Good On You Google

While browsing around recently this big red box popped up on my Google Apps Domain hosted e-mail.

Obviously my heart began beating quicker.

Calm down. Click on the "Show details and preferences" link.

I had used my TiVo to access my youtube account.

That's really pretty cool. I wish other Internet services paid so much attention.

IsComputer

You'll remember that I've been using KeePass for a long time to keep up with my passwords. And that I changed my web hosting provider. That left me without a host that provided ftp for my KeePass backup.

I've become a Dropbox user so I thought that I'd use Dropbox to backup up the KeePass database. The problem is that not all PCs are running Dropbox logged into my account. Rather than coming up with a perfect way to solve this I've come up with one that's "good enough."

9 times out of 10 when I change my passwords I'm running KeePass on a particular laptop in my house. To make things interesting though that laptop doesn't actually run Dropbox either but rather accesses the Dropbox folder across the LAN. So what I wanted to do was when running on this laptop to copy the Database.kdb to the networked Dropbox folder.

Today I came across a program from IntelliAdmin that will let me do what I wanted. The program is IsComputer. With a simple batch file I can check to see if KeePass is running on that particular laptop and if it is copy the Database.kdb to the networked Dropbox folder.

I put the IsComputer.exe in the KeePass folder on the USB drive. Then I have the DB Backup plugin execute the following .bat file when it needs to backup the KeePass database.

IsComputer /name:laptop

if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto RUN_SCRIPT
if ERRORLEVEL 0 goto EXIT_SCRIPT

:RUN_SCRIPT

REM I must be running on laptop

copy Database.kdb \\server\d\Dropbox\Keepass

:EXIT_SCRIPT

pause

It works perfectly.

Android - Volume Locker

From time to time I noticed that I had missed phone calls on my Captivate. What I found was that I had bumped the volume buttons on the side and effectively muted it.

Back to the Android Market and I found Volume Locker.

Simply Volume Locker locks the volume on your phone unless you confirm that you intend to change it.

The settings page allows you to specify which volumes you want to lock and which method you want to be used for notification.

Here's what the Tray Notification looks like.

There's not much else to say about Volume Locker. It works just fine.

Dancing Pigs

I rode the Internet Explorer horse for a long time. I wandered off course here and there using Maxthon and IE7Pro. Then I came back to Firefox.

Then came Firefox 4. The Mozilla developers developed a real attitude. I deferred upgrading to Firefox 4 to see how this would play out.

Then came Firefox 5. And Asa Dotzler's comment (archive.org) on enterprises using Firefox showed me where the Mozilla developers get their attitude from.

Enterprise has never been (and I’ll argue, shouldn’t be) a focus of ours. Until we run out of people who don’t have sysadmins and enterprise deployment teams looking out for them, I can’t imagine why we’d focus at all on the kinds of environments you care so much about.

I realize that this discussion is a little off topic from this thread but I reference it to demonstrate Mozilla's attitude.

I the meantime, I've been using the portable edition of Google's Chrome.

A digg thread I followed got me to thinking about if and when to switch. Firefox 5 replaced Firefox 4 in only 3 months and Mozilla dropped support for Firefox 4. I hadn't even upgraded to Firefox 4 yet and it was already obsolete! Apparently I wasn't alone. The digg thread pointed to a PCMag article.

Here are a couple of the comments from digg and PCMag.

Following some of the threads off of these articles led me to a discussion of Mozilla's revenue stream.

Google still provides 86 per cent of Mozilla's revenue, according to the open source outfit's latest financial statement. (From November 2010)

Interestingly Mozilla's contract with Google expires November 2011.

What do you think would happen if Google pulled the plug on Mozilla's revenue? How many of you remember Netscape?

Another commenter:

I'm kinda thinking along with this commenter:

And finally bringing in the title of this post.

Here's the wikipedia article.

Android - Dialer2

Following along on my recent post on ShakeCall I couldn't quite put my finger on what I didn't like about the Captivate's dialer application.

While browsing the appbrain's "Hot this week" I came across an alternative dialer app. In reading the comments there was quiet an outcry about the need to allow Internet access. Presumably this is for ads pulled from the Internet. In these comments was a reference to Dailer2.

It was a quick download and install and it works great.

Again I didn't tweak the settings much.

I replaced the dialer application in the tray with Dialer2.

When you launch it, you get a much cleaner and simpler dial pad.

The most recent contacts show up in a scrolling list on the screen.

