Apparently, when Barack Obama and his new staff entered the White House to begin their administration, not only did they inherit the old political problems, economic issues, and state of the union left to them by Bush, but also some outdated technology. It doesn’t surprise me that the White House is a PC environment, but it should surprise all of us that the PCs in the White House were running something to the effect of 6 year old software! Wow, no wonder nothing good came out of the White House for the past 8 years, they weren’t upgraded into the needs of the future. Well, it looks like Obama is off to a good start making the right sorts of changes in DC and if his previous inclinations are a sign of whats to come, I believe we will be seeing some shiny new tech arriving in slim eco-friendly boxes labeled with some sort of fruit… it’s just a guess!

{Story via here}

Sorry, but I am busy celebrating the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama! I will be back to posting after the fun has died down!

{Image via Doug Mills/The New York Times}

I am totally excited to announce to you all that I FINALLY got a new cell phone today and it is completely awesome. I bought the new LG enV2 in black, it is fabulous! My old cell phone was a razr, and was beginning to crap out on me after only a year of use, which I find to be unacceptable. It is my own fault though, I was attracted to the slim design, nifty camera, and pink, of course, and I completely ignored the negative feedback from friends about the phone being a piece of… well, you know! Today the saga ends, however, because this new LG really rocks. My friend El Night Owl picked up one a few days ago and wrote about it, so check that out, but I am still going to do a little bit of a product review for you as well.

Let’s begin with the features I love, shall we? Okay, for starters, I love the fact that this is a brick phone that also flips open for texting! I used to be a big fan of the Nokia brick style phones, but they disappeared a few years ago and in there place were clam shell flips or sliders. Well, I am getting the best of both worlds with this phone because the brick is super easy to use not having to fumble with flipping it open to take a call, but on the other hand we have the full keyboard for texting. And, man, have I been texting! It is a breeze to text on this phone! I love the fact that I can text complete sentences, insert punctuation, etc, without having to sort through different menu options! That brings me to the next amazing feature, the speaking text option. Basically, you can have your phone speak your text messages to you! Yeah, wow, right? That’s what she said! Anyway, final feature I love is the camera. 2.0 mega pixels and it takes great quality images! What more is there to want in a cell phone, really?

Okay, so now maybe I should talk about features this phone is lacking. Really, this phone doesn’t lack much, but I have a pet peeve about one of the features that is not fully functional and that is the speaker phone. This phone does have a speaker phone option, however, as far as I can tell, you can only activate speaker phone when the phone is open. Hopefully, I am going to be found incorrect on this, however, so far, I can’t make the speaker phone turn on when I have the phone closed. This is a problem for me, because when I am driving and I get a call, I like to turn speaker phone on and set my phone down in the cup holder when I talk. Well, if the phone has to be open for the speaker to activate, that means I need to flip it open, which I know isn’t a big deal, but it is an annoying step to have to take. Oh, one more complaint I have about the phone– the ringer. I guess the speakers for the phone are technically inside the the flip portion of it, because when the phone is closed, the ringer is muffled. This is more than a little annoying because the ringer never seems to get very loud. More testing must be done to check how this works, but for now, I wish the volume on the ringer was louder when the phone is closed.

Okay, well I hope you enjoyed this review of my new LG enV2! I am really excited about this phone and I totally think the positives outweigh the negatives I listed above. One final thing I want to say about this phone, however, is just the quality of the construction. I really feel as though this phone is going to last me. LG phones are usually a great quality, and I think this model is no different. I don’t feel as though I am going to break it when I flip it open, the way I did the with razr, and I think it could totally survive some major drops- it just feels solid, which is always a great thing for a cell phone! Okay, so check back soon because I ordered a skin for the phone that I will also be reviewing when it arrives. As you can see in the picture above, it is a pink plaid style sticker that protects from minor scratches and such. So, get back here soon to check out that review and if you happen to have either an enV2 or a similar sticker style skin for the phone, let me know what you think in the comments below!

Today, while perusing the magazine section at the grocery store, I picked up a new magazine as you can see. I have heard of WIRED before and since it is tech and all, you would think I would have caved for it a while ago. Well, I finally got myself a copy of the magazine to read through, and so far it looks good. The headline stories are about Obama, Apple, and global warming so it should make for a good read!

I just found out the late breaking news that today Apple CEO Steve Jobs is stepping down due to his health and leaving COO Tim Cook in charge while he takes a leave of absence. This medical leave, prompted by the news of a hormone deficiency he is suffering from, will be until he end of June and I am sure I am not alone when I say that I hope Steve gets well soon! I might not work at Apple or anything, but I sure am going to miss him not being in charge for a while.

