tokerud's technology treats

iSynch I'm making progress

Tonight I got the P800 into the iSynch panel. Turns out the first iSynch try aborted and the second one is just going on and on. Cancelling didn't particularly help. I bet I get a synch by tomorrow, though.

I'm also web browsing just fine and I have my email working. There was documentation on the T-mobile site that their 24/7 tech support walked me thru. These tech people are great! It's pretty easy to get through to them (waiting no more than 5 minutes) and they are all really polite and helpful and I've tried several by now. The level 3 techs work from 8 to midnight eastern. Not bad.

Still praying for a little attachable or wireless thumboard. I enjoy the handwriting when it works, but it's still a hassle compared to thumboarding. Sent a suggestion to Sony Ericsson about it.

Everything new that I add makes me more and more happy with this device. I showed my brother the chess program. He wants one. You can play chess via SMS and can find people who want to play and be found via wireless (if you turn on the option). Cool!

P800 Progress

Getting started with my beautiful P800 is a little more of a roller coaster ride than expected. The Sidekick was limited to the essentials and thus pretty simple. The P800 has much more capability and complexity. I soar with the possibilities and then, because my expectations are so high, get frustrated even more when I can't get something to work. Luckily, I'm persistent and enough of a geek to appreciate that this may be one of those no pain, no gain situations that's worth it. The P800 is clearly a new computer (actually, this is a powerful, open-ended platform to learn - I'm not used to this with a cell phone - but I'm also pretty thrilled to have this much to play with in a mobile device).

Favorites so far:

• Camera - it's a fun extra. I have a terrific little Minolta Dimage X already, but I don't always take it with me. Now I can record rough shots that will be perfect for quick emails to friends.
• Big screen for a phone-shaped device.
• Phone and speakerphone work very well. Stereo headphones included.
• Expandability with both software and memory.
• Jotter - cool note taker that lets me do little color drawings.

I have web browsing working now. But I need some time to play with it. Opera's web browser for the P800 is supposed to be really good but costs $39. I plan to get it once I've gotten my sea legs under me with this thing. It needs a name - P800 doesn't really quite do it for me. Any suggestions out there?

Bluetooth Blues

I want to be able to synch with my Powerbook and my iApps like Addressbook and iCal. Apple's website says I can do it. The Sony-Ericsson site says I can do it. On Saturday morning, I went out and bought a USB bluetooth dongle for my Powerbook. After some futzing around (futzing is an important technical term you know), I was able to get the Powerbook and the P800 paired. It's great, on the Powerbook Bluetooth preference pane, it now shows a heart next to the P800. How cute! A tiny little bluetooth icon appears in my menubar from which I can choose various commands like send files to other paired bluetooth devices that are in range. This worked and I was able to send some nice pics of the people I talk to most often so they appear on my P800 screen when I receive calls. Very fun!

But I'm Beaming

I now have lots of contacts in my P800 address book even though I haven't gotten iSynch to work yet. There's lots of different ways to go with a device that has Bluetooth, USB and infrared capabilities. I was able to beam a category at a time from my Treo 90 to my P800 using infrared. It is very fast. Only drawback is that the category doesn't transfer over, so I was doing some quick reassigning work over on the P800 after the category got transferred. Fume. But, hey, I'm thrilled to have all these phone and email addresses - about 250 or so in my cell phone.

I had the same thing going with my Sidekick after even more effort but the Sidekick wasn't a great phone so it didn't really thrill me that I had all the phone numbers in there. The P800 is an excellent phone so it's a priority to get all my numbers in there - especially with caller ID. A cool aspect is that the big-for-a-cellphone screen lets me see lots of information at once.

These are some of the things that aren't yet working:

• Browse the P800 from my Powerbook. This would let me copy files from the p800 back to my Powerbook. I would like to copy the 640x480 snapshots I've been taking so I can view them on a bigger screen.
• Send email. It's good at sending SMS messages, but so far email is not working. I can receive email. I think it will take one more call to T-mobile or perhaps a re-read of the user manual to solve the issue.
• Use the P800 as a cellular modem for my Powerbook. Haven't even tried to learn how to do this yet. That's down the list but if I can get it to work, it will come in handy for sure.
• Thumbboard. Ack! I really miss the keyboard on my Sidekick.
• No giraffe-like game to help me master the handwriting recognition. I'm getting better already, but I like having a fun game to play. A half hour of that would probably really help me right now.

Over and out, Scotty, I gotta get back to my real work or at least get some sleep.

P800 plus

Still not getting email or internet yet. I think everything is in place on T-mobile's end, but I need to set-up my email account and the T-mobile internet account info in my browser. I don't have documentation on it, so I'll need to call T-mobile to get the settings. These weren't issues with the Sidekick - it came set-up with its own email account and just worked once they set-up my email and internet accounts.

