Category: music

6 September 2009

Twitter and The Mix Tape

Filed under: music,social networking,twitter - 06 Sep 2009

Back when I was in college, I had a stereo with a dual cassette recorder and a CD player. This was fairly common back in the early 1990s. The king of “personal music devices” back …

1 August 2009

Review of Sony Ericsson W995A

Filed under: gadgets,mobile phones,music - 01 Aug 2009

The folks at Sony sent me a Sony Ericsson W995A to review. This is the first time I have actually used a Sony Ericsson product, so this is as much a review of the specific handset as it is the experience of using Sony Ericsson products in general.

The phone came in a FedEx box and was clearly used in other reviews. It came with a USB cable, a power charger, an inactive T-Mobile SIM card, and a CD with their version of PC Suite and other documentation.

The phone did not come charged, so it would not power up out of the box. I figured the USB cable would work for charging the phone, but not so. Instead, if you want the phone to be charging AND hooked up to the computer at the same time, you have to daisy-chain the USB cable into the power cable, which has a convenient port on the back of the plug for this purpose. This is worse than having a separate plug for charging the phone!

Plugged In, Sony Style

The phone also did not come with any memory installed. Worse, it uses a proprietary Sony-only memory format. Not having any Sony Ericsson phones around, this means either suffering without a memory card or spending money on a 8GB Memory Stick Micro so I can review a phone I will be sending back in less than two weeks.

One other thing about the phone I received–it was a prototype unit. Why am I getting prototype units when the phone is supposedly shipping? Am I looking at production software? How much does the build quality differ from this prototype with the real production?

So we haven’t gotten into actually using the device yet, and there are already three strikes against the device–strikes Sony PR could have easily corrected by ensuring I got a production model, the phone was charged when I got it AND included some sort of memory card with the device. It really makes me appreciate the work that Andy Abramson’s team at Comunicano does with the Nokia blogger relations program, who truly sets the standard for how these kinds of programs should be run.

Meanwhile, I only tested a few specific areas of the phone: the camera, the media player, and the web browser. I go into some detail after the jump.

1 July 2009

I Ordered an iPhone, or Why Hell Froze Over Today

Despite my previous objections with the way Apple controls the App Store, not to mention my general preference for buttons over a completely touch interface, I am throwing in the towel, putting down my credit card, and buying an …

3 October 2008

Miscellany From The Inbox

It keeps coming:

Mobivox Unveils Voice-Activated Mobile Services Platform: This is primarily geared at service providers. While I think their platform is good, as it contains thinks like voice-activated dialing and call control, group calling, and voice-to-SMS, and voice-to-email messaging, …

27 August 2008

It Looks Just Like A Telefunken U47!

Filed under: classic gadgets,music - 27 Aug 2008

If you’ve ever listened to the album Joe’s Garage by Frank Zappa–highly recommended–you’ve heard the phrase “It looks just like a …

17 August 2008

Last.fm More Popular Than Ever

Filed under: music,Services - 17 Aug 2008

I have admittedly been a late comer to last.fm, but lately, I’ve found myself using it more than I ever thought I would. I’m not sure if it’s the new interface or that I finally figured out what value …

9 August 2008

Radius Atomic Bass Headphones

Filed under: headphones,music - 09 Aug 2008

The folks from Radius Products sent me a pair of their Atomic Bass headphones to review when I was writing for The …

7 August 2008

Mobbler: Finally, a Use for last.fm!

Filed under: music,nokia,software - 07 Aug 2008

Mobbler - Share on OviI know a lot of people like last.fm, but I really just don’t see what value it has for …

28 May 2008

Google Reader, iPhone Edition, on my Nokia Nseries Handsets

Filed under: blogging,music,Services,software - 28 May 2008

Google Reader iPhone On S60 - Share on OviOne of the ways I passed the time while my son is …

20 May 2008

So Why Not iTunes?

Filed under: entertainment,itunes,mac,music - 20 May 2008

I have a couple of Macs–and a lot of PCs. While I don’t listen to music that often, I have collected quite a bit of it–mostly on these plastic disks called CDs. Some of you might have heard of them …

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