Not So iPod Touch Heaven

This guy really needs to take a chill pil and take stock of things. Kill the arrogance and start listening to your customers. Says me, one definitely pissed customer right now.

Well there I was last weekend mosing around London town when I decided to pop into the Apple store on Regent street, just to see what the latest was. The guys in the genius bar told me they knew nothing about any upcoming plans for the Touch or iPhone, and they were geniuses! It said so on their t-shirts! They added that even when Lord Steve visits them they are not permitted in his presence, and they have to leave the store. I asked if he was God, they told me it seems so. In any case, they advised me to at least stick with my original plan and don't hack the device just yet, as this would void my warrantly and the new third party apps will require official certificates. I left somewhat a little bemused.

Anyway, a couple days later I check Google Reader to discover that a new update is available for the Touch. Entitled version 1.1.3, it enables movie and TV programme buying via the iTunes store for later viewing on the Touch. In addition you require this version in order to add the new mail and weather apps etc, but wait for it, at a fee of $20. That's £12.99 to us Brits. Yes I heard you gasp, so did many journalists at Apple's keynote speech when Jobsy announced it. Aparently, he still kept a straight face. It seems the price may have something to do with Apple's accounts reporting. Some complex Sarbanes-Oxley compliancy or whatever.

Well like all the other poor sods (sucker for the Yanks) out there I handed over the cash, only to get a few apps, and a customisable home screen that jiggles like jelly. You wonder why, well I still cherish that warranty, the only reason why I haven't hacked the damn thing yet. So I plan to persevere for the next few months until Steve shaft's me proper next time.

What you get? A pretty cool mail app that can support IMAP, but no landscape browsing or search. It's a shame as Google's mobile web offering is pretty cool now, with full optimisation for iPod Touch and iPhone screens. In consolation, the beauty of the Touch email client is that you can switch off the WiFi and still read email, which is a must as WiFi eats battery power like a cookie monster. So not that bad, but would have been much happier if it were free Steve!!!

Blogger.com on Opera. Arrgghh!

Forgive me for the misleading image. This isn't a comparison piece on the pro's and cons of the respective blogging platform, but precisely the pain I suffered using Google's Blogger on my favourtie browser Opera.

Without risking the need for another comparison piece here (maybe for another day), I've been flirting with Opera since 2001, after a Norwegian colleague introduced me to it's ferocious speed. I must admit I was blown away back then, but for some reason never switched over completely. Even so, it was usually on my handheld device or as a second or third browser lurking somewhere in the background. Well I finally switched over from IE to FireFox completely last year after playing with it off and on for years. However, even on the gorgeous Mac OS X Tiger, Open Source heaven FireFox is not. So many crashes, freezes, go slows and hang ups, hair pulling and cursing my poor ISP for something which is totally not their fault. Thus despite it's Open Source heritage, FireFox has become more bloated than even it's Microsoft rival. More like SloFox or FatFox. So after yet another umpteenth crash, I returned to my Norwegian friends and the cool embrace of Opera. Ahhh, solace at last. Well so I thought.

Opera runs like a dream. The only issue I've encountered thus far, is when logging into Blogger.com via my Google accounts. First few tries I kept getting a strange refresh after seeing a white rectangle in the top right hand corner of Blogger's front page. After a few clicks I was forced to sign in again to Blogger after already signing into Google Accounts. things got worse when I changed my Opera cookie settings to "only accept from sites I visit". Then no matter what I did, Blogger.com would just not accept my login attempts. I then came across this post after a Google search and changed my cookie settings back to "accept all sites" - which I don't like, but going back to that little white rectangle, I could see some almost invisible white text teling me to "continue here". I clicked and I was in. Well shame. Hope it gets fixed sometime soon, together with the odd Ebay on Opera interface issue. Small price to pay for bullet train browsing, or major security headache? Whatever, I'm gonna persevere as it's much less headache than FatFox.

Some Blog SEO Tools For Ya!

Came across this one on the Beta News. Had it in my to do list, but as usual got pushed way down and lost amongst all the other thousands of tasks that keep popping up.

As the Beta News describes it,

BlogRush is very similar to BlogBurst, except everyone can instantly get access to BlogRush and everybody has written about it. The whole concept of BlogRush is pretty simple, you place a widget on your blog showing articles from other blogs within your blog’s topic. You earn syndication credit each time the widget is loaded, used or by referring users.

