When I first laid eyes on my new Blackberry, a few different things ran through my head.  It’s small size is awesome, the chrome looks really sharp, and that black trackball looks WAY better than the white ones.  But really, when you compare it just based on appearance to the iPhone, who wins?  The iPhone is really a sleek looking phone, it’s full touchscreen looks really nice, and it’s simplicity really does look sharp.  As far as blackberry’s go however, I would definitely say this is the best looking blackberry they have made.  

I turned the screen on and I was really impressed with how crisp and clear it looks.  The colors are really sharp, blackberry has definitely stepped up their game in that area since I had my Pearl.  I went to the menu and started scrolling around, I was interested in finding out what new features and applications I now had at the tip of my fingers.  At first I was a little disappointed, it seemed like it pretty much came with just the basic stuff.  I went to the new blackberry app store right away.  I was really impressed with this.  Searching, downloading, and managing your downloaded apps couldn’t be easier.  I definitely give RIM two thumbs up for this.  I downloaded Pandora, Twitterberry, Personal Assistant, YouMail Visual Voicemail, Facebook, ad Viigo.  Download speeds were very quick, and all my new applications were easy to set up and use.  The only thing I had an issue with was Twitterberry.  It made me LED light get stuck on, and I had to do a battery removal to reset my phone and fix this issue.  No big deal though.  

Next I set up my email.  This is where Blackberry soars above the rest.  Set up is so easy.  All I had to do was enter my email address and my password, and BAM!  Email is good to go!  With my iPhone, major sights such as Gmail and Yahoo worked this way.  My work email was a completely different story, I needed to input my incoming and outgoing mail servers as well as some other information that I definitely didn’t know off hand.  With my blackberry none of that was necessary.  

Having a real keyboard is such a wonderful thing.  I did get used to my virtual keyboard on my iPhone after a while, but I definitely couldn’t type nearly as fast as I can on my blackberry.  Replying to emails on my iPhone took almost twice as long as they do now.  The only thing I miss is the automatic correction of mis-spelled words.  Sometimes it was annoying though because I would say “ur” or “lol” and it would try to change my words when I didn’t want them changed.  So while it was nice, it definitely wasn’t perfect.  The keyboard is extremely easy to type on.  The small keys are perfect for my little hands, and the fact that the alt characters are in red makes them really easy to read and find.  The black trackball is a small change but definitely a nice touch.  I remember the trackball on my pearl looking kind of dirty after a while, I won’t have that problem with this phone.  

The Browser.  Obviously, at this point in time, there really is no phone that can compare to the browser of the iPhone.  Having Safari on my phone was really awesome, especially since I browse on my phone quite a lot.  The BB Browser definitely isn’t bad though.  It is a little slow, but nothing frustrating.  It’s easy to navigate and use, I don’t mind it at all.  It’s definitely much better than the browser that was on my Pearl.  

As far as not having 3G, I haven’t been effected by this. I had an unlocked iPhone 2G, so I didn’t have 3G on there anyways.  I personally think the speeds of my phone are just fine, and I really don’t have any complaints about speed at all.  I figure once T-Mobile makes more areas 3G accessible, maybe then I will consider upgrading to a 3G device, but at this point in time I see no reason to.  

The personalization options on the blackberry seem to be endless!  While there are a few available on the iPhone, changing it’s settings seemed to make my phone run slower.  The themes for the blackberry are fun.  It changes icons, colors, and all the different screens you may encounter when using your phone.  It really makes the phone a lot of fun, and you can make it more “you” which is always nice.

In summary, I couldn’t be happier with my new Curve.  Some people think I am crazy for having switched, but honestly the BB is much more useful to me than the iPhone.  The iPhone is really great, but it kind of gets boring after a while.  The app store on there is great, but all the applications these days that are free are usually stupid games that I’m really not interested in playing.  Anything useful usually costs at least $5.

I’VE TRADED IN MY iPHONE!  Yes, shocking, but true.  I have a tendency to get bored with things quickly, and the iPhone just wasn’t enough to keep me entertained any longer.  

