Regardless, phones aren’t phones anymore. First you could txt each other, then we could snap images the size of a thumbnail. As time continues, I see the importance of owning a smart device. It’s just to bad most of them come equip with phones.

What makes a smartphone smart? Obviously slapping a camera and a touchscreen doesn’t make a phone smarter. Adding bluetooth and GPS is getting closer. I think is has to do less with that actual hardware of the device and more to do with the actual ease of the the software. Since 2008 there have been about 75 smartphones released with Android as it’s operating system. Granted hardware does get better as time goes on but, at the rate of 3 phones a month?

It’s really a choice of opinion of which is best. If you sip latte’s, where horn rimmed glasses, wear tight-tight polo shirts and enjoy the one button clicking style of a iMac, you’ll most likely be a fan boy of the iPhone. But pfft, that was two years ago and now your not mainstream by buying another mainstream Android. You just can’t win for losing.

Some people stay with a service provider that they feel is superior to all others. I don’t know if it’s true or if it’s all in the advertizing. You know that commercial where they show you the coverage map of one provide with blue dot, and the next map has more coverage with red dots all over it. That’s fine and all but, both maps have a dot over where I live. And all those other red dots… I don’t wanna fucking go to those places.

85% of the (possibly more) you’re going to be in range of a Wi-Fi hotspot when you’re surfing the web on your phone. Why do the cell networks have to be so damn fast? Is there an issue with not being able to support full-duplex? Yes it’s true the Internets these days are taking up a hell of alot of bandwidth. Obviously because of more streaming video. Annnd we all know what kinda video are the more popular on the Internets. And not it’s not kittens playing with each other, well, it’s kinda like that… but. Which brings me to a thought, this a maybe why smartphones don’t support Flash. Those “2 minute” videos would constantly crash a cell phone network.

So, it’s not the hardware and it’s not the network… it’s the software. The OS. The programs and data. The clicky, swip, hourglass thingie. OK, enough.

I get asked all the time which is the best. Most of the time you can’t beat anything that’s free but, since they aren’t so much, I’ll rundown my list of the top 5 OS’s you have to choose from. Not to start an argument about what OS is really in the top 5, I’m making up my own top 5 list. All other OS’s left out are then refered to as useless. Don’t feel bad, some of the one’s I’m about to talk about I feel are useless also. So, without any more delay…

#5. RIM Blackberry
First off, I hate that trackball/pad. Remember that little red erase that use to come in the middle of laptops has a mouse? Just as annoying. When navigating through any operating system, I don’t want to have to cycle past 50 other icons first. Secondly, screen sizes on Blackberry’s suck. I don’t know where they don’t make it bigger. If you need a physical keyboard on a device, make it a candybar aka where the keyboard slides out from the bottom/side. The blackberry to me really isn’t smart. It paved the way for “looking at you phone, checking email, while someone else is trying to talk to you about something that they feel is important”. Honestly, if you’re not a 65 year old white male who wears white collared/cuffed shirts and power ties to work, I don’t know why you’d own a Blackberry. What are the key features of the Blackberry? Weather data and seamless integration with Exchange? Blackberry never wow’d me. Mostly likely it never will.

#4. Windows Phone
Most of my experience has been with Windows Mobile. And if you absolutely love Windows, you’ll love this. To bad you’ll be in a small select group. Navigating the Start Bar with the very tip of your fingernail to hopefully not open some other unwanted application. Touchscreen friendly just not muilt-touch friendly. When viewing maps you have zoom in with +/- icons. If you don’t fat finger it. Now, onto Window Phone. Giant stupid squares. The plus side is that, you fat finger everything. The down side is that it’s too simplistic. I feel Microsoft with mocking me. “Here you go dummy, big fat “you-cant-possibly-confuse-yourself” buttons. (buttons aka squares on the touchscreen). I mean it’s nice. GREAT for moms. But you’ll most like still have to explain shit to her every three months. “6 buttons and you still can’t figure it out? Click and drag up to get those 3 other jumbo sized buttons.” Windows Phone would be great for an in-dash car display, but on the phone it’s just not smart enough for me. It’s the smart for idiots.

#3. Android
You know, that mobile OS owned by Skynet. I feel like I wanna like Droid alot but… I just can’t get there. I tried to turn on Wi-Fi on my friends device, I gave up after a minute. It should take you 20 seconds, if someone is talking to you at the same time, to toggle anything off/on. I see the voice recognition is very nice, chubby bunny. But sometime, or maybe most of the time, I don’t want to announce out loud, even when I’m alone, what I’m about to search for. One strong suite for the Driod are all the apps available to help you experience using the device easier. If I have to ask how to open something, then it’s just not intuitive enough for me. Everyone whats to use a wallpaper that’s interactive, which is kinda neat just distracting also. Screen on Android tend to be a on the larger size. Good for viewing non-mobile website, not good for storing in your pocket. I feel I need a laptop bag for it. All in all Droid is OK. It’s seems to me Driod is merging other key features of other OS’s and trying to pass it off as it’s own original features.

