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Updating the System …
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Tuesday, December 04, 2007A Question Answered ... An Insanely Great Product Review
Howdy folks,
It seems I've made a false promise yesterday. In a response to a comment on Sunday's blog post I promised to get a another post up for tomorrow ... and yet I didn't make it. I was going to, I really was ... but around 9PM last night some malevolent force took over my wireless system and Internet connection and knocked all the computers in my home off-line. I even tried to reset the settings on my Airport but I couldn't get to it via the wireless connection. Then even when the system showed as being connected the connection failed on my browser when I tried to actually get to a website.
FWIW this isn't the first time this has happened either. I'd say that this is a reoccurring issue about every other week. Sometimes for an hour or two, sometimes for the entire evening. But last night was the most consistent and interruptive occurrence to date. Truly a ghost in the machine, and by no means an innocent or benevolent one at that.
Anyway, here I am this morning getting a post up as promised, albeit a day later than expected.
[BTW just as mysteriously as it cutout last night my connection was operating perfectly this morning, with no changes on my end to the system. In fact I'd even say this morning's connection was robust. I think I may have a neighbor who is either a CIA operative or an alien using a powerful wireless disruptor that interferes with my wireless system whenever they turn it on ... which of course happened again around 9PM last night.]
On the theme of technology there was a question posted as a comment to my blog posting of 11 Oct 2007 On The Road. The question was "Why a Blackberry and not an iPhone?" The answer at that time was that I was (and still am) a T-Mobile user and they didn't offer the iPhone. In addition my favorite phone was my Blackberry Pearl, which I still love, but which unfortunately died one month after the warranty ended!!! So I decided that the few things that I didn't love about the Pearl, i.e.: wireless Internet access, a bigger screen for viewing, I'd get in my next phone. For those reasons I decided on the Blackberry Curve, which I think is a great phone (maybe better all around than the iPhone, which I now have ... but that's for a later part of this story). The only issue was the Blackberry Curve was completely unable to sync with my Mac, making all but useless to me for a significant part of it's function to me!!!
So, moving on ... I got an iPhone and signed an agreement with AT&T to activate it. The iPhone is a very cool, very elegant device. And with that said I still think overall for what I do with it the Blackberry Curve may have served me better. Here are my points of comparision:
First, the Blackberry Curve:
Next the iPhone:
So you can see that it comes down to whether you most value the addition of a portable email device or elegant technology as far as I'm concerned. Each have their unique value and place.
Since for me my mobile phone has to be first and foremost a great international mobile phone, then a great email device and finally a great PDA ... in that order ... the Blackberry Curve is a world-class mobile device for my needs. Just the phone issue alone could put it over the top ... generally speaking the phone just works ... I love the VOIP feature (in fact I kept my T-Mobile account just to use that feature with an inexpensive Nokia phone from them for just that purpose), the built in speaker is well designed and works well, voice recognition calls add another great feature that rounds out an all around well designed phone.
On top of being a great phone the Blackberry Curve also provides a great email service that is unmatched by any other I've tried or used ... it just works ... transparently. Then there are the PDA features that while world-class unto themselves are worthless if you can't sync up your computer to your phone ... and ultimately that issue alone killed the Blackberry Curve for me.
On the other hand the iPhone truly is an elegant piece of technology. It's literally a sensuous piece of equipment in every way ... beautiful to look at, perfect video and sound quality, the tactile quality of the phone in use is absolutely intuitive ... I don't know if there's a user's manual but there's no need for one regardless of whether or not it exists. For example you connect the iPhone to a Mac, iTunes opens and the iPhone syncs (you can decide what information you want or don't want to sync, beyond that the process is fully automatic). I bought the compatible Apple Bluetooth earpiece and when you turn on the earpiece with the phone they are synced ... like many things Mac it too just works.
Where the iPhone excels however is not as phone, which it does admirably, e.g.: visual voice mail BRILLIANT!!!. It's not the widescreen iPod function with an automatically adjusting screen that shifts from a portrait to a landscape format automatically when you turn the phone on its side or upright ... although that's quite a clever piece of techno-gadgetry of its own. It's really the Internet function where the iPhone stands alone. The fully functional Safari browser, not a "mobile device browser," really stands out and shines. It's fast, it easy to use, companies like Amazon.com have even built unique, custom website for the iPhone Safari browser.
The single place I think the iPhone misses the mark in comparison with the Blackberry Curve is on the issue of email. Another possible "win" for the Blackberry Curve might be IMing, although there a nice widget webapp for the iPhone that flattens the field on this issue for me. And the iPhone's SMS feature blows away anything available on any other phone I've seen to date.
So it comes down to this ... Do you value the email or Internet experience more? If you answer that question you could in my opinion resolve the choice on that alone. However, if you like me are working in the Mac environment than the choice becomes easily and highly weighted to favor the iPhone ... and that's where i am today.
