Believe it or not that guy has the coolest phone ever… almost.  Motorola just announced their newest phone to come out of CES 2009, the MotoRenew.  The Renew is made from recycled water bottles, so hurry up and buy a case of Poland Spring because you might be able to drink your way to a new phone.  If you are a T-Mobile customer, then you are in luck since they are the only US carrier that will be selling the Renew.

On another note, it looks like Motorola will be releasing an iPhone competitor, the MotoSurf and will operate on 3G networks.  It will be available in several regions including Latin America and Asia.  So, will the MotoSurf be made of recycled water bottles or from Pee-Wee Herman’s giant tin foil ball? Whatever it’s made of, just make sure to tell em’ that Large Marge sent ya’.

[via taipeitimes.com]

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted here, but with good reason… I promise.  The reason is legit, not me just being lazy, getting wrapped up in the holiday cheer or dancing the night away celebrating the new year.  Truth be told, it really is a boring story.  So here it goes, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Now, for anyone that knows me, I had been with Verizon Wireless for quite some time, about 12 years to be exact.  Unfortunately, they just couldn’t entice me anymore with their phone lineup so I made the switch to AT&T and purchased a BlackBerry Bold in the beginning of December.  In an effort to attain some extra information on my newly purchased Bold I stopped off at my regular BlackBerry community at BlackBerryForums.com.  While browsing through the site I noticed they were looking for writers to help expand their news arm BlackBerryNews.com.  On a whim, I decided to submit some posts from this very blog just for kicks.  Twenty minutes of my life I thought I’d never get back.  About a month later, on the 8th day of Hanukkah I get an e-mail from the owner of BlackBerryNews offering me a freelance writing position for the site.  Out of the pool of applicants only two were selected, myself and another fellow, a good guy, Shaun.  

So there you have it folks, I am now officially a writer for BlackBerryNews.com and can be contacted at .  If you would like to view my contributions so far you can do so here.

Our buddies over at RIM finally heard the crowds and released a preview release of Blackberry Media Sync for Mac.  The download comes in at just over 13 megs and will only run on Leopard.  For those of you using the Missing Sync or Pocketmac, RIM has this to say:

After installing the Preview Version of BlackBerry® Media Sync, other software previously used to synchronize data with your Mac®, such as PocketMac® for BlackBerry® devices or Missing Sync, will no longer be able to connect to your device and will not work until BlackBerry® Media Sync is uninstalled.

Grab a copy and then check out the screenshot below.

Gearing up for the Engadget reader meetup/holiday party you are going to want to make sure you can update your tweets from your Storm/ Bold or other RIM device. (FYI Verizon lovers, last time I was @ the Hiro Ballroom for a tech event Verizon had pretty shoddy coverage down there, T-Mobile was solid and AT&T I am clueless to.)  In any case, today we’ll be putting on our cowboy boots and spurs and wrangling up four FREE Twitter clients for your tweeting pleasure.  Before you start reading, follow me @jarbro.

Twitterberry - http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/
Version 0.8 brings twitpic support to one of the more popular twitter clients.  With a new GUI it makes you slightly giddy when tweeting.  It supports a plethora of RIM devices and automatically detects what your best connection method is.

Twibble - http://www.twibble.de/
Billed as the first location aware twitter client for Blackberry, it will update your location based upon your GPS coordinates.  Definitely one of the more full featured twitter clients out there.  You can program quick text fields in for commonly used tweets or  post a snapshot of the crazy lady you saw on the train to Twitpic.  My one gripe is that its a bit slow and that when you start it you have to grant network access to the twibble api. (Which can be circumvented by turning on the internal device firewall.)   Overall it is the most feature rich Blackberry Twitter client.

TinyTwitter - http://www.tinytwitter.com/
They have the most minimalistic website I have seen in quite some time.  I only used their client a few times as I found it to be aesthetically unappealing.   It’s a little clunky, but then again it isn’t built specifically for Blackberry.  It’s build for any Java MIDP device.

Twitter Mobile - http://m.twitter.com
As barebones as it gets.  This is your basic twitter mobile site.  Allows you to view @replys, people you follow, your profile, and the public timeline.  It loads up in your browser and you post and perform all of your twasks from there.

In the end…
Overall, I prefer Twitterberry the best.  It’s fast, very intuitive, and downright easy to use.  Plus it seems that jaschroe is updating the software quite frequently.  However if you are looking for the full blown Twitter experience and don’t mind waiting a few extra ticks… twibble is your best bet.

Chase finally steps it up late in the game with their own mobile banking site.  Before the launch of chase.mobi, users relied on clunky SMS based mobile alerts.  You now have almost all the features you would have oh the full blown site.  Just like the normal online banking site, users will still have to get an activation code for their device in order to access your account information.  Don’t get too excited just yet.  You still have to register your phone number with Chase for your account to be fully active. Get on banking over @ www.chase.com/mobile or hit it directly from your mobile @ www.chase.mobi.  Now, for them to release a quick launch program for Blackberry à la Bank of America.