You can tap and hold on a contact to get a list of all their contact methods and tap on the number you want to call.

If the desired contact isn't in that list you can scroll or use the T9 technique to search your contacts just like a real phone.

And the best part? It's free.

Android - ShakeCall

After learning how good a computer my Captivate is and what it lacks as a phone I am getting along very well with the Captivate. I still keep an eye out for tools that improve the phone experience.

As most of you know, answering a call on an Android requires swiping across the screen. Unless you have the digital dexterity of Houdini this takes two hands.

Tha app ShakeCall brings this back to one hand. To answer you simply shake the phone.

There are lots of settings but I didn't tweak them much. You can also shake to hang-up a call but I turned that off.

And the best part? It's free.

An open letter to Gary Engel, Globat

An open letter to Gary Engel, Sr. Vice President, Sales and Customer Support at Globat.

I'm a long-term Globat customer. My hosting account came up for renewal this month. My last contract was for $3.75 per month for 36 months. When I called Sales on 6/13/11 and spoke to Amy the best rate she offered was $7.95 per month.

Then I had the following conversation via your online chat:

info: Thank you for contacting support. We are currently experiencing an issue with our email servers. Our Network Operations team is currently working on fixing it in order to restore email services as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience while we fix the issue. Please hold for the next available operator to respond.
info: You are now chatting with 'Matt Benson'
Matt Benson: Hi, how are you today?
Ben Moore: my domain (desotonet.com) it is up for renewal. My last contract was for $3.95 per month for 36 months. When I called Sales today and spoke to Amy the best rate she offered was $7.95 per month.
Matt Benson: Yes, that will be $95.40/yr.
Ben Moore: That's more than twice what I paid on my last renewal.
Matt Benson: Last year you have signed up with promotional offer. This offer is available only for the new sign-ups and is not applicable for the existing customers.
Matt Benson: Also, the offer price is valid only for the first term and it will be
changed to the regular price from the next term onwards.
Ben Moore: So you're basically running me off?
Ben Moore: That wasn't my first term with Globat.
Matt Benson: Okay.
Matt Benson: But, now we do not provide promotional offer for renewal.
Ben Moore: There's an offer out there for GX01 for $3.75. Is that available to me?
Matt Benson: That is promotional offer. This offer is available only for the new sign-ups and is not applicable for the existing customers.
Ben Moore: Good bye.
Matt Benson: Thank you for chatting with us. Please feel free to contact us at any time. We are available 24x7.
Matt Benson: Bye!
info: Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.

From these 2 interactions I have come to the conclusion that Globat no longer wants my hosting business.

I would like to renew my hosting with Globat at the same or lower rate than I have been paying. Can you arrange this for me?

Android - Car Cast Podcast Player

I'm a voracious podcast listener in the car.

The Android Music Player left several things to be desired.

An Android Market search turned up Car Cast Podcast Player.

Once launched go to Settings and adjust as you need. I set it to automatically download, to require Wi-Fi to download, to automatically play the next podcast, uncheck to allow data collection and to keep your e-mail address secret (just off the bottom of this screen capture).

The Subscriptions screen allows you to enter your podcast feeds. After you enter them you can even test the url.

The Podcast screen shows your list of podcasts and lets you select a set of podcasts to delete. Car Cast will even highlight the ones you've already listened to and let you delete them with one click. From this screen you can also select which podcast you want to listen to by single clicking it.

The main screen gives you BIG buttons.

The << and >> buttons jump 30 seconds backwards or forward. The |< and >| buttons skip backwards and forwards through podcasts. You can even drag the marker along the time line.

The microphone button will let you make quick audio notes while you're driving.

There's also a paid version that lags a little behind the free version to improve stability.

Yum! Gingerbread

One of the blogs I follow had an article recently that discussed how to turn the Nook Color into a complete tablet. It discusses installing Cyanogen's Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" on a microSD card and basically dual-booting the Nook Color. It sounds harder than it is.

I had rooted my Nook and am very happy with it but it still had some rough edges. The Nook doesn't present the expected function keys of other Android devices, i.e. Home, Back, Search, Menu. The root process installs an application to present these as floating hot spots but that just isn't the same.

I squirreled the Between the Lines article away and ordered me a 8GB Class 10 microSD card. That was a mistake. I'll explain in a minute.

