I have noticed a high number of tweets, blog posts and news stories about people returning their iPhone’s and jumping ship to Verizon or Sprint.  People are unhappy with the AT&T cell phone network and with the new iPhone 4.

I have been on the AT&T cell phone network forever. My association with AT&T started with Pacific Bell Wireless which became Cingular which become AT&T Wireless.   AT&T uses a cellular technology called GSM.   Since I have been using GSM based cell phones for a very long time, it didn’t occur to me that non-GSM phones have limitations and was shocked to discover that the CDMA network technology (Verizon and Sprint use CDMA) can’t handle simultaneous voice and data.

The Verizon iPhone may be capable of supporting both voice and data like its AT&T cousin, a tip today says. Verizon is reportedly planning to add Voice over Revision A (VoRA) to its network that would use its EVDO Rev A 3G network to handle voice calls as well as data. Unlike usual CDMA networks, which cuts off 3G when a call comes in, VoRA would behave more like HSPA on phone networks and allow both to run at the same time.

Are you on AT&T and thinking of moving to Verizon or Sprint?  Hold on then, step back for a moment and think about how you are currently using your smart phone on AT&T.  If you currently browse the web, check email or use any apps that require the internet while you are on a voice call you might want to rethink this.  Food for thought.

It’s been a busy week in the technology tips world.  In fact I might have to hold a few back for next weeks blog post.  So let’s get on with it, shall we?

I know that the majority of the people who read this blog travel to conferences on a pretty regular basis and many of you also carry an iPhone in your purse/pocket/briefcase/holster (but not in your left hand). Read on for Five apps for the conference -goer.

Unfortunately I think we all have some email habits that probably should be avoided.  Our pals over at Lifehacker have rounded up The Worst Email Habits and Annoyances You Should Avoid (or At Least Be Aware Of). Go on. I dare you to read it. Maybe one of your habits is on their list.

Don’t have Adobe Flash on you mobile device or can’t get Flash?  Addicted to YouTube?  Thank goodness I found this information over at the Boy Genius site: YouTube launches HTML5-enabled mobile website, native YouTube apps soon to be obsolete.

For you Apple Time Capsule lovers, I have some good news and some bad news.  That bad news is that Apple manufactured a whole batch of flawed Time Capsules in 2008. The good news is that TUAW found out that Apple will repair or replace these Time Capsules should they die on you.

By coincidence I happened to find this beauty of an Apple Support document: Time Capsule: Using AirPort Utility 5.3.1 or later to make a copy of the Time Capsule disk.  Since it looks like Time Capsules might be a ticking time bomb, I highly suggest you follow these instructions to make sure you have a copy of your Time Capsule backups.

Not really a tech tip but for the ultimate gadget lover I just had to share this totally amazing bathroom faucet with touch panel controls.  I want one…bad.

Wow, iPhones, Email, YouTube, Time Capsules and High Tech Bathroom Faucets all on one blog post.  What will I think of next?

While talking to a few people recently and comparing our Google Reader subscriptions and trends, I discovered that I read a lot more technology sites than the average reader of my blog.  So I figured I should put all that reading time to good use and share some of my technology goodies with you all.

It’s iPhone 4 pre-order day and I am sure you all are running around the house/backyard/office/parking lot/mall like crazy person trying to figure out how best to pre-order an iPhone for your spouse/significant other/son/daughter/dog/cat.  Fear not. Engadget has you covered with their post on: How to: pre-order the iPhone 4 (update: third-party retailers best avoided)

As if we didn’t have enough reasons to stop by Starbucks for our daily quad shot Latte, the Boy Genius Report says: Starbucks offering free Wi-Fi access at all U.S. locations starting July 1st

A couple of my tweeps/peeps/yahoos have been bugging me to do Skype video calling. So for all you Skype people and video bloggers pay attention as Engadget has the goods on New Logitech HD Webcams

I don’t know about you but sometime my spelling engine goes on hiatus. It can be a problem when trying to search for something on Google.  Its Google to the rescue with: Spelling corrections in Google search suggest

I know many of you use Google Reader and have been saying why, why, WHY can’t I easily rename my folders.  Stop your crying and read all about:  Renaming folders and tags in Google Reader

Last but not least for all you hardcore Gmail, Buzz and Google Maps users (you know who you are). I give you the holy grail of Google Maps previews in Gmail and Google Buzz

Did you like these tech tips?  Found them useful?  Want me to continue serving up these tips on a regular schedule?  Hated it and wish I would not waste precious blog space doing this?  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

As some of you know, I am a bit of a road warrior and a Mobile fanboy.  To keep on top of my blog reading, I often find myself reading my blog list on my iPhone.  In fact I even wrote a blog post about stealing time for Blog reading and Social Media.  Most of time I am using Google Reader to catch up on my blog reading, but sometimes as I find new blogs I read the blogs directly on the blog website and not using Google Reader.  While the mobile Safari Browser on the iPhone is great, it is even better when blogs have a specific mobile site.

For those of you using WordPress to maintain your blogs, there are 2 great plugins that will automatically create a version of your site for most mobile phones.  The plugins are WPtouch and MobilePress.

Here is an example of my Blog using WPtouch:

Here is an example of the HR Think Tank blog using MobilePress:

As you can see the mobile plugins reformat the site to fit within the mobile browser window so that you do not need to pinch and zoom to see the actual blog post content.

So, my mobile blog reading wish for 2010 is that everyone who maintains a blog will install a plugin to enable mobile reading.