#2. WebOS
The little OS that could, but can’t get on a phone to save it’s life. Palm as been effing this ship up for some time. Only 5 devices in 1.5 years, all comparable to the original Pre. Not really pushing anyone to carry their new devices. Palm is even late to the tablet game and WebOs would be a great tablet OS. They make Chinese know-offs faster than Palm and manufacture anything. The newest versions of WebOS just make using a smartphone easy. The JustType feature. Meaning you just start typing and the phone gives you a list of tasks to start. If you typed an address the maps button comes up or if you type a name, their contact info comes up or you can Google or Wiki them. You can other website that have OpenSearch of there site so, you can just start typing food and you can find recipes. No more of that, find the app, open it, got to search, then type. Cards, for easy organizing of running apps. Stacking cards, to group related cards. Swiping is obvious. Left, right, clicking opens, swiping up discards. So easy, so simple, so useful. I fully support the WebOS community. “Home brewing” (user made apps) is completely encouraged. If you know nothing of WebOS, I suggest you watch a 5-10 demo of it on your favorite tubing site.

#1. iOS
Stupid Apple. I hate to say it but it is the best one. A monkey with one eye and only it’s opposite sided hand can use this OS. Everything is easy to navigate and find. Searching on the left. Plus it has more gaming apps than the PSP & DS combined. Playing games, 3D type games just tears up the batter. One game of football drained the battery about 20%. There’s not much more to say about iOS that everyone presumably doesn’t already know. Apple frowns on you using there device in other manner that they want, even though you bought it from them and now own it outright. That’s like the big box home improvement retail stores telling me I’m not allowed to pee in my own sink. Eef off. The only downside I have to iOS is the hardware. I have an 3G touch, meaning I have no camera and can’t use bar scanning software. When I original bought it I though, “I don’t wanna taking photos with it.” Pfft, I completely forgot about all those cute adorable UPCs. iOS is so good on it’s own without phone hardware which makes it, in my opinion, the smartest.

Yesterday, I opened a file, OK, about five that I knew that they just might be malware. Turns out, they were! So I popped Spy-Bot open. Now, in the past there have been one or two things Spy-Bot just has had no luck in removing. VirtuMonde.c just happens to be one of the trojans that Spy-Bots is hit or miss on.

Vundo, or the Vundo Trojan (also known as Virtumonde or Virtumondo and sometimes referred to as MS Juan) is a Trojan horse that is known to cause popups and advertising for rogue antispyware programs, and sporadically other misbehavior including performance degradation and denial of service with some websites including Google.

Spy-Bot wanted to stop scanning to reboot and scan then. Fine! Go reboot and scan Spy-Bot. Whatever you want. But I knew if it needed to delete files on startup, it was going to be a bigger hassle than expected. It was. During the startup scan, Spy-Bot told me it would be best to reboot and scan at startup. Nice! Here’s your cookie Spy-Bot. Now go eat it in the corner while daddy fixes things you can’t. So I run to Google looking for my answer.

After a quick stop at Lavasoft’s non-compatible with Firefox web site, I stumbled upon Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware.

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware is an anti-malware application that can thoroughly remove even the most advanced malware. It includes a number of features, including a built in protection monitor that blocks malicious processes before they even start.

I’ve heard of it before. Figured I’d give it a chance. Turns out, it’s pretty fucking bad ass. I mean it’s not something I need to run realtime. But it came through where Spy-Bot couldn’t. It even came with FileASSASSIN as a side tool.

FileASSASSIN is an application that can delete any type of locked files that are on your computer. Whether the files are from a malware infection or just a particular file that will not delete – FileASSASSIN can remove it. The program uses advanced programming techniques to unload modules, close remote handles, and terminate processes to remove the particular locked file. Please use with caution as deleting critical system files may cause system errors.

Anti-Malware ran and gave me a report of what if found and if it needed to reboot to delete any files. I ran it three times. My fault. First run was a quick scan. Which actually was quick. Like 5 minutes. It rebooted to remove files. Then I ran full scan again. It found a couple other things. Good. It didn’t need to reboot this time so ran full scan again for the hell of it. It found nothing.

I thought I’d just install it, run it and remove it. I think I’ll keep it a bit longer.

Differences between the 1g and 2g? Nothing big or worth upgrading for. Some Nike+iPod crap, a built-in speaker, and iTunes 8 compatibility. It’s also a little smaller and lighter with a longer battery life. Only and extra hour of video playtime but audio goes from 22 to 36 hours. I think I’ll be OK with a limited 22 hours.

The only other thing I can think of is that there’s a rumor that the 2G might be able to support a microphone.