Cheery Vitriol

My Comcast internet connection has sucked for quite a while. The signal is usually pretty fast, with regular significant dips in speed that usually come back after 30 seconds or so, sometimes as long as a couple of minutes. This is usually not a big deal, but once in a while there’s a significant noticeable lag.

For the past couple of weeks though, it’s been extremely slow (<30Kb!) in the mornings for some reason. It always comes back by around 9am, so by the time I'm at work it's ok. But Friday it pretty much died, with download speeds around 6-20Kb. Just like 1994 all over again. I called Comcast but they couldn't send someone out until Monday morning - ugh.

I'd purchased PdaNet for my Treo 650 for when I was travelling, and it worked pretty well. But that version doesn’t work on the 700, so I upgraded to the latest version. I figured that it would be faster than what I was seeing with the cable modem, and probably a lot faster since I have EV-DO. I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s quite fast - 300-500Kb or so - and I’ve been able to do regular internet stuff all weekend. This would have been a bad weekend to have no internet access since I’m working on a Google Maps mashup, and that would have been impossible to work on locally.

Just installed Google Maps for the Treo. It’s pretty cool - basically the same UI as the web version, with one difference being that it doesn’t overlay maps and satellite. But it does support satellite view, and traffic too.

The direction UI is a little weird, but it’s a hard form factor to work in. There doesn’t appear to be a way to just list all the steps; instead there are back/next buttons to cycle through the steps.

This is very convenient for me because I use Yahoo Maps for driving directions, but they’re migrating to their new version. It’s Flash-based, so it doesn’t work on the Treo; the old version is still active, but if they drop support for the HTML version I’ll need a replacement, and it looks like Google has come to the rescue.

They do have a funny hint though - “Don’t operate while driving”. Yeah, right

I’ve had my Treo 700p for a couple of months. The primary reason I upgraded from my 650 is EVDO. I use the internet features a lot, including RSS reading (using QuickNews), web browsing (mostly travel directions) and checking email. It’s great to even have an internet-capable device in my pocket, but service can be slow on an older 650 connection, so it was worth it to me to upgrade to the significantly faster EVDO.

A couple of weeks ago Maria and I went to San Diego for a mini-reunion with some of the folks I worked with at StatSoft almost 10 years ago. Having a high-speed connection was very convenient. I had never been to San Diego so I used it a lot for directions. The big deal with directions and connection speed is getting lost. If you plan ahead and get directions for where you’re going, speed isn’t much of an issue. But when you’re lost, getting back on track is a lot less stressful when you’re not waiting several minutes for a page to load.

In addition, we were able to find lots of great vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to visit the raw foods place in Chula Vista, but perhaps next time.

The keyboard is a lot easier to use, especially with one hand. They moved a couple of keys around, so that took a while to get used to, but after I had been using the 700p for a while I picked up the 650 and then the cheesiness of the older keyboard was a lot more apparent.

There are a few other minor enhancements:

• the caller ID feature tells me the caller’s state if the number isn’t in my contacts
• when a call comes in there’s a new “Ignore with Text” option that turns off the ringer and brings you to the SMS message app
• the camera is a lot nicer than the one on the 650
• perhaps not new, but recently noticed - the USB sync cable charges the battery
• muting the volume vibrates briefly to indicate quite mode
• voice recorder with dedicated side button
• more memory