Next week, I plan to take some time off of work. I’m not doing anything special…except maybe try some of the places the Fork in the Road guys ate…and play some video games.

This got me thinking though, to stay plugged in or to unplug?

Our world is becoming more and more connected. When I’m at home I get my work email on my phone, tablet and laptop.

That can be very nice when you are in the work groove, I wouldn’t want it any other way…but how about for time off?

A study from Expedia.com said that 55 percent of workers come back from vacation not feeling refreshed.

That’s obviously not a good thing…since you know, that’s the point of vacation time.

The lines between work and time off are getting more and more blurred.

I will be the first to admit, I have a hard time disconnecting from my work at the station while on vacation…or even while I’m home sick.

What do you think? Is unplugging something you feel like you can and should do…or is it too hard to get away?

Let me know in the comments!

Do we have any of you old school Blackberry fans out there? I’m sure we have a couple of you.

Heck, at one point I rocked the Blackberry Curve.

There are a couple things most people can agree on that Blackberry devices did better then most devices on the market today.

The first is the physical keyboard…some people love it, some hate it…but that’s not what we are here to talk about today.

The other is Blackberry Messenger…also known as BBM.

Canadian company Blackberry (formally known as RIM) announced they would be releasing their messenger service to non Blackberry devices.

Namely, Apple’s iOS (iPhones) and Google’s Android platform.

I personally think this is a smart move for the folks at Blackberry.

A name that once was the go to name in tech has fallen from graces over the last couple years. The fact is, most people have moved on.

The only way to catch most of those people…or us…is to offer a service we once use to love, on the device we use now.

iMessage on the iPhone is kind of weak, don’t get me wrong it’s okay, but to me, it’s basically texting with a blue background instead of green. It also seems to have a lot of outages.

BBM may be a welcome addition to these devices.

The app drops sometime this summer, no official date has been released.

Are you excited to see Blackberry branching out…or are you over that era in tech?

Parents…listen up, this one is for you.

Tablets, iPod Touches and even smartphones are becoming more and more popular among younger kids.

I think this is a good thing, but how can you keep your bank account safe from app downloading tech savvy children.

One word…passwords.

It may seem obvious, but you really have to watch it these days before you hand over your iTunes password over.

Kids can rack up quite the charge, maybe without even knowing it.

Many games you see these days in the App Store have been called “free to play.”

This means they are free to download, but have in app purchases.

These in app purchases can be anything from extra armor for the character in the game…or access to build things faster, in a game where building is required.

There have been many documented cases of kids racking up hundreds or even thousands of dollars in charges…without parents being aware…until all the sudden their bank account is a bit off.

It is very hard to actually get a refund for this after the money has been spent.

The good news? It asks for your iTunes/app store password before the purchase can be made.

The moral of this story… or blog post?

Keep you password out of your kid’s hands.

The  Optimus G Pro is the newest powerhouse phone to come from LG.

It’s an AT&T exclusive phone that on contract will cost you $199 for the 32 gig version. If you need more room, you can add an additional 32 gig microSD card. It ships with Android 4.1, also known as Jelly Bean.

Now that we got all of that out of the way, lets talk about how this phone actually works.

My first impressions when I opened this thing up were…wow this thing is huge…and is this a Samsung Galaxy Note II?

Neither one of those are really a bad thing though. I kind of like the look of the Note II. And the screen on this guy is very easy on the eyes.

As I said, this phone is huge. You’re looking at a 5.5 inch display…and it’s gorgeous. LG packed quite the display with this phone. The colors are very vibrant and the text is easy to read.

Call quality is about what you would expect. People could hear me, and i could hear them with no problems. A noise cancelling microphone on the phone will help if you are in a less then quiet area.

I do have a couple of complaints with the design of the phone though. My biggest are the soft keys, and the home button on the bottom/front of the phone.

I’m one that rests my thumbs on the bottom when I’m not actively clicking or scrolling. There is a back button where my left thumb would be, and a menu button where my right thumb would be. This has caused a couple frustrating menu pop-ups or back on the browser accidents.

My other complaint is the home button. It’s long enough, but not nearly tall enough. You kind of feel like you have to jam your finger at it a couple of times to get it to go. Don’t get me wrong, it’s responsive…just not easy to actually push.

The phone has a plastic feel to it, but to me it didn’t cheapen it. It’s a very solid plastic. It feels sturdy, yet light.

On the sides you have your standard fare of volume buttons, a head phone jack on top and a charging port on the bottom.

