Don't Mess With My Crackberry!

I'm reluctant to admit that I've finally joined the smartphone/pda revolution. Last week I ordered and received my very own Blackberry 7250 along with Verizon's BroadbandAccess EV-DO. I've had it about a week and frankly I'm not sure how I managed to live without it. (My wife already calls it my crackberry).

My reasons for buying one include the fact that I needed a backup high-speed wireless access so I can trade and access the Internet whenever my Comcast broadband goes down (which always seems to happen at exactly the wrong time). In addition, I have found that dial-up access, even when I'm on the road, just is no longer feasible. I've been traveling much more in recent years and I'm out of the office a great deal more time than in the past. So, ultimately I needed a much better solution.

Based on my conversations with many of you and after I started shopping for a new laptop (after my last one died on the trip to Hawaii), I found myself also looking into these devices. The Blackberry I ultimately purchased (which isn't the latest and greatest model, but sports a full qwerty keyboard which was important) allows me to feed Verizon's broadband access directly to my laptop or desktop computer for internet access when I'm on the go. While not as fast as my regular cable broadband, it is about 5 times faster than dial-up which is great. While my blackberry won't replace the need for a regular laptop, it certainly comes close at least for a backup. To be sure, Verizon's data service is cost prohibitive. Unless you can figure out a way to claim it as a tax write off (which I fortunately can), you're probably still better off waiting. In a few years I think Internet providers will figure out much more affordable solutions (perhaps through WiMax and widespread WiFi) which will help all of us stay connected wherever we are for whole lot less.

Dave Mabe, author of "Blackberry Hacks," was kind enough to send me a free copy of his book when he learned that I have one of these devices. Yesterday I spent a lot of time reading it and I found it to be extremely useful. The time shortcuts he provides there are alone worth the price. Those of you who don't know Dave may be familiar Stocktickr - a portfolio tracker that enables you to share your watchlists with others.

While I've never been a big fan of these PDA's or smart phone devices, they have finally arrived to a point where they merit some consideration especially if you need access to the Internet and your email out of the office. This is particularly true if you have discovered, as I have, that dial-up internet access on the go is no longer acceptable.