Lose The Laptop Challenge

At the beginning of the Lose the Laptop campaign, I was skeptical.  I wondered aloud if a completely connected tech savvy mom-on-the go, such as myself, could really abandon my laptop and iPhone in favor of a the HTC Tilt2 that supposedly did it all. 

Slowly but surely I cut my ties to my beloved phone and discovered that my Tilt2 was indeed so much more than a phone.  I used it to keep in touch with my kids while my husband and I went on a long weekend getaway to New York City by sending them emails with photos of the things that we were seeing and doing so they wouldn’t miss us too much.  While there, I documented my favorite places to eat and dishes and was surprised by the quality of the photos I was able to take with the phone’s camera upon putting together my blog post.

My Tilt2 accompanied me on many trips over the past four months, lightening my load lots thanks to the many great features.  I used the AT&T Navigator help me chart my course from Fort Lauderdale to Miami meet friends for dinner, took it to a conference at Georgetown University where I used social networking apps to live tweet U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s speech, and threw family rules out about screen by allowing my kids to watch streaming Sesame Street videos with me while I was sick in bed!  I was so glad that the Tilt2 comes with parental controls so my kids were watching age appropriate content!

I also found that my Tilt was a great shopping companion.  While it may not have provided outfit advice like a bunch of girl friends could, my husband and I definitely relied on it when shopping for our new hybrid.  Thanks to the ability to pull up our Excel spreadsheet that compared costs and features of different makes and models of hybrids using Windows Mobile and accessing TrueCars.com through Internet Explorer, we were able to make an educated decision when we bought our Altima.

I’ve spent the last four months filling my phone with tons of apps to enhance my productivity, locate the best our city has to offer, and keep my kids entertained whether on the go or at home. 

Whether or not I’m the chosen blogger to win the grand prize at the conclusion of the Lose the Laptop campaign, I’ve walked away with a great experience thanks to my HTC Tilt2.

Best of luck to my fellow competitors!  It has been an eye opening four months and I thank AT&T for inviting me to share in the experience of the Lose the Laptop campaign

To vote for Leticia, scroll to the top of the screen and click on the blue VOTE button that will help her win the grand prize of $5000 and make you eligible to win the prize money plus an HTC Tilt2 of your very own!

____________________

Leticia Barr founded her Tech Savvy Mama site to assist parents in finding the best technology products, websites, and resources for children.  She serves as Chief BitMom onBitMoms.com where she advocates for internet safety and security for families and can always be found on Twitter.

August 1, 9:29 pm

• View Comments: 1
• Add a Comment

In the beginning... God created the heavens and the earth.

Oh wait..

wrong story. Umm, in the beginning, this iPhone and general smartphone lover was given an HTC Tilt 2 to play with for 4 months for this cool concept called the Lose the Laptop from AT&T. I was a bit skeptical at first. But as time went on, my Tilt 2 and I had some fun adventures. We saw some places, we recorded some things, we took some pictures, we emailed some folks. Ok, I can admit.. we fell for each other in a big way.

The Beginning 

Before I converted to an iPhone lover like a lot of the civil (brainwashed??) society, I owned several Windows mobile phones. I believe I owned 5 different ones over time. Now if that does not tell you that I once really love Windows Mobile phones, what does?? Read my post Can the HTC Tilt 2 reclaim me as a great WinMo lover? as I started my new relationship with the Tilt 2 to see if it could win me back. Enter Smartie (aka The Tilt 2)...

After talking for a bit and feeling each other out we wanted to spend some more time together. We decided to...

Travel 

I wasn't certain at first if Smartie and I were ready to travel together but we decided to give it a try. I had a couple of trips planned already before I met him. I wasn't sure that I wanted to let Smartie come, but I did anyway. We took a nice long trip to San Jose, CA. Smartie entertained me on the airplane. It sang to me, it read to me, it helped me get some work done. Oh yeah, this was the start of a beautiful friendship. I could definitely see this going somewhere.

I also let him tag along while my kids and I had a pretend vacation in the house. They seemed to like Smartie, and Smartie liked them.

Getting in good with the kids was a good sign. :) I decided that I was indeed really digging my new friend and I wanted to take him more places. Not really exotic places, after all... we just met each other a few weeks before. But we took a little road trip to Galena, IL.

Galena is beautiful, plenty of places to walk around and get to know each other. We started falling for each other... hard.

Since Smartie and I had to travel right after he arrived in Chicago, I decided that it was time to take him site seeing in some of my favorite places around the city. We went on a nice walking date around some beautiful areas in Chicago and took some pictures.

We would definitely be going more places together.

On Being Social

Like the start of any good relationship, eventually you want your new love to meet your friends. We needed to just stop hanging out with only each other and be social. We went to some nice parties, we talked, we tweeted, we decided to become Facebook friends, we sent off some photos. This was going well. He shared the shame addiction to social media that I do. WOW! He helped me entertain the kids and setup playdates with friends mom's on Facebook. I think I love him. :)

Shopping

So what do you do when you decide that you want a new love to hang around for a while??? You make them go shopping with you!! If they can take the heat, then you will probably last a while. LOL! First we had to make sure that he was well equipped to handle shopping with me. We souped him up with some apps from the Marketplace. Then, it was time to hit the pay dirt!

