I've lived here 15 years and never took the double decker bus. Putting it on a list of things my 7 year old son and i want to do this summer made it possible. We still have a few more things we have to get off that list, but this one is crossed out! It was really fun actually, to see the city as a tourist.

SpotCrime is a mashup that shows reported criminal activity overlayed on a Google Map.

I've found myself back in the market for a small smart phone again after my iMate Jam died from the numerous falls it took. (Note to cyclists, don't carry an expensive phone in a jersey pocket with food in it.) I sent back the Blackberry Pearl 8100 I was trying out a few weeks ago and am now on the hunt for its replacement.

My Phone and service requirements
I just want a phone that has email, web, calendaring and contact management and plays nicely -- syncs reliably -- with Mac OS X. Being able to read MS Office and PDF docs is a plus, I suppose, but not essential. Tethering either my MacBook or Lenovo Thinkpad are also possible uses I might consider useful, so cost for that service has to be considered.

Carrier service plans
I've compiled a cost comparison of service providers in the NYC area. This comparison looks for service packages that include the least expensive voice options and unlimited data from cell phone carriers serving the NYC area.

Note that there is a difference between Edge and EVDO service. Edge is capable of providing up to 200K upload at peak (more likely to get ~100K) while EVDO is capable of providing at peak up to 2.4mb upload (more likely to get ~600K). More information about Edge vs. EVDO at cnet. Also helpful was seeing this real world speed tests comparing Sprint and Verizon. I'm leaning towards Sprint after reading in bulletin boards that they appear to provide the fastest EVDO data service at the lowest cost.

Also worth noting is that choosing a Blackberry option would incur different costs. For example, TMobile has a Blackberry plan with unlimited data and 1000 minutes voice for $70.

Picking a phone
I have no idea what phone to use. Right now it's between the Treo 700p or 700w and the Blackberry 8700. The 8700 may be a viable option now since Daniel Pasco has come up with a solution for tethering a Mac to it, thanks to Alex for raising the bounty. Only downside to the Blackberry route is having to pay $4/month for proxy service unless you run your own, and I don't intend to do that.

I think I'm actually leaning towards the Treo 700p. Treonauts has a nice table comparing the current Treo phones. I know it's a downgrade (or maybe a sidegrade) from feature set of a Pocket PC, but I want absolute synching reliability and am willing to trade off some functionality for the peace of mind that comes with a Palm device talking to a Mac. I've had an iMate Jam Pocket PC phone synching with Mark/Space's Missing Sync and it's worked pretty well, but flaked out occassionally, requiring re-installs. My wife is now using one of the HTC Wizards (the 8125 on Cingular) and it seemed to be synching nicely, but MissingSync stopped connecting all the way all of a sudden this morning for her. Typical. I just don't want to waste time constantly tweaking my phone to get the address book and calendar synched up. I want something that just works and I can't wait around for the Apple smart phone that people have been predicting with confidence for over a year now. Of course, now that I'm ready to buy a new phone, I'm sure Apple will release the damned thing. Anyway, Pocket PC is out for me.

The only other real contender for me is really the Blackberry. I liked the push email, but am not sure I need or want to be that connected and available. After trying the Pearl 8100 for a week, I was also pretty unimpressed with the user experience. That Java UI that Blackberry users tout as simple and genius is a hierarchical mess to me. I'm a former Sidekick I, SK II, and PPC user so I have different expectations for ease of use. The SK UI is simply the best on any smart phone I've used. The PPC was fine because it was familiar, albeit in that Microsoft kind of way. And I wasn't very happy with SureType on the Pearl 8100. It worked remarkably well until you got to forms, especially password entry. There's no predictive typing for passwords, so you're left to do multi-tap entries there. Yuck. The real show stopper is that there's presently no Mac synching support with the Pearl yet. I'm tempted to hold out for the 8800, which will provide a full QWERTY keyboard and better Bluetooth support so we Mac users can tether using something like the Fibble.org script. But it'll still be a Blackberry experience and I've never synched a Blackberry with the Mac so I don't know how that goes, i.e. if it's reliable using Pocket Mac's software.

