Ever since the iPhone was announced, I wanted one. I desperately wanted one. The problem I had, and still have, is the horrible coverage in the area I need it most — the area where I work.

AT&T’s network shortcomings, despite what a heftier Luke Wilson will tell you, is well documented. I was told by an AT&T rep that I would be lucky to receive a text message in the area I work, and certainly have major trouble with phone calls. Not good. It’s a map issue.

I stuck with Verizon and their map, which gave me 3G Broadband in the same area that AT&T could not guarantee text messages. I also was stuck with the Blackberry Storm. The multiple, daily urges to toss the Storm into the Arkansas River was too much to bear. I purchased the Motorola Droid two months ago and cannot be happier.

I am in Sales and spend most of my days on the road going from appointment-to-appointment.  I have a lot of clients who are very needy.  It is not uncommon to receive 50 calls in a day in addition to a full day of appointments.  It’s tough.  I had a very successful sales year and I attribute much of the success to the Droid.

The apps I use most often on the Droid is Google Voice, Google Maps, Google Calendar, and GMail.   I live outside of my sales territory, so prior to activating Google Voice I was using a long distance cell phone number with my clients.   With Google Voice, I was able to pick a local phone number for my clients to call — for free! This makes a big difference on how my clients and prospects perceive me.  A local phone number is very beneficial.

The Droid has perfect integration with Google Voice. I am notified almost instantly after a message is left.  A few seconds later the message is transcribed into text. Perfect! This saves me a ton of time not having to dial into voice mail and then finding scratch paper to write down the message. A quick read and a press of the button and I’m returning the call.  Then another press of the button to the Calendar to view my next appointment and one more press of the button for step-by-step navigation to their front door.  Awesome!

Another great feature of Google Voice is that it saves all of my messages like email, so it’s easily accessible.  You can also add contact info on-the-fly and add notes to each individual message.  When you add the contact info it updates to your GMail contacts, as well as your contacts on your phone.  Beautiful!  And of course, GMail then syncs with Google Calendar, which in turn syncs with Google Maps for step-by-step navigation.  And all of this syncs with the Droid instantaneously.  It has streamlined and organized my day.  I love it!

The Droid has yet to fail me. I would do a “battery pull” with the Blackberry Storm at least ten times a day to get the phone working again.  I haven’t pulled the battery once with the Droid.  It just works.  Droid does, or something.

My iPhone envy has not completely diminished, though.  It’s too bad the iPhone is still exclusive to the AT&T network.  It’s also too bad Google Voice is not compatible with the iPhone.  I’ve read conflicting reports of who banned the Google Voice app from the iPhone, either Apple or AT&T.  Either way, a phone without Google Voice is a deal killer for me.  Perhaps the best compromise is to purchase an iPod Touch.

I will continue writing about my experience with the Motorola Droid and Android in the near future.  I have discovered a ton of great apps that I’ll share, most of which are free.  It’s a wonderful phone that has made my life better!  I say this with confidence.

As I am typing this, I am watching the latest episode of Heroes on Hulu.com.  It’s difficult to watch my favorite TV shows when I am on the road, so my wife and I often have a TV Show Marathon Night when I return.  But now, thanks to Hulu, I can watch NBC, Fox, and Comedy Central shows on the road and not fill-up the DVR.

I gave Hulu a spin about a year ago, but really did not like it.  It was slow, awkward, and had limited viewing options.  In fact, I completely forgot about it.  It’s funny what a clever commercial during the Super Bowl with an A-list actor can do to promote a website.  So here I am again, after Alec Baldwin turned into an alien, checking out the site.   And I have to say… it’s the bee’s knees.

My Internet connection on the road is my Blackberry Pearl tethered to my MacBook Pro (there will be another post on how to successfully tether a Blackberry to a MacBook later).  I use VZAccess from Verizon and get decent speed, but certainly not broadband speed.  That being said, the buffering speed from Hulu is very fast within the “natural” segments of the show.  There are 30 second commercial breaks before each segment, as well.

The Hulu video player is close to perfect

The flash-based web video player is fantastic!  The stream buffers when the player is paused, which is essential.  There is a buffer meter to help those on slower connections, like myself, to know when it is safe to start playback without worrying about the stream stalling.  You can watch it in full screen 480p if you have a fast connection.  You can also pop the screen out in real-time.  There are embedding options to post on websites, as well.   There is even an option to “lower the lights” to darken the browser surrounding the video player.  It’s pretty slick.

Hulu movie and TV clips

One of the things I really love about Hulu is the ability to watch and post movie and TV clips.  Although, it’s hard to navigate without some trial and error.  If you search the “most popular” or “highest rated” movie clips, for example, you will find that various frat-favorites like Porky’s, Animal House, and American Pie dominate the search results.  So if you have kids, you may want to save the Ice Age clips in your queue, instead of searching for it with them.  I did a search for the Three Amigos and found this clip below.

Full length, commercial interrupted movies and TV shows

There’s actually a decent amount of movie titles, especially for independent films.  Each movie has commercials inserted, just as if you were watching a movie on a network television station.  Personally, I think it’s great.  I would much rather endure a few 30 second commercials than pay a monthly subscription fee for a service I may or may not use.

The amount of TV shows Hulu has to offer is ridiculously good.  Almost every NBC and Fox show is represented, as well as favorites from other networks such as Comedy Central, PBS, USA Network, Bravo, Fuel TV, FX, SPEED Channel, Sci Fi, Style, Sundance, E!, G4, Versus, Noggin TV, Nick Jr., PBS KIDS Sprout, Disney Channel and Oxygen.  The only catch is that most TV shows only provide the last five episodes.

Scott Stafford [dot] com subscription recommendations

Alright, it’s time to set-up my queue.  Here are some quick recommendations for new TV shows for all you road warriors and non-digital converters out there.  In alphabetical order:

24, 30 Rock, Chuck, Colbert Report, Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Fringe, Heroes, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Medium, The Office, The Simpsons, and Spaceballs: The Animated Series.  Have fun!

It took a couple hours out of my weekend to install the Google Mobile App on my Blackberry Pearl, but I should get those hours back soon.   Google Mobile App combines some of the prior apps like Search, Reader, News, Notebook, Docs, and Picasa into one icon.  It’s pretty slick.  It gives me much more room on my Blackberry “desktop” and helps keep resources available.

I also updated Google Maps, GMail, and Google Talk and kept them as separate icons.

I finally took the plunge and switched my email address to a GMail interface.  I didn’t get a GMail account, rather a personal/business account through Google Apps.  This way I use my own email address (scott [at] scott stafford [dot] com) with the Gmail interface.  The business account is $50 a year, but you can also get a free account.

I love the push technology of Blackberry, but the mobile interface of GMail is much easier to navigate.  The control over labels and the ability to archive and search is great to have on the road.  Ultimately, I am willing to sacrifice immediate push-email for ease of use.

The biggest hurdle was changing the MX Records in my hosts Control Panel.  That took me about 20 minutes.  Here is what I changed them to:

There were multiple instructions to change your MX Records, depending what host you use.

So now I have my Calendar, Email, Reader, Maps, News, Docs, and Google Talk all streamlined in the palm of my hand.  Oh, and I can also place phone calls.  Red lights are now much more tollerable.