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This story was featured in the Business section of  the Pueblo Chieftain

Instagram is a free, easy to use photo-sharing service.

Using Instagram, photos snapped with cameras, smartphones, tablets or other devices can be quickly edited and posted to Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare or Tumblr.

(A Flickr version is expected soon.) What has garnered Instagram so much attention is that its creators have found a way to let users take advantage of photo filters and borders, keeping the program simple and functional.

The first step is to download and install the app, which is available as free downloads from the Apple App Store @ http://itunes.com/apps/ instagram/ or the Google Play market @ http://goo.gl/ZDZfk. The Instagram application is compatible with the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch running iOS 3.1.2 or above or any Android device running Android 2.2 or above.

Once the app is installed, sharing a photo on Instagram is just as easy.

Snap the photo and crop it with the provided tools by dragging the on-screen borders. You can then choose a filter and or border from the many presented in the onscreen menu.You don’t have to be familiar with what these filters do ahead of time. You can tap the effects button and see a real-time preview of the screen effect.

Again, there is nothing you need to remember as all of the sharing options are menu driven.

At the bottom of the screen are five large navigation buttons.

1.  The home button, which brings you back to the opening screen from anywhere within the application.
2.  The star button, which takes you to the Instagram popular page with the most popular daily photos as voted by the Instagram-user community.
3.  The camera button, which lets you take new photos or select a previously taken photo from your phone’s photo gallery.
4.  The news button, which shows your latest activity as well as the activity of those you follow.
5.  The status button, which shows your profile page, shows the number of photos you’ve taken with Instagram, your followers and the people you are following. It also lets you choose between a grid or list view of the Instagram photos you have taken.

Even if you’re not a shutterbug and are not interested in sharing photos online, you might enjoy looking through the many photos posted daily.

Many are surprisingly good, well-composed with interesting subject matter.

In essence, that for me is what makes Instagram fun, I don’t share a lot of photos online, but I enjoy looking at what others find interesting and worth sharing.

Smartphone Briefs

by Chris Coleman| @PhoneKnack

During a recent conference call, Verizon Wireless CFO Fran Shammo announced that Verizon Wireless would not be honoring customers “grandfathered” unlimited data plans when they choose to upgrade. Customers will be forced to pick between the selection of tiered data plans that Verizon has to offer.

This news is kind of disappointing to hear from Verizon Wireless, who is the number one carrier in the US. It is not yet clear if this policy will apply to customers who decided to purchase their upgrade off-contract through Verizon or other retail services. If you are a Verizon customer who still has their unlimited data, either hurry and upgrade or do not upgrade ever again!

This story was featured in the Business section of todays Pueblo Chieftain

by George Heymann| @techeadlines

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Sirius is over 140 channels of commercial-free music, news, talk, sports and entertainment as well as traffic and weather, all available where you want it, whether it be your car, home, smartphone or laptop.

Sirius was officially launched in July of 2002 but what makes Sirius XM worth having is its premium audio content. Sirius XM Radio has content relationships with a diverse group of personalities and artists, including Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey and others. For the sports fan, Sirius XM Radio is the Official Satellite Radio Partner of the NFL, Major League Baseball, Nascar, NBA, NHL, PGA Tour and major college sports.

You can download a channel guide with a complete list of programming at http://www.sirius.com/channelguide .

Initially the downside of the Sirius XM service for me was two-fold: the cost and the limitations on where I could listen. In the beginning, I could only listen in the car and it required special radio receiver and a service subscription. If another family member wanted to listen in their car, it required the purchase of another radio and subscription an expensive proposition even though the second subscription was at a slightly discounted price.

The limitations were partially addressed when SiriusXM allowed subscribers to listen over the internet on their PCs.

Today, Sirius XM has successfully solved the “where I can listen” conundrum. Besides an array of car radios that have satellite radio built in, Sirius has radios for Marine and Aviation as well continuing to expand its list of compatible web connected devices, including SiriusXM tabletop Internet radios, smartphones and tablets.