When the microSD card came in, I started following the post referenced in the blog article. While this was running (Remember the 8GB Class 10 microSD card? I'm getting close to explaining.) I came across another post. This androidtablets.net post describes a way to consolidate some of the steps in the xda-developers.com post.

Unfortunately I didn't read the xda-developers.com post closely enough before I ordered the microSD card. I like their summary: "buy Sandisk-branded class 4 microSD cards." Amen.

That's why I had time to go surf around while the install was running. The xda-developers.com post links to another post with a table of benchmark results. Some of the Class 10 cards are 100 times slower than Sandisk Class 4 cards in a area that is key to the Nook Color performance.

Although the install process worked it took about an hour. I wasn't sure how long it was supposed to take but when it was done, the Nook Color functioned but it was sooooo slow.

Time to RTFM.

That's when I read the discussion on using a Sandisk Class 4 microSD card. I headed out to my local OfficeDepot and bought this.

When I started over, I used the process in the androidtablets.net post. The consolidation of steps and the new microSD card brought the install down to around 20 minutes!

The really bizarre thing is that the Nook is even faster running off the SD card than running off the internal memory. The reason why is here.

Wow is all I can say. The resulting Nook is awesome. Gingerbread is wonderful. Now the function keys are in the Android status bar. The Cyanogen guys even have Bluetooth working.

Try it. I'm sure you'll like it. If you don't you're only out $13.00 and less than an hour.

Captchas

I think captchas have gone too far.

Yesterday I had some kind of error on my Captivate and it presented me a captcha. After I failed the first one I began screen capturing the challenge and my responses.

Here are those screen captures in a random order. Let's see who can pick the one that is correct. Now remember that these were presented on a 4 inch screen in bright sunlight.

Android - Screen Capture Shortcut

One thing I immediately noticed on the Captivate was that there was no way to take a screen capture. I searched and all I found were several that required either rooting or USB cable connection to a PC.

Then on androidforums.com I found a post that referred to Screen Capture Shortcut.

There's a free version and a "donate" version. On the free version, when you launch it you'll find "capture from notification." Check that. Just below is "capture delay." I set that to 1 second. Then exit the app.

When you want to capture a screen drag the notification bar down and click on the "Screen Capture Shortcut" notification. After the delay period (1 second in my case) the screen will be captured and written to a folder in internal storage named "ScreenCapture." It appears that the donate version has an option to "capture on shake."

TiVo

Comcast is becoming Xfinity. This is a made-up word meaning that they're going to take more of your money.

There is a long sordid story regarding clear QAM channels and Digital Transport Adapter (DTA, also known sarcastically as Digital To Analog) but that's for another time.

Along the way to Xfinity Comcast Memphis has reflashed their DVRs. The new software is being rolled out to a number of markets and seems to be universally disliked. Truthfully there are gains and losses in the new software but as usual the losses stand out.

Just like "you can't fight city hall" you pretty much can't fight Comcast. AT&T's U-verse isn't available in my neighborhood. I don't want satellite dishes on my roof and I hear too many complaints about signal loss during thunderstorms.

Anyway on to my TiVo experiences.

I had a co-worker that had an early TiVo and had been very satisfied with it. When I got to checking the prices I found that the monthly service for the TiVo Premier was less than the Comcast DVR, $12.95 vs. $15.95. To get the $12.95 rate I had to get a refurbished model for $99. The TiVo rates and prices have just changed recently. The required multi-scan Cablecard was free from Comcast. Will wonders never cease?

The TiVo came quickly and the setup was easy. I'd heard horror stories about Cablecard pairing but the Comcast technician that brought the Cablecard had 3 TiVos at home. That went quickly.

Everything seemed good but then I noticed that none of the networking functions worked. I knew that the network connection was good and TiVo's own self-test worked. To make a long story kinda short TiVo sent me a replacement unit that worked fine. Even the Comcast re-pairing of the Cablecard was done over the phone with no problems.

I got the regular TiVo Premier with a 320GB HD rather than the TiVo Premier XL with a 1 TB HD. My thinking was that I could move the eSATA drive that I have been using on the Comcast DVR. Unfortunately TiVo is pretty particular about what external drives they support and I haven't tried my drive. After a couple of weeks using the TiVo I haven't gotten over 40% full.

The TiVo's Season Pass is better than Comcast's DVR's series recording. You can also setup a Wish List to record all programs that match a search criteria, e.g. with a certain actor.