A new service just launched on Twitter that brings you multiple deals through out the day via Twitter updates.  It brings you deals from around the web for products I find to be cool and interesting.  It has not been automated yet so you currently will be getting hand picked deals from around the web.  Have a look at twitter.com/dealfeed on Black Friday and avoid the crowds and watch for the best discounts and sales.  If your on Twitter make sure to follow the dealfeed or if you are not a twitter user you can subscribe via RSS.

Just got an “internal memo” from Woot! Apparently there is going to be a Woot-Off tonight!  Hold onto your hats! Marketing at its best.

WOOT, INC. INTERNAL EMAIL
STAFF EYES ONLY

Attention Woot employees -

We are now entering the final phase of preparations for the Woot-Off planned for midnight tonight. This is when we depart from our usual deal-a-day model and sell one product after another, offering a new deal as soon as the previous one sells out. For some reason, Woot members like beatmix01 continue to have high expectations for this event. We must make every effort to ensure that they feel disappointed and betrayed.

All workers should be physically and mentally straining to make this Woot-Off a success, like every muscle in a wolf’s body strains to capture and devour its prey. We expect total compliance with the following objectives:

Make sure the stables are thoroughly cleaned and the horses properly groomed and shod. As you know, Commander Rutledge prefers to lead us on horseback during Woot-Offs. Charge!
Customer Service department: all vacation requests for this week and next are approved. If you have not filed a vacation request, take one anyway.
The little green pills in the kitchen are there to keep you alert and working. Take as many as you need. Officially, Woot does not believe in the concept of “overdose”.
Take at least one of our servers offline, just for laughs.
Go to the landfill and dig up some more Sansa media players. If you see any Digipro Graphics Tablets (and you will), grab those, too.
Place crap bags in company latrines so those orders can be “filled”. To this end, the company will provide free lunch today from El Feo, the filthiest burrito joint in Dallas. Do your worst, guys.
Neutralize all negative thinking among our members. We simply cannot tolerate any more posts like “do not want” or “Woot-Off killer”. If electronic means like word filters and IP bans do not work, we must reactivate the rapid-response teams to physically eliminate all threats to our reputation.
Last time, spot checks revealed that approximately 25% of products shipped are broken, incomplete, or excessively dirty. This is unacceptable. For this Woot-Off, defective shipments must make up at least 40%.
Remind SmartPost that there’s no need to hurry on these orders. Prompt delivery makes our customers spoiled and argumentative. Let them learn humility and gratitude while they wait.

Above all, we must strive to make this Woot-Off even more tedious, disappointing, and lucrative than the last one. The employee who achieves the most toward this end will be rewarded with one brown Zune. Second place: two brown Zunes.

Forward into battle! Remember: to give one’s life for Woot is glorious!

Larry Stalin
eCommerce eKommissar
Woot, Inc.

THIS EMAIL WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 90 SECONDS

By now I am sure you have noticed that your Google homepage has changed if you use iGoogle.  All the tabs that used to be across the top are now collapsible and live on the left side of the page.  Google announced this change early this morning and has already rolled it out to US users.  Love it or hate it, it’s here and it is optimized for people who have wide screen monitors and it looks terrible squeezed together on a 4:3.  As of yet I don’t know how to revert it back to the old style.  I am sure we can hack it back using some greasemonkey scripts, but until then we are just going to have to deal.  Have a look below.

*UPDATE*

It seems a lot of people are jumping ship from iGoogle to my.yahoo.  Before you go to the hoo, check out netvibes.com.  If you liked the old iGoogle, you should love netvibes.

7:16PM EST
Not sure how long it’s been like this, but it looks like they switched back to the new layout.

6:04PM EST
Looks like they reverted back to the original layout.  I just went back to my homepage in an effort to try and make sense out of it and my tabs on top were back.  Go figure.

I know it’s been a long time folks, and let me tell you a lot has been going on.  I just got back from a trip to Seattle where I was lucky enough to get a private tour of Microsoft’s Redmond campus.  While there I got a great hands on demo of (an internal build?) of the Microsoft Surface.  A very cool bit of technology, however I am not sure how wide spread its application yet. At $10,000 a pop, don’t expect your next door neighbor to have one anytime soon.  My favorite was playing god on Microsoft Maps and of course, Whack-a-mole.  Just a quick note… I never claimed I was a piano player. (12 minute demo)

User: Why doesn’t my mail and contacts sync automatically on my Blackberry?

IT: Because we don’t have a Blackberry Exchange Server dummy.

User: Well why not?

IT: If I told you, I’d have to kill you.

User: Whatever… look what I found. AstraSync, an application that does what you won’t do.

IT: Go away or else I’ll block your Internet access.

MailsSite is on the cusp of releasing a new product call AstraSync which will sync your Crackberry right to your Exchange Server without a BES.  If this product takes off, maybe RIM will knock down their pricing a bit.

Read more…