Finally a Speakerphone That Works - Motorokr T505

I vote Bluetooth as one of the most bothersome consumer wireless protocols to date. Yes, some may argue there may have been others, but none have really caused as much frustration for me as the damn Bluetooth headset for my cellphone.

I used one for almost a year with all the irritations that came with it - Needed to charge it using a tiny charger tip that was unique to the device, people on the other end could not hear me when the battery was low, the thing would not fit in my ear properly, and always had the nagging feeling a device transmitting at 2.4GHz almost half inserted into my brain was doing a better job at cooking my brain!

Recently, with some of my team members at work situated in Ireland, morning conference calls have been plenty. And of course, they have to coincide with my commute to work (yes, I know, those who know me point out its not really a "morning" commute!). Having given up on BT headsets, I reverted back to the old faithful, yet unfitting-in-my-tiny-ears wired headset that came with my Blackberry. But the wire dropping down the side of my face, and getting entangled with the rest of the wires in my car was still irritating. Ok, enough background. I have now found, bought, used, and tested the perfect device for my car. The Motorokr T505 Bluetooth Speakerphone. I vote this to be one of the must-haves for gadget fiends out there. This thing looks like a space-age garage door opener, clips on to the visor, and pairs with your Bluetooth enabled cellphone in a jiffy. The device has a built-in speaker that is amply loud and clear (mind you, louder than the speaker on the Blackberry 8800 which many believe to have one of the best spearkerphone capabilities). The microphone is sensitive, and in a few conversations, the person on the other end could not tell I was on a speakerphone. The T505 packs in impressive echo and noise cancellation that helps you be heard clearly on the other end without any annoying feedback. Now, here is the kicker -- you can press a button on the device, a sexy British woman's voice announces an unused FM radio station that the device dynamically finds and starts transmitting at, for your car's radio. This allows the speakers of your car to take over -- the person you are talking to can be heard over the car's audio system, while the microphone on the device continues functioning. Voila! There you go -- fancy car bluetooth system that you can use even in your Ford Pinto! Trust me the device works well.

A few things I wish it had -- should have given you the choice of your own FM station, a little LCD screen to show the frequency, the power ON and the FM station buttons on the front of the unit.
Sidenote: It will also transmit over the air any music from your phone to the FM station; that is if your phone has audio over Bluetooth.
Check out other specs here and buy from Amazon (thats where I found it to be the cheapest).

PS: I don't work for Motorola although this blog post makes it look like they paid me fifty bucks to write this post.

Quite Fast on FastCompany

You know a social networking effort is in its infancy when my blog with only two posts shows up as one of the Featured Blogs! A few weeks back I had talked about how FastCompany had jumped on the social bus, with social networking type features including a blogging engine for anyone and everyone to write. So in a fit of experimentation, I started one on there. But quite amusing to see how it made it to the "top of the charts" so to say. So take a look at the screen shot to the left of this post in case you are too lazy to follow the link - and follow the link if you are really interested in knowing what I am writing about. Leave a comment or two. 

Safari, my favorite browser now

I accidentally came across the Safari browser for Windows. My experience with other Apple software I have used in the past, namely iTunes, has been a tad bit frustrating, RAM wise. I was a bit hesitant to download and try the new browser. But then Firefox had become a royal pain in the ass to use (again RAM wise) anyways and I was just looking for a change, something faster, something cleaner, and something that would give me a good viewable area. I looked around the web for reviews on the Windows version of Safari and came across this article. I promptly downloaded the program. Call me a sucker for font smoothing, but when I saw the rendering Safari did for the webpages I was pleased. The browser looks cleaner, gives me more viewing area, and somehow makes reading on the screen much better. I also like how login windows drop down from the top panel, and generally the light blue highlight around text input fields makes me wanna input text...if you know what I mean. Some shortfalls include, no fancy RSS reader (just a simple single page showing the RSS items), no addons a la Firefox, no Sidebar a la Firefox, some websites may not open properly (very rare) and damn, no Google Toolbar available for Safari. But, I like doing more on the web (if you can believe it) via the Safari browser. 

(I dont have an HD TV, but apparently you can browse the web with Safari HD, Apple TV, and nice big HD TV. )

Mint a.k.a. Find out why you are a financial idiot.

Those of you who have been following Techcrunch will probably already know this....Mint is the hottest personal finance management website. I feel less privileged now that the website is letting new users sign-up (I got a Beta invite a few weeks back). But anyways, here is what I found it can do for you. Mint pulls in all the bank statements, credit card statements etc...and shows you a consolidated view of all your money/debts/expenses etc. It shows you graphs of categories of expenses...for e.g., a bar graph of how much money you have spent on entertainment vs. groceries in the past few months. The best part is you don't have to spend any time syncing accounts, or manually pulling in data from different accounts. Once you've set it up you know its going to sync up every night. I noticed a few days ago, it also sends out a reminder for paying your bills if you have online bill payments set up. Sweet! Now the bad part...its now easy to see how idiotic you can be with your spending, in a graphical format.
Mint | Refreshing Money Management

No Search for Me

Apple has screwed it's users again. I saw the search feature in Bhai's new iPod Nano, and for whatever reason I was sure Apple released a new firmware update to add the much-needed search feature in all iPods. But, no! I connected my iPod to the computer hoping to get a new software, only to find my iPod was already updated, and didn't have a search feature. First I thought I was doing something wrong....but seriously, where would I go wrong doing something as simple as this. But a little searching on the web revealed that Apple has in fact left this feature out for old iPod users. No seriously, why would I want to buy a new iPod just to get a search feature. Do they really think this feature will be enough for people to upgrade their hardware. I think not! I know a few iPhone users who are pissed off they paid more than folks buying it now. Now, with this, I am pissed too!

Ugly, Ugly, Bollywood Fugly

Not too many times do you see a seriously funny website on Bollywood....you know how most are boring with stolen reviews, wallpapers, pictures, annoying pop-up ads, and lame animated gifs -- but this one really is. It's called Ugly, Ugly, Bollywood Fugly.
Check it out, the webmaster has really spent a lot of time taking those screen shots. I love some of the more obscure oldies and the their take on it!