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I finally got a new cell phone after 4 years with my old Nokia 5250. Although I was never a huge fan of AT+T wireless who made me into a customer by purchasing LA Cellular, I decided to go with Cingular now that they've acquired AT+T and I have to admit that at least as far as phones are concerned, they had a nice selection compared to Verizon. I wanted a blue tooth phone, and decided to go with the Motorola v551. It's a camera phone, and while we were in the Cingular store getting my new phone, and filling out the service transfer pages, Tracy snapped this photo of Niamh.

The v551 is a Java based phone, which means that games or software written in Java have a chance of running on the v551. It's already able to do things like run an AOL instant messenger client. It also seems that now that I'm on the GSM network I finally have some coverage in the house which is also nice. The most exciting thing for me is getting Bluetooth support working, which so far, is an exercise in diddling around, googling, and trying things repeatedly without much success so far.

Bluetooth is a short-range radio frequency (RF) technology that operates at 2.4 GHz and is capable of transmitting voice and data. At 2.4 GHz, it interferes nicely with those 2.4GHz phones not to mention your typical 802.11 b/g WiFi network. That little detail aside, Bluetooth was designed for short distance zero configuration networking, as the effective range of a Bluetooth devices is 32 feet (10 meters). The Bluetooth data transfer speed is a robust 1 Mbps, making it perfect for things like synching your address book and your Bluetooth phone, or using a "wireless" headset with your phone. My dream scenario is using the handfree headset, which has buttons on the ear piece to initiate calls, and allows you to turn the volume up and down. With the v551's voice recognition dialing capability, I should be able to make and receive calls without ever touching the phone. Now if I can just get the v551 to recognize the headset I might actually be able to do some of this stuff.

Niamh is 17 days old today. Yesterday we assembled one of her first toys, a Fischer Price Kick 'n Play Bouncer. To my surprise the chair worked very much as advertised and seemed to be incredibly fascinating to her. It features touch sensitive pads where her feet reach, and given the right level of agitation, she is capable of setting off a number of different chimes and short songs, accompanied by flashing lights. She reaches for the dangling items which extend from the bar, but is not currently able to reach them. Click on the smiley sun toy for a picture of Niamh in action.

Although the chair requires 4 batteries none are included. My god, shouldn't this fact be written in large letters across the box! Luckily like all men, I am genetically predisposed towards hording a variety of batteries, and squirreling them in various locations around the house. I readily admit to a strange compulsion that causes my hand to involuntarily throw a package of batteries (lately the NIMH rechargeable variety are especially alluring) into whatever shopping cart or basket I might have available to me. It might not even be my basket, and no doubt many a stranger has found themselves the unwitting owner of a new set of 4 AA's whilst unpacking the shopping bags at home. No doubt I'm not alone, as batteries seem to be one of the common impulse buy items that every retailer no matter what their focus, likes to put on the shelves in the checkout aisle. Show me a woman who professes to have no need for a man, and I'll show you a woman with an inadequate supply of batteries.