The latest Carnival of HR is up over at the Simply Lisa blog by Lisa Rosendahl.  This time the carnival is hosted in Central Minnesota and you know what that means: Get out your hand warmers and go read some great posts.

Here are a couple of posts that peaked my interest:

Kelly Mitton on 8 ways Gen Y can Impact HR

Paul Smith presents Fixing A Hole – HR’s responsibility to their Gay employee population

Trish McFarlane gives you some great tip on How to Simplify Your Social Media Life

I suppose I should plug my contribution to the Carnival in this post where I tell you how I Steal Time for Social Media

Big thanks to Lisa for pulling together a great Carnival with a fun winter theme.

Recently, two of my favorite bloggers posted tips on how they handle social media overload.

Trish McFarlane wrote an excellent post on How To Simplify Your Social Media Life where she suggested you schedule time for social media and prioritize your access to social media sites.

Naomi Bloom also write an excellent post about her experiences with social media called Reflections Of A Digital Immigrant Gone Semi-Native: An Embarrassment Of Riches where she let us know she is going to set aside Facebook and limit the number twitter followers to keep from being overwhelmed.

I’d like to add on to these wonderful suggestions and offer up my own secret for keeping up with the firehose of social media information.   What’s my secret, you ask?  I steal…time. There, I said it.  I steal time. When I am sitting in a conference room waiting for a meeting to start, standing in line waiting to board an airplane, waiting for my mocha at the local coffee shop or walking across the office building, I steal that time and catch up on social media.  I’m sure by now you have figured out my secret weapon for stealing time and that weapon is my iPhone.  The iPhone has native applications for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and email and with mobile Safari and the Google Reader iPhone mobile website, I can breeze through my blog roll.  But wait there’s more.  The iPhone also has several native applications to manage your blog while on the go.  When I steal time for Twitter, my favorite application is TweetDeck.  With the iPhone TweetDeck application, I am able to automatically sync my TweetDeck groups between my desktop and iPhone.  When on the go and stealing time, being able to selectively view tweets via TweetDeck is a must for me. Did I mention that Google Reader mobile website for the iPhone is amazing?

Stuck on network other than AT&T? Hate the iPhone (for some inexplicable reason). Can’t be separated from your Blackberry or Android phone?  Never fear. So long as you use smart phone that has a fast 3G data connection with the ability to download native social media programs, you too can steal time.

Okay, let review.  YOU too can steal time for social media by:

1. Acquiring a smart phone such as an iPhone, Android device, Palm Pre or Blackberry
2. Downloading native Social Media applications for sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
3. Downloading native applications to manage your Blog
4. Configuring access to all your email accounts via the built in email application
5. Bookmarking the mobile Google Reader site

Oh, one last thing.  I’m not going to go into any details here but you might want to read this blog post of mine about a particular place to steal time.

I know there are probably a ton of other ideas out there so please leave a comment and tell me how you steal time for social media.

Since @williamtincup over at Starr Tincup did not ask for my predictions for 2010, I guess I will have to blog about them right here on my shiny new WordPress Blog.  Since it is New Years Eve and my brain is now official mush for 2009, I could only come up with 5 (really lame) predictions.

SaaS continues to pick up steam

As company’s budgets open up in 2010 and they start looking at upgrading or replacing their aging legacy in-house HCM applications, they will turn to SaaS replacements.  Additionally many companies already using SaaS applications for Talent Management, Recruiting and Learning will switch to another SaaS provider based on perceived but not necessary real shortcoming of their current system  (grass is always greener syndrome).

Consumer information such as Social Security numbers will continue to get stolen

Many companies still have not implemented procedure changes and technology solutions to keep employee information safe.  Too many system administers, database administrators and developers have inappropriate access to employee information in the HR systems.  Additionally, too many people in HR also have access to sensitive employee information.  Controls are still not in place to prevent or detect when files containing social security numbers have been emailed, copied to USB drives or otherwise been spirited out side the company firewall.

Social Media sites will start to be unblocked

More companies will finally get the hint that blocking social media sites is not actually causing employees to avoid spending work time doing social media.  The rise in popularity of smart phones such as the BlackBerry, iPhone and Android devices that can easily access Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites convinces companies that blocking is futile.  However as more people start using sites such as Twitter and Facebook and post before they think, we will see an increase in the number of employees getting the boot at work for posting negative information about their company, co-workers or management.

Oracle Fusion Applications will…

…nope, sorry, no way am I going to predict anything about Oracle Fusion Applications

Bryon Abramowitz and Sarah White will move to a self hosted WordPress Blog

Okay, I sort of get to cheat on this. I started writing this blog post a couple of days ago when Bryon was asking for Blogger Theme help and I predicted that he would eventually be persuaded by his fellow bloggers to move to WordPress.  However Bryon jumped on this faster than my speeding greyhound and moved to a self hosted WordPress blog yesterday.  Sarah will eventually get plugin envy after seeing all the really cool buttons on other people’s blogs and will move her Wordpress.com blog to a self hosted site.

There you go. I hope everyone has nice New Years Eve and I am looking forward to continuing the conversations in 2010.

Do you Twitter in the bathroom, catch up on your blog posts using Google Reader, type a couple of quick emails?

Don’t be caught by co-workers and significant others when they hear the click, click, click of the keys on your mobile device. Please do us all a favor and use a mobile device with a touchscreen.

Trust me, we don’t need to know what you are doing in there.