11.12.08
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First thoughts on the AT&T Fuze

Last night we were out running some errands and were near the AT&T store.  Since we’re looking at getting phones for Christmas for some of our family members we went inside to do some research on phones and family plans.  While there, I asked the guy helping us if he had a Fuze in yet and he pulled one out from under his desk.

I have really wanted to play with one before committing to it.  The Fuze will replace the Tilt (which I didn’t care for) in the AT&T line up and has the TouchFlo interface which has received good reviews.  TouchFlo is supposed to make the Windows Mobile Pro UI easier to use.

The Fuze is slightly smaller than the Tilt and a quite a bit lighter.  That said, it is still fairly heavy and fairly thick.  It would be easier to carry than the Tilt was I am still not sure I’d want it in my pocket.

Before I make a final verdict, I want to go back and play with it again.  I had three of my children with me so I couldn’t give it my full attention but I found the TouchFlo interface interesting but not real intuitive and surprisingly, not real easy to use.  I couldn’t make it work consistently.  However, the Sales Rep could so it must require some practice to get used to it.

11.06.08
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Got my new laptop

I received my new Dell E4300 last Friday and over the weekend I got all of my applications installed.  Tuesday night I copied over my 125GB of data (I really need to delete some stuff) and I have been using it ever since.  I even sent the M1210 I had been using back to our IT guy so I am committed.

For the most part I like it.  Mine has 4GB RAM, 250GB HDD, internal AT&T BroadBand card, the bright blue case.  About the only thing I am not thrilled with is the Dell Connection Manager.  It takes over the function previously supplied by AT&T’s BroadBand Connect software.  The Dell application is clunky and it is constantly asking me to create a profile.  I don’t want a profile, I just want a connection!

I definitely like the size and weight.  There should be no problem working with it on an airplane.  I really like the ambient light keyboard too.  At first I thought it only had one USB port which would have been a real bummer but it turns out it has a dual function eSATA/USB port on the left hand side so it has two USB ports.  I typically use a BlueTooth mouse with it so I don’t think only having two ports will be an issue.  I may pick up a USB ExpressCard anyway for the odd time I need more.

11.06.08
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A little forward progress

This evening I gave a co-worker a ride home so we were out of the office earlier than I typically leave.  I wanted to play golf this morning but didn’t have enough time so as I was headed home, I stopped at MDCC and played 4 holes.  The first four holes make a nice short circuit – it is a reasonably short walk from the fourth green back to the club house.

I hit the ball much better today than I did last week at Croasdaile.  I only had one really shanked shot and playing by myself allowed me to drop a few balls and hit the same shot several times.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous – I wish I had more time and more daylight!  No chance to play tomorrow either, too many conference calls early and late in the day to play.  Next week …  At least I feel a little less discouraged than I did on Friday.

11.03.08
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Still lusting after the Sony-Ericsson XPERIA X1

I still want to see one of these phones.  I just read a review on PocketNow.com which proclaims the X1 as the best Windows Mobile device ever.  There are a ton of pictures and videos in the review and the lack of one handed use still concerns me.  It is nice to see that it weighs much less than the AT&T Tilt which is really a heavy phone.  I recall reading somewhere that the X1 US carrier announcement should come out this week and I think it will be T-Mobile because my contact at AT&T has told me they aren’t going to have it.  Bummer.  I am also looking forward to seeing the AT&T Fuze which should be available in the next week or two as well.

11.01.08
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My Dell E4300 arrived!

Yesterday I received my new Dell E4300 laptop.  I ended up getting a blue one with a builtin AT&T BroadBand card (replacing the webcam) and 4GB of RAM.  I am now in the process of moving my life from one laptop to another, a process which will take me a couple of days.  I have most of the applications installed again, will probably copy my data over tonight.

11.01.08
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Another Poor Round

I played at Croasdaile Country Club yesterday morning with some of our customers.  I like the course and have played there a couple times.  It was 15 degrees colder in Durham yesterday morning than it was in Cary and we had an 8:30 tee time.  I had gone to the gym ahead of time and didn’t think it would be that cold so I had shorts on when I got there.  It was 37!  Yikes.  Good thing I had on a thermal shirt!

I started out ok but promptly dumped a ball in the water on #2 with a poor tee shot.  That tee shot was somewhat indicative of the rest of the day, I was really getting under the ball a lot and popped a bunch of shots up in the air, even with my hybrid clubs which I can usually hit decently.  I also shanked a number of shots which results in 2 or 3 to recover from.  Bleh.  All said and done – 103 – 4th round in a row above 100 after playing 5 or 6 in the low 90’s and getting close to breaking 90.

Compared to my last round where I was really spraying it off the tee, I got off the tee ok for the most part.  It was my second and third shots which really gave me trouble today.  I am consistently inconsistent.

10.27.08
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I've lost it!

I seem to have lost all of the progress I was making on the golf course.  I played last Friday  MDCC and shot 103.  I was all over the place, mostly to the right, off the tee again which really makes it hard to score well.

About 14 holes in, I made a slight adjustment, dropping my right foot slightly to force an inside-out swing path.  Once I did this my slice went away and I was off the tee correctly (down the middle) on all but one of the last 5 holes.  My putting however, was poor, so even though I wasn’t playing out of the woods, I wasn’t scoring very well either.  I think it is time to go back and take a tune up lesson or two to identify where I my swing is flawed, trying to fix it in real time on the golf course isn’t the best way to fix it!

On the plus side, it was absolutely gorgeous day, a little chilly perhaps which is why the course was empty.  As poorly as I played we still played in 3 1/2 hours which is always nice.

10.20.08
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Progress on Meet Events

Saturday morning I had a little time to work on wp-SwimTeam and started working on managing events for a particular swim meet.  As I had noted in another post, the idea is to import a set of standard events and then tweak them.

For the most part I have it working but now it needs some clean up.  The way WordPress loads up pages means you have to monitor the URL if you need to append GET values to control the flow for the user.  I had to work this out when I implemented to tabbed UI and now will have to do something similar for meet events.  Right now the meet id gets appended to the URI and by repeating a set of actions as you modify meet events, it can end up repeated N number of times.  Once I get that worked out, I think I will be ready to import meet results.

10.20.08
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Fog on the lake this morning

We had a very cool evening (about 35 degrees) last night so when I drove to work this morning, the fog over Lake MacGregorIMG_0228 was pretty thick.  I stopped and took this picture.  It was taken with my daughter’s Canon Powershot A530 which is an older camera 5MP that she isn’t using any more.  I thought it was broken but went ahead and put some batteries in it and it works fine so I have kept in my car for about a week now.  It isn’t anything special but it is handy to have something on hand to take pictures like this.