- http://m.lifehacker.com/5978861/top-10-good-tech-habits-everyone-should-have?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

I’m a data hoarder. I’m trying to go paperless in the past and in the future. I’m scanning things at a magnamous rate. My phone camera is getting more action than the Ow.ly(s) during the riots of 2012 in the Middle East.  I have so much digital stuff. I should become my own library.

So during my search today I came across CloudMagic (https://cloudmagic.com/)

It let’s you search gmail, facebook, twitter, dropbox, evernote, skydrive, yahoo, box, contacts, google drive, google talk, icloud, outlook, outlook.com and other cloud based services for exactly what you want.

There is a free account if you want to check it out.

The Best Calendar App for iPhone – http://pulse.me/s/1kp6O

My daughter: “I want an iPad. My best friend has an iPad”

Me:  ”No, your best friend’s mom has an iPad. Your best friend is 4 years old and doesn’t have a job.”

My daughter: “hmmmph”

Me: ” You are cutting edge. You are 4 years old and you have a Nook Color which I’ve expanded to 24 GB. A lot of kids don’t have their own Nook Color. You should be thankful.”

My daughter: “Mommy I want an iPad!”

Me: “No, you are going to ride this Nook until the wheels fall off!”

My daughter (sighs heavily, bats her eyelids and says….): “Well, I guess I just have to call this thing an iNook!”

Me (Not reacting to the pure sarcasm of a 4 year old) >> I SAY NOTHING!!!!!!!!!

Fast forward to last week. I decided if you want to be a smarty pants and call it an iNook. Then honey you are going to get one. So I went on an absolute sojourn to turn that Nook Color into a dual boot tablet. That’s when I discovered N2ACards (http://n2acards.com/home)

The N2A Card is a micro-SD card that can effectively transform your Nook Color or Nook Tablet into an Android device. The card contains the Android “Jellybean” software and, once installed, allows users to switch easily between their Nook e-reader and the Android operating systems. (The N2A Card is not compatible with Nook e-ink devices).

Bingo!

Presto!

MAGIC!

Now momma was on to something here! Oh you want to be smart… momma is giving you an iNook, don’t you worry gal. LOL!

So I used my 16GB SanDisk (Class 2) … [but class 4 and class 6 cards are recommended] to download the JellyBean 4.1 operating system.

I followed the instructions and presto change-o, dual boot Nook Color. Awesome Mom. Thank you! Thank you!  I’m pretending I’m on Oprah giving a speech, indulge me.

I digress…

So, since I’m the source of sarcasm…

Me picking daughter up from school: “I have an early surprise for you, for Christmas!”

Daughter: “What is it? What is it Mommy?”

Me:  IT’S YOUR NEW INOOK / ANDROID TABLET. ENJOY!

Daughter (looks at me with those piercing brown eyes): “This is my Nook, where is the surprise!”

Me: “Your Nook is now an iNook running Android. You want it or I can give it to your best friend? You decide.

Daughter: I want it! I want it!

Now… this wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t loaded it up with her favorite purple background and downloaded some key apps from Google Play.

Here’s the sweetners!

(1) INSTALLED

So if you have purchased yourself or your kid a Nook Color, do not go out and buy them a new tablet! Save your money, buy a 16 -32 gb SanDisk card and download Android JellyBean for 19.99.  Theoretically, you too will have an iNook for about $40.00 extra dollars.

… and note to moms, SHE LOVES THAT ANDROID TABLET NOW.

Mother knows BEST!

This is going to be epic and this is for all the techie, geeky supermoms.

Part 1.

Clutch the pearls Hazel, I’m dropping my Blackberry Torch 9810 for a Motorola Atrix HD

It pains me to type that. No, it does. I have loved Blackberry from the moment I was introduced to it by another friend ( a friend that got into bed with an iPhone and never came out again…. yeesh!).  Let me say this again, I love my Blackberry Torch 9810. It is fabulous… functional… fun… and well, it’s about to die. All the tell tell signs are there! Old text message are starting to pop up for no reason. If I have over 10 notifications from Social Scope and 7 new emails, my available memory goes to like 98MB and then it’s moving slower than a geriatric patience in a jello mold contest. #VerySlowIndeed

So here is my current phone:

http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-torch-9800-9810.html

http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-torch-9800-9810/phone-specifications.html

It’s fabulous. Touch and QWERTY. Sexy, sleek, dynamic… and dying.

