"My Name is Earl" contest on MySpace

This isn't gadget news, but since "My Name is Earl" is one of my favorite TV shows, I wanted to make sure everyone knew about this. MySpace, NBC and 20th Century Fox Television have partnered to create the "Friends of Earl" contest that could put your mug in the credits. The contest ends on September 5. Three winners will be randomly chosen. Hurry up and enter before Karma stops you in your tracks.

Treo 700P woes

I spent the past 2 weeks on vacation. In an effort to unplug as much as possible, I left my laptop and mp3 player at home and planned on using my Treo 700p as my sole source of web and email access (with the goal of only going online for helpful things like getting directions).

The first 10 days were a huge success. I felt so light and unencumbered as I flew from LAX to Charlotte and then on to Chicago. The day before I had to return home, my phone started a reboot loop. I tried everything to get it to stop. Luckily, my husband had his laptop so I was able to get online to search for troubleshooting information.

Palm had some limited information, but in the end, they basically said that I would need to do a hard reset. For those of you lucky enough to not know what this is, a hard reset wipes everything off your palm pilot. As you can imagine, this is not the situation I wanted to be in. My travel itinerary was stored on my palm pilot, as were all of my phone contacts. I also had taken photos with my Treo of my daughter's first ice cream. I dreaded losing all of that information, however, it boiled down to the fact that I needed to be able to use the phone first and foremost. So I did the hard reset and lost everything. But I was able to make and receive phone calls and that was the most important thing at this point.

When I got home, I synched the Treo with my laptop. For some reason, the hot sync didn't copy everything over, because Hot Synch seemed to think that I had intentionally deleted all of my apps and files. So I had to go through my Archive folder and reinstall everything. And, of course, things still aren't working. I have not been able to get my contacts synced back up.

I still don't know what went wrong with my Treo 700P, but I have to say that I remain unimpressed with this phone. Maybe I should go back to my Razr???

I lost my XM virginity

I rented a car from Avis on a recent trip to North Carolina. Since I had to drive 2 hours to my destination from the Charlotte airport, I chose a car that included free XM service. I've never used a satellite service before, because I tend to listen to music in my car via my mp3 player. However, I wanted to travel light and left my Zen Vision at home.

I was pleasantly surprised by the eclectic choice of music available. When driving alone, I opted for Air Musique, featuring new and emerging music broadcast in French. When driving with the family, we listened to The Joint, which plays some awesome reggae. My daughter enjoyed the kids channel.

Listening to XM almost made me wish I spent more time in my car. I'm lucky that the commute from my home to my office takes 7 minutes. I can't really justify the expense of XM for such a short car ride. But if I ever have a longer commute, I would definitely consider it.