Currently I am playing with the 64 GB 3G version of the iPad I won at the RSA Conference in San Francisco thanks to Tripwire. The features are very nice. The screen is crystal clear, although a little hard to see in the sunlight. It works well on wireless for videos and web browsing. Unfortunately for me, the AT&T coverage in my area is not 3G so not worth the 2 offered plans currently available. But… “How do you get around this” you ask. That is simple. Turn your phone into a wireless access point through various means of apps, hacking, or whatever. I used an app on my HTC Touch Pro 2 carried by US Cellular (3G locally now, ) and now have 3G access to the iPad via wireless through my phone. The best part is that it’s not really tethering so you don’t need the associated plan.

So with that the iPad is great. In my area I don’t need the 3G so I might sell it and get two of the standard wireless ones cause my wife loves it too. The apps, the games, and the possibilities, all right there at your multi-touch finger tips.

Until now I didn’t like Apple. Not because I grew up on PC’s. No. Just because I didn’t know them as well as I know PC’s. But after 2 weeks with the iPad I’m definitely a fan of the iPad and it’s possibilities with future releases. I hope to do more testing and possible a run with the AT&T 3G as it is available in a town about 30 miles away form me.

Since we’ve made the switch to iPhone, partly out of necessity after my Blackberry died, we’ve spent a bit of effort exploring apps. In my view, many are a great waste of space. They’re a variation of digital noise cluttering the app store, vying for attention.

Some, but not all. Bleam is an app that recently caught our eye. As it turns out, a friend (Dean Landsman @DeanLand) is partnered up pretty close with their marketing efforts. Bleam’s new, and their pitch is, I’d say, understated. Hugely understated. Here’s what they say:

Bleam
Local Instant Messaging

Mobile social networking just got a whole lot easier – thanks to Bleam for the iPhone™ and iPod touch™.

Because Bleam uses Bluetooth and/or WiFi to create an instant network, you don’t need a service signal to connect with the people around you. Just turn on Bleam and chat publicly or privately, share photos and exchange contacts with other Bleamers.

You don’t need to know someone’s ID or phone number to start Bleaming. Just be within range. And since Bleam networks iPhones together, your range will extend much further than with other Bluetooth messaging apps.

We have just submitted Bleam 1.1 to the App Store. Bleam 1.1 will let you set up multiple profiles. It’s the perfect feature for Bleamers moving between a variety of social settings – from business conferences to conference championships, lecture halls to concert halls.

So get Bleam now!
WHERE YOU ARE IS WHERE IT’S AT!

Neat and simple, but it’s an app that made me think. Walk with me down the path a ways…

Let’s begin with an appreciation of the etymology behind Bleam, because that alone hearkens to our roots, the jargon of our heritage, and for some of us, simply brings a smile. From the Free Dictionary:

(jargon)

bleam – To transmit or send data. “Bleam that binary to me in an e-mail”.

Ok, so perhaps it’s just nostalgic for guys like Dean and I who’ve been there and back. Still, it feels like a respectful hat tip from the iPhone generation to the past, and I like that. I won’t show you all the screen shots. I’m not here to do a review. I’m here to acknowledge the door Bleam flings open.

The opening screen sets things in motion. it simply says, I’m hunting. Seeking a connection media and peers (Bleamers) on that media. ‘Nuff said.

Bleam is an ad hoc chat tool. Think of it as a back channel you put up , take down, join or leave at will. Any time. Any place. You are the network if there isn’t one.

You can exchange information either in public or private. Here’s a sample:

I picked this shot simply to show how you can transfer text messages, pictures and contact cards. Certainly the obvious future ideas could include other media – video or music.

It’s interesting. A tidy little program that fills a gap. Sheryl and I tested it and were quite pleased.

I can’t do Steve Job’s impressions, but allow me to channel him for a moment…and another thing

Bleam portends a future that isn’t here today. I’d challenge the Bleam developers in ways I’m pretty confident Dean has, is and will continue to challenge them. This is a nice point of entry. Don’t let it be the end game, because there is so much more. Think about how Bleam does what it does, through options of WiFi and Bluetooth, and let your imagination stretch a bit further than chatting with your BFF.

As a speaker and presenter, I see my iPhone, iPad, device of choice using Bleam’s core to connect with a Bluetooth-WiFi enabled projector in a conference room. I don’t want or need a laptop. Let me Bleam my presentation to the projector while I walk around the room giving my talk.

As a listener, let me Bleam music to my speakers. In my car or my house. Or let me Bleam it to Sheryl’s nephew’s audio system, properly enabled of course, when we go visit.

When we get on a plane because we’re traveling to some exotic destination (no we are not going back to Waseca, MN), why don’t you let me join the Bleam driven network on the plane to send me movies and audio.

In fact, just Bleam enable my house and appliances. We’re still waiting for Smarthome 1.0 to become a reality. Let’s skip it and go to Bleamhome instead. Let me use WiFi and Bluetooth in my really smart home. I can control lights, fixtures, temperature, turn on the oven (and check how long the roast has left to cook) and all manner of wireless controls. Without wires. Without infrastructure. Simply enabling the connector widgets.