My regular ISP account gives me lots of email addresses, so I set a new one up just for my P800. Similar to what I was doing with my Sidekick, I forward all new emails that are from people in my address book to the email account I've designated for my P800.

I bought an unlocked P800 GSM phone. Sounded better than locked. But now I know what it means, thanks to Dan Gillmor in today's post:

Advice to Cory and anyone else who's planning to buy a mobile phone that runs on the GSM networks (the P800 does). Get a model that is unlocked -- that is, not tied to a particular carrier. This means you should not buy a model as part of a service plan; carriers subsidize the phones in those circumstances but then lock them down so you can't use them with other carriers' SIM cards.

Glad I got that one right (thanks for the comment, Randy Delucchi). In the same post, Gillmor points out a drawback of the Sidekick. You have to get T-mobile's permission to add any software to it, since it is such a server-integrated device. Another reason to feel good about getting the P800 instead... That helps assuage my bouts with buyer's remorse!

Thanks, also, to Christian Hauck who commented on my last post and pointed me to a 5-star, in depth, hands-on review of the P800 (lots of pics) by Nicholas Triano at Geek.com.

Picked P800

At the 11th hour, I chose to return my Sidekick and buy a Sony Ericsson P800. No thumbboard - my biggest criterion. Now I've gotta figure out how to handwrite with this thing - it's not the traditional Palm method. I get about 2/3rds of the letters right. Still can't find the period!

Beauty won out over the beast. This is gorgeous! It's got a 208 x 320 pixel screen. It's nicer in the hand - more phone like. Here's what I got extra: touch screen. Symbian 7 OS, which is very popular in Europe. Bluetooth. Voice recording and a speakerphone. MP3 player. A 640x480 camera - I wanted to be able to play with that. Memory expansion slot. 200 mhz processor. Synching cradle with desktop synching to OS X's iApps.

Because they don't officially sell the P800 in the US, the support from my cell phone dealer (Fone Art in Berkeley) or T-mobile is minimal. Since T-mobile sells the Sidekick themselves, they know about it. Not so with this. T-mobile customer support doesn't even have the P800 in their tech support database.

Like last time, the phone worked immediately, but I don't have Net access yet. I have to work for a living and learn this little guy at the same time (tough life, huh?). Bluetooth synching and control of iTunes etc. is a priority. Tips and links to good sites for more info will be greatly appreciated.

I love this phone! My Sidekick didn't quite cut it as a regular cellphone but this one is great for phone - with its automatic speakerphone that is loud and clear, you can use your phone as a PDA while talking to look up information, see your notes, look up another phone number, etc. Paid $495 with 12-mo activation. More soon!

In depth Epinions review. Flashy and extensive Sony Ericsson P800 site. My-Symbian.com's P800 page. Mobiledia review. c|net gives it an 8.3.

iSight Video-cam

I don't have one yet. But these things look so cool! I like this shot from the Apple iSight page. I am very interested in trying one of these out. It has such great specs and iChat AV takes all the hassle out of video conferencing. I tried doing that years ago with little satisfaction. Looks like the time is right for this thing. I have several Mac-based friends at a distance who I would love to connect with on this. Let me know about your experiences if you beat me to it.

G5 PowerMacs, Panther and iChat AV!

Steve Jobs' keynote today was no little matter. The long-awaited PowerMac G5s, a greatly improved Panther Finder and iChat AV were unveiled. These are all going to be huge!

Sometime in August, if things go as planned, you'll be able to buy a blazingly fast, dual 2 ghz, G5-based PowerMac in a really cool aluminum enclosure for $3000! A single processor, 1.6 ghz version will sell for only $2 grand (Apple is taking pre-orders now). The G5 processor decisively evens the playing field between Macs and PCs when it comes to speed.

iChat, renamed iChat AV, is available now as a Public Beta. It has video conferencing that's as easy as iChat has always been! Double-click your buddy and go. This is amazing. You can make free long distance or local phone calls with iChat. Or, if you both have video-cams and broadband access, you can video conference.

Apple is selling a hot new monitor-top video-cam for $150 starting this week! Steve and some of the staff at Apple have been discretely trying out iChat AV for the last month and he says it absolutely transforms communication.

OS X Panther seems to have slipped a bit - it's now due by year-end. However, Steve showed us six major new features in Panther that rocked the house:

1. The Places sidebar, is on the left in every Finder window. It is a user-defined list of your favorite places. You can put whatever folders, documents or servers you want on there and have single-click access to all your favorite places. This should cure Apple menu withdrawal in a hurry.
2. Fast Find. When you type into the little find window in the tool bar, files start popping up immediately.
3. A context-sensitive action button in the Finder window tool bar that gives you a handy contextual menu of everything you might be wanting to do.
4. A snazzy way to switch users without closing all your apps and documents first: "the current desktop becomes a texture placed on a 3D cube that rotates out of view while the incoming account desktop rotates into view on another side of the cube."
5. A capability called Exposé that gets rid of window clutter in an instant. Yes. There's a keyboard equivalent. And it goes well beyond hide other in its function.
6. Mail is much improved. It's a lot faster (finally!) and shows threads that you access by clicking on a little triangle icon.

