With all the stuff going on with work this week, it failed to occur to me that Thursday, 21 June, marked my first year in Second Life®. Triste Bertrand went from casual to post-apocalyptic, to wingèd Victorian, back to casual (although with glowing eyes and sunglasses, the purpose of which has yet to be determined). I did take a spin as Alucard (of “Hellsing” fame) for an Animé-themed dance night atErbo andDani’s Gin Rummy Thursday night (because it was the easiest to find onSLExchange for L$250 in a hurry). That weekly stipend comes in handy.

Anyhow, both my wife’s and myNokia 6102 phones are beginning to fall apart (mine has loose plastic, hers is heavily abused in her purse), such that I figured they wouldn’t last until we qualify for upgrades next February, so I’ve been trolling eBay for some decent replacement phones. I found aNokia E62 smartphone for less than evenmy upgrade price as a “BuyItNow,” so I snagged that up from a guy that was moving up to theSamsung BlackJack. It’s a little bit beat up with some scratches and wear (he apparently never got a case for it), but otherwise it works perfectly. Of course it’s locked down to Cingular®, so it’s a tad crippled (the SIP settings don’t work, and neither do the settings to set up an LPR printer, limiting you to printing via Bluetooth™ or infrared), but it’s not like I really have a use for those functions. Neither does it have a camera, but I rarely used the one on the 6102. I’m just glad to have a smartphone again.

Cingular just recently discontinued selling the E62, so I ran over there after putting the Vista refund check from Microsoft in the bank to see if could find a second battery and a case at a discount (the battery seems to work fine until one starts browsing internet pages or doing a lot of data exchange, at which point the battery drains in less than an hour). Didn’t find a battery, but did find a case for it for $24 (normally $30, not much of a discount there). While I was waiting for help I spotted LG’s MSP-100 portable speakers—about the same size as a standard flip phone, with an internal 10-hour battery, so you can share music from your MP3 player or from your cell phone, with both 2.5 and 3.5mm plugs—normally $60, for a mere $6. I noted when I brought it home that the power adapter plug is a five-pin USB “B” connector, so for the heck of it I tried connecting it to the MacBook to see if it would power/charge off the USB port. Sure enough, it does (or at least the battery charging light comes on). It has surprisingly good quality sound for being so small (the speakers are only 36mm in diameter), and it’s quite loud (98 ± 3 dB). The only downside is that the speakers themselves have no volume control (they assume whatever device you’re connecting to themdoes have volume control), so I can’t use them on the NeXus 25’s base station (they do work with the iPod and the cell phones though, and also are much louder than the MacBook’s speakers when I need to broadcast a little more widely). Even came with a nice pouch to keep them in. The ones I found are silver on the inside rather than black, and the outside has mirrored surfaces with the Cingular logo etched in on the front and power and battery symbols etched into the back.

Since Cingular/AT&T didn’t have the battery I needed, I ran to Wal-Mart on the way home for a few groceries and one of those emergency battery backup devices (so one can use regular “AA” batteries to power or charge the phone if an outlet is not near). That little $18 item also included a plug to charge my T|X as well as the Nokia phone, and included a pair of “AA” Lithium batteries.

[Update @ 8:31 PM] I got the “Battery Low” indication on the E62’s screen, but this time I decided to let the battery run out on its own in hopes of being able to recondition it by doing a few full drains and recharges. Well, that was 30–45 minutes ago; now the battery meter reads full again. I suspect the previous owner didn’t condition the battery so the detection circuitry is a little inaccurate.