Bill’s Reals Blog - Scuba, Travel & Gadgets

I bought an iPhone about 4 months ago, it was for my Dad’s b-day but when I learned that he had just re-upped his contract with Verizon; I realized I needed a new gift. Now, I will freely admit to fawing over the thing in the store when I first saw it, but I was able to resist.

However, I didn’t return it, I kept it and here’s why: it’s the best phone on I’ve ever used.

This is saying a lot. I should explain that I’ve been using cell phones since the beginning, in fact my part time job in high school was selling cell phones. This means that I’ve owned A LOT of cell phones over the years, including at least 5 “smart phones”. I owned a Sidekick, Sony P800, 4 Blackberries and numerous flip phones.

So, it’s surprising that I would like the iPhone this much but I did, I should have been jaded to the lack of certain key features, the locking to one cell phone provider and the lack of a user replaceable battery.

But it didn’t, I love the thing. From it’s amazing web browser, wifi abiltiy, and easy of use. And not to mention but it’s also a great media player.

I do wish it had Microsoft Active Sync support, a video camera, had better 3rd party application support and wasn’t locked to AT&T for service.

All and all, I’m happy I kept it.

I saw this on TV the other night, it’s called Endless Ocean and it’s a Scuba diving game for the Wii.

Story on MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22921830/

Video of the game on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVTdzVFOsY0

Looks interesting but I’m more of a Half-life, Halo, Guitar Hero/Rock Band type of guy.

Earlier this week, Kanye West and Prodege launched SearchWithKanyeWest.com, it’s basically a branded search engine powered by Google and Ask.

http://www.searchwithkanyewest.com/
Why would you use it?

From the site:

Every time you search the web you have a chance to win Swag Bucks. Swag Bucks are points that can be redeemed for prizes like limited edition Kanye West posters, iPhones, Macbooks, instruments, Amazon giftcards and dozens of other high end goods.

Best Way To Win Swag Bucks

1. Make this search engine your home page and use it when ever you need to search the web
2. Download a search toolbar or plugin
3. Tell Your Friends about this search engine
4. Send in a picture of you with the prize you’ve snagged!

I guess that’s one reason.

I don’t watch much TV on my TV. I have a DVR but my wife is usually recording some reality TV show that I won’t watch. Now, we even have dual tuners in that sucker but who would know that America’s Next Top Model and Survivor would be on at the same time.
I feel in love with Itunes and it’s TV shows that you can purchase and download. What I don’t like is that Apple and NBC couldn’t negotiate contract that kept NBC shows on the wonderful Itunes service.

So when I got my Office Season 4 hankering, I went in search of other online places to get shows. I tried Miro but it was way too slow, I went on Joox.net but they didn’t have the latest episodes and then I found Amazon Unbox.

I actually like the service, sure it’s got the same DRM issues as Itunes but it has the NBC shows and it has a selection of music that is ALL in MP3 format.

The Amazon client, which handles the downloading and playing of the video files, totally sucks but you can play the TV shows with Windows Media Player as well. Why do I purchase TV shows that are shown for free on TV? Simply, my time is worth the $2 a show and really I’m watching them once and then never watching them again.

BoingBoing took Amazon to task over the EULA you sign when you sign-up for the service. Also, the music selection is less then stellar and you can’t purchase video or TV shows that can play on the iPhone/iPod platform. And as mentioned, the software client for Unbox is awful.

However, despite these issues, Unbox feed my impulse purchase hunger and I’ll most likely keep using it for TV shows… that I don’t find on Itunes.

I headed on over to Aquatica’s booth for more photo gear therapy. They had some new lens housings that now features glass instead of poly-carbonate, those are called Megadomes. I love that name.

Also, they were featuring their large magnification eye-piece, Aqua View, that fits most of the current Aquatica housings. These were pretty common sighting now, across most of the manufactures, and were available for most housings out there except for Ikelite, which of course, is the housings I own.

Aquatica’s aluminum housings are well built and good to a depth of 300 feet. I was told that they are developing a line of housings for the entry level DSLR cameras, which should be out later this year/early next year.

I stopped by Light and Motion’s booth to see what they had that was new. The new item was the Titan housing for the Nikon D200, it’s seriously made me consider ditching my trusty Canon 20D and throwing in with the Nikon crowd.

Since they are using the camera’s USB connector to control it, it allowed them to place the buttons and controls in a well thought out and logical order. It also features a large LCD that displays your current f-stop and aperture and the housing feature L&Ms integrated strobe control system, ROC.

They also showed off a Sony HC7 Bluefin video housing that features a touchscreen control which was very cool. I’m amazed at how small the prosumer HD video cameras are getting.

I will say that Paul Barnett was very cool and patient in walking me through the products they had on display.

I have an Ikelite housing and two DS-125 strobes, so I had to go over to Ikelite and see what was new. They had some new housings out for the entry level DSLRs, like the Nikon D-40, and were showing me the new control for the iTTL/eTTL strobes.

They are moving from a set of push buttons, to a dial system that speeds up selection and uses less real estate on the back of the housing.