Steve's keynote @ Apple Store

I'm sitting in front of the Apple Store in Palo Alto right now - 8:35 am. Last night I saw one of my blog/Ryze buddies, Allan Karl, was going to the LA Apple store to see a satellite broadcast of Steve Jobs' Keynote at the Worldwide Apple Developers Conference at Moscone Center in SF. I suddenly realized that I needed to come to Palo Alto to see Steve live. So here I am with about 6 teenage geeks - I guess everyone else works for a living because we are the total line so far. We've got 3 Titanium powerbooks and 2 iBooks amongst the 7 of us - cruising on wi-fi compliments of Apple.

OK. 9:56 am. We just got into the store. Surprise, there's only room for about 20 people on the benches and there's only room for three more because Apple staff and press are already seated. About twenty people fit inside the U of the benches on the floor. The rest are standing room only. The screen is pretty high, and the volume is turned way up so most of the store can see the screen at least partially and hear everything. There's lots of talk and excitement. Wooh! They are playing some kind of cool house music that just makes things even more exciting.

Cellular or wi-fi handheld?

When you sign up for cellular data access, you can expect to get access most of the time. Your reception may be spotty some places and none of us like that. But, you get an almost always on data connection. Wi-fi (802.11b etc.) has grown by leaps and bounds of late and is now in many of our homes, most offices, airports, Starbucks, a lot of other coffee shops and even Borders.

Here's the rub. Wi-fi is not ubiquitous yet. There's lots of talk about community wi-fi and mesh networks, but it's still just talk for most of us. I don't want to spend $30/month just to get access to wi-fi at Starbucks, Borders and the airport.

Most wi-fi connections can be hacked to get a free connection. If you have access to all wi-fi hot spots public and private, you are in business. But most of us (a) don't know how to do it, (b) don't have time to implement it and (c) think it's unethical. I'm hoping that mesh networks will make wi-fi free or close to it, but we aren't there yet.

Bottom line. If you want 24/7 Net access right now, you need cellular. Too bad that's gonna cost you. The cell providers slow down the process. Companies like Palm have to bend over backwards to please them. Handheld technology with cellular is 6 or more months behind other handheld tech because manufacturers have to tailor their offerings for each cell provider. That means they freeze the base technology months ahead of the release date.

The Tungsten W released this spring is a perfect example. It has lousy specs. It runs at 33 mhz, 16 mb of RAM and runs Palm OS 4.1. Compare that to the new wi-fi Tungsten C that runs at 400 mhz, has 64 mb RAM, has a better screen and OS 5.2.

Since I want something now, I'll take moderately priced 24/7 cell access (the color Sidekick) over occasional, faster wi-fi (Tungsten C). Within the year, the best mobile devices may have all three options: cellular, wi-fi and blue tooth. When the Treo 600 comes out in the Fall, it will be capable of using a blue tooth or wi-fi SD card (too bad it has 160x160 screen resolution).

Next year, the hot ticket may be combo cellular/wi-fi service plans. You'll use wi-fi, when available, for its speed and cellular to fill in the gaps and make phone calls. You'll use bluetooth to communicate with cheaper devices that don't justify the extra expense of wi-fi circuitry. Wi-Fi and 3G Together? posted on 80211-planet.com on Friday and the June 2nd post Wi-Fi: Will it fly or will it die? on Brighthand are also good.

24/7 wireless wins

What can I say? We're all going to have an almost always on wireless handheld in a year or two. Portable email alone makes it worth your while.

Face it. Email is already more important than phone for many of us. Voice mail hell should refer to more than just byzantine voice mail systems. Your own voice mail sucks because it is sequential. You have to listen to the whole message to find out if anything important is said in the last 2 seconds. So, there you are, listening to long voice mails and hating every minute of it.

Enter email. We all get it (along with way too much spam) and sometimes it can be a pain to keep up with it. But, it's so much easier to quickly glance through your new email and see who it's from and the subject header. You can scan most emails very fast. Now you are cool. You can answer the ones you want in the order of your priority on your own schedule. No phone tag.

What's keeping this superior form of communication from really dominating is that it can be hard to get your email or find out that you have an important email when you are away from your computer. Enter 24/7 email access via a cell phone/pda like the Sidekick, Tungsten W, Treo 270 or 300, Blackberry or, my secret amor, the Sony Ericsson P800 (which is ruled out for me because of no QWERTY keyboard).