The most…or one of the most important things to me are the battery. The specs claim this device has about 15 hours of talk time, and about 24 days of standby (if you’re not using your phone) time.

The guts of this phone are what are impressive though. I won’t bore you with the specs, you can find them here if you’re curious. Just know, this thing can move. Moving between menus is a very smooth and quick process. I didn’t notice any lag in my tests.

I was not however impressed with off of the bloat ware on this phone. For those that may not know, bloat ware is the demo style apps that come preinstalled on your device. This does not slow down the device, but it does take up some of the phones hard drive.

The camera on this guy is very nice as well. It is equipped with a 13 megapixel real camera and a 2 megapixel front camera.

I was most impressed with the macro…or taking very up close photos though. The phone did an excellent job in this area.

The video camera is a 1080p full HD, which is pretty standard on most high end smart phones these days.

One thing I did find rather frustrating with the camera is when I actually tried to take photos, I was consistently pressing the sleep button. The sleep button (which actually puts the phone to sleep) is on the side. So if you are taking landscape (the phone on it’s side) photos, you may bump the button until you get use to it being there.

One feature that does set this one apart from any other phone I’ve play with is a feature they call duel recording. Basically it records on the front and read camera at the same time. I can’t think of a time when though would be handy, but hey, it’s kind of a cool feature none the less.

One of the coolest features with the phone though is the IR beam. In English, that means you can use this phone as a remote.

It gives you the option to pair the device with a tv, dvd or blu-ray player, projectors…basically anything that uses a remote to control.

It paired up very easily with the TVs in the newsroom, I didn’t have to input any pain in the butt codes to get it to work. Very cool feature!

This phone does have LTE access, which can provide very fast internet over the cell network. The problem with that though is locally, AT&T does not provide it. You’ll still be accessing the 4G network.

What’s the bottom line with this phone?

It was too big for me. For some, that’s not a bad thing…but if you want a phone to drop in your pocket and forget about…this one is not for you. But if you are into the huge screen this phone is right up your ally. In general I liked this phone. The soft keys were kind of an issue for me, but not something I don’t think I couldn’t get use to with use. I would recommend it to somebody looking to upgrade in the world of Android based cell phones!

The phone ships May 10^th and can be found on AT&T’s network. If you are interested in ordering, click here!

What is the cloud?

If you answered that thing in the sky, you wouldn’t be wrong…but that’s not the cloud i’m talking about.

Have you ever head someone say they are saving something to the cloud. Maybe you’ve heard it on commercials.

What the heck is the cloud though?

Put simply, think of the cloud as kind of a computer hard drive…that’s not actually attached to your computer.

You may use one of those little USB flash drives to save things to transfer it from computer to computer. They are for sure very handy.

The cloud is kind of like that, except your data is stored on a computer elsewhere, and you can access it from any computer. You sign up for a service…Dropbox is my favorite, and free service..and log in with your username and password.

The only catch to this is you have to be connected to the Internet to access your files that are in the cloud.

I mentioned Dropbox up there, it really is one of the best cloud service providers out there. Dropbox has an app for most smart phone operating systems, so you can add photos or video from your phone on the go.

Dropbox is a free service, it does however offer limited amount of space on the free plan. You can pay for more storage if you need it. Click here to check it out!

It’s a great way to back up documents or photos, in a place you’ll be able to access from anywhere on any computer.

If you have any questions, or a topic you want me to write about, feel free to let me know in the comments, or drop me an e-mail at Cessex@wthitv.com.

Recently my wife and I looked into changing our data plan for our smart phones. We kind of had a debate on how much data we’d actually need or use.

How much should you be paying for? Data is not cheap these days, and most carriers have done away with the simple unlimited package.

Most of the plans range from a pretty cheap 200 megabytes per month all the way up to the holy crap 50 gigabytes per month.

Most providers’ middle ground plan is about 3 gigabytes. In my opinion that is plenty. But what is right for you?

You have to ask yourself, what do you use your phone for…besides talking of course.

Are you the occasionally check my Facebook and e-mail type? If the answer is yes, a 200 megabyte plan is plenty! You won’t need much more then that.

Are you the kind that loves to surf the web, watch YouTube clips and stream music everywhere you go? You will want to look at a 3 gigabyte or more plan.

I will say this, I consider myself a pretty heavy user, and I’ve only went over 3 gigabytes once, and it was a trip to Florida, where we drove, and I used my phone to stream music all the way down.

