Cell phone upgrades

My old LG VX8300

I've been a Verizon customer for about 4 years now and recently started shopping for my bi-yearly upgrade. I was eligible to upgrade on September 13, but hadn't been able to pick out a phone until just yesterday. The last time I upgraded, I ended up giving my upgrade to my cousin who was starting a new line on our family plan. This way, he wouldn't have to buy a phone. So until yesterday, I have had the same LG VX8300 for 4 years. It has been a very reliable flip phone that didn't start acting funny until about a month ago. I have been very satisfied with this phone but every phone must be replaced eventually.





The decision was difficult for a couple reasons. For one, there aren't many phones available in the corporate Verizon store that don't require a data plan. I liked the LG enV3 but this required a $10/month data plan. I didn't really want a phone with a touch screen, and also wanted to have a number pad as this is what I typically use to text. The enV3 had the number pad which I liked. Still, I wasn't sure I wanted to tack on $10/month, plus I did some research and didn't like what I found. After visiting an authorized Verizon resale store, I learned that the enV3 commonly shuts down at random. I figured I'd do some research on my own to see if this really was the case. Sure enough, while typing "enV3" into Google, the second highest recommended search was "enV3 shuts off." Come to find out, it's most likely a design flaw that is very common with these phones. There are YouTube videos claiming to have found a fix for the problem by placing a piece of cardstock in the battery compartment. Needless to say, I didn't want to have to worry about reliability with my phone.

In the end, I bought the LG enV2 from the authorized resale store. The enV2 has no known issues, has been on the market for quite a while, didn't require a data plan, and was also less expensive than the enV3. Really, the only differences between the 2 models is the camera quality and slight design differences.

enV2 (left) vs. enV3 (right)

The enV3 has a 3MP camera vs the 2MP camera on the enV2. Also, I liked the keypad more on the enV3. It was more fluid, and also allowed the front screen to be larger than the one on the enV2. The internal screen on the enV3 is also larger than the one on the enV2. Feature-wise, the enV3 is a better phone, but when you factor in the extreme unreliability, it becomes more of a frustration. This makes me wonder why Verizon would carry such an unreliable phone.

Schools Kill Creativity

Recently, I viewed a speech given by Ken Robinson in which he expressed his belief that schools kill creativity. His speech really made me think about the flawed structure of the education system. He explained that there is a hierarchy of subjects that places the highest level of importance on the maths and sciences, leaving the creative subjects like music and art on the bottom. When I was in high school, I was required to take Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Earth Science in order to graduate. I was not required to take any courses that taught me how to balance a checkbook or how a loan works, how to make a budget or even how to make dinner. These are things I know I'll need to do at some point, where on the contrary, I'll never look at the Periodic Table of Elements again in my life, nor will I need to know how long it will take a marble to hit the floor after being dropped.

He talked about killing creativity. He gave the example of Gillian Lynne, who choreographed "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera." When she was a child, her school informed her parents that she possibly had a learning disability because she couldn't stop moving. After seeing a specialist, her parents realized that she didn't have a learning disability, she was just a dancer. Later in her life, she opened her own dance studio, did choreography for many performances, pleasured millions, and is now a multi-millionaire. In the present world, we would have put her on medication and told her to settle down.

I encourage you to watch his speech. It was very intriguing, funny, but most importantly, it will make you think!

Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity

New Apple Products

This past Wednesday, September 1, 2010, Apple Inc. held it's annual conference to announce the release of its newest products. The biggest announcements were the introduction of the new AppleTV, and also the new line of iPods.

The greatest improvements of the AppleTV include the incredible size reduction, and also the significant price reduction. For those who don't know, AppleTV connects to one's television and allows the user to stream content from a computer to the TV such as pictures, music, or movies. AppleTV also allows users to rent TV episodes and movies. This is another change Apple made. Previously, users were able to purchase episodes and movies, but this required storage. By removing the need for storage, Apple's design team was able to reduce the size of AppleTV to a quarter of the size.

The new line of iPods was the highlight of the event, without question. Starting with the iPod Shuffle, Steve Jobs showed that they had further reduced the size of the already-micro Shuffle. Other features include Voice Over, allowing the device to speak playlists to the user, and also integrated buttons (reintroduced after being removed in the previous model). Next was the iPod Nano. As the name suggests, an iPod "Nano" should be extremely small. Apple wanted to do this without sacrificing screen size. Their alternative, remove the circular trackpad and make the screen responsive to touch. Also, by making it so small, Apple added a clip on the back of the Nano to make for easy carrying. Lastly, the iPod Touch was upgraded. Steve Jobs demonstrated that the Touch now has both a front-facing camera (users may now video chat on the iPod Touch) and also an HD camera on the front of the device. This actually throws the iPod Touch into the compact camcorder market, and makes itself a pretty legitimate contender, considering the fact that users can purchase Apple's award-winning video editing software iMovie and edit movies right on their iPod Touch.

First Post

Welcome to my CIS-106 blog. I will post my thoughts here throughout the semester. Enjoy :)