Cellular decision?

I am currently trying to figure out which cellular company to go with. For years now we have been with AT&T and the allure of the iPhone is hard to resist.
My wife wants to switch to Verizon Wireless as most of her freinds and family are on it. Make sense since we would be able to talk to them for free.
I however have a need to lighten my load so to speak. I currently carry with me a personal cellphone, a work cellphone, an MP3 player, and my trusty N800 internet tablet. I consider that a lot to carry around. Now I probably could do media playback on the n800 but the battery life on it is pretty weak. It can't go out on the internet without wifi access and overall is somewhat limited in it's app offerings and other than a last.fm client and a twitter client it is not really integrated with any more online services. This is not a knock on Nokia or the NIT I am just saying that there is much room for improvement. The NIT does have 1 thing I feel would be a must have for me on a phone to replace it which is a ssh client. I need it for work access. The other thing that woukd be nice is a qwerty keyboard hopefully not virtual but if it is then it has to at least be functional enough so I can edit thing like Google Docs and send text messages or tweets. The NIT doesn't do Google Docs too well but can sometimes work in a pinch. A GPS built-in would be nice too. So in trying to weigh the pro's and con's I have many things pulling me to either Verizon Wireless or sticking with AT&T. My biggest problem is the phone selection at Verizon doesn't meet my needs it seems. This is sad since, as I said, my wife would prefer them. At&t does have the iPhone which would meet ALL of my requirements. Them there are those Google Android based phones that everyone keeps saying are coming. They too would work for me but I will not go with TMO. So when will Verizon have an equivalent phone that would match the iPhone or Android phones? I don't know and that is the problem. I don't mind waiting a month for switching if I know I'm getting what I want/need. As far as price is concerned At&t and Verizon are about the same and kind of high. The others just don't seem to have the coverage or reliability.
H E L P ?

FYI: Windows Vista SP2 Update

I just did the windows vista sp2 update on our laptop. Here are a few this you might want to know. In order to do the update it seems you need to have all other critical updates installed. Not sure if that is acurate but it is what I did and it made the process smooth so I'm not going to complain. After it did all the other updates, which could take a while if you don't keep your machine up-to-date, it will then download the 500+ MB SP2 update. Yes, it is THAT big. Again, after the download it will probably take a while to install (for those of you that don't know it is over half a GB which is pretty big). Once it is finished you must still restart your machine which those of you who run Windows machines for any length of time should no the drill. Unforetunately it (Windows) hasn't changed it's tune there.
That's it. Nothing very eventful happened. So far the machine is running great so either they fixed stuff that I haven't noticed or I haven't used anything they fixed. :)

Desktop Programming... a thing of the past?

I've programmed various things in a number of different languages in my time. Why am I telling you this? Well, just for some background. You see, I want to program more than I have time allowed (pretty normal predicament for me in more than just programming :) ). I find myself becoming one of those people I use to despise. People who would talk, talk, talk about all of this great programming stuff but then never seem to do any actual programming. I suppose on a higher level talking about programming is good for design purposes but from what I've seen in code most of the time those talked about things either don't make it into the code or get lost in the translation to the code.

I find myself reflecting on this because I still want to program in C/C++ or even C# and Boo but I don't need to do that much on the desktop as much as most of what I like to do can be done over the web. So now I'm doing things in PHP and Javascript and making all kinds of useful apps.

A lot of businesses I deal with have moved from the standard client/server structure from years ago into a more webcentric approach. Why? They can get more life out of those older PCs they spent thousands on. They'll upgrade the PC only as a last resort and be happy with whatever OS comes on it as long as it has a web browser they no longer care.

Now with things like MySpace, Facebook, Jaiku and Twitter you can do a lot of talking about nothing and keep everyone who wants to know informed. That's great but for the most part you still have to go out on the web in order to communicate. The device you use to do that is changing. It use to be you only did stuff like that on your computer but now more and more it's on things like the Nokia N800/N810, the iPhone and other smart phones. From a platform standpoint that's probably not too good. GNOME and KDE are still trying to get to a point where they can run on top of windows. Why? Well, they want more users to get use to the programs so they can move over to something like Linux nicely. Heck, good goal. Should have been done about ten years ago.

I'm not trying to be mean but even Microsoft has noticed the shift away from the standard PC and on to a more mobile structure. I don't think the PC is going to go away but the focus seems to be moving to an untethered device that connects to a cloud. The interface is getting smoother and less complicated on those devices too. All of this makes the clunky big box and big complicated interface of a PC less desirable. Add in that things like the XBox and PS3 can get you online now too and the PC's future looks like a much smaller marketshare for eyeballs than any other time in it's history.

Maybe Gnome and KDE need to focus more on interfacing with the network than trying to add more apps that can run on a platform they are trying to compete against.

Printer Friendly

How many web sites have you been to that don't offer a printer friendly version and/or don't print nicely? I've been to MANY. Today I came across this website that offers what I think is a great service. It's called Print Friendly and seems to do a decent job. They even offer a button you can put on your site (probably even on individual posts/pages). I'm hoping I can put something like it on this blog. Not that I have anything I think people really want to print out but you never know. I might come up with SOMETHING. :)