I’m on the last leg of my vacation trip, and finally have some time to sit down and reflect on my experiences so far, especially when it comes to blogging about it all.

Rather than use an iPhone (which are not hearing aid compatible and relies on the crappy AT&T network), I went with the next best thing, an iPod Touch that I tether to my PDA Phone using Verizon’s Broadband Connect. This way I have the advantage of using a faux iPhone on the Verizon network, as well as access to the Internet wherever I had a signal. I didn’t have to worry about motels or restaurants not offering wifi for my laptop either, since I could tether my laptop to my phone instead.

As far as connections go, Verizon gets an A here. There were times when I completely lost the signal, but I was so far high up in the mountains that it was to be expected. If I had to guess, I’d say I had a signal and access to the Internet virtually 99 percent of the time. Total WIN there. It makes liveblogging or livetweeting my experiences as they happen as easy as pie. Mmmmmm, pie…

Many of the apps on my iPod relies on geolocation to work ideally, especially Google Maps, and as long as I was in New York this wasn’t a problem. It was amazingly accurate in pegging my location, despite the fact that the iPod had no GPS chip.

That is, until I wound up in Massachusetts. Then the iPod went from thinking I was in Martha’s Vineyard, to thinking I was in Seattle.

Despite being unable to track me, I could still use Google Maps manually instead of having to rely on paper maps, except that it incessantly flashed popups telling me it could not locate me, even though I was not using the geolocation feature, and I couldn’t find any way to disable it either. I already know you can’t locate me, there’s no need to tell me that a hundred times a minute. Yeesh.

The net result of all this was a ton of wrong turns, missed exits, and complete absurdity when I came across a street in Google maps that simply did not exist in real life. FAIL

So it looks like I will have to supplement my iPod with a bonafide GPS device now. The TomTom is working on an iPod dock for the future, though I don’t know how reliable it will be, and I hear Garmin is better for the USA. A speakerphone would also be a bonus, as it would negate the need to get a headset (I’ve been thinking about getting one, but the only time I would really need it is for when I’m driving.) Something to research for the future, for sure. In the meantime, if any of you use GPS devices, I could use some advice on what you think worked the best.

Other than that, the iPod was very useful for finding points of interest, though it tended to be a hit or miss thing. Some things worth checking out wouldn’t be listed, so I always had the feeling that I was missing something right under my nose. As far as locating highly rated hotels in the area, the Simultravel app I was using for that gets an F for EPIC FAIL. It only listed a fraction of the hotels within the area I was in, making the effort of locating a good place to stay for the night on the fly a monumentally hair tearing experience. I ended up going back and forth from using Google Local to surfing TripAdvisor all on my iPod’s Safari browser, and since TripAdvisor is a slow and bloated site to begin with, just trying to find a place to stay on the go proved to be more ridiculously frustrating than it should have been. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon Hotels.com’s tailored made site for the iPhone that finding a place to stay finally became more of a pleasure than a horror. It’s how I found Best Western in Ticonderoga, New York, easily the best hotel I’ve stayed at by far, and while chatting with a friend on Google Talk on lodging ideas and checking my email, I booked a reservation there while I was pulled off the road somewhere south of Burlington, Vermont, doing it all on my iPod. Technology can be truly beautiful sometimes.

As for finding points of interest and dining, I used a combination of Yelp!, Where to? and Google Local to find places worthy of checking out. It made such an impromptu vacation as mine all the more pleasurable and easier to manage.

Finally, I noticed when entering a dining establishment that the first thing I would check for was an electrical outlet to plug my laptop in. LOL My laptop’s battery gives out after only 40 minutes, so it certainly does create a handicap when I’m lugging it around. That MacBook with its 7 hour long battery life can’t come soon enough for me.

As far as the digital/internet side of my vacation goes, I certainly learned a few things that will better prepare me for next time. Another thing I need to get a handle on is how to manage my blogging/social media time. I noticed I spent far too much time responding to tweets and comments when I should have been driving and getting to wherever I was getting. And once the day was spent, I found myself too exhausted to blog about the day’s events while it was still fresh on my mind. Ironically, when I finally had time to recap my vacation experiences so far, I ended up blogging about my third day of vacation, rather than the first day, so my chronology was all out of sorts. I was also using BrightKite to tweet/blog my latest movements, but I only used it intermittently, and there were times when it didn’t go through at all. It made for a disjointed way of getting the crux of my vacation experiences out there for all to read, but since this is all new to me, I’m sure I’ll eventually find my mojo and liveblog my experiences in a more consistent manner.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go light my fireplace.

Tags: battery, blogging, browser, driving, experiences, geolocation, google, google maps, gps, hotels, internet, iphone, ipod touch, laptop, new york, PDA, phone, social media, technology, travel, tweet, vacation, verizon, wifi
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Verizon sucks big hairy monkey’s butt.

I had a battery ordered from an eBay store to replace the dying one I had on my cell now, and I figured it was safe enough because the seller had a near perfect rating from thousands of buyers. Otherwise I’d have to get it from Verizon, which charges a hefty 40 bucks for the same battery (WT*??) This way I was getting it for just 10.

Battery fried my phone. I don’t mean it simply didn’t work: it @#$% NUKED MY PHONE. When I put the original battery back in, it kept giving the error message “Use Genuine Battery,” and then it would power back down. I found out later on that Verizon’s LG line of phones uses a chip in their batteries to prevent customers from purchasing cheaper batteries from third party dealers. Well, isn’t that just lovely?

I took my phone to a service center hoping they could fix the problem. A battery swap didn’t work, so they held onto the phone to see if it could be fixed (maybe by resetting the software). I came back and the Verizon guy simply dropped a crappy replacement phone in my hands, along with a receipt to sign for it.

“Dude, the hell is this? Where’s my phone?”

“Oh, we couldn’t repair it, so we’re giving you a replacement phone.”

I looked at the phone. It had scratch marks all over the screen and looked like it had been used for years.

“This phone isn’t new. I want my old phone back. What about all the contacts and pictures I had on it? That all goes poof, just like that??”

A shrug of the shoulders.

“And this phone is refurbished for crying out loud.”

“No, it’s straight from LG.”

?????

“Yeah, and? It’s still refurbished… you know what, forget it, just give me my old phone back.”

Great service, huh? I decided to try my luck at another service center tomorrow. I have a suspicion they just took the phone, threw it in a drawer, and unwrapped a replacement phone for me without even taking a look at it. I’m hoping another service center might actually try to repair it, or at least give me a better phone.

Even though it really isn’t that big a loss (I could recover my contact list easily enough), the whole thing really chapped my ass for some reason. Maybe it’s the gall of them trying to force me to buy a proprietary battery over three times it’s actual cost. Maybe it’s because I was just having a generally bad day. Or maybe I just hadn’t eaten enough for the day. Or maybe all three.

Update: Since a few visitors are coming here looking for info on the “use genuine battery” message, I should note that if you swap the battery and it still doesn’t work, that message really means, “I’m broken, I need to be replaced, and if your warranty ran out, well too bad for you.” Ironically enough, after I got a replacement phone (with a few days to spare on the warranty), I also got a replacement for the battery that originally fried my old phone, and this one worked perfectly. Go figure. Long story short, if you want to try a third party battery to save money, make sure you back up your contacts, and make sure the phone is still under warranty. Otherwise you’ll be playing Russian Roulette with your cell. Before you do something like that, ask yourself: Do I feel lucky?

Tags: batteries, battery, cell phone, chip, ebay, error message, hell, poof, proprietary, receipt, replacement, shoulders, shrug, suspicion, third party, verizon, Verizon sucks, wt
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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