I recently had the opportunity to do an in-depth review of the Samsung s8000 Jet. This is a new mobile phone that received more pre-orders than the iPhone did in its early days. That says something about the kind of attention that it’s getting.

While doing my research for the review, I kept coming across four main reasons that this new phone is so popular:

1. Speed. It’s one of the fastest phones available on the market today.
2. Display. It also has one of the most impressive screen resolutions out of any mobile phone line.
3. Advanced web browsing. The new web browser allows you to easily open multiple web pages and perform other fairly advanced mobile web functions.
4. Cool user interface. The main reason people love this new phone is that it has a user interface with lots of neat features. This includes fun shortcuts, transition effects and a neat “smart unlock” system that lets you program each letter key to simultaneously do its own function whil unlocking the phone.

It seems like a cool new phone. I think it’s worth taking a look at if you’re into smartphones (although it’s technically not a smartphone, I suppose). Also, if you’re interested in new mobile phones, you might want to follow these 20 mobile phone Twitterers.

Tags: cell phones, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, news, reviews, samsung features, samsung jet, Technology, Wireless

I almost never watch the news. I almost never read the news. And yet, I do tend to more or less know what’s going on in the world. It’s hard to avoid news completely. It comes in through posts on Twitter and headlines on blogs. So it’s not that I stay out of touch with what’s going on and what people think about it; I just rarely get that news from traditional sources.

And what I’ve seen lately about swine flu pretty much sums up why that is. The media is designed to sensationalize news and to create what amounts to a sense of panic about what’s happening in the world around us. Every time that I turn on a news program I start to worry that I’m going to get murdered or lose my home or catch the latest deadly flu that’s going around.

And while I think it’s good to know what’s happening around you, I think it’s a lot better to get that information first hand from actually experiencing what’s going on around you than to get it from the headline reports about what others say is going on.

Blogs and social networking comments seem to provide a more well-rounded, balanced picture of what’s happening with real people in the world. They say, “yeah, I’m scared of this but I’m also doing x,y,z and can’t go crazy worrying about it right now”. Perhaps that’s why I liked these ten funny videos about swine flu. They remind us to put our fears into perspective, to laugh at our lives and to socialize with those around us instead of locking ourselves up in our fears.

Tags: entertainment, fear, hubpages, media, news, pandemic, swine flu, videos

I just wanted to let you know that you can see more of my work now on the news site Elites TV. It’s an interesting site which has been around for awhile but which as recently relaunched and is not starting to gain attention as a great place to get current news. There is news here on all types of different topics and it should be interesting to see how this develops.

My first two articles on the site are about:

• How the Recession is Changing Productivity. As you know, this is a topic that I’m really interested in right now so it’s something that I keep trying to learn more about. As I learn, I’m trying to share what I learn with others.
• How Easy It Is To Stop Snoring. I recently wrote about this issue over at HubPages and was surprised about just how easy it can be to quit this problem. I think that’s newsworthy, don’t you?

I’d love to know your thoughts on the news site and on my participation there!

Tags: blogging, kathryn vercillo, news, work, writing

I remember sometime in the late 1990′s when daily newspaper headlines constantly alerted us to the fact that kids in bad neighborhoods were being murdered for their sneakers. The point of these headlines was to highlight the senselessness of gang violence and other violent crimes. I was reminded of this recently when I did research into a rash of reports about people who have been assaulted for their mobile phones.

Just a cursory glance through the mobile phone news throughout the United States and the UK reveals that there are people all around the world who are getting physically attacked for the purpose of robbing their mobile phones. It’s hard to say in some of these cases whether the victim was assaulted for another reason and then the phone theft was secondary to the crime but it’s clear in at least a few of these instances that robbery of the phone was the sole motivation for the attack.

That’s some scary stuff. It reminds us of just how senseless most crime is. Phones are not that valuable and they’re easily accessible to almost anyone and yet we’ve got these crimes where mobile phones are valued as property to be stolen. It’s frightening and the reports are eye-opening as to what’s going on in the world around us.

Check out my whole article titled Today’s Thieves Want Your Mobile Phones.

Tags: cell phones, crime, law, legal, mobile phones, news, robbery, Technology, theft, violence

I have been doing a lot of research into mortgage rates right now. This interest was sparked after I wrote an article on CT mortgage rates. The article was about how low Connecticut mortgage rates combined with low housing rates in Connecticut make now a great time to buy a home there. I started wondering if there is going to be a better time to buy than now or if this is really it.

Because of this, I started looking around at a bunch of mortgage blogs to see what people are saying about mortgage rates. For the most part, news headlines are saying that mortgage rates are not going to get any better than they are right now. However, the blogs are saying something different. Many of them are suggesting that mortgage rates may indeed dip a little bit more than where they’re at right now and are suggesting holding out for a better rate.

Of course, the chance you take if you do this is that the news headlines are right and the blogs are wrong. You run the risk of missing out on low rates right now. Is it worth the risk?

This question reminds me of an article I read last year about the two basic approaches to decision making. Some people look at a decision and say “am I happy with this?” regardless of other options. If they are, then they make that choice and are happy. Other people want to weigh whether option A or option B will make them happier.

For those people who fall into the first category, the question would be “am I happy with these low mortgage rates?” The answer is likely to be yes, the person will get a mortgage and they will be happy with their investment. For the people in the other category, it’s important to assess whether rates will go lower or not. If that type of person gets a mortgage now and then rates drop, they won’t be happy even though their rate is low because it’s not as low as it could have been. Which category do you fall into?

Tags: - ct mortgage, connecticut mortgage, connecticut mortgage rates, happiness, mortgage, mortgage rates, mortgage rates in ct, news, Personal Finance, real estate

The London Summit meeting of the G20 economies is set to take place in a couple of days and people are predicting disaster. The purpose of the meeting is for the financial leaders of the world’s major economies to come together to discuss solutions to the problems facing the global economy. However there is a lot of controversy surrounding the event and concerns from many that nothing will actually be done to resolve the world’s global financial problems.

There are a number of protests happening this week in London surrounding this event. The news is predicting that a failure to achieve a positive result from the meeting could end up causing these reltaively peaceful protests to get out of hand and to become future riots. Just what would cause that or how long it would take to occur is unclear.

What underlies all of this is a feeling of fear. People are afraid that the financial situation that we are facing isn’t going to get better and they’re terrified that it could get worse. Whenever fear motivates our actions, problems are created. Is there a way for us to approach the concerns of the economy without coming from a place of fear?

Tags: fear, g20, global economy, hubpages, london, money, news, politics, summit

I have been reading a bunch of interesting news articles online lately about divorce rates and the current economy. It’s interesting stuff because it seems to be this nasty cycle.

On the one hand, the poor economy is causing a lot of stress in marriages which means that there are a lot of couples interested in getting divorced right now. On the other hand, divorce is expensive. It’s complicated by the fact that couples usually own houses together and this is definitely not a good time to sell a house which is what usually happens in a divorce. So even though more people may want to get divorced, it’s actually a really bad time to do that.

Fascinating stuff. In my opinion, it’s a bad idea to make a decision about something as huge as divorce when you’re going through tough times because of other things. A marriage will go through rough times and getting through them together can really serve to strengthen your relationships.

Take a look at my two newest articles on this topic: How to Avoid Divorcing Because of the Economy and How to Delay Divorce Until the Economy Improves. Then come back and let me know what you think about those tips and whether you have any additional advice for people who are thinking about the pros and cons of divorcing in these rough economic times.

Tags: divorce, divorce rates, economy, finance, marriage, news, problems, Relationships