TiVo also records TiVo Suggestions programs based on what programs you've recorded and/or watched. This is pretty neat in that during the first week of using the TiVo I had not completed setting all my Season Passes and missed an episode of a series we watch. I shrugged my shoulders and created a Season Pass to record that series in the future. Later as I was browsing my Suggested programs there was the episode that we had missed! Incredible.

Another capability I love is the network connectivity. You can search for programs and when found the TiVo gives you an episode summary by season. When you choose an episode TiVo will tell you where it is available, e.g. Amazon Video On-Demand. It also supports Netflix (I may have to reinstate my subscription) and YouTube. As we watched the Indy 500 Pole Day Simone de Silvestro was on. Rather than trying to explain to my wife what had happened to her, I paused the live TV and went to YouTube and showed her de Silvestro's crashes from Thursday practice and from last year's Texas race. Nice. Probably impressed me more than my wife but ...

I haven't gotten around to reprogramming my Logitech remote but I've come across an Android app to control it over Wi-Fi from my Captivate and the NOOK Color.


I've also found a Java app that gives me the same function from Windows 7.

You can also schedule recordings via the Internet for the TiVo. I know Xfinity advertises this same capability but it's not available in my area.

I'm not sure that the TiVo is a long term solution. I looked at building a Windows 7 Media Center and may do that yet. It is going to feel pretty good walking into Comcast with that hard-to-find HD DVR and telling them to ...

Which Camera?

You may have read my earlier post about my Samsung CL-65 (actually 2 of them). For Christmas 2010 my wife surprised me with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7.

I'm really torn between the 2 cameras and I wanted to stop and recap the capabilities and differences of them.

First I'll list the capabilities and differences and then discuss them. Please note that this is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis but rather the capabilities and differences that are important to me. You may have different objectives.

Feature	Samsung	Panasonic
UI	Touch screen	Traditional buttons
GPS frequency	Continuous	~ Every 5 minutes
Optical zoom	5X	12X
Lens design	Internal	Traditional
Process to record video	Touch screen navigation	One button
Media	Micro SD	SD
Charging	USB	Remove battery
Connectivity	Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, DLNA	None
Overall size	3.94 x 2.4 x .75	4.07 x 2.35 x 1.28

UI

While the Samsung's "gee whiz" touchscreen is fun at first, eventually you will find yourself bumping it when you don't intend to and changing something. If you're lucky you'll realize what it is and undo the change. If you're not lucky, ... You will eventually get to where you struggle to find a way to hold the camera for a long time with it turned on where you don't bump the touchscreen. This is especially problematic when you're waiting on the GPS to acquire satellites.

GPS

While we're talking about the GPS, there are significant and undocumented differences in the way each of these cameras' GPS works. The Samsung's GPS wakes up when you turn the camera on and starts trying to acquire satellites. If it is a "cold" GPS start it'll take a couple of minutes, sometimes longer than you want. If it is a "hot" GPS start, it'll take up to a minute. It could be better but it's actually good enough. Once it acquires the satellites the Samsung seems to continue updating the location. If you go look at this Picasaweb album you can actually track my walking around.

Panasonic's site says "By simply turning on the GPS function, the location data and time are automatically updated." Don't believe everything you read on the web.

The Panasonic actually keeps waking up the GPS periodically even when the camera is turned off. This should reduce the satellite acquisition time. Should is the operative word. If you store the Panasonic in a location where it can't acquire satellites all this does is run the battery down. What I did find significant was that the Panasonic only updates the GPS about every 5 minutes even when the camera is turned on. Look at this Picasaweb album and you'll see the pictures clustered where the Panasonic updated its GPS. The photos show only two locations although I clearly walked all around the house and yard.

This is apparently by design by Panasonic to reduce power consumption. There's even an icon on the screen that tells you this once you understand the issue.

You can force the Panasonic to update its GPS but that's not practical when you're walking around taking shots.

You can see this in several users' reviews on Amazon here and here.

For the trolls out there I am running Firmware version 1.2 on the Panasonic.

Optical Zoom

The numbers say everything. When you need to get up close and personal take the Panasonic.

Lens Design

The Samsung has a clever design that allows the lens to be completely contained within the compact size of the camera. The Panasonic has a traditional lens that protrudes as soon as you power on the camera and extends when you increase the zoom.

Process to Record Video

This gets back to the whole touchscreen UI issue but it is a real example. With the Samsung, you have to touch the mode section on the touchscreen and then select movie mode. This is hard to do one-handed.