I’m weeping inside.

So yeah, I’m jumping to Android because well… Blackberry 10 is taking too damn long.  I am on Crackberry.com incessantly waiting for more news like people who have watched “The Price is Right” to the point that they dream about winning a new car. It hurts. There are these back handed videos, marketing videos and then I see 2 phones (2???) and they are not coming out until February 2013. I will be 40 years old  March 2013. Waiting on Blackberry 10 is not how I wanted to spend my the last months of the first 2 scores of my life.

Waiting.

And Waiting.

And well… waiting.

I call “UNCLE”!

So then a Black Friday ad flew across my Social Scope feed for the Samsung Galaxy III for $0.96 at Sam’s Club starting at 7am on November 23, 2012.

Holy cousin of Android. $0.96 cents. Are you freaking kidding me? Awesome. I’m in. Yay! 62GB miniSD slot… yes, I’ll have it. Then the mother kicked in …. Take my 4 year old out of her bed and wait in line for this phone because I missed the VIP sale of this phone at the same price on November 18, 2012 where I didn’t have to wait in line. I’ll be a baboon’s sidekick before I drag my kid out to Black Friday. …and So I went completely off of that promotion, but I challenge you wonderful Android loves to stand in line. It’s worth it. 62GB SD slot. SAY NO MORE!

Yet I found myself in a quagmire! I still didn’t have a new phone and I had fallen out of love with my Blackberry. What to do? What to do? What to do @Efabulous1? What do you do?

I READ. I RESEARCH. I COMPARE. I SCORE.

That’s right. Consumers are plonkers because most of them don’t read. Yet, I do. I began a 2 hour quest to find the best possible Android I could afford and would make me happy without standing in a cattle call line like a meth junkie waiting for government cheese. (No disrespect to meth heads or people who like government cheese… I don’t judge!)

So long story short… I found the Motorola Atrix HD (More… click here!).

http://www.motorola.com/us/consumers/MOTOROLA-ATRIX-HD/MB886-ATRIX-HD,en_US,pd.html

http://www.motorola.com/us/consumers/MOTOROLA-ATRIX-HD/MB886-ATRIX-HD,en_US,pd.html?selectedTab=tab-2&cgid=mobile-phones#tab

So now you are asking yourself… why Droid, why the Motorola Atrix HD?  Let’s start with the comparison and my must haves:

1.  I have to have an SD card. It’s imperative. I’m not totally in the “cloud” as of yet.

2. I wanted to give the Android platform another “go”.

3. The Motorola Atrix beats my Torch 9810, but it can hold its weight with the Samsung Galaxy S III.

Part 2.

Well how do they size up? Torch 9810 vs Atrix HD

Here’s the comparison: http://www.phonearena.com/phones/compare/RIM-BlackBerry-Torch-9810,Motorola-ATRIX-HD/phones/5143,5718

Synopsis:

HD has a better display, long Talk Time, Dual Core, 1MB of RAM, 8 MP camera, 1080p HD video, Front facing Camera, supports Flash, 4g LTE, 4.0 Bluetooth, it’s a Mobile Hotspot (I had to hack my 9810 to be a mobile hotspot… not cute!) and it has micro HDMI capabilities. Same amount of onboard storage and SD storage of 32GB …. but processor and RAM mop the floor with 9810.

Part 3.