Sirius continues to evolve and innovate in the audio space by not only making it possible to listen everywhere but making it more convenient to listen when you decide to do so. Recently Sirius added Start Now, TuneStart, Pause Live Radio and Show Alerts.

Start Now lets you go back in time and rewind up to 5 hours to select and listen to previously broadcast programming. TuneStart automatically starts the currently playing song at the beginning when changing channels. Pause lets you pause and resume programming when you have an interruption while listening so you no longer have to miss anything. Show alerts let you set reminders that remind you when your favorite SiriusXM shows are on. The new features are available across a selection of available devices.

Some of the more capable smartphones, tablets and media players have free full featured downloadable SiriusXM mobile apps available. Sirius has mobile apps available for Android, Blackberry, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. You can add a smartphone to an existing qualifying Sirius plan for an additional $3.50 per month.

If you don’t have have an existing qualifying plan, you can register for a 7-day free trial to SiriusXM Premium Online to try out the service before purchasing a plan. The Mobile apps work great, offers a large finger friendly user interface that offers a convenient way to browse available channels, one handed by List, Category or user defined favorites.

Sirius offers a dizzying array of subscription packages starting at $7.99 for a la carte package to $19.99 for Sirius XM ALL-in-One, “all you can eat” on one radio plan. Sirius also offers a multiple-subscription discount available when you link a new Sirius XM radio to your current Sirius XM radio account. All quoted plans do not include taxes which are extra.

Although I appreciate Sirius’s attempt at tiered pricing it has some problems. The $7.99 A La Carte plan lets you pick 50 channels from a “selection” of eligible channels. The service requires a special “A La Carte” capable Sirius Radio, does not include live games or races, excludes some premium programming and does not include online listening with SiriusXM Internet Radio.

I would love to see Sirius offer a true a la carte package where the user can select 25 channels from the entire Sirius audio programming library for that $7.99 and listen online or across the full spectrum of devices with the top all you can eat plan toping out at a more reasonable $14.95. I would also like to see Family plans where you would pay full price for the first subscription but could add additional family members for a flat $5/month .

I had previously dropped my second subscription from my family Sirius XM account. With the availability for me to add my smartphone for an additional $3.50 where I can listen from anywhere I’m happily part of a two subscription family again.

For more information you can contact Sirius customer service at 1-888-539-SIRIUS (7474) or online at www.siriusxm.com.

by George Heymann | @techeadlines

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I wanted to share some of my favorite Android applications that have made it to my smartphones homescreen. I’ll try to make this a regular feature and highlight apps you might not have noticed that are worth a look:

Spare Phone: Spare Phone formerly gVoice is a $1.99 Android VoIP app developed by guidology that allows you to use your data connection (WiFi, 3G, 4G,EVDO) to place voice calls using a Google Voice Account. gVoice essentially turns your phone or tablet into a free wireless phone when using the application over WiFi.

Plume: Plume formerly Touiteur is highly customizable Twitter client that has many desirable features including the ability to colorize your timeline, pull to refresh your timeline, handle multiple twitter accounts, picture preview, autocomplete Twitter hashtags, the ability to mute select users and much more it is my current Twitter client of choice. There is a free ad-supported version of Plume as well as a premium ad-free version of Plume available for $4.99.

IMDB: Search the world’s largest collection of over 2 million movie and TV titles, Over 4 million celebrities, actors, actresses, directors and other crew members. Rate movies and TV shows and you can sign in with your IMDb account or your Facebook account. Beautiful interface, a definitive download for movie fans. IMDB is a free download from the Google Play Store.

Slice: Shopping Organized: Slice is an online purchasing organizer and tracker. If you are a Gmail or Yahoo Mail user you can organize then track your online purchases automatically. Slice helps you keep track of spending, search past purchases to recall key details and identify deductible expenses, facilitate returns and exchanges, find style & model numbers and other item details as well as view customer service phone numbers and policies. Slice is a free download from the Google Play Store.