This means I'm gonna have to add this to my blog right now since I've posted it. Man, more work :(

The Seductiveness of the Internet: Or how not to get caught in the Web

No I'm not promoting anyone's book, but this guy Andrew Keen is pretty much interested in the same things as me. Namely, the impact of the internet and wider technology on our culture and society. However, where I generally see both the positives of empowerment of the masses and the negatives of disconnection and dumbing down, Keen seems to promote a pretty hopeless picture, where authoritative integrity (if there was such a thing) is swept aside by the tide of individual opinions.

Whereas much of his argument is sound, I find it hard to wholeheartedly agree, as I feel the challenge of traditional business models a refreshing thing, since now the dis-empowered no longer have to face those old barriers to entry. Now anyone with an idea can put it out there, and in doing so, challenge the status quo. Thus, new forms of power are created which exist outside of the traditional's dynamic.

The internet or more generally, technology, is a good thing, if only we understand it's power and learn to shape it, rather than allow it to shape ourselves.

Sexy Google All Pervasive

I recall those early days of the net way back when in the 90s when everything was fairly amateurish a la CraigList and the familiar modem squelch sound when dialling in. Back then when searching for anything, you had a choice from the likes of, AltaVista, HotBot, Excite, Yahoo, AOL, Jeeves, Webcrawler, InfoSeek, and Lycos amongst others.

Those were just some from the top of my head and ones I recall using all the time. Then fast forward circa 1999, I'm working for a large IT and business services firm, and I'm stuck on some design issue so I visit the web design department and seek some help. My colleague suggests why don't I try Google. "Google?" I ask. As she lost her mind? "Yes" she says, "Google.com." That was the first I ever heard of Google. Despite my introduction to the web over the previous few years, many changes were brewing that I was barely aware of. Now we find ourselves squarely in the 21st century, I hardly use any other search engine, apart from the odd shopping directory for bargains. Google has become my benefactor and pervades so many aspects of my digital life. Why even now I am writing this Blog from my Google Blogger account (yes the chip's firmly in the back of my head). Similarly, a recent post on Digital Journal details many of the pervasive and practical applications Google now provides. I sometimes finding myself, just checking one of the alternative search engines just for a change but the results don't seem to be as comprehensive. Why bother leave the comfort of your Google armchair when Google can solve everything for you.

Why stop there? Why don't they just buy out Vodafone, Tesco and News Corp, and clean up all the worlds issues whilst they're at it. Gattica here we come...

How to sync Google Calendar, W880i and MacBook

I've promised myself I'd post my first 'How To' one of these days, but it's late right now and I can't be arsed. Sorry. But I'll come back to it one of these days. Meantime I'll just post some useful links where you can find the relevant info, rather than wasting your precious free time trawling through the web like I did. Imagine what you can do with all that time saved. Here goes, and this should work for other Java enabled phones as well.

1. Subscribe to Google Calendar
First we want to get our Google Calendar events and the kids at Google let you do this via RSS. Read these links here & here and you should have Google Calendar (gCal) in your MacBook's iCal (gCal in me iCal?) by the end of it.

2. Get the Mac iSync Plugin for the Sony Ericsson W880i
You'll need a little plugin. That's a little piece of software that plugs right in. Sorry it's late and I get like this when tired. So, oh yes, you'll need the plugin to allow iSync to talk to your sexy and svelte W880i. For the show offs and brave among us they can try all the pain and hacking here. For those like me who believe in working smarter not harder (in other words can't be arsed) then try here.

3. Sync W880i with iSync
Finally you simply pair the W880i or Java enabled phone with iSync, specify your settings (Contacts etc) and sync away. For those of you porting from Windows then you can check here. Or if you're porting without MS Outlook, you can use that little ancient piece of software in the Windows Accessories folder called Address Book to import your old phone contacts as vCards. Then you can import these into the Mac's Address Book application. Nifty eh? ;-) There are so many old pieces of tiny software that can make things a little less painful, but we don't use them as they're always tucked away and forgotten just like old toys from yesteryear. Better stop, getting poetic.

You can also use the above link to sync your iTunes playlists with your W880i using iTuneMyWalkman. So bin that iPod and brick of a phone and welcome to SE W880i nirvana. Device convergence eat your heart out.

* If you want to use your phone as a bluetooth modem for your Mac then check here.
* For those porting from Yahoo PIM check here and here.

That's enough to be getting on with for now folks. Man you are a demanding bunch. Next time I'll show you how to make an omelette using a bluetooth phone. Did I say I was tired?