Why didn’t you get the damn Samsung? Atrix HD vs Samsung Galaxy S III

http://www.phonearena.com/phones/compare/Motorola-ATRIX-HD,Samsung-Galaxy-S-II-Skyrocket,Samsung-Galaxy-S-III-AT-T/phones/5718,6515,7131

Synopsis:

Firstly, we all know the S3 is a superior phone but do you know the stats? Click on the aforementioned link and see that I’m not missing much.  Where does the S3 kick the pants off of the Atrix HD? It has a slightly bigger size, but weighs less, Super AMOLED  technology on the display but the HD has TFT. #IJS  S3 is kicking butt and taking names on RAM. 2048 MB RAM and the built in storage is 16GB, Atrix HD only has 8. The SD slot goes up to 64GB, Atrix HD only goes to 32GB. The camera does all this funky and fabulous stuff on the S3, no worries, I’ll get Instagram and some other apps! Front facing camera is 1.9 on S3. Nice. Video on the S3 does DivX and WMV… not so on the Atrix, I can live with that. Twitter is not a built in service on the HD. I can live with that.  And I have no NFC on the Atrix HD.  …. well so… there is not a whole lot different except RAM and Storage.

So that’s why I’m not willing to drag my 4 year old out of bed and wait for the S3 only to be writhing in jealousy and tech manic depression when the S4 comes out. I will use the Atrix HD until my 40th birthday and maybe will like it so much this time next year I will still be writing about my good days going to Droid.

Who knows!

We are not always glued to a device. Nor do we sit constantly in front of computer screens… We are in fact humans and there is an evolutionary shift at hand… We are about to lose the need for WRITING.

I am a self professed computer-head in every way. Tablets, iMac, mobile phones… You name it, I want to sit with it and also teach it to my daughter. She is 4 and can breeze around a Blackberry, Nokia, Nook, Mac and now she has her sights set on a damn iPad mini. However, she is learning to write… And she is totally annoyed. Boo!

I have immaculate handwriting, handed down to me from my mother. I used to watch her write for hours and since I grew up really poor, extra or spare paper was a luxury. So any given chance, I would write poetry as though I was James Baldwin or Langston Hughes.

I wrote an imaginary letter to Malcolm X after reading his biography.

I used to try and teach myself French in the summer by writing French spelling words.

I love writing in journals, notepads and notebooks.

Writing… Its is a great release, a time keeper and a way to free up the mind.

Though I champion technology… Please let us keep writing alive!!!!!!!!

There I was getting a Cafe Americano … and the lady holding up the line was trying to figure out how to get the Starbucks app to work on her iPhone4 (she caught a sale, I get it….) Obvious newbie. The giant Samoan, had his app ready on his new iPhone 5. The Chinese research student had his beat up iPhone 3S. He paid in cash and got an ice coffee (bleeeeeeeeyeck!) The rich lady whom glasses were complimented by the barista with the bad weave but cute glasses, whipped out her white iPhone 5 while she stirred in half and half in her Cafe Americano. … How the hell did she get hers first? Uh, I ordered before her bad weave barista. Bleeeeeeeeeyeck to you!

There I was a Blackberry Torch 9810 (personal) and Nokia 900 (business) user amongst the iSheep. I turned and looked at the people sitting down … THEY ALL HAD IPHONES… except one lone Samsung S2 or S3 user. It was like being in a bad tale of “invasion of the cell phone snatchers”. Were they suddenly going to turn and scream at me for being a non-iPhone user? Were they going to turn to me and see me as an iLeper?

So today, I am thankful I am not an iSheep.

I have a lot of iSheeps as friends and some are my family. (Double Bleeeeeeeyeck onia…) and they are indeed on the darkside. Apple has them programmed and they tolerate me but I will never truly know their dark Apple rapture as they probably pray to the West with their iTools in hand.  (hee-hee…)

However, I still stick a bit of middle finger up to Stevie J and say… YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ME. JESUS HIMSELF WILL HAVE TO COME BACK WITH AN IPAD MINI AND COMMAND ME FROM HIS UPDATED COMMANDMENTS APP ON HIS TABLET TO GET AN IPHONE.

Do you hear me, Stevie J.

Never…

PS

No disrespect to iSheeps, really. @Chicagomom72 is an iSheep and I adore her dearly. LMAO!