So I'm back to weighing the cost of experience vs. features and functionality, and what do I find myself looking at? On the surface, to a Mac user the Palm Treo 700p looks the logical choice -- the one running the Palm OS and not the Windows Mobile OS. But it's a step backward. If simplicity and reliability are the most important factors with all service speed and cost issues being equal, I personally think the Palm OS wins for now. That comes after trying quite a few smart phone OSes. But I also have to remind myself why I left the Palm platform in the first place -- I was an early adopter of the Treo, having owned the gray flip top 180g. The OS at the time was the reason I left. I couldn't have email, web, and IM apps running simultaneously. I don't think that's an issue anymore. One downside is that the 700p won't be upgradeable to the faster EVDO Rev A. For that reason alone the 700w might be more attractive or any of those HTC Wizard devices that every carrier seems to sell.

So anyway, I'm letting all of this information soak in for a while before I consider making the leap again. It's been a while since I've had to pony up extra dough for a smart phone, and for the extra service charges. Luckily my TMobile contract period is over so I can go the rebate route using Wirefly.

Any suggestions on the right phone to select for a Mac user would be greatly appreciated.

Goal reached! Thanks to everyone who made a donation. The donors are real heroes and are playing a huge part in saving people's lives. You rock!

This May I'm riding 100 miles with Team In Training to raise a minimum of $2,300 as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team In Training. All of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives.

I’m excited about completing this long bicycle ride, but am even more inspired by my reason for doing this. All of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. I'm completing this bicycle ride in honor of fellow teammates and cancer survivors, Huong and Scott. Huong was diagnosed with Large B Cell Lymphoma and is in remission. Scott was diagnosed with Hodgkins when he was very young and has been living free from cancer for many years now. I will be training with Huong and Scott as the inspiration to keep my legs turning circles and to finish strong. They are the real heroes on our team, and we need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure!

Please click here to make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance the Society's mission.

Donate as much as you can, and know that no amount is too small.

I truly appreciate your support and generosity!

-Michael

The NY Times reports that Justice Michael D. Stallman of State Supreme Court in Manhattan rejected the city's latest attempt to stop Critical Mass riders. Judge Stallman called the city's legal strategy against the ride "highly irregular" and "as unnecessary as it is inappropriate." The city's previous attempt to stop the CM rides in federal court was also rejected. The city is expected to appeal.

Twenty-one cyclists were killed in traffic accidents in New York City in 2005, up from 15 in 2004, and 13 in 2003. That made 2005 the most deadly year for bicyclists since 1999, when a record 35 died.

On Sunday we rode to memorialize the 21 cyclists killed by motor vehicles on New York City streets. For more information, see The Village Voice's "Ghost Riders" article, the announcement at Time's Up or the Visual Resistance photos.

With the current NYC administration's history of arresting critical massers, all the recent reports of the NYPD "cracking down" and giving bicyclists tickets, and now seizing bikes for being locked to city street signs and poles, I took it upon myself to ask the mayor what's up with this.

Anyway here's what I wrote. What kind of boilerplate response do you think I'll get?

I have a question regarding the attitude taken towards bicyclists in the past several years. Recently the NYPD has shown an increased effort in giving bicyclists tickets for minor offenses including: failure to have reflectors or bells installed on a bike and not riding in the bike lane. Our community has also noted that the NYPD is seizing bikes that are locked to street poles or signs. It is already difficult commuting in this city, but to have the police issue tickets rather than doing productive things including removing taxis from our bike lanes makes it even harder. What are you doing to correct this? As far as I can tell from the all of the bicyle advocacy sites, bicyclists are well within their rights to drive on the road including riding in car lanes when no bike lanes are present. There doesn't appear to be any law that states that reflectors and bells be installed to legally operate a bicycle. The bike community is large in New York City and our voters want to know what you will do to protect our rights. President Bush has taken an interest in bicycle advocacy, why isn't the administration of the greatest city in the world doing the same?

