see satellite images of the map! Something Yahoo and Mapquest I think are sorely missing. Sidenote: I don't know WHY people still use Mapquest when Google Maps is SOOOOO much better!
Another cool feature I literally stumbled upon by accident is the active sync. I brought my laptop to work so I could rip movies while I work (it takes a lot of waiting while the computer does its thing, so I figured why not?). I just happened to set my Treo down in front of it, forgetting that my computer has an infrared thing and not even knowing what it was for. Well now I know! A little message box popped up and said, "Hello, I sense another computer nearby. Its name is Amy's Treo." I was like, "WH-WH-WHAT???" (Cue Stanley's mom from South Park.) Intrigued, I beamed a picture to the computer and to my elation, a message box appeared asking if it was ok to accept the file. I clicked yes, and POOF! There it was on my computer. Cue insane-happy-Amy-dance.
I have been SO HAPPY with my Treo, I never even needed the grace period they give you to make sure you like your phone. I've used it to alert me of meetings, help me grocery shop (I now keep my grocery lists in it), shop for Christmas gifts (no more trying to remember what everyone wants, just look it up on my phone), you name it, this thing DOES it! In fact, I've even seen Don actually access a computer remotely with his so he could do work. And he also uses it as a modem for his computer--great for places you want to work on your computer and don't have Internet access otherwise!
Oh, did I mention it's got a touch-screen and plays mp3's too? I mean come ON! This thing does EVERYTHING the iPhone does and WAY more. Why would you EVER want an iPhone when you can have a Treo?
I will say that Don does complain about his Treo freezing up on him and having to reboot it, but so far, I haven't had that problem. Occasionally, it tells me that my email sent folder couldn't be syncronized, so I have to take out the battery and reboot it, but that doesn't bother me, especially when everything else is so great. The only other bad things I could say about it is you have to buy a memory card for it which is fine--I got a 2GB card (I believe that's the biggest available). But a lot of computers (like mine at work) don't have a memory card reader (though my home laptop does, so it's not a big deal). I just think it'd be easier if it used a USB thumb drive-type of device, though the design would have to change quite a bit to accommodate that. It'd also be easier if it had a USB port so I could plug in my thumb drive to it or connect it that way to my laptop. Instead, you have to have a specific type of cord that fits the specialized Treo port which fits nothing else. I hate proprietary stuff!
But honestly, this phone is a true gem. I highly recommend it. Oh, that reminds me...I gotta mail in the rebate for it today ($100 or $150 I think).
Posted by Amy at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2007
Company Christmas Party
Last night Don and I went to the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) for the Doner holiday party. This is the first company Christmas party (aside from Don's and my dad's) I've ever wanted to go to because this is the first group I really enjoy hanging out with. They're a really fun bunch!
We got all dressed up, as you can see, and got to the party around 7:30. Good thing we got there when we did. I was hungry and we sat down in the DIA cafe where they had strolling dinner stations and beat the crowd. There was a pasta station, a mashed potato martini station, sushi (ok, but not the best), and the roast beef!! OMG, that was, as Don puts it, fiendishly good! In fact, he had a few servings of it; though, granted, you didn't get huge slices, just a few thin, medallion-sized slices at once.
We saw a few people I knew and introduced them to Don. Wasn't till we finished dinner and went walking around did I see more people. First one I saw was Adina, but her boyfriend hadn't arrived yet since he'd just gotten off work. There were other Interactives there, but they were all scattered and we saw people one or two at a time as we wandered. Mostly, it was Adina and my bosses I wanted Don to meet, but I only saw my creative director, not the two assistant creative directors. There were so many people there! I even ran into a couple of people I worked with at Organic back in 1999 who now work for Doner. And I also ran into this woman, Michelle, who was the woman who recruited me at Quicken Loans. She recognized me instantly, though I didn't remember what she looked like since I'd only met her in person like once before.
It was pretty cool because you could walk around all the galleries and look at all the art. We didn't care for the abstract stuff and I didn't particularly care for the paintings--it's not my favorite form of artwork. I like photography and some sculpture. Though, I do like the Monet paintings. It was kind of neat because walking around brought back memories of being there with my mom. The room they had the dessert in was the room she and I had lunch in the day we went to see the Van Gogh exhibit years ago.