Voila! You get a single vibrate or chime or ring when you get an email. I set my main email account to forward my email to my Sidekick if the sender is in my address book or the name of my product is mentioned in the subject line. Very effective! I know that when I get an email on my SK, it's worth receiving. And, since it updates constantly - I don't have to check mail, I find out about emails as soon as they come in. Then if I want to respond immediately, I do. I email or call if need be. I tell you, it's the only way to fly!

Sidekick Shortcomings

As the June 25 return deadline approaches the doubts appear. If I keep it, I know this is a transitional device because even though it is the best phone/pda I've found, it's missing some key features.Here's what's not to like about the color T-Mobile Sidekick:

• No third party software (there's no SDK yet)
• Not compatible - no Palm, no PocketPC
• Not 320x320 like the Tungsten C
• Service drops out fairly often
• Awkward as a phone without a headset
• Slow GPRS access compared to fast wi-fi
• No expansion slot for SD, bluetooth or wi-fi
• No touchscreen - can't use my fingernail to select text
• Doesn't yet synch to desktop software, only web
• Notes doesn't have categories
• No built-in camera
• No speakerphone
• No voice recording or MP3
• Kind of bulky

G5 PowerMacs - Oops!

These specs appeared briefly on the Apple Store yesterday. Heads will roll! A dual 2 ghz PowerMac is mouth-watering good news to me. Whoa! And I thought my dual 867 was fast. I'm hoping we'll see official information and a peak at the rumored new design on Monday when Steve does his thing at the Apple Developer's Conference. The Palo Alto Apple store will be showing the live webcast at their little theater at 10 am. I'm tempted to make the 50 mile trip just for the fun of it. I know there will be a humdinger of a line which will be a guaranteed blast - the salivating Apple faithful are great fun. However, I would need to leave early - not one of my favorite things on a Monday morning. If that doesn't work, I can catch a replay in the pm via Quicktime at the Apple site here.

Sidewalk Surfin' 2

One of my current research projects is finding good web content for a 240x160 pixel screen with slow, 50 kbps Net access. Mobile surfing needs to change to fit the constraints. I need to actively minimize number of pages loaded and maximize information per page. I created a page on my website called Tiny Screen Links where I will build up my URL list - I'll make it the default homepage for my sidekick.

Surfing has a ways to go. My most fun so far is portable email and the occasional good, long, mostly text, web pages I've stumbled upon.

I'm also researching chat and instant messaging. These things have become very popular with teenagers, but I hear the live aspect can be really cool. Now that I have the ultimate chat/IM device, I'm going to find out.

Treo 600 official

Treo|Central has a great story on this new device announced today. I've got until June 25th to finish my eval of my own new T-mobile Sidekick. Think I'm gonna stay the course, but with technology surging forward all around me, my eyes are glued to the web to make sure I'm not missing something even sweeter in the wings.

The Treo 600 is scheduled for a Fall release. I first wrote about it on June 7th. This thing is looking great but has a fatal flaw that keeps me singing sidekick. It's only got a 160x160 pixel screen compared to my sidekick's spacious 240x160 - 50% more real estate. Tiny-screen surfing on my sidekick is already challenging. Every pixel is prized on a screen this size.

I'll pass on the Treo 600, but here are the otherwise satisfying specs:

• ARM 144 mhz cpu - same as Zire 71
• Sleek: 4.41 x 2.26 x .87 inches. 6 oz.
• Camera built-in: 640x480
• MP3 player
• Runs Palm OS 5
• Web browser supports Javascript
• Easy overlaid numeric keypad for dialing
• Slot for SD/MMC, bluetooth or wifi cards

The Sidekick wins today because it has a killer QWERTY keyboard, a big enough screen, easy user interface, enough memory and 24/7 cellular Net access and $20/mo unlimited Net access. If this Treo would have had a beautiful 320x320 transflective screen like the Tungsten C and Zire 71, I would wait for it. But it doesn't.

Lack of women in IT

I just posted the following as the 25th or so comment in a thread about the dearth of women in IT. As a seasoned female computer professional, I was compelled to put my two cents in - please refer to the thread to see the context I was writing into:

I want to throw out a few of my ideas about all this. I’ve been a full-time computer professional since 1980. Have degrees in Psych, Sociology and MBA in marketing with quite a few computer courses sprinkled in along the way. First a couple facts about me for context.

I always liked computers - I like the “possibility machine”ness and intellectual stimulation of software.

I like gadgets (I was a tomboy, have 2 older brothers with Master's degrees in math - one's an actuary, one’s a systems programmer and my Dad’s a civil engineer.) I never found math very interesting, but computers are fascinating to me. I like the application of them. The ease of creating. I’m an abstract thinker, so they are easy for me.