This mayor and the NYPD administration really have it out for bicyclists for some reason. Is it some quality of life agenda for gas guzzlers? Bikes take up little room and have as much right to use the road as cars.

Rode the Tour de Bronx yesterday for the first time. The ride is put on by Transportation Alernatives and the Bronx Borough President. Because it's sponsored by a bunch of corporates, the ride is free.

It's a pretty nice time. I've actually been off the bike for about 3 weeks because of the rain and some illness so this was my warm up for the fall season I suppose. The day was pretty good, but the temps in the low 50's felt much colder because the sun hid behind the clouds most of the time and the really strong winds made it pretty uncomfortably cold, especially at the rest areas. For some reason, they make you wait at the first rest area. I would have been happy to grab a bite and run. Instead I froze my toes off. I have to learn to dress better for these things. Need those shoe covers and gotta wear a wind layer next time.

The 45 mile ride is very nice. The Bronx tour has some mixed scenery with some pretty neighborhoods. And there are some hills to keep it from getting boring. Parts of the ride get confusing with all the pretzel looping around the Maritime College. But past that area the ride is pretty cool. The hills here are better than anywhere in 5 borough area.

Saw quite a few fixies. More than at the NYC Century. I recongnized that blonde girl that models the jerseys for the NYBMF. I'm thinking of riding a few of these NYC rides on a fixed gear next year. Fun short ride and you can't beat free. Will definitely be back next year.

100 miles. 12 Sep '05, 10.35am PST.

It was actually 110 miles and total time was around 10.5 hours. The computer only counts the time when the wheels roll. Started at 7 am and finished around 5:30 pm. Total crank revolutions (pedals) was 31,200. But who's counting?

I started riding a road bike in July after riding a mountain bike for the last 15 years. Yesterday, I finished my first century! I intended to ride 75, but I felt so good I just kept going. This is my cyclocomputer when I arrived. I was just happy to finish.

The trains were running very strangely today, so I got to the start area an hour later than I expected to. But once I was going, it was fun. Cruising through Manhattan with packs of bikes waiting at the lights was cool. It was like a critical mass ride every few blocks when the groups clustered together.

The ride itself was pretty nice. I think the whole idea of TransAlt's tour is to show you all the bike paths and greenways NYC has to offer. Very pleasant rides in some parts. Seeing the Velodrome was cool. I'd like to come back to there one day and watch the races. I was surprised at how pretty Queens was, especially that little hillside neighborhood overlooking some body of water, Not sure what the neighborhood was, but I asked someone who told me we were at the Northern tip of Queens. I'm guessing it was Douglaston, Shore Road & the Long Island Sound?. I don't know. Nice hilly riding though, and my legs were cooperating.

I got a flat in a deserted part of the Bronx. I nearly bonked at 94 miles until I reloaded with water and food at the last rest stop. Then I followed some people who got a little lost at the end and took us a few miles out of the way.

Today I'm pretty sore, especially in my neck area. Oddly enough my legs feel pretty good. I'm hoping to get a fixed gear bike soon. Maybe I'll ride that next year. I noticed a few people riding fixies.

Jake Dobkin has taken some of the nicest Gates photos I've seen so far. I got to read some blogger criticism this morning of the Gates. Of course people want to criticize Christo. And it's a good thing we have the blogosphere to hear the criticism of the people, both good and bad. Some say it's a waste of money (or alternatively a scam to help make the artists more loads of it in drawing sales), others call it a blight on the park, and yet others think it's yet another ego stroke for an artist that some think pull of big artistic pranks. I on the other hand thought it was quite remarkable.

We went to skate at Wollman rink on Sunday and there were throngs of people there for a February late afternoon. That in itself was kind of nice to observe. And if you're having a hard time "getting it", just sit for awhile and watch as kids dance, run and giggle through them. They see the wonder in it all.