Posts from — November 2009

Book roundup:
1. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz: B-
2. Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson: B+
3. Spook Country by William Gibson: B
4. Empathy by Sarah Schulman: B+
5. Jokes and the Unconscious by Daphne Gottlieb and Diane DiMassa: A
6. Gommorah by Robert Saviano: C

Stuff I’ve acquire recently that I hope turns out to be better reading material than this last crop:
1. Kingdom Come
2. Gravity’s Rainbow
3. The Hikiteia
4. Blood Meridian
5. The Mere Future
6. The Library at Night

Spoilers in the reviews ahead.

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After I left the States and started working from home, I couldn’t justify owning a cell phone. I love cell phones, but it’s sorta stupid to pay for one if you never leave the house and you don’t actually know anyone to call. I promised myself that when I got a new job, my reward to myself would be a brand spankin’ new cell phone. Well, I recently got a job that will take me out of the house, and that, along with the addition of new Canadian friends with whom I would like to converse, has led me to purchase a new cell. I had been in withdrawal and have since become obsessed with my new phone, now known in our household as “the mistress.”

In an attempt to prevent myself from boring my friends to tears with constant prattling about my exciting new phone, I have decided to write a review here. I usually find myself frustrated with tech reviews – they’re either too technical or not technical enough and they never give me the information that I really want about how I’m going to use the product. So here is the review that I would have loved to read before purchasing this phone:

So, the phone is the HTC Dream Smartphone, which quite possibly is known by other names outside of Canada, but I’m not sure exactly what. It runs on the Google Android platform and it has been added to my Rogers plan. Now, a word about Rogers. I know it’s the evil empire, I do. However, if the evil empire is going to provide such good service, well, I am all for it! When we had Bell, we were constantly losing either the TV or the Internet and got nothing but nastiness from the customer “service” staff. With Rogers there have been no problems. They pick up their phone, they send out technicians, they are friendly and nice and efficient. At the odd time that they make an error, it is corrected quickly and apologized for with free channels. They keep adding new services, like this new and wonderful ability of the TV to show caller display. You can use the remote to send the call directly to voice mail! I love it. They now own my cable, internet, land line and cell phone life. All Hail Rogers.

So anyway, back to the phone. The main reason I wanted this phone was basically because I wanted an iPhone, but with a full QWERTY keyboard. I have made attempts at texting on the iPhone touchscreen and they haven’t ended well, but the HTC Dream, although it is a bit bigger and clunkier than the iPhone, has a full keyboard, allowing me to type with ease AND without losing a chunk of the screen to a digital keyboard. Also, iPhones and Blackberries are EXPENSIVE and the HTC Dream was on special with Rogers (ALL HAIL) for thirty bucks.

I also wanted the phone because it runs on the Google Android platform, and I am Google’s bitch. I already have a love affair with Google Search, Google Maps, Google Translate, Google Reader, and the email, calendar and contacts built into Gmail. The Android platform taps into all of these web based services, automatically syncing my email, my contacts and my calendar with the phone. No annoying entering of contact info or fretting over incompatible programs! And, if the phone dies, my info won’t be lost! Many of the applications available on the Android Market also take advantage of the connection with Google. More on that later.

I don’t have any photos of hardware, those are all much better represented by the HTC website, but here’s my personal home screen after a few weeks of messing around with the customization:

The phone is really easy to use and allows the user to navigate with the touch screen, the trackball, or the keyboard. Handy! This is the main screen that you see when you turn on the phone. The menu bar displays notifications, whether text messages, emails, or announcements from programs that are running. It also shows signal strength, GPS signals, and the wi-fi connection. Just below that, the phone has a built in Google search window! You don’t even have to bother opening the browser, it’s just right there, waiting to settle bets in bars!
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