I was an ardent feminist in my college and early grad school days. I even went through a man-hating phase. I was mad that movies were mostly about men. I was mad that my weight was such a big deal in determining whether I was considered dateable by men. I was mad that being smart, openly, was a turnoff for the vast majority of men. I was mad that there’s very little in the way of a history of women or women in arts and literature. I was mad that women weren’t expected to be creative, powerful, athletic and smart. I was mad that I was expected to be a secondary player in life. After a few years, I calmed down and essentially got over it. I think I had good reason to be mad.

I leaned towards working in a male-dominated field because the pay and respect was better. I didn’t necessarily think through all the negatives of being a minority and the negatives of dealing with stereotypes and being the token woman, etc. I also didn’t consider ahead of time but ran into the fact that these good jobs in male-dominated fields were predicated on the job-holder having a wife to keep the household and social life going. I didn’t have a wife so it was harder to come up with the energy to compete and excel and succeed as much as I wanted to.

So enough on me. Here are a few guesses:

1. Women are on-average more interested in social stuff, less interested in abstract stuff including computing. But there are lots of women who don’t fit that mold.
2. The numbers of women getting into computing now are probably going negative because of the dot-com bust. Women were willing to go into computing - perhaps not their first choice, all things being equal, which they are not - because computers has been the hot career ticket. When that perception changed, some women who weren’t really, really interested in computers, dropped it.
3. I do think that if there were more cool pieces of software, games and otherwise, with more social elements - I at least - would be more interested. I was immediately attracted to the concept of social software. I'm also attracted to personal growth software though I’ve seen little to none of it. I think there’s been less interest in these things because the field is male-dominated.
4. Whenever you are in the minority, it’s more awkward and uncomfortable. Also, you are breaking the female stereotypes which has a social cost. You don’t get as many strokes.
5. If you take the social role woman, it’s complicated and includes mother, homemaker, wife, do-gooder, willingness to help someone succeed and play the subordinate role for starters. These role expectations, and some of them get internalized, have to be accounted for by women when they make career decisions. I think all this stuff leads to fewer women applying to speak at conferences - it’s time-consuming and the expected return on effort isn’t all that high. AND, as a woman whose gone to lots of computer conferences - it’s a little isolated.

Here’s what I would like to see. I would like to see people who are in a position of authority/power at these conferences, at universities, in the press, at game companies, computer hardware and software companies and men at large:

• be sensitive to a woman’s plight.
• open your mind to see what’s missing in the computer field because there are so few women, especially women in positions of power and influence.
• solicit input from women
• hire qualified women in good jobs
• invite them to speak at conferences and make it easy for them - even give them special dispensation just so you can alleviate a bad situation and encourage the influx of new ideas, sensitivities and points of view that women can bring.
• fight for job descriptions that allow men and women to participate equally in family life and homemaking and careermaking

Thanks to those who’ve participated in making this a worthwhile inquiry and provided valuable information. Thanks for reminding me about this so I can keep it in mind - it’s hard sometimes swimming in an ocean that has blinders on (mixed metaphor for sure) that doesn’t acknowledge your experience.

I would like to be one of the movers and shakers in this new field called social software. Hello.

Sidewalk Surfin'

This is the lifesize screen of my new Sidekick. You can see the size of the type. Unfortunately, what you can't see is how crisp and clear the type really looks. The content of the screen is this post a couple edits ago without the photo.

My new super cell phone activated in about 20 hours and it's just now working on all cylinders. I called T-mobile's 24/7 techline. Very nice people. Well-organized and professional. But, they didn't pick up on the fact that I was signed up by CompUSA for a regular smartphone account instead of a special Sidekick account. Supposedly my Sidekick account is in the works and I will soon be able to upload my contacts database to the Danger server so they'll all auto-magically appear on my Sidekick.

I'll be able to enter data via my Safari web browser instead of typing in calendar entries etc. from my Sidekick. The thumbboard is cool and great for low volume entries as a I move about my world, but when I need to enter a bunch of text I would rather use my computer keyboard and type my usual 100+ words per minute - I was wondering, I think I'm about a 30 word per minute thumb typist at best. But, I plan to get faster - 50 wpm seems achievable. I'll let you know.

Now for the good stuff. It's working! I did my first test run this afternoon. First, I walked down to Peet's on Ethel - a back street FAR from the freeway and with lots of trees between me and the main Miller Avenue drag. I needed a music fix, so listened to Bonnie Raitt and Christina Aguillera on my way downtown. Once I arrived, however, I whipped out my Sidekick and put away the iPod. With the help of a decaf Mocha Freddo, I was on my way - Peet's decaf is like Starbucks regular - almost! I logged into Plasticbag.org one of my current favorite blogs. Access was pretty fast. I am not at all disappointed with speed. I was getting full signal strength at Peets. Woo hoo! I may be able to keep this little guy.

