The move was on schedule as expected at the start of the day today with Comcast scheduled to arrive for the new installation between 8 and 11 am.  I was stuck waiting for the technician to arrive to install the cable TV equipment and especially the cable modem for the Internet service.  When they had not arrived by 12:30 I called Comcast and after a 5 minute menu system I finally got a real live person.  They checked their system and all they could tell me was that the techs had not cancelled my scheduled service so they would be out later. 

Back to waiting for them to arrive and by 5 pm another call was in order.  They were terribly sorry for missing the scheduled visit so they were issuing a $20 credit and escalating the installation.  Someone would call within 30 minutes to let me know when to expect them to come out.  It is now 3 hours later and I’ve not heard from anyone so not only do I not have service but at this point I have no idea when they are going to reschedule the installation.  Now that’s Comcastic.

So you’ve waited patiently for T-Mobile to roll out a 3G network. You’ve stuck with them through thick-and-thin and you even have enough friends to use the "MyFaves" feature. But T-Mo just isn’t buttering your biscuit and you want to switch to a new Treo 800w or (dare I suggest it?) an iPhone 3G. Sorry Mr. or Ms. Commitment: you’ve got time left to serve on your contract.

What’s that? T-Mobile is increasing their per-message SMS rates on August 29th from $0.15 to $0.20 a pop? Well now, that just might change things, no? If you’re on a unlimited messaging plan already, you’re still behind bars, but if not, this price increase could be construed as a material change to that ol’ contract. Meaning: you might be able to sneak out faster than a drive-through divorce court in Vegas without paying an ETF or Early Termination Fee. Any takers?

Must be an "alpha" day because this is yet-another pre-beta today. It’s still exciting news though since up to now Mobipocket was absent from regular or feature phones that support Java (J2ME). If you have a device that can run it, you can find the software right here. It bears repeating: this is an alpha, so it’s clearly a first-look and you should expect bugs. In fact, you won’t even get support from Mobipocket, so only the adventurous need apply.

This current version was developed for Sony Ericsson Phones, so if you have a different brand, you’re likely to be limited to free books only. Regardless of your handset, this is great news considering how many phones out there support J2ME. Good on you Mobipocket!

(via Mobile Read)

I’ve only been using it for a few hours but I’ll offer up my initial impressions of the BlueAnt Z9i Bluetooth headset.  It’s very small and so light that I don’t realize it’s on after just a minute of putting it in my ear.  It comes with two earpieces for a proper fit and a loop over the ear for security.  It also comes with a second clear plastic ear loop for those who don’t want others to know they have an ear loop on.  There is a tiny A/C adapter for dedicated charging and it also comes with a short USB cable for charging the Z9i on a PC so you can leave the adapter at home.  That’s pretty much all there is to tell.  The audio quality so far has been good and the dedicated volume buttons easy to use while wearing the Z9i.  The ant logo flashes blue when it’s on and connected to a phone.  It also shines red when charging until fully charged when the LED goes out.

I haven’t tried the dual phone usage yet but will do so as I use it more.  It’s definitely smaller and better looking than the original model Jawbone I have which is pretty big and ugly.  I’ll keep using the BlueAnt and report back as time passes.

Has it really been 24 days or so that I’ve been living inside a web browser? Luckily there’s plenty of air in here. I’m not ready to rejoin the client application world just yet, so I wanted to share a fantastic extension for Firefox that has noticeably improved my Gmail experience. It’s called Better Gmail 2 and it’s actually a compendium (ohh! word of the day!) of functions that was put together by Gina Trapani of Lifehacker fame. I don’t use all of the features (yet), but some of key, useful ones I’ve enabled include:

• Forcing the more secure, encrypted connection for Gmail. A must for mobile device users hopping from hotspot to hotspot.
• Mail composotion in Gmail when clicking a mailto: link. No need for Outlook to pop open everytime right? Come to think of it, I might free up some space and remove Outlook. Yup, crazy silly, I know.
• Show attachment icons… it’s nice to see a little JPG or PDF icon instead a paper clip.
• Hiding my Spam Count and Invites Box. Seriously, do I NEED more pressure in my life? I don’t think so.
• Changing the Gmail Labels into "Folders" by showing a hierarchy. Yes, it’s just a visual change but when you’re used to folders and sub-folder organization, you want to see folders and sub-folder organization.
• HTML signatures. Just because I love to send my cartoon head over to places around the world. Seriously, there’s plenty of good usage for an HTML sig… your company website, Skype name, etc…

Gina gave the extension an update earlier this month, so it works fine with Firefox 3. There are plenty more nuggets of productivity in there, but I don’t want to spoil all of the exploration for you. If you’re a regular user of Gmail on Firefox, I highly recommend the 199 KB download.