On the Panasonic there is a dedicated button that starts taking video when you push it. "Piece of cake" as one of my former co-workers used to say.

Media

The Samsung takes a micro SD and the Panasonic takes a standard SD. They're close enough to the same price now as to not matter and almost all micro SDs come with a micro SD to SD adapter.

But that's just the point. The micro SD requires you to keep up with one more adapter and I can't see that much size advantage especially when you compare it to the battery. Yeah both cameras present removable drives to your computer when attached via USB but still ...

Charging

Why can't everything just charge off of a mini-USB? I know the EU has selected micro-USB and even that'd be Ok.

Both of these cameras charge using proprietary techniques. The Samsung at least uses a USB-powered cable but it's specific to this camera. To charge the Panasonic you have to remove the battery and put it in a charging shoe that plugs into the wall. While it will accept 110V or 240V it only has a US plug so that will require an adapter when I go abroad.

Connectivity

While the Samsung sounds like it has a definite advantage don't judge too soon. According Samsung's user guide Bluetooth connectivity is limited to "you can send photos only to mobile phones or PDAs" so you can't Bluetooth transfer them to your laptop. Using the Wi-Fi I've only been able to connect with no security or WEP security (isn't that the same thing?). Samsung's customer support couldn't help either. And DLNA, you get bonus points if you know what that is.

Size

The two cameras are almost identical size in every dimension except depth where the Panasonic is slightly more than .5 inches thicker. You'll quickly see how much this matters when you try to slip it into the pocket of last year's jeans. Enough said.

Conclusion

I don't know. I like them both and am using them both. My general thinking is that if I'm going to be outside where the GPS can acquire satellites the Samsung is my preference. But if I need a long reaching zoom or quick video it's the Panasonic.

SSH Tunneling

I'm still worried about privacy at public hotspots. I use https on everything that I can and just don't use confidential data on any service that doesn't support https. But you just never know. Firesheep scares me.

One of my co-workers uses LogMeIn Pro and does all his "work" on his home PC. That angle interested me but while I use LogMeIn Free for occasional remote access it requires a persistent application running on the target PC. And LogMeIn only uses a userid/password for access security.

I wondered if there wasn't something that I could do in my router. I discovered that dd-wrt supports SSH Tunnels (I don't agree with the "easy" adjective).

I decided that I wanted this SSH tunnel to "land" on a virtual machine on my home PC. That way I can closely manage what that "PC" has access to on my home network.

I found a refurbished Cisco E2000 for less than $40 that has a gigabit switch, 802.11N Wi-Fi, and supports dd-wrt.

I'm really big into portable apps that run from my USB drive so a friend pointed me to PortaPuTTY.

Configuring PortaPuTTY wasn't obvious to me either (hmmm, there's a pattern here) but with my friend's generous help I got it working!

One of the first things you need to do is to generate a key pair for the SSH session. PortaPuTTY has a key generator included.

Notice that you also have to establish a passphrase so that even if you lose the USB drive you're still protected.

dd-wrt "support" is the typical open source support. They do miracles but communication is not their strong suite. I finally found the bits for my router and the flashing was easy. dd-wrt is certainly a very capable firmware and gives so much more information than OEM firmware.

To enable the SSH support in dd-wrt v24 and higher go to Administration/Management and enable "SSH Management" and put in a value for "SSH Remote Port." We'll use that later.

Now go to Services/Services and scroll down to "Secure Shell". Enable "SSHd". Enter the port from above. Paste into "Authorized Keys" the key from PuTTY Key Generator.

Be sure to click on "Save" at the bottom.

Then I put the private key in the PortaPuTTY folder on the USB drive. Whew! And we're just getting started.

Next in PortaPuTTY you'll need to set the "Host Name (or IP address)" for your home system. If you don't have a fixed IP address you'll need to use dyndns or something similar (dd-wrt has an embedded solution). For "Port" use the value for "SSH Remote Port" that you used in dd-wrt. I strongly suggest that you use a non-standard port.

When you're done you'll come back to this screen and save the session information.

Next go down to "Connection" and "Data" and enter "root" as the "Auto-login username". This is required by dd-wrt's SSH support.

Expand the "SSH" selection and click on "Auth". Click on "Browse" and find the private key file created above.

Click on "Open" and when you get back to this screen delete all the path information except the file name. That'll let you run this regardless of what drive letter is assigned to your USB drive.