PocketCasts: Currently my favorite Podcatcher, PocketCasts is extremely easy to set-up, the user interface makes the application a pleasure to use. This app has every feature I was looking for, some of my favorites include the ability to set where I would like the downloads to be saved, phone or SD storage. The ability to limit downloads by user selected criteria, for example when on WiFi , when plugged in, either or both. Simply too many options to list here. $2.99 worth every penny!

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It’s been nearly a week since Google released Google Drive, and it’s off to a great start. Drive is available for Android, Mac and PC with an iOS and Linux client promised soon. The cloud storage drive comes with 5 GB of free storage which is upgradeable to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month. When you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB.

I’ve been using Drive to replace Dropbox for many functions and have been satisfied with its initial implementation. I share my gDoc files as well as an assortment of other files between several of my devices.

Google Docs is integrated with Drive and I would like to see a shared Synced Google Music Folder that would replace the Google Music Manager for Up/Downloading music files. A shared Photo folder would also be a welcomed addition.

Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome & Apps has stated that this is just the beginning for Google Drive, “Drive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience. You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos andcreate website mockups directly from Drive. To install these apps, visit the Chrome Web Store—and look out for even more useful apps in the future.”

I look forward to future enhancements to Google Drive, once the iOS client is available, It will be my main cloud storage drive across all of my devices. Are you using Drive? Leave your comments and suggestions below.

by Chris Coleman| @PhoneKnack

RIM has been mum on details concerning BlackBerry 10 but a recently leaked roadmap has shined a little light on subject. No official date has been released or announced but by looking at the roadmap we can see what RIM has in mind for upcoming BlackBerry releases and then play the guessing game as to when we should see BlackBerry 10.

I foresee RIM releasing BlackBerry 10 sometime in October or November based off previously stated timeframes for it’s release. This is purely speculation but I imagine that RIM does not want to get overshadowed by the release of the new iPhone which will most likely be making a late sumer/fall debut as well.

For those UK fans who have been patiently waiting for Motorola to give you an official taste of the latest Droid action, your prays have finally been answered. Motorola has announced that the Droid RAZR Maxx will be available sometime in May, but UK customers can begin to pre-order now.

The specs for the UK version of the Droid RAZR Maxx are near identical to its US counterpart. Both Clove and Expansy are currently taking pre-orders.

The Ice Cream Sandwich Droid Incredible 4G will be powered by a 1.2 GHZ processor with 1GB of RAM. A 8-megapixel camera is on the back with a VGA camera on the front. The Incredible 4G will have a 4 inch qHD display, which lets just say is a step up from HD. Beats Audio will be onboard and the Incredible 4G has the ability to support up to 10 devices for mobile hotspot. Up to 32GB can be added via a microSD card.

With the specs already released as well as an official online presence it is only a matter of time until Verizon announces the release date for this beauty.

by George Heymann | @techeadlines

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I’ve been a fan of smart watches since Microsoft launched Smart Personal Object Technology (SPOT) watches back in 2004. Do you remember Spot? The now defunct service used FM radio signals to broadcast information to your wristwatch.

The service once activated could send content to your smart watch including weather, news, stocks, calendar, sports, horoscopes, lottery results as well as downloadable watch faces. You could also have text messages sent to your watch via MSN Messenger.

Enter Pebble, which was introduced in a Kickstarter project as the first watch built for the 21^st century. Pebble promises to be what SPOT could only dream of. Pebble connects by Bluetooth to an iPhone or Android device. Pebble will have an app market that will feature downloadable watch faces and a host of internet-connected apps.

“We think the ability to create and use apps is one of Pebble’s most exciting features, and we want to make the app experience on Pebble as seamless as possible. So, drawing on our experience with our previous generation inPulse smartwatch, we’re designing Pebble from the ground up with third-party apps in mind” according to a company post on the Pebble Developers Blog.

“Pebble will have an application switcher built-in, as well as a real-time operating system so that core functionality such as notifications and the music player remote control can remain available even while an app is in use.

