New Phone + Updates

Got my brand new HTC Desire S today and it's amazing. Totally trumps my Iphone 3gs with all its customisation and features. It is going to take me a few days to sort out all the applications but I've got it in good working order. I've snapped a photo of the box below:

 

The highlights for me so far are:

• Voice Commands. Google has outdone its self with these. I can say 'Email "contact name" Hi mate how's it going? Want to meet up tomorrow?' and it will draft an email with what I have said to contact i specify. This is incredibly accurate but you have to pronounce your words clearly (good practice for me regardless). Other commands include 'text "contact"', 'Navigate to "address"', 'Search "terms"', 'call "contact" mobile/home', 'Map of restaurants in "area"', and 'note to self "note"'. 
• Instant photo upload with Google+. All my photos are automatically updated to my account where I can share them online. It also integrates with Facebook and most other photo services. 
• Google translate app. This is the most amazing translating app I have ever used. It utilises the voice to text features from the voice commands to translate what you want to say into 1 of 50 languages. It also uses its text to speech feature to read it back to you so that you can pronounce it correctly. As I am currently learning Spanish I have tested this in both directions. It was able to understand my Spanish sentences and translate it to English as well as translate English phrases into Spanish is great accuracy. Keep in mind I am only saying simple Spanish sentences with an Australian accent so it would be interesting to see how it works for a native speaker.   
• Google Apps and Widgets. Because Android is a Google OS it has, as you would expect, all of the amazing Google applications. I run the bulk of my online activities through Google currently and this makes it very convenient for me. It has my share portfolio on the Google finance app, my emails on the Gmail app, my Google calender effortlessly synced to the Android calender and my RSS feeds linked to the Google reader app.

Needless to say my day has been spent pretty much fiddling with my new tech. I did manage to get one week ahead on my economics subject (completed all readings and activities). I have decided to keep that pattern going and complete all the textbook readings for next weeks lectures in the next few days. This will mean I am familiar with the content during the lecture and I can ask more detailed questions if necessary. 

The plan for the next couple of days is to get some Spanish practice done, complete the article I'm writing on technical analysis, do the readings for my first week of university and restart my gymnastic workouts after 2 weeks off due to the flu.

Extra note: I have added a email subscription box onto the front page. This will send you an email update whenever I make a next post rather then having to check manually. Sign up! Also this will only spend you 1 email for the 24 hour period IF there is a post. This means that even if I update 2 or 3 times in one day (not likely) you won't get spammed with emails like Facebook loves to do.