This past weekend my wifey and I were at Best Buy and I saw something that was kind of dishearting...no candy bar(or I call them block or 1 piece) phones. Everything is flip phone now. I think the only candy bar phones I see now are Smartphones and heaven forbid I'm spending 600 smack-a-roos on the iPhone, as much I a love ya Apple (if I need to check my email and surf the web, this is where my nice 3 pound 12" inch laptop comes into play) and "Pay as you Go" phones. I have the Motorola Razr v3 (thanks to my sweetie pie) and it's cool. It's slender and it fits nicely in my pocket. But I have a couple of issues with it...I'm always hitting the buttons on the side of the phone. At first this was annoying me big time until I finally broke down and got into the habit now of each time I finish talking I lock my keys. This is a good habit to get into because it saves on battery life, accidental dial outs or as some people call it, "butt dialing", and as with the Razr, the buttons on the right side controls the ringing process (i.e. ring, vibrate, silent)Setting the ring tones is a pain: What I mean by this is with my Samsung, or Nokia when you set your phone for vibrate it sets everything for vibrate instead of ringing. Not the Razr, even if your phone is set for Vibrate if you have individual ring tones for different contacts your phone will still ring and if I set the phone for Silent the display is so faint if the phone is sitting flat you may miss a call.Solution: I bought a card holder from Office Depot(take a picture of your card holder without and with your phone inside the holder) which was only about 4 bucks. By the Razr sleekness it fit right inside of the card holder and the slant is perfect for say I can see the display to the phone if I have it set for Silent. Another cool tip: the plus side to the ring tones for the Razr is that it has a ring tone called "Chime low" (which I use this ringtone for my wife and "Chord low" for my geek brother Luis). These tunes are cool setting, especially at work because even if you walk away from your desk and your phone rings the sound is very low and will not disturb your coworkers around you. ^_^To be honest I'm getting tired the flip phones period. I believe Nokia at this moment make block phones but my provider is Sprint so that's no good for me. AT&T (Cingular) I believe only carry Nokia phones. I was going to jump ship and head to Cingular but I hear the customer service is just as bad as Sprint. I was thinking maybe I can find a Motorola Slvr on eBay or maybe order it from Motorola itself but then I have to worry about fighting with Sprint to see if they would activate for me. Remember when companies actually used cater to the customers? Now you have to go to war with these cell phone companies to get good service. I could resort to what John C. Dvorak does and just begin using disposable cell phones. Cingular has a pretty cool looking candy bar phone and I think it's made by Motorola. To me the cell phone companies are the new Pimps of the 21st Century. Promise you the moon and then set you out there on your own and we are bringing our hard earned money to our Sugar Daddies. Something gotta change.
I really do not like iTunes 7. I do not wish to use the word "Hate" because that is truly an ugly word. Why can't companies leave some interfaces alone and just work "behind" the scenes. I really liked iTunes 6 because of how each Genre was listed, especially the podcast. With iTunes 6 it made it so simple to see each podcast and make my playlist but with 7 you have to click the arrow in order to see each podcast you have in each section and that I do not like. 
Don't get me wrong, iTunes is a cool little tool but sometimes Steve Jobs can be a "control freak" times 10. I have a mini iPod (which I truly love...I like the weight of it, the size of it, and why on the Nano iPods they put the earphone on the bottom of this mp3 player...what gives!?! I'm not parting with my mini iPod and if it ever goes out I'm going on eBay or Amazon.com to buy another one). I also have a 3 Generation iPod and the battery life on this thing is not so good compared to my 5th generation iPod but one thing it has over my 80GB iPod is this...it works with iTunes 6.
Another reason for my choice for a 4th Generation iPod is the iTunes 7 sets up podcast when it comes to how your podcast play on the iPod. It took me a very long time to set up my podcast to play one after another(at first my podcast would only play one podcast, stop my iPod and I would have to scroll down and push play to begin another podcast). I did not have this problem in iTunes 6 but in iTunes there is a setting where you have to dig inside the iTunes 7 and set it where your podcast will play one after another, which is a pain. Why Apple added this feature is beyond me. I had to go to an Apple Store in order to see how to set my iPod in order to resolve this problem. To hear the Apple employee explain why this feature was added was really sad and humorous at the same time. In all honesty I believe deep down he knew this feature was stupid on Apple's part but could not say this because...he works for Apple. I wonder did Apple do a world wide survey to see if people was having trouble with iTunes 6 or did they want a different interface when it came to iTunes, knowing Steve...no. Steve's motto is "If I want people opinions, I will beat it out of 'em" and that's a shame. I recently read a article on Cnet and one person also said they do not like iTunes 7 and it made me a happy camper because at least I wasn't the only one who feels the same way. 
Another thing I am coming to the realization is that even though I can watch video on my iPod or have cables(which I have) that I can watch the videos on our television if I wish but I rarely do this. I was listening to MacBreak Weekly (which by the way was a great show...I am finding myself digging MacBreak Weekly more and more)and Scott Bourne said something that was really funny and very true...he recently bought several iPhones and he said watching video on the iPhone compared to the video iPod what was he thinking when he bought the video iPod? I don't know if he was serious but he mentioned about going on eBay to get rid of his video iPod and I can relate to that in some way. I'm kind of thinking the same thing now. So I think the next iPod I will seek will be a 4th Generation iPod. While scrolling through Amazon.com I noticed that the iPods really hold their value so to me that is a good thing. I believe that is just a photo iPod which is cool but I want this iPod because I believe it will work with iTunes 6.Some people like iTunes 7 but I don't. I have said this numerous of times but the geekier I become the less "eye candy" I need. I love Apple products but even with Apple they need to learn sometimes to leave well enough alone. Hopefully next week I will head to the Apple store and have my battery replaced in my mini iPod and that will truly be a joy for me because with 6gigs that is perfect for my podcasts. In a nutshell, I'm happy with my iPods but not the tool I have to use.
to download older version of iTunes you can go here
little Windows info... internet-nexus.com(Paul Thuerott's blog) ideas.live.com(if you are brave enough to try beta products for Windows)www.getlive.com
I am really hooked on Windows Weekly with Paul Thurott and Leo Laporte. I have been looking for links to add to my blog for Windows and for now these will have to do. (It's amazing I can find a ba-gillion sites for Apple and not for Windows) .