By the way, yesterday, one of the intellectuals of Pete's - a regular - told me that my Sidekick screen would be unreadable even in moderate sunlight. Not! Direct sunlight works great. Dark works great. The screen is superb. The type is razor-sharp! There's no sign of a big font option. I prefer the small type so I can get more screen real estate, but not everyone will go for this tradeoff.

On my way back through the trees again, I surfed, mostly reading one long blog entry that Tom Coates linked to called the Simple Guide to the A-List Bloggers. It's a parody. Not particularly generous - but perhaps there is some value in parody. It makes me wonder what this blog sounds like. And, don't tell me everyone doesn't surf or at least read a book when they walk. Multi-tasking - isn't it wonderful? Luckily, Ethel has little to no traffic. I have to be a little careful, especially when I've got my headphones on listening to my iPod. I don't hear the cars coming. Also while walking home, I made a phone call and sent an email. I just added a rule to my regular email program to redirect any email I receive that comes from someone in my address book to my sidekick's live email account. I assigned a sound to incoming email - it's very cool. And fun. When they designed this for the 18 to 35 year age group, they didn't scrimp on the fun factor!

This is so cool! I bet in a year or two this kind of thing will be the norm but right now it seems pretty thrilling. But, alas, I know I'll get used to it in a few months and take it for granted. Notice that I'm already assuming that I will be keeping this little guy. I am signed up for a plan that gives unlimited data (the only way to fly), 500 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends and free long distance for $60/mo. I'm gonna try to make that work at least initially. Hoping soon to cancel my AT&T cell service which is running me $80/month for 1000 anytime minutes. See. I may be a spendthrift but at least I try to be good.

1st U.S. Weblog Conference

Just found my first good blog of the Clickz Weblog Business Strategies Conference that was held in Boston Monday and Tuesday. This banner is pretty boring - I gotta say. And somehow a business weblog conference sounds boring too. Everything about a weblog is personal to me. It can be about business I guess... I have an MBA and am really into emarketing but it still is kind of a turn off. I guess I'm a little afraid that business as usual will ruin the good thing that weblogs are...

But this is a weblog conference. How cool is that? It's on Timothy Appnel's tima thinking outloud blog. Tim specializes in "identifying emerging technology trends such as Web Services, mobile computing, and peer-to-peer. As an independent consultant he writes about emerging trends and helps businesses to leverage technology to capitalize on new business opportunities". He's a consultant and a writer - let me see, I think I could stand doing that!!! A lot of the stars of the weblog world were there: Doc Searles (Cluetrain Manifesto), Dave Winer (Radio Userland), David Weinberger (Small Pieces Loosely Joined), etc. Check it out!

Activating Sidekick!

I'm sitting in my favorite corner of my living room - by the window on my black leather couch. On my left is my new 65,000-color T-mobile Sidekick. It is displaying the following message: "Waiting for Activation". I'm getting 4 bars of signal - the highest you can get. Sometimes it goes down to two bars and once it went down to one bar. All while sitting in the same place. Hmmm... I wonder why that is? Anyway, the directions say that activation takes up to 48 hours. That sucks! They also say that it usually takes only 1 to 3 hours. So, I'm sitting here with my Powerbook writing in my blog about the experience.

I went to CompUSA last night to buy it - I was wavering back and forth and finally left my house at 8:30 pm - they close at 9. I rushed out the door and made it over there by 8:50 pm. They had two left in stock and it took till about 9:00 pm for one of the store guys to find one in the back.

It being 9 pm, he didn't want to sign me up and said it would take about an hour. I raised an eyebrow and said fine. He eventually got rescued by another more senior guy who suggested I come back tomorrow (today) when their cell phone guy was there. So I went over around 3 pm today and bought myself a Sidekick.

I was considering going to a movie after my purchase when I left the house, but by the time I had the box in my hands, it was clear that the thing to do was to go directly home and start charging it and getting it activated. Couldn't quite do that, though, since between CompUSA and home is a Peet's Coffee and I'm hooked on their Mocha Freddos.

I went into Peet's and saw a couple folks I know - they wanted to see what was in the box I was carrying - I brought it in so I could study the manual while drinking my Freddo. Fat chance! Three more guys started hovering around. One of them suggested that I plug it in so that we could see the screen. He found an outlet across the room and bingo we were checking out the interface. Very cool! I need to photograph this thing ASAP. Maybe right now. Just a minute!

Not too bad a pic considering I'm holding the Sidekick with my left hand and taking the picture with my right - not easy, but I knew you would want to see this little guy for yourself. The text is much clearer - very sharp - than it looks here. You notice the keys light up nicely. I'm very impressed. When I first started it up, bells chimed sweetly, the scroll wheel on the right turned green and it was love at first sight. I'm hoping the cell signal in my local hangouts will be good. If not, I may need to be practical and return it within the 14-day return period. I can already tell that won't be easy. Wish me luck!