Apps bring Pebble to life. We’re building some amazing apps for Pebble. Cyclists can use Pebble as a bike computer, accessing the GPS on your smartphone to display speed, distance and pace data. Runners get a similar set of data displayed on their wrist. Use the music control app to play, pause or skip tracks on your phone with the touch of a button. If you’re a golfer, feel free to bring Pebble onto the course. We’re working with Freecaddie to create a great golf rangefinder app for Pebble that works on over 25,000 courses world-wide. Instead of using your phone, view your current distance to the green right on your wrist. These apps will be the first, with more in the works!”

Pebble features include:

• Incoming Caller ID
• Email (Gmail or any IMAP email account)
• Calendar Alerts
• Facebook Messages
• Twitter
• Weather Alerts
• Silent vibrating alarm and timer
• Cycling
• Control your music
• Running
• Golf Rangefinder
• Customizable watch faces

Android users can also receive Text Messages (SMS) on their Pebble.

The Pebble Technology developers are promising a free Pebble app development SDK based on a GCC toolchain incorporating simple easy to use APIs.

If you are interested in picking up a Pebble, you can preorder on Kickstarter for a minimum $115 dollar pledge with free shipping in the US add $10 shipping to Canada and $15 for international shipping.

The developers were hoping to raise $100,000 dollars and have already received nearly received 6.5 million with 24 days to go making this one of the most successful Kickstarter projects of all time.

I’m in as a backer, how about you?

by Chris Coleman| @PhoneKnack

After garnering some additional attention from carriers for Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is teaming up with Verizon Wireless to help promote Windows Phone 8, which is due out later this year. Verizon’s Chief Financial Officer, Fran Shammo said that Verizon is looking to make Windows Phone their third platform behind iOS and Android.

“We’re really looking at the Windows Phone 8.0 platform because that’s a differentiator. We’re working with Microsoft on it”

While the Windows Phone platform continues to grow it will be interesting to see what other interest they can garner as time gets closer to Windows 8.0 holiday release.

Rumors are constantly flooding the web, its part of the technology world. But what we just stumbled upon may be more then just a rumor. A Vietnamese site has just posted a video of them playing around with the new Samsung Galaxy S III.

Where did it come from? We don’t know. What we do know from the leak is that Samsung has decided to go with a 4.6-inch display with a 720 x 1184 resolution. A 1.4 GHz processor and 1GB of RAM keeps this Ice Cream Sandwich phone running like clockwork. On the back is a 8-megapixel camera with a 2050 mAh battery with NFC capabilities. The sight of a 2050 mAh battery is exceptional news as Samsung had promised that upcoming 2012 released phones would feature larger batteries. Storage wise there is 16GB included on the phone as well as a microSD slot for added memory.

One may argue that this whole video is fabricated and false, however, with Samsung’s official announcement right around the corner, this could the real deal.

Update: Unfortunately the YouTube video has been made private.

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According to a recent The Next Web (TNW) report, Google’s rumored “Google Drive” service will launch next week @ http://drive.google.com for Mac, Windows, Android and iOS and will include 5 GB of free storage.

I can’t wait to see how the service will integrate with “Google Docs” and how we will interact with Google Drive. TNW is reporting that  Google Drive will work “in desktop folders” on both Mac and Windows machines.

I’ve been a long time Dropbox user, but may replace it with Google Drive as my virtual storage of choice depending on its implementation.

Do you intend to use Google Drive when its released next week?

 Is that a large smartphone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

by George Heymann | @techeadlines

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By now those of you interested in the Galaxy Note, have probably already looked at the phone statistics and any number of reviews. Rather than just give you my initial impressions, What I’d like to do do is to give you some insight on what it’s like to live with the rather large but svelte member of the Samsung family.

There is almost no getting around the fact the phone is large, the Galaxy Note sports a 5.3″ WXGA (1280 x 800, 285 PPI) HD Super Amoled screen. For me the size has been more of an asset than a detriment in day to day use. The extra screen real estate on the Note has made mobile web browsing productive and for the first time for me on a smartphone, enjoyable!