He was really cool with shopping and even allowed me to get a pedicure while we shopped! HEAVEN!!! I got a new bag and some pretty toes at the same time. :)

We also ordered some movies for date nights at home using Netflix.

Gotta love it.

In Love

And now here we are about 4 months into our relationship and we are pretty inseparable. Smartie and I go everywhere together. We do just about everything together. We just click. He understands my need to keep up with what is going on right NOW. This is super easy. He will update me whenever I need him to. We have so much in common. It is really refreshing. We even made a great video chronicling our relationship so far. Have you seen it?  If not check here.

I think that he has a good chance of being The One. Sigh....

Please click the blue VOTE button above and vote for me! Let's take this out with a bang and win that $5000 for July!!

-------

Kris Cain is a mom to 2 sets of twins who is struggling to stay sane while balancing her life and wearing many hats. You can read more on her addiction to gadgets and the internet on her blog, or follow her on Twitter.

July 30, 12:56 pm

• View Comments: 2
• Add a Comment

I’ve previously written about unusual uses of the Tilt2.  Yet another use of it would be to make use of the Smartphone as an ad-hoc viewer for some home surveillance.  To do that, you must usually setup a suitable web-camera or IP-based camera at the venue that you want to survey of course.

In the past though, viewing videos or screen captures of what has happened would have entailed the need either wait until you are home (or to the venue that is under surveillance), or to fire up your laptop, wait for it to boot, login, wait for applications to load fully, connect to the Internet, wait for connection to be established and launch your browser, wait for browser to load… you get the idea.

What I really love about a smartphone like the HTC Tilt2 is the fact that you use it to quickly get started without much “waiting” for the same result.  Viewing can be done via the Web browser (Depending on your IP camera), or via third party applications such as NetCam2 MP, easily purchased via the Marketplace.

Of course, the Logitech Web camera in the picture above can only be positioned to show a single location.  Wireless IP cameras capable of PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) are cheaper than you think however, with many of them capable of pan and tilt motions.

So there you have it, surveillance on the move!

Paul Mah is an independent tech writer who covers a range of topics ranging from enterprise hardware to consumer gadgets.  You can find his personal blog at www.thetechblogger.comor follow him on Twitter @paulmah.

July 29, 6:52 pm

• View Comments: 0
• Add a Comment

I’ve always been a technical type of user, and I love to find ways to stretch my Smartphones in unorthodox directions that might not be immediately obvious.  Take the HTC Tilt2 for example.  It makes an excellent phone, certainly, with an excellent keyboard and high-resolution display whose angle is adjustable.

The combination of Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities within its sleek chassis means that I am only a single step away from being able to utilize both at the same time.  Specifically, to make use of the Tilt2 to pipe Internet access over to Wi-Fi only devices such as the iPod Touch. (Laptop’s left at home, remember?)

This was precisely what I did on a few occasions, allowing me to download RSS news onto my iPod Touch for some reading.  Based on my usage, I estimated that a full charge is sufficient for at least four hours of Wi-Fi usage, no small feat considering that both 3G and Wi-Fi radios are activated and constantly processing data.

As you can see, the Tilt2 lends itself well as an ad-hoc MiFi appliance for Internet tethering of laptops, netbooks, or even the Wi-Fi only version of the iPad.  It is possible to support all of them via Wi-Fi without splurging the money for a new hardware appliance or signing up for yet another data plan.

The best part is that because it’s on 3G, you can continue to make phone calls or send text messages in the interim.  Oh yes, the software I used to enable the above functionality on the Tilt2 is called WMWifiRouter, and it installs in trial mode for you to try out.

Paul Mah is an independent tech writer who covers a range of topics ranging from enterprise hardware to consumer gadgets.  You can find his personal blog at www.thetechblogger.comor follow him on Twitter @paulmah.

July 28, 6:28 pm

• View Comments: 0
• Add a Comment

This has been an exciting, but also very busy four months. I must say that coming up with a post idea week after week has been quite a task! I realized that I never did a video! Doh! I wanted to make sure to fix that this time, and I wanted to do something fun. I put together a little slideshow showing some of the things that my Tilt 2 and I have been through together. I hope you enjoy "As the Tilt Turns". No, I have no idea why that name came to mind. :) Please click the blue VOTE button above and vote for me! Lets take this out with a bang and win that $5000 for July!! 

Kris Cain is a busy mom to 2 sets of twins who is struggling to stay sane while balancing her life and wearing many hats. You can read more on her addiction to gadgets and the internet on her blog, or follow her on Twitter.

July 27, 3:13 pm

• View Comments: 6
• Add a Comment