Free Agent Nation

I've worked as an employee for ten years (5 government, 5 corporate) and have had my own microbusiness for the last seventeen. This book tells it like it is and reminds me why I'm so addicted to personal technology - these are the modern-day equivalents of the tools of production that Marx wrote about. These are the tools of liberation. OK, maybe they are fun toys too! But who says you don't get to have fun in this life?

I'm an amateur futurist keeping up with big-picture books on social trends since starting with Alvin Toffler's Future Shock in the late sixties to The Third Wave, Megatrends, and, later, Megatrends 2000, Free Agent Nation and the Cluetrain Manifesto and many books in between. FAN is a very good book. As a microbusiness owner in 2003, it helps me understand myself and my situation better. It gives me LOTS of ideas and inspiration to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves in this time of transition and economic challenge.

I started my business 17 years ago after reading a great book called Maverick Career-styles: The Way of the Ronin. The writing was on the wall even then - in the mid-eighties. I was willing to take a chance and strike out on my own after ten years of traditional employment because that book gave me a way of seeing that I might be more secure as a wiley and agile independent professional than I would be as a corporate drone. Dan Pink speaks my language! Well-written, entertaining and valuable read.

Amazon's Favorite People button

Ooh. I just found this button on Amazon while reading the customer reviews of a book. It says: "Add this reviewer to your list of Favorite People. Whenever one of them writes a new review, you'll see it on the Friends & Favorites home page. " I was just saying the other day that I want a way to find, collect and catalog "favorite people". This is very commercial and has a ways to go, but it's a start.

Amazon takes things a step further by notifying me of new reviews by my favorite people. This obviously serves Amazon's interest in exposing me to more new products, but it also serves my interest in hearing the opinions of my favorite people. I would like to see much more of this with variations and permutations throughout the online world. Not only can I find interesting people and log them, but, equally cool from my point of view, I can be found and become a favorite person too. There's lots less labor involved in being found by kindred spirits than there is in going out and finding them one by one. Can you say personal branding?

If this little favorite people button could spread, like a good meme does, throughout the Net, we would really have something. I know that little web services apps have been written that suck Amazon's CD cover art into a personal database. What if I could suck the favorite people data out of various "places" and then compile it into one big database? What if that could all happen automatically and continuously or just be regularly updated when I click a button? Then we would have a way to track our favorite authors'/people's work. We would have a way to track our own work as well.

Sidekick Sings

The new color T-Mobile Sidekick just went on sale at CompUSA. I went in on Friday to my local store, but they didn't have the color model yet. I tried out the old greyscale version since it's almost identical physically except for the color screen. With its horizontal orientation, the Sidekick is wider than my other suitors. The thumbboard feels great! This is a hot little machine. But how does it stackup against my new cell-pda wishlist?

• Thumbboard - best out there
  
• 320x320 screen - only 240x160 but the screen is large which helps a little
  
• Transflective 65,000 color screen
  
• Cellular wireless - T-mobile with GPRS support
  
• 802.11b wireless - nope
  
• Bluetooth - nope
  
• Affordable - $299 with new T-mobile plan
  
• Affordable service plan - $20/month extra for unlimited data access
  
• Cell functions - MIDI ringtones, call log, phone list dialing, 2x text messaging
  
• PDA functions - calendar, contacts, to do list, notes
  
• Email - comes with its own email address - supports 2 other POP3 accounts
  
• Web - Chat - AIM
  
• Synching software - not ideal, web synchronizing only
  
• Sleek and light - a might bulky, 6.2 ounces, 1.1" thick
  
• Speakerphone - nope
  
• Voice recording - nope
  
• Scrollwheel - translucent and changes colors - plus an 8-way D-pad
  
• 64 mb built-in - 32 mb
  
• Memory expansion slot - nope!
  
• Camera - 640x480 - no but tiny plug-in 320x240 px camera is a $39 option
  
• GPS locator - nope

c|net rates the color Sidekick as 8.2 and an editor's choice handheld. Maybe I could sell my Treo 90... what do you think?

Treo 600 teases

I just saw this little photo of the unreleased Treo 600 on Gizmodo today (posted Thurs). treo|central had the story. Handspring reps mentioned a Sep/Oct release date. As a combo cell phone and PDA, it looks really cool! Much slimmer than the Tungsten C I was flirting with on Thursday.

My AT&T cell plan ran out May 1st, so I am in the market for some kind of cell plan or cell phone. My Motorola v60 is a very good cell phone - as long as you don't want to synch it to your computer or use it as a PDA. Its teeny-tiny, low-res screen is useless for reading email or web content.