Think about it, the screen is how you interact with your smartphone, if the touch screen, is low resolution or unresponsive, you’re not going to have a good experience with the phone. The Galaxy Note screen shines here, the screen is bright, high resolution and very responsive, it makes interacting with the phone better in every instance. From sharing photos with friends and family to sitting back watching media on Netflix, the HD screen on the Note makes it a pleasure!

That being said, there is a down side to the larger size, for the majority of users the Note will require two hands for some operations, like texting or messaging. Whether you choose the stock Android keyboard or if you are a Swype user like I am, you are not going to be able to use the Note to text one handed. For me keyboarding on the Note is strictly a two-handed operation, phone in one hand, swiping with the other. Surprisingly because the phone is so thin the phone doesn’t feel unwieldy for most other uses.

From the start, I’ve had to make an accommodation in order to to carry the Galaxy Note. In the past I’ve carried my smartphones in a leather horizontal belt case. The size of the Note makes this impractical. Instead, I’ve moved my wallet with my keys in my left front pants pocket, and carry the Note in the right pants pocket. Because the phone is only .38” thick and weighs just over 6 ounces, it’s comfortable to carry and no one has asked me is that a large smartphone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Others reviewers have commented about the phone size being awkward when holding the phone up for making phone calls, which is contrary to my own experience. The Note feels perfectly natural and comfortable for me to use as a phone even when using the phone with a case attached. By the way the call quality on the Note has been excellent. The speaker phone is also pretty good although the speaker sounds a bit distorted to my ears when turned up on the higher volume levels.

If you were wondering what the most common comments I have received they are:

1. Is that a new iPhone?
2. That screen is gorgeous!
3. That’s a big phone, what is it?

However, for users that feel self-conscious about using the Note for making calls, bluetooth 3.0 is supported and inexpensive bluetooth headsets are readily available.

The Notes performance has been very good, and the battery life has been more than acceptable it easily lasts through my workday.

Although I haven’t extensively tested the camera(s), it has served me well. The Note includes an 8 MP camera with flash that is capable of recording 1080P video at 30 frames per second but doesn’t include a dedicated camera button.

My two remaining gripes with the Note is the lack of a physical LED for notifications, and the phone being released with Gingerbread. Why Samsung chose not to include an LED for notification, is a mystery to me and an oversight that I sorely miss but no one else seems to mention. You can compensate with the use of a great free Android app “NoLED” that will give you the ability to display notification icons/dots for phones like the Note that lack a physical LED.

Samsung has already missed the self-imposed release date for the Ice Cream Sandwich update for the Note (ICS), several builds have been leaked, so all indications are that the ICS update will be available soon for both the International as well as the AT&T (i717) version of the Note.

Overall the Samsung Galaxy Note is great smartphone, in my experience, its been the best smartphone I’ve ever used, the ICS update should make a great smartphone even better and I can recommend it without reservation.

If you are still concerned about the overall size of the phone, go down to a store and pick one up and try it on for size. If you don’t mind the size you’re going to love the phone.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support
• 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• LTE network connectivity
• 5.3″ 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of HiDef resolution (800 x 1280 pixels)
• Android OS v2.3.6 with TouchWiz 4 launcher
• 1.5 GHz dual-core Scorpion CPU, Adreno 220 GPU, Snapdragon S3 chipset, 1GB of RAM
• Pre-bundled with the S Pen active stylus
• 8 MP wide-angle autofocus camera with LED flash, face, smile and blink detection
• Video recording of up to 1080p@30fps
• Dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g and n support; Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi hotspot
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity; Digital compass
• 16 GB internal storage, microSD slot
• Accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Charging MHL microUSB port with USB host and TV-out (1080p through optional adapter) support
• Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• Great audio quality
• 9.7 mm slim and weighs a reasonable 178g
• 2MP secondary video-call camera
• Full Flash support and GPU-acceleration for the web browser permit 1080p flash video playback
• Document editor
• File manager comes preinstalled
• Extremely rich audio and video format support
• 2500 mAh battery                                       *Specs courtesy: GSMArena

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