iPhone mutilation

Well, after having to factory reset my iPhone (and thus loose all my data again since it refuses to even acknowledge the last 3 backups) for the 5th time in 2 weeks... I think it is time to burn, mutilate or destroy my iPhone.  I originally switched to it purely for the touchscreen as I had been wanting that for awhile.  There are others with touchscreens now, and chances are they don't require the dreaded evil broken iTunes crap.

So which phone to go with? Well, preference would be for something with 850/900/1800/1900, WiFi, touchscreen (I wish my SaveJe phone had a touchscreen), allow me to write my own applications [preferably Java] , USB, and preferably GPS.  Which camp do I go with this time?

There are quite a few Linux phones... soon to be Android and Java (again) phones... what to do what to do?

The Neo Freerunner is only $374. Basically the same price as the new iPhone, or my old one, or my old SaveJe phone.... It is linux based (which wouldn't be my preference, but it is better than windows-based). Although they are not using a Sun stack (I really want full JRE7 on it) they aparently have a Maven plugin you can use to package your java app for use on the phone:

We use the CacaoJVM as virtual machine and GNU Classpath as class library. With this we have a runtime which is a mostly Java SE 1.5 compatible in the areas an average developer works. Furthermore this combination has a fast JIT compiler and a acceptable small size. 

Definitely not ideal. In fact, it looks like it has some issues.

There is a list of which phones support which JSR... but, I want FULL JRE. Like SaveJe had. Which is now aparently JavaFX Mobile and it not currently available on any phones but was displayed at JavaOne with the previous Neo product (1973).

Phone died

This is the problem I had (but while installing some other app)... If you run into it as well, here was the solution that worked:
"1. Boot phone 2. Hold Power + Home until the screen goes BLACK 3. Continue to hold home and let go of power 4. Plug into iTunes (screen should still be BLACK) 5. Within 20 seconds it should come up in recovery mode 6. Let go of Home and hit RESTORE in iTunes."

Lost Contact

Over the years I have lost contact with quite a few people. Some of them I have managed to reconnect with (mostly through MySpace) and many I have yet to figure out how to locate.  On the off chance that one of them may do a Google search for themselves and come across my page mentioning them, I will list a few people here that I would like to make contact with again...

• Jeff Baxter - he was the assistant manager at Castle in Medford when we moved to Portland together. Worked for Stream for awhile.
• Juliana - she used to do spoken word at the Ohm in Portland back in 1999 or so. She used to live in an apartment down the street from Castle.
• Kathy Tiffee - my first girlfriend back in 7th/8th grade in Alturas
  
• Kari Tibbedeaux - dear friend of mine from Redding that moved to Portola
• Jenny Abeloe - my girlfriend when I graduated from SOU and when I moved to Portland