Deciding on what phone to get was a little tough.  I decided that I was definitely going to get a blackberry, I use to have a Pearl and am definitely a big fan.  Their operating system is great and their email truly cannot be beat.  At first I thought I would get the Storm.  But then I thought about it, if I’m going to get a Storm I might as well stick with my iPhone.  They are really similar, and I would just end up being disappointed.  Getting a new phone meant getting something different, and the storm is just way too similar.  So here was the hard part… the bold or the curve?

 I posted an ad on craigslist and said I would trade my iphone for either.  I figured I would just go with whoever wanted to do an outright trade first, and whatever phone it was would be fine.  I stuck with this idea for about an hour.  After doing a ton of research and reading review after review, it seemed like the new Curve 8900 would be the phone of choice.  The only downfall is that it doesn’t run on 3G, but when it is connected to wi-fi it runs just as fast.  The bold is also bigger and heavier, and one thing I was definitely looking forward to by getting away from my iPhone was a smaller and much lighter phone.  I also read that the keyboard on the curve, where the buttons are spaced out, is much easier to type on then that of the bold where the buttons are all together.  The camera on the curve is a 3.2 megapixel while the bold only has a 2.0.  I mean honestly, it seems like these phone really only have minor differences between the two.  The Curve has more memory, but the bold has a faster processor.  Making my decision came down to one thing in the end: which one looks better?  I went with the curve.  It’s cute and fun and smaller, and I personally think it looks a little more girly than the Bold.  

So…. yep.  I have left iPhone world and joined the Blackberry one.  I’ve already changed the theme to this cute barbie theme I found, added my necessary apps, and downloaded a few ringtones.  My Curve 8900 review is soon to come…

For now I’m going to be primarily focusing on my new baby blog www.littlesurprisesantana.blogspot.com  

It’s just following my pregnancy, talking about things related to that, as well as what’s going on in life.  I’m going to keep it up after the baby is born and blog about all the fun new things that will be taking place, as well as almost “documenting” the growth and development of our new baby.  It will be  a lot of fun to be able to look back when she’s like 1 and remember all the crazy things that were going on when she was born!  Very fun.

I might try to blog on here once and a while, but I can’t really make any promises.  So you may be lucky enough to see a new post pop up here every once in a while, but for now all my blogging efforts are going to be directed toward the baby blog.  It’s very cool so definitely check it out!

Lets start out with the G1.

It has many of the same features as an iPhone.  The thing I like about it is that it slides and you have a full QWERTY keyboard.  I text a lot, and I can definitely admit that the virtual keyboard on the iPhone isn’t always the easiest thing to use in the world.  It has definitely slowed my texting speed down.  Even thinking about writing a good sized email on that thing is really out of the question.  So, having a full keyboard would definitely be a nice thing to have.  Also, the “app store” on the G1 is open source, so correct me if I’m wrong, but anyone can develop apps for this phone.  I think that if this is true there is definitely a lot more potential for some really amazing applications for the G1.  Something I noticed when playing with it a little on Sunday was that the screen turning to a side view wasn’t as sensitive as my iPhone.  To some people maybe this is a bad thing, but definitely not for me.  I can’t count the number of times I have been laying down playing on my phone and I barely lean it and it switches to the side view.  It’s really quite annoying!  Some cons: the most obvious I think would be that it doesn’t have the iTunes store and iPod.  As an apple fanatic,these are definitely things I really enjoy about my iPhone.  Also, it only comes with 1GB of memory, but you can purchase SD memory cards up to 8GB.  I’ve also heard it’s a little slower than an iPhone, but not by much.  A good thing about the G1 would be that I will actually have a T-Mobile phone, so if anything was to ever happen to it I could actually get it fixed!  They obviously aren’t going to do anything to help me with my iPhone… lol.  Question, does anyone know if text messages show up as conversations?  That’s definitely something important to me.  Also, the G1 has MMS, what a concept right?!  Something the iPhone is still lacking…

Alright, up next we have the Blackberry Curve.  I was going to compare it to the Blackberry Storm, but it is exclusive to Verizon, so there’s really no point.

