BaerConsulting LLC Blog

Well, the Bears’ season is over and we’re back to maintaining the blog. We’ve had some interesting developments as far as projects and news for BaerConsulting. First, we will soon be posting a great way to turn an old computer in to a network media server and using it as a media storage server. The best part of that is that it is completely free of charge. The software will not cost you a penny. Depending on the age of the computer, you may want to consider adding or replacing the hard drive in the machine, however.

Secondly, BaerConsult will soon start developing applications for the Android platform. If you are unfamiliar with Android, it is an open source operating system made by Google. They have geared this OS towards mobile platforms for the time being but have been in negotiations with Netbook manufacturers and have already started prototypes for Netbook tablets with Android running on them. For reference, Android is known as the iPhone killer. It will crush the iPhone. Originally, the G1 made by HTC was really the only phone running Android and it was only available on the T-Mobile network. However, HTC followed up with the MyTouch, also only available with T-Mobile. Soon after, the first non T-Mobile Android devices were made publicly available on other networks such as Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T as well. Since Novemeber, Verizon’s/Motorola’s DROID (A855) has sold over 500,000 units. The first 300,000 were sold in the first 2 weeks of retail availability. What makes this platform so interesting is that Google spent quite a bit of time making it the fastest and most stable OS available on smartphones to date. My DROID boots in about 1/10 the time it took my Blackberry Storm to boot. It really is the best platform available. If you own an Android phone, make sure to look for us in the marketplace under BaerConsultLLC for the developer name. Our first project is still being kept quiet at the moment, but it will hopefully hit public beta in the coming months.

As computer technology evolves, so will cellular phone technology. Most of us can remember back in the old days of analog phones where the only screen you had was a small strip that gave you 6 bars indicating reception. It’s hard to believe we’ve come so far in 15-20 years. The cellular phone you have now is probably pretty close in specifications of the computer you had at the time of analog phones.

Processors and memory are getting smaller, thus, you end up with Smartphones. Blackberries, Windows Mobile devices, Palm OS, iPhone, etc. When thinking about purchasing one of these, one must take in to consideration the network that it will run on. You may have a computer that could rival NASA but is it really worth it if you have dialup? As a company, we’re partial to CDMA technology, primarily Verizon. There’s just something about GSM (T-mobile and AT&T) that just don’t work well for coverage, signal, and general performance of the network. Of course, that is dependent on where you will be primarily using the phone. If we rule out AT&T and T-mobile as options, you automatically rule out the G1 from Google and the iPhone from Apple (which rumor has it, Verizon will soon be getting an Apple phone but they cannot call it the iPhone for copyright reasons). Sprint is also one of those networks that just don’t work very well. That statement can be considered true mostly anywhere as we’ve never heard a good thing about Sprint. Their customer service is horrible, their network is unreliable, and their selection of phones is pretty bad. We’ve just ruled out the Palm Pre. Verizon’s selection is pretty nice and they do have some exclusive rights to some of the phones that are out now. The Blackberry Storm is a pretty decent phone if you’re in to the touch screen features and you’re willing to void your warranty with software updates that aren’t technically supposed to be out yet. They also have the new Blackberry Tour. They also have one of the best networks in the country. Our favorite by far.

When purchasing a new phone, you essentially can pick from 4 different options as far as operating systems go: Windows Mobile, Blackberry OS, Apple (which is based on OSX), and Palm OS. Out of these, we’d have to say it’s a toss up between Blackberry OS and Apple for the best of the best. Blackberry OS does tend to get bogged down and glitch here and there, but doesn’t ever seem to crash, while Apple has the opposite problem, it runs well, but has a tendency to crash from time to time. Windows Mobile has a lot of flaws particularly when it comes to speed. It seems a bit too bulky for the hardware it’s running on (Vista anyone?). Palm OS seems to be pretty decent looking and have heard reports that it has some issues with bugs, but that can be expected with any new OS. The Palm Pre is the first device to run Palm’s new operating system and, as with any new software, the bugs must be worked out. However, we have not had the opportunity to play with the Palm Pre, so we can not offer an objective opinion on the phone’s capabilities.

Just keep in mind that the coolest phone may be worth nothing more than a hockey puck on the wrong network.

Edit:

A gentleman kindly pointed out that I forgot to mention Google Android. This is yet another OS that is in its infancy. Google is making a wise move by trying to get Android running on phones under other networks, but it currently resides on one of the worst networks in the country, T-Mobile. Thus, it is still not one of the top contenders.