My Triathalon Training Gear Wishlist Pt. 1

1. Home Swimmer: No olympic size pool to train in? No problem. Oh, wait. I don’t even have a little pool. Which leads me to #2…
2. Swimming Pool.

Why am I not surprised that I am attracted to the idea of creating a cheap swimming treadmill so I don’t have to actually go out there and, uh, you know, swim laps? Where does this desire to run, bike, and swim in place come from?

My Life Post-Treo – First BlackBerry Impressions

I made the switch from a Treo 650 to a BlackBerry Pearl this week. So far, my suspicions have proven to be true: the BlackBerry is a much more functional communications device than the Treo, but the Treo is more flexible in how it does things, and has a lot more software available to it.

What I Like About the BlackBerry

• Email and web access is solid, stable and intuitive. My Treo was always crashing when I was trying to use it as an email device or surf the web.
• The device itself is super small and light. It’s so light and small, I’d even consider taking it on runs with me. The Treo is a brick compared to this thing. Now if only I could find a good running log for the BlackBerry…
• Battery life is great compared to the Treo.
• I use BlackBerry Enterprise Server with a hosted Microsoft Exchange service, so basically my setup is the same as the set up most big corporations that deploy BlackBerries use. This means that all my calendars, todos, contacts and notes are synchronized wirelessly and regularly, without me having to initiate the sync process.

What I miss about the Treo

• A nice selection of third-party programs, like a good journaling application with a desktop component, a good eBook reader with a much better selection of books, a handheld version of Quicken that synced seamlessly, a good running log… the list is endless
• My implementation of Getting Things Done seemed to flow much better on the Treo, but maybe that’s just a function of how new the user interface of the BlackBerry is to me. The basic PIM apps on the BlackBerry (calendar, todo list, notes, contacts) have always seemed to be somewhat of an afterthought, and are much less polished than the Palm offering, not to mention all the third party PIMs available for Palm devices. On the BlackBerry, there’s almost nothing available except what comes on the BlackBerry.
• In general, I find that I have to work around the limitations of the BlackBerry operating system and software, whereas Treo software generally was much more customizable and flexible.
• One email minor hiccup: I have this borderline-OCD thing about having a complete record of all my emails received and sent. On the Treo, I could set my email client of choice, Chattermail, to automatically blind carbon copy (bcc:) an email address I have set up as a receptacle for all the emails I send. On the BlackBerry, there is an inexplicable lack of an option to automatically bcc a particular email address on every email I send, so I have to remember to manually enter my sent-mail address in the bcc field when I send an email from the BlackBerry.

All in all, I’m pretty happy so far. I’m much more connected with the BlackBerry, and reliable mobile email access is great. Hopefully it won’t become an addiction as it seems to have become for so many.