The Blackberry Curve is a really awesome phone, one of my favorite things is that it actually comes in Pink!  Not something you see to often with Smartphones/PDAs.  I use to have a Blackberry Pearl and I definitely didn’t have any complaints about it.  I love the blackberry operating system, it’s easy to use and the personalization options are just about endless it seems.  Obviously, a downfall from going to the iPhone to the Curve would be losing the touch screen.  It’s something that I really have become accustomed to, so I’m not sure how I would feel about losing that feature.  However, some of the other features might make up for that!  Something that annoys me about my iPhone is that it doesn’t check my email very often.  If I get a new email, I really would like to know about it with in 5 minutes of getting it.  On a blackberry, it seems like when that message arrives in your email inbox it arrives on your blackberry right away as well.  I definitely like that.  Also, setting up multiple email accounts is very simple.  I really like the text messaging format.  The conversation shows up nicely, not as nice as that of the iPhone however.  The conversation bubbles really cannot be beaten.  The blackberry has MMS, something the iPhone STILL doesn’t have for some reason.  A big downfall to Blackberrys, well at least my Pearl, was that the battery didn’t last for crap.  I would have my phone on all day at work and by the time I left I needed to charge it.  I can go an entire day with needing to charge my iPhone.  Another big downfall to the Blackberry is the loss of the app store.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but there are a very limited number of applications that you can add to a blackberry.  I love all my pointless things on my iPhone!  But… I could get a Curve for T-Mobile.  Any problems that it had they could fix it for me.

So… what is a girl to do?  Do I stick with my iPhone?  I think if I keep my iPhone I’m going to need to update to the 3G pretty soon.  Do I get the G1?  Do I get a Blackberry?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and advice.

This ultrasound picture was taken at only 20 weeks!  Look at what technology is allowing us to see!  Our little girl sucking her thumb, isn’t she precious?!

Have a funny communifaking story?  Share!

The fact that MacBook’s come with so much great software already on it is definitely a plus too.  And it’s not a whole bunch of trials or useless crap like you get on a new PC.  I remember when I got my HP Laptop a year ago it had so much junk on it when I turned it on for the first time.  There were AOL and Rhapsody trials and tons of other things I made sure to get rid of immediately.  With my MacBook though, it has great things on it there are actually useful like iLife.  There is so much you can do with iLife!  Love it.  I purchased iWork ’09 and it blows Microsoft Office out of the water.  It’s easier to use and the fact that you can save your files in Office format is definitely useful.  Unfortunately most of my friends, family, and co-workers haven’t made the revolutionary switch over to the Mac world, so being able to send them files they can open is a must.  iWork makes that as easy as a click of a button.

Pretty much, in summary, my MacBook kicks ass.  It runs smoother, faster, there aren’t a whole bunch of stupid viruses, and there isn’t a whole bunch of unnecessary crap going on!  Anyone who is still stuck in the PC World and is too scared to make the big jump, I highly suggest you get on it!  Trust me you will look back with no regrets.

For those of you that have trouble seeing what’s in the ultrasound, the first picture is the side view of her whole body and the second picture is of her cute little feet!

On February 5th we found out that we will be welcoming a beautiful little girl into the world in  July!  How exciting.  That night we seriously went out and bought a ton of pink stuff, it was so much fun. I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated!

* if you wanna see any more pictures from the ultrasound check them out here *

You can see the rest of my Photo Booth pics here!

Well, I’m glad I did.  Parallels definitely gets a thumbs up from me.  After a simple installation of parallels and windows vista, I was able to get things up and running. The cool part is that I’m able to run them simultaneously as shown below.  

(Internet Explorer and Safari on the same page at the same time!)

Suddenly all my Mac and Windows programs are merged and things are running smoothly. So, if there is anyone else out there like me that for some crazy reason needs to run windows on their Mac, I definitely recommend parallels.