There was one room that they'd decorated with gold coin-like things hanging from the ceiling...it reminded me of the Great Hall of Hogwarts and the transparent ceiling through which you can see the stars or when it appears to be snowing in the room. They had a couple of screens where you could play Guitar Hero III and Guitar Hero 80's version. I only played one song--Twisted Sister's I Wanna Rock, which was so easy, it was easier than anything on Guitar Hero II. Plus, they had the volume too low; it was hard to hear what you were doing.
There was supposed to be a speech by the CEO, but he talks so low and the crowd was so noisy, you couldn't hear anything he said. But I found out my creative director won an award. I didn't see his speech though. By then, it was about 10:00 and my feet were starting to hurt and I think Don had had enough of the crowd, so we decided to go home to sit in the hot tub, which felt SO good in the winter cold! I think he had an alright time, but it was probably more fun for me since I knew people. I'm waiting for next week when our team has its own holiday bowling party. That'll be a blast!
Posted by Amy at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2007
Long Live the King
Today is King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 80th birthday. King Adulyadej is the king of Thailand. I found out that not only is his birthday one day before my brother's birthday (Happy Birthday, Oupie!), he is also the world's longest serving monarch. How cool is that!
I remember when I was in Bangkok 10 years ago, and the country was celebrating his 70th birthday. They erected huge and very flattering images of him all over the city. That's on top of the normal Thai custom of displaying the King's and Queen's pictures in your house as an homage and a sign of loyalty to a very beloved leader.
In Thailand (formerly known as Siam, which means I am Siamese if you please), it is the custom when paying respect to the Buddha that you bow on the floor 3 times to the Buddha and 3 times to any monk or nun. Because the King and Queen are so revered, they are considered demi-gods. So in their presence, you bow to them in the same manner you would to the Buddha or the monks/nuns, but you bow only once.
Though Thailand is led by a monarchy, the country has been run as a democracy since the 1980s with the royal family acting as respected figureheads. This doesn't mean they don't have power or say in what happens in government. In fact, I think part of the reason last year's military coup ended was because the King publicly denounced it. And to disobey the king would almost be considered sacrilege. I've even heard stories of people going to jail for defacing or vandalizing his picture.
Another very interesting fact about Thailand is that during the rule of the nine kings, it has never been ruled by another country such as India was once ruled by Britain.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej is also referred to as King Rama IX, the ninth king to serve the country. ("Rama" means king and is a term taken from the Hindu god Rama.) He has been serving Thailand for 61 years now. So I'd like to wish him a happy birthday--long may he live!
Posted by Amy at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2007
Flooded Basement
Ahhh, the joys of homeownership...NOT! So yesterday, as you may know, rain was pouring all day long. Actually, DOWN-pouring is more like it. Luckily, when we moved in, Don was wise enough to get a backup system installed for our sump pump so that if the power ever goes out (which it did momentarily yesterday), the pump would still work.
So you'd think we'd NEVER get a flooded basement. Wrong! We got home about 9:30 or 10:00pm and didn't see the basement for at least a half hour that the basement was flooded. The sump pump was working just fine and so, I'm sure, was the backup system. But what broke was the hose clamp. We had water shooting all over the storage room floor and soaking well into the carpet of our family room. Luckily, we don't have too much stored right on the floor so nothing important was damaged. Even the stuff inside the boxes that got wet was undamaged, though the boxes are unusable, but so what. Thank god it didn't get to any of our expensive electronics, like our big screen TV or our computer (which was plugged into a surge protector laying on the carpet just where the water stopped).
The only bad part was that I had to spend two solid hours last night till past midnight sucking up the water with our carpet cleaner (another one of Don's INCREDIBLY wise purchases). The reservoir in that thing only holds about a gallon or a gallon and a half, so I had to empty out that thing about 20 times, the first several times having had to empty after only a couple of passes over the soaked area! You should have seen how fast that thing filled up. For those of you who know what our basement looks like, the water had reached all through the storage room and into the family room just before the loveseat and just to the edge of the bar. It also reached about a 1/3 of the way into the office. Don had to move his book cases since it seeped beneath the bottom of the dividing walls.
Don used the shop vac to vacuum the water from the storage room floor and went out at about 11:30pm to see if Meijer's had a dehumidifyer; unfortunately, they didn't. But we got most of the water out and put 2 fans and a heater in the basement, so I guess a dehumidifyer isn't an urgently immediate need, though we'll still probably get one today. I'm hoping it'll be mostly dry by tonight.
Ugh! What a pain in the ass!!
Posted by Amy at 09:55 AM | Comments (2)