A source of peace in my car with a very clever 4 year old…

*****

Any body that knows me and my 4 year old knows that we are the ladies of GADGETRY. I love computers more than I love PBJ sarnies…. and left to my own devices I could live of PBJ sarnies for at least a month. I digress…. Back on track in 4, 3, 2 and now… so my kid loves Angry Birds, much to my annoyance. I’m a bit sore because although I’m a geek, the gaming gene is not in me. She gets it from her father. So of course when I was on http://www.WPCentral.com today and saw that Angry Birds Roost was now live on Lumia devices I was overjoyed. ( I have the Nokia 900 for business and I LOVE IT… LOVE IT…. LOVE IT…. LOVE IT. iPhone killer in my opinion.) For moms with long commutes and highly technical children, this could be a small Blessing in disguise. I tend to let her play games on her Nook Color, but on the days I forget, I have to turn over that Nokia 900 if I don’t want a “4 score and 20 goldfish ago” speech from my 4 year old…. which will end in tears. So, all of you Nokia Lumia mommies out there… you know what to do! Download Roost and sip your homemade latte(s) or Tazo teas in peace, while your kid works through their aggression by launching rabble rousing birds through the air at solid objects. Enjoy!

*****

I should tell you… it’s not the game, it’s just all things Angry Birds. Giggle!

I write to you from Soma Sushi…. do not judge me!

Torch 9810 versus Nokia 900… put through the social media whore maven test that is known as a day in the social media life of @Efabulous1.

Although I am totally biased to Blackberry, Nokia is kicking ass and taking names. So let me elaborate. It’s Huge! No the screen silly… Dirty. That screen on the Nokia is amazingly clear and huge. I love surfing the net on it. Though I think Microsoft’s decision to force Bing on me is a real tech communist move. Helllllllllllo…. Google. I want Google search on my Windows phone. Yes, it is like having Magic Mike … but wanting to spoon. Mommy joke…1 and 2nd Magic Mike reference in 24 hrs. Lol. I digress. Nokia flogged the Torch on the browser, but if I cannot get Google or the search engine of my choice … one sneaky point back to RIM.

Torch has SocialScope which is still one of the best combo facebook / twitter clients for BB ever. The fact that you can combine up to two Twitter streams, your FB feed, post to any and all FB pages and check in on Foursquare ( when it works…. because it never damn works for me… and I could be planting roses right under a cancerous cell tower… no worky, fix that SocialScope!!!!!).  Anyway, SocialScope kicking ass taking names… plus Hootsuite is in BB… and in my book,that is the only other app to touch the Scope.

Nokia has Seesmic and TweetCaster…. but they suck on the wp7 platform. They are mediocre and you cannot move through trends and hashtags like a leopard… more like an alley cat with ticks. 

Now Nokia has Twitter, but I cannot randomly search these insane hashtags my friends come up with… and though it is not a business priority, it improves my quality of like tremendously… for heavens sake, I am divorcing I need to laugh people.  I want my hashtags at my feet. BB has this covered, right from anywhere…. very impressed with the Twitter integration. Nokia… you must do better or some raging and overzealous WP7-head has to school me… because the 900 has no moxie in this area.

Switching through apps… Point to Nokia. It is incredibly easy and BB takes another Flogging. Now the Nokia can be pretty annoying because to clear your open apps, I find myself hitting the back button like a 4 year old. … And yes, she hits the back button faster than me… shut up, I am 39 and just got off coffee. Judgemental, you… yes. Stop. Lol.

Everything SkyDrive … point to Nokia. BB definitely competes, as I used my SkyDrive first on my Torch, but it looks better on a Windows Phone… hands down.

Important stuff…Calendar on Nokia sucks. Making recurring items, sucks even more…. triple sec points to Torch 9810. Windows need to really step their game up…. business peopke and moms need dates, make appointments, do future planning… if I cannot program playdate for moms on every 3rd Saturday on a whim… problem.

Live tiles rock, team Nokia.

… so now that the hit sake has kicked in… Business of Social Media Guru…. Blackberry Torch 9810 reigns supreme. Personal toy of an entrepreneur dabbling in social media…. Nokia.

I will keep both phones and pray that BB10 comes out before my 40th birthday.

That is all.