Go down to the "Tunnels" section and put a port of your choosing in the "Port" field. I used 4444 but it doesn't matter much. In the "Destination" field, put the local address, e.g. 192.168.0.107, and a colon and then "3389". This assumes that the listening service on the target PC uses 3389 which is the default for Remote Desktop Protocol.

Click on "Add."

You don't need to change the RDP port number to a non-standard value because it is not advertised on the Internet, only to the LAN. The router's NAT firewall ensures that. You can change it if you want to.

I'm using Oracle's VirtualBox which allows you to have multiple VRDPs (Virtual Remote Desktop Protocols) running for different Virtual Machines. You do this by specifying VRDP ports for each one.

Note that the IP address here is the address of the PC running the Virtual Machines, not the IP address of the Virtual Machines proper. This is because the VirtualBox service offers the VRDP sessions for the Virtual Machines. Whew again!

Don't forget to go back to the first screen and save this session configuration. Incidentally the reason that PortaPuTTY is portable is that it saves the session information in the .putty/sessions sub-folder.

At this point I go into the PortaPuTTY .putty/sessions sub-folder and mark that session file I just created as read-only.

Next you'll need to create a RDP profile. Go to Start/All Programs/Accessories/Remote Desktop Connection.

In the first screen put "localhost:4444" or whatever port you specified above.

The following screens are my other settings. You may have your own preferences here.




Remember to go back to the "General" tab and save the profile in the PortaPuTTY directory. Click the red "X" to close this.

I still use PStart to manage my USB drive.

Here're the parameters I use for the SSH entry.

And for the RDP session.

Go to the PStart menu and double click on the "Start SSH Client" entry.

You'll get this screen. Enter the passphrase you created above.

Now go back to PStart and double click on the "RDP to Home VM" entry.

When you're done with the SSH session, close the RDP session. Go back to the SSH window and enter "exit" and press Enter.

Remember that your speed is limited to the home's upload speed. For me that's AT&T's DSL Xtreme 6.0 at 512 Kbps (yeah, right).

Good luck.

Thanks to splashup for the image editing for this post.

There's an App for That

Huh? I was searching for a swype application for my daughter's iPhone (unsuccessfully I might add) and found some hits on ipadforums.net.

When I clicked on the link I got the following pop-up on my Captivate.

I guess they realize where the market is going too.

Yum! Frozen Yogurt

Samsung and AT&T finally got their Android 2.2 (FroYo) update pushed out to Captivates. I lurked in the forums for a couple of days and then went for it this morning.

All is well.

It took about an hour end to end using the instructions from Samsung. The only unclear points are a couple of times when it says things like Step 3.2 "It will do this for several devices and may take a few moments." Wonder how long a "few moments" is? And in Step 3.3 "Once the computer has finished..." I just waited 2 minutes after the last message and went on to the next step.

When the upgrade was done on the phone it buzzed for several minutes and then rebooted. It seemed like it took an extra long time to boot up but all was fine. It went through a new phone type setup. I had to redo my home screens but I had documented this beforehand so that was easy. All my local documents and pictures were fine.

I went to the market and got the new Gmail app. This allows me to send from alternate e-mail addresses. I also had to reset my settings in Gmail, things like how many days to sync which labels.

Pressing and holding the Home key brings up recent tasks like Android 2.1 did but also has a button for a Task Manager.

I've played with the GPS a little inside and haven't seen a miraculous improvement.

Google Docs are editable with Android 2.2 but I've discovered that the documents have to be in the newer format. I'm still using some documents in the old format. You can edit them using Quickoffice that came with AT&T's OTA update last year.

Android Bandwidth

I've had my AT&T Captivate (Samsung Galaxy S) for almost 2 months, long enough to get an insight into the bandwidth usage. AT&T does a good job of tracking the usage and presenting it in an organized manner.

My wife now has my BlackBerry Curve using it for her work e-mail. She doesn't really use any other data on it.

Here's what the last 6 months of her data usage looks like. Look carefully at the units down the left axis. It pretty well tops out just under 4 MB per month.

Now here's my last 6 months of data usage. The first 4 months are on my BlackBerry Bold and the last 2 on the Samsung Captivate.

Wow!

And I have the Captivate setup to use Wi-Fi wherever possible. I don't stream anything. I download podcasts but I have that set to only download using Wi-Fi.

I have the grandfathered AT&T "unlimited" plan. Even so, I'm well within the currently offered 2 GB plan. Still, that's a huge jump in data traffic.