Road Trip 2007! Back on the Road Again

I'm back, after a long hiatus from blogging. I know I'm quite behind on the blogging scene so I'm using this next event as an excuse to jump back in! This event will be Convergence Daily's first ever Road Trip! We'll be trekking across the vastness that are the Texas open roads from San Antonio through Amarillo into the panhandle across into New Mexico heading north into Colorado and finally landing in beautiful Colorado Springs, CO! That's a total of about 2,000 miles roundtrip! While driving my new Ford Ranger on its 1st roadtrip as well, I'll be testing a variety of technology ranging from mp3 players to a laptop and writing about my experiences all here on Convergence Daily. A short list of hardware includes: Sandisk Sansa e250R mp3 player, Philips 7" Widescreen portable DVD player, Apple iPod 30GB video, Canon PowerShot A510 3.2 MP & Sony CyberShot 7.2 MP digital cameras, a DELL Latitude D600 laptop, Verizon Wireless USB720 Broadband Aircard (almost T1 speeds on the road!), iMation 2GB flash drive, Casio G-Shock solar-powered watch, a CompUSA USB bluetooth adapter, my trusty Nokia 6265i mobile phone on the Cricket network and a Motorola RAZR on T-Mobile's network.

I'll be putting all of this hardware and more through its paces while I spend most of my trip in Colorado Springs, CO visiting all of the sites and even climbing Pikes Peak which sits at over 14,000 ft above sea level, that's more than half the height of Mt Everest, the tallest mountain in the world! I depart for this trip on Wednesday, July 18th to Colorado Springs, CO and shall arrive back in San Antonio Lord-willing safe and sound on July 24th sometime in the late evening. My plan is to post photos I've taken during the trip to my Flickr account, any video to YouTube, and of course all editorial content here at Convergence Daily. I might even take a look at using Twitter to track special events like the Pike's Peak climb. I'm very excited about this trip and look forward to sharing it with you all and testing the flurry of technology we'll have at our fingertips for your reading enjoyment!

See you on the 18th for Convergence Daily's Road Trip 2007!

New Line of SanDisk Sansa Players

The team at SanDisk was onto something when they decided to start competing with the likes of Apple in the portable mp3 player market which is currently dominated by the numerous flavors of the iPod. SanDisk has released a number of mp3 players onto the market under the moniker of Sansa, and have attracted quite a positive response with their smooth silky design and intuitive interface. I recently purchased a Sansa, specifically the e250R which comes bundled with a two-month trial of Real Rhapsody and I LOVE IT. I have taken it with me on my travels across state and to my office to relax while I work. I've even looked at other things one can do with these players, including this. I don't imagine I'll have anything bad to say about the upcoming line of players that were showcased by SanDisk at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.


Starting in the lightweight division, the Sansa Express has a list of features that's surprising given its small size. Unlike any of the other players in the Sansa line, this one can be plugged directly into your computer's USB port without the use of a USB cable. It comes with a microSD card slot for expandable memory, an FM tuner, a vivid OLED display, and a mic for voice recording all for only $60 bucks!


Heading off the middleweight division is the Sansa Connect which brings streaming music to your ears via a WiFi connection and includes support for photos and internet radio. Topping off this truly mobile mp3 player is a handy microSD card slot to expand upon its initial 4GB of space.


Arriving at our heavyweight division we have for you the Sansa View showcasing true video capabilities sporting DVD-quality video and a wide variety of video file types and resolutions. It has a vibrant 4" screen and a built-in speaker to show off its multimedia prowess and comes with an SD/SDHC expansion slot for future expansion sizes up to 32GB! This 8GB player, like my Sansa e250R mp3 player, comes preloaded with content sure to keep new buyers busy playing with it long before they even get around to uploading their own material. Out of all of the devices being showcased by SanDisk at this year's CES, I'm looking forward to this one the most.

My Black Friday Special: Sandisk Sansa e250R MP3 Player

Among those hapless souls waiting in line at one of many department stores nationwide on the eve of Black Friday, I found myself camping out alongside my cousin and uncle in front of a Fry's Electronics store in Houston, TX. This story I shall tell in a later blog post. For now however, I will fast forward to Best Buy ten hours later among the hourdes of senseless shoppers. While my uncle was scoring the latest deal on an HD Toshiba projector I found myself in the mp3 section checking out the latest sales. In the end, I came out on top with a Sandisk Sansa e250R 2GB mp3 player for only $99 bucks!

I will be featuring a review over this mp3 player in the coming days right here on Convergence Daily, but for now here is a tidbit covering this lovely device. This mp3 player also happens to play movies, FM radio, display photos, and do voice recording. This particular model is branded with Best Buy's Rhapsody player software which is comparable to Apple's iTunes and includes a microSD slot for extra storage (among several "one-ups" on Apple's iPod). So far this product is exceeding my expectations and I have yet to tap into its full potential after just a week's worth of use. Be on the lookout for the write-up over the Sansa e250R in the coming days!