On the one hand, it isn’t the most up to date hardware in terms of specs when you compare it to the new HTC One X or the upcoming Samsung Galaxy III phone. On the other hand, it will always have the most up to date Android OS, when one is readily available, it won’t be bloated with 3rd-party software, it’s not all that behind the new up-comers and it’s still an update from my current iPhone 4.

I kept jumping back and forth between waiting till after the WWDC and or just to hell with it and just buy the damn phone already. One reason for my hesitation is that maybe the new iPhone might blow me away and convince me to stay with iOS for another two years. It has been a fine OS for 3+ years so far and I haven’t ever had any issues with it. Except for when it slowed down my hardware and I had to upgrade to a newer model (which happened with my 3G that made me jump to the 4 as soon as I could).

The more I thought about it though, I realized that I do feel ready for a change. I want a new toy that will challenge me and teach me something new. I learned everything I could do with my iPhone or rather what I would want to do. Short of playing in the jailbreak/Cydia world, I’ve done all I want on my iPhone and I’m sure the new iOS in the works isn’t going to change the current layout all that much. I’m ready to try something more customizable and open to other capabilities and open-source software.

With that final epiphany I made the plunge and made the purchase. I should be receiving my new unlocked Galaxy Nexus in the mail within a few business days and the Google Android world I’ll be exploring.

HTC One S/X:

I read a lot of blog reviews on the HTC One S and X and I like just about everything about it. The limitation of storage capacity is the only knock on it and unfortunately it’s a big one for me. For whatever reason, HTC decided to release this phone on T-Mobile and on AT&T with just 16GB of storage capacity of which only 12 is actually available for use and without an expansion microSD slot. They try to curtail most of the storage space gripes by offering 25GB of free storage space with Dropbox for 2 yrs (basically the term of your cell phone contract). This would be a cool feature for me if docs and pictures were what took up most of my storage space. Of course this isn’t the case. I mainly use up the storage space of my 32GB iPhone with podcasts and music.

I’m guessing that this suppose to push people who get this phone to switch over to more cloud and data oriented services like streaming music and podcast apps. This of course may lead to overages if you go over your current data plan or upgrade to a higher one (if you’re not on Sprint or T-Mobile that is). I myself on average never go past 1GB of data on my plan.

I will be experimenting this month on my phone by streaming most my podcasts and music with Stitcher Radio, Slacker, Pandora, and iTunes Match to see how much space I need if I hardly use any and gauge how close I’ll get to my 2GB data limit. So far it’s not too promising on the storage end. Currently my phone still has 2.8GB of audio, .45GB of photos and 10GB of apps for a grand total of 13.25GB of space. With this scenario I would have to also limit how many apps I could have on a HTC One X phone.

Samsung Galaxy S III:

Today was Samsung’s big unveiling of their new Samsung Galaxy S III phone that will be available in the States sometime in June (May 29 in Europe). This phone answers all my concerns that I have with the HTC One X by offering 32GB and 64GB models as well as an option for expansion with a microSD slot. On top of that they also offer 50GB of storage space with Dropbox (that’s 25 more than with HTC!). The one knock on this device for me, though it might not be a complete killer, is the HD Super AMOLED Pentile screen display. Apparently it is more pixellated than a Super LCD screen and it is a real battery killer. One of the things I love about my iPhone is how I never have to worry about it dying on me while I’m out and about. I just charge it overnight and it’s good to go the next day. Also being used to Retina display I don’t know how I would feel about going back to a pixellated screen. I’m going to wait till June when the phone comes out so I can check it out at the local AT&T store before I make my final judgements about this device.

Samsung Galaxy S III vs. HTC One X:

Based on what I’ve read Samsung has HTC beat on just about every category except the screen. HTC has Samsung beat on the look and feel of their phone. Again like I said before, I’m going to have to wait to see both phones so I can play with them both and see what I think about them.

The New iPhone On The Horizon:

Then of course there are the rumors of the new iPhone that is on the horizon with some kind of liquid metal casing and a new 4″ display. The WWDC will be happening in June, quashing most of the rumors and confirming others. I really hope the rumor about the new iPhone having 4G LTE is true. Like I said I really can’t find any fault on my iPhone 4 other than I’m a little bored with it and I wish it had Swype and 4G LTE.

The iPhone will most likely be available to buy in September which is exactly when my contract is up and I’m free to jump ship or get a new 2 yr-contract with AT&T. Being on the fence, I’ll most likely stick it out with my current device until then before I make any final decision. I really want to make a switch but it’s looking more and more like I’ll just get an updated version of what I already have.

What are your thoughts on the new Smartphones becoming available? I’d like to discuss.

Oh well, what can you do.

This is a pretty good read about what causes people to become atheists vs. what makes people continue to believe. My wife and I definitely fall into this paradigm. She always seems frustrated by my almost mechanical way of analyzing everything and trying to use logic to make an assessment while I always roll my eyes when she goes “with her gut”. Check the link above out.

I just set up my Google Drive account. It’s another cloud storage service similar to Drop Box, only it also integrates with all the other Google services you’ve grown to love like Google Docs. Has anyone else set up their Google Drive?

Heads up! It’s in Spanish. Wonderful Colombian Spanish. One of the finest Spanish accents out there if not the best. Then again, I may be bias. I hope you enjoy the episodes as much as I did.

Part 1

Part 2

With my new old distractions back in full force there is only so much time in a day and so other things get neglected and put to the side. The biggest casualties were of course my social media accounts and this here blog (which I guess is the same thing). I decided to finally address this somewhat. I took yet another long look at my social network accounts and decided the best course of action is to weed out the ones that I’ve used the least.

Twitter was the one of the first to go (again!). It seemed that  I would check in on my twitter feed on an average of once every 2 weeks or so. I would share links on my twitter accounts through other sites and services (via ping.fm or a tweet this button on said websites,) more often than I would read what other people would have to share. This made Twitter less social and more of a chore so that was an easy choice to make. The other social network I decided to dump was this new one that’s mainly used on a smart phone called Path. My wife added the Path app to our iTunes collection a few months back and I decided to give it a spin.  I was relatively active on it for a few weeks and then after a while I just stopped (like I do with just about any other social network I initially try).

I’m keeping my Facebook and Google+ accounts live for very simple reasons. Google+ is already attached to my email account and I won’t be getting rid of that anytime soon so why not keep Google+ as well. As for Facebook, out of all the social networks that I’ve used, I visit that one the most and still find it useful to find shows and events around my neighborhood. And heaven forbid I make my wife a “Facebook Widow” for the 3rd time (or would this be the 4th time? I’ve lost count).

Now with the old habits out-of-the-way on to my new one. For a few months, I’ve been debating about switching over to veganism or vegetarianism and I have inquired this idea with one of my favorite independent and podcast authors on Facebook, Kimberly Steele. She even has her own vegan podcast. She gave me some food for thought (no pun intended). I was still on the fence for a bit, but then a food allergy scare that afflicted my wife and a viewing of the eye-opening documentary, Fork Over Knives, and we switched to vegan diets the following day.

We’ve been mostly vegan for about a month now and have both lost about 8 pounds each (there has been some lapses with honey and some products that have contained whey protein). We definitely feel better and look forward to continuing this new path in our lives.

And now you’re all caught up with what I’ve been doing these past few months. As always, I promise to try to be more active here but who’s to say I won’t falter again (it has been known to happen). The next few posts will probably be about the past few book series that I’ve absorbed.

This video compelled me to check out his site and there I found the “Pop Song” video that I found so funny I had to share it. Enjoy!

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