I’m not sure how many normal people take advantage of Bluetooth technology, but I’m absolutely hooked. I run two and a half miles every morning using my Motorola S9 headphones. They are great for running, I can’t recommend them enough. I’m on my second pair; they unfortunately have an unreplaceable battery and would not hold a charge after a year or so. My car has hands-free Bluetooth, which I must say that is pretty cool! And now, my cordless phones are Bluetooth enabled too!
After the purchase of my OBi110, I needed to buy a real phone for the house, I honestly did not have one! I had researched Bluetooth / land-line phone integration solutions several years ago, but they always seemed rather “iffy”. I could never determine how well they really worked. They were always a little pricey, so I never took the risk. I happen to see that Panasonic had a line of phones with what they called a “Link-to-Cell” feature. The phone seemed to get good reviews and was pretty reasonably priced; I picked them up for $57 from Walmart! I have purchased Panasonic phones in the past and was always happy with them. These phone seem to be well made and comfortable to hold. I have not used the answering machine feature, since Google Voice provides that function for me; but did notice the “Voice Mail” indicator works on the phone! Think about that Integration – Google Voice services tell the OBiTalk network that I have voice mail, and then OBiTalk sends the message to my OBi adapter, which ultimately lights up the indicator on my cordless phone… Pretty crazy!
The Bluetooth integration is pretty slick. You can pair two different cell phones with the unit and assign different rings to each cell phone. You can also download your cell phone’s phone-book to the handsets. The phones even include “talking caller-id”, announcing the phone number or name of the person that called. My cell phone seems to pair instantly with the base unit when I walk into the house, no fuss at all. The call quality seems no better or worse than using my old Jawbone Bluetooth headset. I think the sound quality is actually very good and have had no problems carrying on a conversation. You can easily make outbound phone calls with your cell phone, just dial the phone number and press the cell button.
I have only had the phones for a couple of weeks, but have been very happy with them. The convenience of being able to pickup a real phone is kind of nice, plus I don’t have to worry about where laid my cell phone down!
OK, back to the more traditional blogs starting tomorrow! I just really wanted to share how well this inexpensive combination of technology really worked, linking together your cellular service, VOIP (Google Voice), and a traditional home phone into an unbelievably simple and convenient package!
After a lot of Googling for Delicious replacements and I landed on 
Everyone keeps asking me why, what happened to your blog? Why did you stop posting? Unfortunately, it is very complicated answer… I really don’t want to go into the the details. Chances are, you have been in the same boat as me; placed on high profile, transformational project which needed to be done by a specific, non-movable date. It was a rather large project when you consider how it was staffed; project managers, agile coaches, testing teams, analysis team, business liaisons, business consultants, architects, and a few developers. Combine this sizable staff with a new business vision, introduce some new technology requirements (ESB, BPM, Rules), and I think you will get a pretty clear picture of why I stopped blogging! This was a very unique opportunity to finally “do it right”; we were able to complete the system last November/December and successfully migrate to production. It was a very stressful period of time for everyone on the team, spanning many months; this including canceled vacations, working weekends, and extremely long days. This is not really a rant, as we all have to go through these experiences at different times in our career, this is really more about what you can learn and can take away from the experience. Fortunately, I was able to be a student of the process and observed and learned many valuable lessons, and even the reinforcement of many of my fundamental beliefs. Unfortunately, I just did not have the energy to share those thoughts and gave myself a break from blogging. There are several topics that I do hope to go back and revisit, so you will have to keep on reading!!!!
What’s next?
I like anything that gives Apple a little jab… and am looking forward to Verizon releasing some interesting new phones. Verizon just created a new sub-site, 
I know it is a couple of days late, but it is hard to think about resolutions when you are traveling! On the way back from Ohio, I heard a statistic on the radio that said over 50% of people don’t even bother with New Years Resolutions anymore. The primary reason for not making a resolution was because they knew they would not succeed. That seems kind of sad, doesn’t it? Yet another old tradition that is going by the wayside, as society changes for the better(?). What bothers me most, is that I thought New Year’s resolutions were the one time a year where everyone had the chance to think about making some small changes in their lives for the better. Hopefully making them better or healthier people, or maybe even doing something that would make the world a better place.
We just got back from a week long vacation in Ohio with my parents. We had a really nice time with the family, but it never takes long to remember why I moved to Virginia…. winter! Check out the truck, can you say salt? It was amazing to see all of the cars and trucks from Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, coated in white. No wonder you see so many rusted out old cars and trucks! What a difference a little soap and water makes! The truck looks pretty good for being nine years old, it only has about 80 thousand miles on it. Now that gas is back to a reasonable price, we can actually afford to drive it again!