My favorite phone for years and years was the Sidekick. I couldn’t live without all of it’s IM features great full QWERTY keyboard. It had flaws though like no 3G, GPS, and bluetooth support came late in its life. If you read my posts over at Boy Genius Report, you know that I’ve been awaiting the Helio Ocean with the giddy delight of a high school girl the week before prom. I’ve posted quite a bit about it, like here, here, here, .Well now it’s even better since it supports Microsoft Exchange. The iPhone is my phone of choice currently, but it’s lack of native IM, GPS, and a bunch of other features I grew dependant on while using Sidekicks and BlackBerry’s. I will say that I am dying without Google Talk on me 24/7. I feel disconnected from the rest of the world at time.

Well it turns out that Josh Hallett an internationally recognized thought leader in the convergence of social media and corporate public relations & marketing is giving away a free Helio Ocean, and his rules for entry are quite simple. Write a post, link to his and make your story good.

I’m officially throwing my hat in the ring, because there are many features that I love about this phone that I sorely miss on my iPhone, but feel free yourself to enter Josh’s contest as well. All the info you need is here, along with his speaking schedule, photography, and Blog and Social Media Consulting Services.

I’m not saying that I should be the winner, but I can’t think of anyone with better Blog and Social Media Consulting Services, speaking schedule, photography, and blog then that of Josh Hallett an internationally recognized thought leader in the convergence of social media and corporate public relations & marketing.

It turns out that if you change rate plans on your iPhone, they need to remove the old plan and add the new. In this process all of your Visual Voicemail is lost into the abyss that is AT&T.

Even dialing 1 from your iPhone won’t retrieve these lost voice mails. There seems to be nothing that AT&T can do to get them back either. Lesson learned today, don’t change rate plans unless you really need to.

Well today is the one day of the year that iCal shows the correct date without the program being opened. It marks first time iCal was announced to the public (ie birthed) back on July 17th, 2002.

This day is also significant because my brother was born on this day.

So a big happy birthday goes out to my brother and iCal.

BTW: I should note that the Calendar feature on the iPhone displays the current date in the logo, while the weather widget constantly displays 73 degrees and sunny. Also, the Joy of Tech points out that we can now celebrate iPhone clock hour twice a day:

Everyone’s favorite local mart, no not Kwik-E-Mart from the Simpsons, 7-Eleven is celebrating 07/11/07 by calling it 7-Eleven Day. It’s their 80th birthday, and they are giving you a present, a free 7.11-ounce Slurpee drinks for customers visiting its U.S. stores.

So if its been years or 3 days since your last Slurpee, stop by to grab one today for free.

Ever go out for a steak (notice I didn’t say great steak, but this post is about Sam Seltzers), and wish that you had a bottle (notice I didn’t say nice bottle) of red wine to go with that (notice I didn’t say juicy) piece of meat?

Well now you can get a free bottle on Sam himself, thru the rest of the month. You could also get the Wild Onion Rose, but honestly, nobody likes onions.

Download the coupon

Yep that’s me on the front page of Saturday’s St. Pete Times. I was the first person at the Tampa Apple store to get an iPhone, and waited around 32 hours in line to get one, well 3. I plan 2 on eBay, but I’ve had quite the busy weekend. I’ve had more people come up to me about just getting the iPhone then my featured front page + all of page 6 article about TV/Gadgets. It’s a bit crazy.

My boss, where I called in sick, even likened me to Ferris Bueller, but apparently had no problem with me calling in while waiting in line for an iPhone.

That isn’t to say that my experience has been all good. 2 of my tires were slashed multiple times while I was in line. Was the phone and the wait worth it though? Oh hell yeah, it’s pretty darn cool.

My major gripes include a lack of IM (Google Talk doesn’t work like I previously reported), Gmail is pop (no Gmail client like on my BlackBerry Curve), but other then that I love it. I was listening to it while playing poker yesterday, able to switch right over to a phone call by simply clicking the button on the ear buds…it’s great.

I bought the InCase protection case that TUAW reviewed and is a great match for the style of the iPhone. It keeps the sleekness yet protects from accidental drops.

It was quite the busy weekend with the iPhone, helping Dawn’s grandmother move, driving up to Gainesville, and poker yesterday (which was the first day of no limit poker in Florida…which I ended up walking about with $600 from my $200 buy in). I’m just now getting online for the first time really since Friday. Looks like the iPhone is selling well at over 500,000 units sold, and besides AT&T botching the activation on some people’s account there are nothing but great reviews out there.

I’m sure I will have some stuff to post about the iPhone, and I was taking video of walking thru the doors and ordering my iPhone, that will be posted soon.

If you don’t already have one, I HIGHLY suggest getting one…the iPhone is pretty darn cool.