Of course, I have a Treo 90, so, technically, I don't need to have a cell phone that is a PDA. except that, even carrying both my v60 and Treo 90, I'm still not able to surf or email without lugging my Titanium Powerbook around. What I like about the Treo 600 is that it (1) wouldn't be too bulky as a phone, (2) would be a great keyboard-laden PDA, (3) looks slim and light, (4) would move me closer in my quest for the holy grail of 24/7 internet access given a decent data service plan.

Googling by author

I'm probably the last person to consult about Google rankings. But, that said, I'm certain that the rankings are based primarily on how many links a particular post or site has. I want to put my two cents in for giving substantial weight to the author as well.

When we surf the net, we are often surfing for interesting people not just interesting places or specific information. Google should keep track of how many hits and links a particular author has across all their websites, blogs, comments, etc. Couldn't the author be part of the xml so that Google's bots can easily gather and compile that data? I guess there's a potential privacy issue here, but the information is out there anyway...

Second, web standards people and leading edge developers, if you are listening, we need end-user tools to help us more effectively surf these info waves for people. For that matter, show me the top 1000 authors or maybe bloggers on the Net by category. It needs to be a big number because the last thing we need is to filter out the new, creative and minority fringes. Diversity in cyberspace is akin to diversity in nature - it's crucial.

An anonymous comment on Derrick Story's post today about finding music at the Apple Store is the music surfing analog re looking for people: "More than discovering a song for me is discovering an artist who you can relate to. It feels like a friend you don't talk to often but no matter what you've both been through you always have some common ground."

Tungsten C tempts

I'm always on the lookout for the perfect handheld from which to take notes, read and communicate. These days, what I read has links to other sources, so wireless is essential. Writing on paper doesn't cut it. My PowerBook, at 5.4 lbs, is still too big for walks to my local hangouts. The Tungsten-C may be the answer.

Upside: A keyboard is a must - it's faster and more convenient than graffiti 1 or 2. The beefy 400 mhz cpu zooms through large documents and graphics. The screen is 320x320 and absolutely gorgeous! The 64 mb RAM seems roomy. Bundled web and email software are good. Wi-fi is way faster than cellular or bluetooth and will synch briskly with my Powerbook. I can add an SD bluetooth card! Voice over IP is a possibility this summer - not sure what that's worth yet, but still.

Downside: the TC is nowhere near as sexy as the Zire 71. No camera. Mono out for some unknown reason (a user review claims you can stick a mono-to-stereo adapter in and get stereo out). At .7 inches thick and 6.3 oz, it's bulky and heavy by Palm V standards. No almost always-on cellular wireless. Web browsing is slow compared to wi-fi on my Powerbook. Finally, I'm worse than broke and $450 sounds like a lot right now... but, the Dow broke 9000 yesterday so maybe my financial fortunes are on the verge of a sudden turnaround ;-). Hope springs eternal.

Bottom-line: The TC is the one... until the next "one" comes along any day now. Non-vapor close contenders are the Sony Ericsson P800 cell phone - no keyboard, the new color Blackberry - too corporate? and color Danger Hiptop - cheaper. Gadget freaks of the world, please weigh in on this dilemma. Should I stay or should I go?

Apple wooing independents

Apple is putting on a private showing for hundreds of indie label reps tomorrow. Looks like they're getting serious about expanding music store content. Go Steve! (MTV has the details.)

Update: Apple's Music Store

I'm listening to my Purchased Music playlist. I've acquired twenty-two songs from the store so far. This is a great little list with 14 artists - some old, some new. About 50-50. Best money I ever spent on music - 22 bucks buys a lot when you buy one song at a time. 1.6 hours of music iTunes tells me.

Just bought a couple more new releases tonight by Jewel and the Eagles. Yum! It's times like these that make me love Steve Jobs and his bold, determined perfectionism!

Blog beginner check-in

Month 1 discoveries:

1) I can write better than I thought. I like my own writing - parts of it at least - when I edit it ;-). I tend to put up my thoughts unedited - I can't resist the instant gratification - it's a rush to push that post button! Being out here in public is a great motivator, though, so my creative faculty clicks in and has me hurry to put in some quick fixes and edits.

2) This is heart work for me. Making the effort to write well makes me want readers. I don't want the good stuff to be missed by people who might benefit or find it interesting. I better get a counter installed so I can track every visitor for encouragement if nothing else.

3) It feels good getting these thoughts written down. A fair bit of it does have some lasting value and it has more value outside my head than in.

4) I'm thrilled with my new blog design. I spent about a day with my reference books and experimenting with stylesheet colors, text, spacing, borders etc. Now, when I look at my blog, it spurs me on. One reason I chose Movable Type was so that I could personalize the design.

5) This is big fun, so I'll keep learning, improving, writing and, frankly, looking for ways to expand my readership.