Allegedly there’s just a few weeks left to wait for the Palm Treo 800w. What’s a mobile tech geek to do while waiting? Dig around the rumor-mill, of course! Actually, since we’re so close the anticipated launch date of July 13th, I gather that most of this info is more fact that rumor. Here’s some additional deets on the next Windows Mobile Treo from Treonauts:

• 333 MHz CPU on the inside, which is the fastest yet in a WinMo Treo if memory serves. Why no 424 MHz or better?
• Speaking of memory: 256 MB is pretty reasonable for a Windows Mobile 6.1 device.
• 320 x 320 for the display, an improvement over prior 240 x 240.
• EV-DO Rev. A, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0, and GPS… although if when this phone shows its face on Verizon you might see that GPS function disappear or add an additional monthly charge to use
• Goodbye standard headphone jack, hello mini-USB port. Ugh… I’m just not a fan of this HTC "innovation" but I understand design constraints.

Overall, if these and the additonal specs are correct, this is nice looking package for the expected $249. Battery and talk-time are still up in the air, but otherwise, everything else loooks pretty solid. Do we have any Sprint folks eagerly awaiting this handset or is the lack of MMS support putting you off?

MSI has the mini-notebook to beat right now in the Wind and earlier this year they announced they would be producing a desktop version of the Wind for the Asian market.  Engadget is reporting that the Wind desktop will be hitting the market in September and will be sporting the same Intel Atom mobile processor, 1 GB of RAM, 160 GB hard drive and Windows XP for about $300.  Color me confused but I still don’t see the point of putting a mobile processor designed for low power consumption into a desktop configuration.  Maybe I’m missing something?

Sure the Wind desktop is cheap at $300 but why not just pick up one of these Lenovo desktops for $379?  It comes with real desktop components along with the performance those provide for not much more money.  Am I missing something?

Think you’ve got more street smarts than the Dash Express GPS? You can now prove you mettle thanks to the June 2008 update for the Internet-connected navigational device. I’ve read some reports from Dash users that the re-routing sometimes doesn’t make sense, so obviously those folks have a little local knowledge of their own. The new MyRoute feature leverages those preferred routes and shortcuts so the device will actually learn from them for future use. Hey, technology is great but a little human intervention can make a good thing better, right?

Also included in this software update is a "Search along route" function and various performance enhancements including the FasterFind feature powered by SiRFInstantFix technology. The updated Dash will download location information at regular intervals to assist with GPS fixes in areas of low signal.

The first item up for review has already reached the new Mobile Tech Manor and I’ll be giving it a look today for future publication.  The folks at BlueAnt have sent a Z9i Bluetooth Headset with a dual microphone for advanced noice cancellation.  The Z9i will have a tough time competing with the Jawbone headset I got for free at the CES during their promotion but it’s smaller and lighter so we’ll see how it does.  The cool thing the Z9i does that the Jawbone doesn’t is maintain pairing with two phones and you can toggle between them on the fly.  I’ll give it a go and meantime here’s a photo of the little BlueAnt:

I have said it before and I’m sure I will say it again, the only distinguishing features the increasingly large crop of mini-notebooks have over their "normal" laptop cousins are size and price.  Let’s face it, mini-notebooks are just laptops with lots of the same features as their bigger siblings, albeit often lesser capable.  The mad rush from folks like Asus to keep making mini-notebooks bigger and bigger remove one of the those features, size.  The bigger the mini-notebook, the more like the bigger laptops they compete with.  Along with making those minis bigger we are finding higher and higher pricing creeping into the mix.  Remove feature advantage #2 I mentioned.  That leaves you with a mini-notebook that is not much smaller and not much cheaper than the bigger laptops on the market.  Niche removed.

Don’t believe me that there are many cheap laptops available that can compete with (and outperform) these larger minis?  Here’s a quick look around the laptopscape this morning:

Best Buy
Compaq Presario- Dual core AMD, 2 GB RAM, 250 GB HDD, Vista.  $499.

Circuit City
Acer Extensa- Dual core Intel, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD, Vista.  $479.

Dell
Inspiron- Intel Celeron, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HDD, Vista.  $499.

Newegg
Toshiba- Intel Dual core, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, Vista.  $549.

These are 4 full-sized laptops with good specifications that are cheaper than $600.  I found these with only five minutes of searching and from major retailers.  Sure, they are not as small nor as light as even the bigger mini-notebooks but they can run rings around them as a rule.  So as minis get bigger they start to compete with these cheap laptops.  The market may just shrink smaller as a result.