Device Convergence in Need of Some Old Ideas

Yes peeps its geek time again! Come on admit it, we all love gadgets, girls and guys alike. The question for me always is, just how much practical use do these pervasive little pieces of black or silver plastic and chrome actually provide us? Moreover, how much impact do they have on our social lives?

So in the practical sense, us gadget lovers and business users still seem to be asking the same old question. When are the manufacturers going to produce a portable device that fuses form and function into an elegant and usable form factor? I'm sure you've come across the same problem yourself. Do I go for a mobile phone and laptop combination; mobile and PDA or smartphone? Nowadays none seem to foot the bill and the manufacturers seem to be hell bent on throwing a plethora of Swiss army knife combinations at us without proper consultation. I may want something that just does the job and allows me to be productive, do I really want to watch clips of Paris Hilton, or Jade Goody on Big Brother and listen to music at the same time? I always marvel at just how many people listen to music through their iPods nowadays when a few years ago, you only saw a number of people listening to music on the tube. I want to shout to all, "you're not real music fans, you weren't there in the days of the original Sony Walkman or MiniDisc!" Well whatever Apple has been feeding us through the headphones it seems to have worked for them.

This comparison review of the Nokia E61i and Motorola Q9H seems to sum up the problem:

My hunch is that we'll see more devices like the Palm Folio or Datawind that fill this niche, as a "phone companion". The big phone manufacturers don't seem to be able to do it themselves, nor do they have any incentive to; hence the relentless propaganda about "convergence". That may be wishful thinking on my part, of course, but a significant part of the business market remains poorly served.

To be honest I haven't had the time to keep track of the latest changes in the gadget world, as I've been pretty busy of late and have pretty much given up on the Holy Gadget Grail and settled for my Sony W880i. So I don't know too much about the Palm Foleo or the Datawind Pocket Surfer. However, although the W880i fills most of my needs and I prefer to do most of my work within a window of time, I still find myself wishing I had something more suited for more productive text entry whilst en route. This takes me back to the days of the Psion 5mx and the Radio Shack WP-2. I personally didn't have the pleasure of owning the latter, but was a devote fan of the former and some of the other models in its lineage. The Psion seemed to give the perfect combination of form and function, and when it came to the power issue, you could run it forever on a pair AA batteries. About 20 hours I recall. Link it to your now antique Ericsson T39 (yes there was life before Sony), or the ubiquitous Nokia 8210, and you had access to email and web surfing. The web experience may have been painful at times, but with WAP the pain was eased somewhat. I even recall my ancient days as a hardcore Ebayer, sneaking some auction wins in the pub or company meeting, whilst all thought I was note taking. :)

What I want to know is why can't the big boys like Sony and Apple or the new Linux based start up manufacturers learn from the past and adopt some of the heritage of these old machines and start building efficient productive devices which we actually want, rather than what they feel we want? I can see the appeal of devices like the Psion 5mx or its Ericsson clone the MC218 for business users who just want to get the job done, and their practical application in developing countries where battery life and price is a premium. This is where the introduction of Linux as an operating system has been a Godsend and there have even been ports of Linux onto these ancient machines.

Until we get thought recognition or holographic screens I suppose we'll have to make do with gear like the Palm Foleo to fill the gap.

Scrumping and the moral question of free Wi-Fi

There was once a time not so long ago that despite being frowned upon, nicking apples from your neighbour's tree didn't receive such a severe reprimand. You would possibly get a clip round the ear for trespassing or even have to endure the shame of going round to do odd jobs for the old granny whose apples you had scrumped. Things would not be so bad, and you might get a piece of apple pie and a few pearls of wisdom from old Mrs. Davis from number 23. It seemed like a good trade. She got her place cleared up and some company, and you gained something in your moral development. After all, people may have been particular about trespassing on their property, but feelings were pretty moderate as this was a time we still left our doors open.

Fast forward to 2007 and a new kind of scrumping is sparking moral debate. Wi-Fi freeloading or line phreaking. Call it what you will, the issue seems to be the same as every other technological impact on society. Namely, the issue that the technology is far ahead of our social norms and current laws. Until the outcome of the moral debate in the meantime it would be good to ensure the following:

• Ensure only your computer can access your network
• Use a secure key to restrict data being 'sniffed' over the air
• If you see your internet L.E.D. going like crazy whilst your mac or pc is off then you know you've got problems

Happy surfing. I hope I haven't increased any paranoia here. I feel like having an apple now. ;)