My New Phone

I bought a new cell phone last weekend, got a Samsung Vibrant. Compared to my old and dying cell, it's like going from a 1964 VW bug to a 2010 BMW! It's very thin, light and comfortable to hold. Yet the screen is large for a cell phone, and it's beautiful. It came loaded with the movie "Avatar" which looks and sounds fantastic. It's also a really good phone, I can actually hear people on this phone :) I've been having so much fun figuring out just some of the things it'll do, and downloading apps, ringtones, etc.

You may be wondering what this has to do with dog training or pet sitting, the answer is... nothing really. Except that having a phone that allows me to do so many things, and so easily, is very helpful! Writing emails, texts and anything else is so easy on this phone. It has a feature called, Swype, which allows you to type by tracing a path between the letters in a word, instead of having to type each letter. It took a little time getting used to at first, but once I did I find... I LOVE IT!! It's so much faster and easier to Swype! It's going to make it so much easier to do my Daily Pet Reports from clients houses when I don't have Internet access!

I also find the maps, GPS and voice directions very helpful. It's all google based maps, so they're up to date. I find I like google maps much better than MapQuest, the directions are better and the maps are easier to read. I go to a lot of new clients homes and I find it's so much easier to follow voice commands while driving than trying to follow directions. My car has GPS, which I use most often, but sometimes a place I need to find is too new for my car's program. Updating it is expensive, so this is a great fallback.

It came with a Kindle app, and I've been wanting a Kindle so I can buy my favorite training books and have them all in one easy to get to place. I downloaded my first e-book... Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals, by Karen Pryor. I've been reading it on the phone and it's very easy to see, such a nice screen! I'm sure a real Kindle, or iPad would be better, but this works out just fine and it's one less thing to carry!

The camera is awesome, both the photo and video above where shot and uploaded directly from the phone. There are several different settings/filters for the still camera, including the one I used for the photo of Jesse James. The video camera shoots nice video and, as you can see from my little practice video above, you can edit in the camera and then upload to YouTube, and a bunch of other places too. I discovered that larger files need WiFi, but that's not a problem... or won't be when I figure out what my WiFi password is... LOL! Yet another project!