Bidi’s World

A little over a week ago I discovered I qualified to upgrade from my Razr V3m.  I’ve been a Sprint customer for a long time now and really prefer their network.  Being that I have family, friends, and work on the network makes the free Sprint to Sprint calling priceless.

I had been marginally interested in an iPhone.  I’ve seen them in action and found them to be highly functional devices. There were more than a few draw backs I considered to be show stoppers though.  So I had set out to explore the Centro by Palm instead.

As luck would have it, the Samsung Instinct was premiering the day I arrived at my local Sprint store.  The Instinct is not a PDA like the iPhone or Centro are but it is what I would consider a “smart phone”.  It also bears a lot of similarities to the iPhone when it comes to functionality.  I knew a lot about the Centro so as I started comparing features between the two devices, I found myself increasingly impressed with it.

The first thing about the Instinct that stands out is the highly efficient interface.  It’s backed by a decent processor so not only are applications easy to find but they start up quickly too.  A great example of this is the 2 megapixel camera.  Press a button on the side of the phone and the camera, or camcorder if you press and hold the button, starts up and is ready to use within a second.  Compared to my Razr which could take five to ten seconds just to activate the camera this is huge.  And when you take a picture, no long wait times before it’s ready to take another.
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• Site redesign is in the works (0)

I was over at Techie Diva’s blog today checking out her article on the iSlide when I noticed she added a new feature to her site I hadn’t heard of before. By the way, the iSlide is such a cool device. It is a sort of skateboard that rolls on one big wheel in it’s center. Rock the board forward and it starts moving. Rock back and it stops. Can you say Christmas?

I digress though. The new feature is Odiogo’s text to speech system. This is an equally cool toy. Their service will convert a blog post into a sound file with some of the best text to speech I’ve heard in a long time. Then it will serve the sound files through streaming or even as a podcast feed.

To hear this feature in action click on the “Listen Now” button at the top of the post or visit the Odiogo Bidi’s World podcast page. I’ll work on getting some links and such added to the page for subscribing as we move forward.

For the moment though, leave a comment and let me know what you think. Personally I’m quite excited about this feature. Heck, it might even get me to post more often. LOL

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• Added tumblr to bidiworld.net (4)

Welcome to the new and improved Bidi’s World.

I decided to make the move to WordPress. I’ve been using it quite extensively over on my podcast site and have fallen in love with it. I’m also planning on adding a podcast to this blog which should be interesting. I haven’t got any dates set for that though.

In addition to the system change I’ve done a complete overhaul on the theme. I think the new theme is easier to read than the old one but still looks pretty sharp. Be sure to let me know what you think.

I’ve still got a few things to do in order to completely restore functionality to the site but I think we are mostly there. There are a few tweeks I’d like to do to the theme still as well.

Well, I’m trying desperately to get another episode of JD’s Musical Alchemy recorded but it’s been one delay after the next. At this point I’m two weeks behind on my schedule. The problem has been getting quiet time for recording. To make matters worse I’ve got a PC down today that needs attending to.

• Thinking of changing blogging tools (2)
• Checking out MyBlogLog (0)
• Added tumblr to bidiworld.net (4)

I’ve been working very diligently on a redesign of my podcast over the past month and have finally finished it. I’m quite pleased with the results which you can see by visiting JD’s Musical Alchemy. The new site uses WordPress for it’s blog and PodPress for the podcast.

The result is a very easy to manage blog and podcast. I’m hoping to be able to use this new design to do more blogging on Indie music as well as related things going on around the internet.

I’ve been considering changing my blogging software for this blog to use the same setup. I’d be curious if anyone has any opinions on the subject. I’m also considering a new skin for the site too. I haven’t been all together happy with the design now that I’ve had a chance to use it a bit longer.

Stop by and leave a comment. I’d love to hear what you all think.

• Site redesign is in the works (0)
• Checking out MyBlogLog (0)
• Added tumblr to bidiworld.net (4)

I’ve noticed allot of blogs I’ve been hitting recently using MyBlogLog. It’s a neat idea. It extends a community like service for blogs and websites. When MyBlogLog users visit a site they can see what other MyBlogLog users have been visiting the site. This can then be an avenue to finding other sites that people with similar interests participate in.

It looks kind of fun so I’ve added it to my blog here. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll also look into seeing if it will extend to my tumblr page.

• Added tumblr to bidiworld.net (4)
• Added Odiogo to the blog (0)
• Thinking of changing blogging tools (2)