What sort of tech life do you lead?

When it comes to the internet, you don’t need to know much to get yourself around. A little knowledge can go a long way with computers, but then again there are some among us who know more than others and whose digital lives are more amazing then some actual lives. With technology all around us everyday it is hard not to have some sort of tech life, but what exactly is that tech lifestyle? Take this short quiz to find out! It’s simple, just give yourself a point for each statement you can answer and use the rubric to find out your tech life style!

Ask yourself…

What’s my Tech Life Style?

Amateur Surfer (0-14)

You know how to ride the waves of the web, browse your favorite sites and search for the name of that actor in the movie you saw the other night, all while keeping your eye on your eBay bidding war! Email is not your main form of communication, but you sure do love getting those funny emails from friends and family once in a while!

Gifted Gadgetteur (15-24)

Not only are you a web expert, but you are also an avid gadget user. You have your iPod, Digital Cameras and the rest of your peripherals ready and rearing to go at all times. Just make sure you don’t forget to charge them before you take that flight with your favorite multimedia player and the newest episodes of your favorite shows!

Digital Diva (25-34)

The internet bows down to you and your diverse range of tech skills. Not only do you own the interwebs, but you make your own lip dubs, you take pictures of everyplace you go and make sure to post them to your favorite social network site, and of course you devote time each day to developing your web presence!

Motherboard Maven (35<)

You put the genius in mac genius and the geek in geek squad. You can defrag, upgrade, download, program, and convert whatever, whenever! You know the inner workings of a computer the way a psychiatrist knows the inner workings of a brain, and much like them you have no trouble analyzing and troubleshooting technical errors!

So, to continue on the theme of sharing my wonderful tech Christmas presents with you, it is time to share one of my favorite gifts, the 500 GB Western Digital Passport Elite! As you can see in the picture above, I got the bronze color; which honestly wasn’t my first choice, but the vendor it was ordered from ran out of the titanium that I wanted and to avoid a shipping and refund disaster, I stuck with the bronze. It was okay because I ended up also getting a great silicon sleeve cover for the hard drive to give it extra support. I ordered seafoam, as you can see below, and although it looks bright blue, it is actually more of a tiffany blue/robins egg in person. Anyway, back to the hard drive! I cannot tell you how long it took me to decide on an external hard drive for my backup needs, but I knew what I was looking for and what my needs were and this drive is exactly what I wanted. Lets go through a bit of the features and see if this drive is something you might also need to fit your life if you are in the market for a portable external hard drive.

First of all, this drive is obviously portable. Very important to me, the portability factor, especially since I am a laptop user 100% of the time and require that all my accessories function in a “to go” manner. This is a very small drive, it can probably fit into most pockets. It is very lightweight and has a great shape like the rest of the Western Digital Passport series. One difference in the external appearance of this drive compared to other WD models is that the finish is soft to the touch and easy to grip- another plus for the portability. I feel like I can take this drive with me, throw it in a bag, and it can knock around without getting damaged. The soft touch almost seems like shock resistance, as well as resistance to scratches because the surface really can’t be damaged other than through cracking.

Next, this drive is a USB 2.0 only. So no fire wire, but that’s cool with me because I never use firewire with my Mac! The transfer rate is great and the drive has a handy dandy indicator light that marks capacity as well as establishes the presence of its connection to a computer. The indicator lights are located on the side of the drive on a sliding door that covers and reveals the mini USB port so that when the drive is not in use, it has a very flush finish. I like the addition of this sliding door because previous models of this drive used a soft plug to fill in the ports, something I always found to be cheap and easily broken!

Finally, this drive has some major storage capacity! 500 GB is more space than I might ever need, and that is why I bought such a large drive- I won’t have to buy another or replace it anytime soon! I already have an 80 GB WD Passport from a year or so ago that is now too small to fit everything on my laptop’s hard drive. I feel like it was such a waste and I didn’t want to have the same thing happen again if I bought a new hard drive or a new laptop in the next year. This way I cover all my bases! I have enough space to backup my laptop and enough space to keep extras on my hard drive. Right now, I have primarily been using it to store all the videos and pictures I take, instead of putting those files onto my laptop hard drive and taking up too much space. I also use this hard drive for video and image editing because it is recommended that laptop users not use their internal hard drives for such large and complicated tasks. I think this is in case of internal drive failure and it slows down the drive as well to process large files on your laptop’s hard drive.

So, overall, I am very very excited about this new drive of mine! It is everything I could ever need: portable, dependable and functional! I would very much recommend this drive to anyone looking for an external portable hard drive for their own similar interest and needs!