The HTC Dash, the "best buy smartphone"

The HTC Dash has my vote as the "best buy smartphone", for a few reasons, but mostly because of the price. Amazon is selling this phone for $.01 with new T-Mobile 2-year contract and then you get a $100 rebate in the mail.

Switching from AT&T was a no-brainer, considering this phone would of cost me $300 with a 2-year contract extension and cost would have been around $80/month. With T-Mobile, I receive a comparable service for $65/month. Once again, the choice was very easy.

The only cons I've noticed are:
-that the camera could use an upgrade and maybe a flash.
-doesn't support SD memory cards
-a little slower that some other more expensive Smartphones.

HTC Dash tips:
1. Download Opera mini 4, this is a pretty cool browser for this phone and much better than IE. SEE DEMO
2. Download the HTC Streaming Media Player, so you can watch videos on YouTube mobile
3. Download GooSync to sync up with your gmail calendar events.
4. Sign up for a windows live account at Live.com, I do this mainly because it's easy to sync up my contacts from any Windows Mobile device.

If you have any tips, please leave a comment.

Merry Christmas!

Importing DVDs into iTunes...thanks DMCA!

As you may know, the iTunes feature that imports music tracks from a CD is crucial for everyday users to be able to put their "legally owned" music library on their iPod. However, this is not at all possible for your valuable DVD Movie library. This is basically because studios and MPAA in 2003 lobbied to have DVDs fall under the DMCA, which I personally believe contradicts several copyright and "fair use" laws that basically say I have the right to make a copy for backup purposes. The fact that I can't backup my DVDs or convert them into MP4 format really annoys me because I happen to own an Apple TV and if I want to watch a Movie I already paid $20 for, I have to purchase it AGAIN through iTunes to watch it on my AppleTV. This is complete crap, and I hope the DMCA is taken down someday soon.

So, here are the tools you need to backup and convert DVDs to iTunes (I think it may be illegal to link to these products, so google them yourself)
- DVD Shrink: This will convert your DVD to an ISO file, which you can use as a backup.
- SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive: this will let you mount the ISO file as it's own drive.
- Xilisoft DVD to MP4 converter: does exactly what you think, works pretty nicely too.

If only iTunes had this DVD to MP4 converter, built in, my life would be so much easier and I think would make AppleTV a much more popular product. So come on Apple, can't you "convince" someone to overturn this Act?