So a bit of a diversion for you today ... but one that surely can be argued to speak to the issues I regularly address on BlogNostra ... the essential nature of insanely great performance.
Until next time ... thanks for the question Michael, and I hope the wait was worth it ...
Joseph Riggio, Social Ontologist
New York, NY
Ouroboros - The Tail of the Serpent
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Sunday, December 02, 2007Everyone it seems wants to end this year on a high-note and begin the new year on an even better one ... having the best year of your life. Rather than hoping or praying for something remarkable to happen ... organizing from the inside-out provides you with the perfect recipe, one that goes beyond ... way beyond ... any New Year’s resolutions you’ve ever made before.
Howdy ...
It's been a while since I promised "... some interesting "on the road" tidbits soon." However as always "life comes up" even when you don't think it will ... or worst least want it to ...
I often quote from Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie Jurrasic Park when the chaos mathematician Dr. Ian Malcom, played by actor Jeff Goldblum says, "No, I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way." It seems that regardless of what comes up ... "life finds a way." I also find that when "Life comes up ..." folks (including myself) begin to think about "What's next?" ... especially around this time of year.
So I don't know if this means we're at a beginning or an end when this time of year comes around.
Right around now many folks are busying themselves making plans and resolutions about changing things in the upcoming year. These New Year's resolutions are often aimed at ensuring the upcoming year will be the best year ever. Yet, despite the earnest intention of these resolutions they are just as quickly put aside and forgotten before the first month of the New Year passes into memory.
However, the question remains, "What would have to be true to indeed make this year ever ... the one that brings together everything ... the one that proves to be the best year of your life?"
This is what I mean by not knowing if this time of year signals more of a beginning or an end. In many ways I think it most like the ouroboros swallowing itself whole ... tail first. In other words the endless cycle continues anew.
Anyway the ouroboros, at least in the way I'm intending it, provides a perfect metaphor for what's been going on in my own small world. Once again I find myself both resurrected and reinvented ... at one and the same time even more at the beginning of what I'd begun sometime ago.
When I first started this journey it was with a sense of searching for something then unknown to me. Somewhere along the way it became evident that I was on a journey of renewal, renewing my sense of myself ... finding and redefining who I know myself to be. This ignited a greater search for something beyond myself ... something beyond the limits of who I am alone. And, this secondary search opened new vistas of possibility to me ... new ways of knowing about myself, those around me, the cosmos ... and maybe most significantly myself in relation to the entirety of it all.
Simply, what I found was that at some point this relationship ... myself in relation to the entirety ... extends beyond what is, or can be, know by myself alone. At some point the very idea of relationship, or knowing something beyond myself alone, falls away to reveal a singularity. Within the singularity everything simply "is" and no relationship can be possible because only the singularity exists unto itself.
But we should leave that for now, as the intention of my "come back" story inherent in this blog post doesn't lend itself to such an esoteric dialogue. We could move onto the core of the story ... reinvention and renewal. This may be best revealed via some of fundamental questions that opens a door into this domain of consideration:
That should be enough for a start ... enough to give a taste of stepping onto the path that I'm suggesting. It may be obvious that this path leads both in and out, towards and away from the self ... and resides in the present while pointing to the future. Most significantly the path I'm suggesting organizes around the resolution of paradox, jumping logical levels to where the paradox doesn't exist ... or as I like to say, "Going to where the problem is NOT."
Well, I wanted to give a bit of an introduction to begin our dialogue again ... to entice you back into considering the possibilities that may be available for you at the year's end and beginning ...
I've been working hard at putting together a new platform, starting with my website update that we put in place over the summer and have been working on since behind the scenes. This project has been continuing as I've been hard at work redefining and refining my space first in the mythosphere and then readying myself to put it out in the blogosphere ... now my journey with you here begins again ...
So, what say you, will you join me on my journey once again?
Joseph Riggio
Princeton, NJ
PS - I'm cooking up a holiday feast ... new editions of my audio newsletter Uncommon Advice - along with a full calendar of next year's editions, month by month for the whole year just for an appetizer. I've also scheduled some studio time to create some new hypnotic performance products with a new business partner ... and I've been organizing my thoughts for some major writing projects based on my EPC2™ | Million Dollar Business Building Marketing and Sales programs. I'm also scheduled to go to this year's TED.com conference in Aspen, CO as an example of the kind of contacts I've been making ... and there's much more to come.
Stay on top of all this and much more ... subscribe to EPC2™ | Exquisite Performance Tips ... and be the first to get my newest rants as I write them and speak them (as you'll get in my occasional podcasts and videocasts that will be a part of your subscription to EPC2™ | Exquisite Performance Tips) in the upcoming year.