In this world where saving $20 on a date plan can make a difference, it’s important to make sure you really are getting…or using what you pay for!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to let me know, I’ll be happy to help! You can reach me at CEssex@wthitv.com.

As I’ve told you guys before, I’m a day sleeper. I am famously known at the station for being the night owl. I need my bedroom dark to actually be able to sleep. After years of creative (and not so creative…construction paper) attempts to keep the light out, I finally discovered the blackout blinds. Mission accomplished. Goodbye sun.

That provided a new set of challenges however. How about all those little lights you don’t think much about…until they are the only light source in the room?

I’m talking about power strips, the DVD player, DVR…even your alarm clock….or in my case the flipping router. This router has been my next challenge. We won’t get into that now though.

Studies claim the tiny lights may actually give you a hard time falling asleep. What do you do about it though?

First of all, covering them up is never a good idea. It could cause a fire hazard…and that’s never a good thing.

One option, that I use for the DVD player or cable box is to put a lose piece of paper over the front. I say lose because you don’t want to make it too tight…again, fire hazard.

You next (and best option, if you can swing it) is to just unplug the strip or turn the DVD player off. It will kill the light and maybe save you a couple bucks on your electric bill.

Whatever the fix you choose, if you have a hard time sleeping…this may be something to look into!

Happy spring, welcome to storm season. Indiana and Illinois weather can change pretty quickly. We can be rocking 80 degrees one day, and then the next morning is in the 30’s. We’ve got you covered!

Did you know we have an iPhone and Android app?

The WTHI-TV app has you covered.

From your smart phone or tablet you can check out the latest watches and warnings. These are updated the same time as our main website…which is updated as the Storm Team is updated. Basically, you are getting the most up to date stuff here.

Another cool feature of the app is the live radar. At the kid’s baseball practice and need to know what the radar is looking like? Check out the live radar right from your phone!

We’ve also got the forecast, blogs and many of the other weather features from our full website.

This may sound like a shameless plug, but it really is something I get excited about, being your friendly local tech nerd.

Search for us in the App Store or the Marketplace! Just type WTHI in the search box, and it should be the first one to come up.

The cell phone has gone through an interesting transition.

They started in a bag, moved to the Zach Morris style, and then they really started to shrink.

Phones were racing to be the smallest most compact on the market.  We ended up with these.

In recent years however, we’ve kind of done the 180. Sure today’s phones are sleeker, lighter and pretty much all screen…but they’ve gotten big…very big.

Back when the first iPhone came out, in 2007, Steve Jobs took the stage and talked about its large 3.5 inch display. At that time, it was a huge display.

Fast forward to 2013 and Apple has bumped the size of its phone to about 4 inches…but Samsung is creating monster phones.

The new rumor coming from the South Korean tech giant is that the company is working on a 6.3 inch phone.

Yes, 6.3 inches. That’s a big flipping cell phone….and no, it doesn’t flip.

I think we have two different extremes here. The 3.5 inch of the original iPhone is pretty tiny in today’s world…and a 6.3 inch Samsung phone is pretty huge.

What do you think the sweet spot is? Let me know in the comments!

Remember when smart phones were the in thing?  Everybody just had to have one. I’m kidding, that phase hasn’t passed. I doubt it will anytime soon. But the phone could move to the back burner soon.

Tech heavy weights Apple and Google may be looking to move beyond…or at least supplement the smart phone.

Lets start with what’s for sure first.

Google Glass. You may or may not have heard of this. If you read my blog you may be able to tell I lean quite heavily to Apple, but this new toy from Google has me kind of excited.

The Google Glass are actually glasses, with a display. Think of all the movies about the future, this is what they used.

They come equipped with a camera, Internet connectivity, a way to communicate with people and gps in case you get lost. I’m sure there is much more but I’m kind of rambling in my geek heaven with this thing.

The first generation…don’t get the first generation. They are supposed to come out later this year…but with a pretty hefty price tag. We are talking about $1,500. As we’ve seen with many first gen items…they are expensive..without all of the cool features the second gen will have. The price should come down on these.

The other is more of a rumor. Apple is said to be working on a watch. With the cell phone, the watch has kind of died down. This watch however COULD be something pretty cool if done right.

In Apple fashion, there is not much in the way of rumors though. Just that it might exist and it might come out sometime. No help.

I feel like we are in the first stages of saying good by to the 4 to 6 inch rectangle we carry around in our pockets and moving into an even more connected, interactive world.