The device that I never leave home without: An intimate introduction

Other than the obligatory necessities that one can never manage without having when venturing out into the public, such as a wallet; keys; purse, backpack, manbag, or fanny pack; and the occasional jacket, I’d like to focus on my cell phone.

Since early July, I’ve had an HTC Touch Dual. I went all out and bought it straight up without any AT&T branding, which is nice if I want to switch over to T-Mobile or if I want to use it overseas with a prepaid SIM card. I had to get an unlimited data plan because I knew I’d use the bananas out of it—and I have. Since January 2, I’ve used 557.61 MB of data for uploading and downloading. I guess streaming live video gets pretty intensive.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do for my next mobile device, though. I’d like to stick with Windows Mobile because it syncs with my computer really easily. Android looks neat, but I don’t use any Google products, except for Gmail, so I’m not sure how useful it’d be to me. I’m not an Apple or iPhone guy and have no need for a farting application. The Palm Pre is pretty intriguing, especially since the mobile operating system is based on HTML and CSS, making in fairly easy to develop programs for that mobile platform.

I’m really digging phones like the HTC Touch HD and the HTC Touch Diamond, but I just dropped three three-and-a-half-Thursdays worth of pay before taxes to buy the phone I have now, which is still pretty top-of-the-line. It’s set up pretty nicely, too. Some mobile applications include:

• Bluehoo for social Bluetooth networking.
• Fring for messaging and as a Skype alternative because Skype only works when I use the speakerphone.
• Google Maps to find directions, specifically to find directions by bus.
• Iris Browser just because Skyfire doesn’t work for me sometimes.
• Japanese Pocket Dictionary for those Japanese words that I don’t understand.
• Kinoma Play for superb quality of YouTube videos and Internet radio.
• Live Search to find places and directions.
• Microsoft Tag Reader for when/if Microsoft Tags become widely used.
• NetFront Browser, which is one of the best mobile browsers out there. It even shows Japanese characters! W00T!
• Qik for shooting live streaming video.
• QuickMark for reading QR Codes.
• Resco Explorer for document management and FTP access (to post or delete content from my Web site)
• Skyfire Beta Browser for a complete, desktop browser experience.
• Skype for hoping that one day, it’ll support Bluetooth headsets on my phone.
• TinyTwitter for my ColumnBreak Twitter feeds.
• Viigo for RSS feeds.
• TV Guide for when I actually want to watch other TV shows besides MSNBC, The History Channel, Food Network, VH1, and Comedy Central.

Well, that was pretty exhaustive. I don’t want to run into any legal issues with posting downloadable links as a middle man, so you’ll have to get them yourself (if they’re available) on the product pages provided above.