Widgets? Yep. Hardware and software widgets. Bluetooth/Bleam enable a lightswitchand sell it for $25 instead of $1.95. I’ll buy one for every room. Don’t build a supersmart home nobody can afford but the elite. Widgetize the process making migration a consumer owned and operated experience.

I recently wrote some pretty favorable things about another app service…Foursquare. I think Bleam is bigger and has more potential than Foursqare. Go to Bleam and check it out for yourself. Or go on your iPhone and get it from the app store. But don’t overlook it. It could be your future.

Disclaimer and note to Dean and the Bleam Team: I haven’t been paid or asked to write this. We bought the app. That’s right we shelled out the whopping 99 cents for each of us. No compensation or external motivators. That said, Dean…Bo… when you get ready to move into new areas, I’d love to help with strategy, direction, biz dev and what Bleam might do  in a bigger way. Keep me in mind.

Something to keep in mind when reading this, I didn’t do a technical review. If you want that, you’ll have to wait for Ken to write something. These are personal experiences and feelings from a pseudo geek.

You’re probably aware of the queries both Ken and I have thrown out about iPhone stuff. We’ve been such strong proponents of RIM, I’m pretty sure most of you can’t fathom us switching sides. We didn’t, at least not exactly.

We got iPhones.

I know, that’s got to be the big shock of the year. So how come I said we didn’t switch sides? To switch sides implies we are no longer rooting for the other team, and no longer view them as quality and that simply isn’t the case.

We took a little road trip this last weekend and our friend Dameon, aka @phoneboy called while we were in transit. Something I thought about while talking to Dameon was how much I still loved my Blackberry. My Blackberry Bold found a new home with my son who swears it’s the best phone ever – that coming off the Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic phone which we loaned him a year ago and he LOVED.

What I loved about my Blackberry.

Both the Blackberry curve and bold are impressive devices. They thread messages wonderfully, their messaging service works almost flawlessly, to send both text and mms is super simple, and the apps for basics like twitter and facebook work better than their native platforms work most of the time.

I also loved typing on Blackberry. Typing on a qwerty keyboard is so much easier than a non qwerty, and when I say that I mean it beats hands down my use of the iPhone. If I had to say one thing would make me think twice again it would be that feature, or lack of a feature that could cause me to rethink.

The Blackberry messenger service was incredible. The iPhone may have over 100k apps but nothing I have found touches what Blackberry messenger could do, from basic messaging, one on one, to group messages, as well as file and picture transfers I simply don’t see anything in iPhone that comes close.

Multi tasking is yet another feature the Blackberry does well. With the Bold I was able to have multiple applications running at the same time, and did. I could have a call up, apps running, all while web browsing, something I’ll talk about later.

There are a few apps on the Blackberry that I miss but the truth is, if I were to shift back to that device I would miss some apps from the iPhone. Still, worth a real mention here is an app that I used in beta called socialscope. There has not been another mobile app that remotely functions the way socialscope does. That one app is a struggle and why it took me a while to buy the tweetie app on iPhone, something I wish I hadn’t purchased because I don’t find it better than anything else on iPhone that’s free. I remember hearing how fabulous it is and all I can say is, those who said that never had socialscope. ‘Nuff said.

Now web browsing. If all you’ve ever had is basic browsing like those non-smart phones offer, the Blackberry browser wouldn’t seem bad at all. I know because that is all I ever had pre Blackberry. However, once you have experienced other types of browsing you quickly see that RIM has a lot of catching up to do in order to provide a comparable experience. I’m not sure they can, actually. It’s unfortunate because so many things about the blackberry are actually superior to the iPhone. The appstore and browser make all the difference in the world. So let’s talk about that.

Experiencing the iPhone.

Many of you know that about a year ago Ken and I both got an ipod touch. Why that matters is because getting an iphone meant we already had a clue how to use it. Using the iPhone isn’t quite like using other phones or pda’s. It simply behaves differently, has a unique interface, which ultimately anyone can use because you don’t have to tell someone what to do to use it, it’s incredibly intuitive. It functions and works so easily and that is one of the great things about it.

We spent a year using ipods yet were pretty hesitant to get an iphone. There wasn’t any one straw that broke this camels back, it was many things.

First, while we don’t much care for the typing experience on iphone, something I’m sure we will eventually not have is a keyboard. Certainly not in the way we have them in current iteration of computer systems. I think touch, and ultimately voice will be our interface. We both think it likely.

Second, we are growing more and more mobile. Down sizing if you will. We want a device we can use in more ways than just to text or im and talk on the phone. Certainly I was able to watch youtube on my Blackberry, but if you put the Blackberry screen next to the iphone screen you can quickly see that there’s much better ability to see things on the iphone. I don’t have to squint as much and that is a big deal as I rarely have my glasses. Ken wears bifocals which also makes the iphone much more user friendly!

Third, the browser. There is not enough white space to talk about how brilliant the browsing experience is on the iphone. I LOVE the browser so much! It is the BEST browser on any mobile device I have ever used, and I have used several. I like that you in essence get tabbed browsing, and so far I haven’t found a limit to the number of windows I can open.

I love the ability to both pinch the screen to make it smaller or bigger, depending on need. The way I can scroll so seamlessly across a page not optimized for mobile browsers.

I don’t like the way my messages are threaded in the message box. It has made it impossible to respond to pokes much of the time. If I get a poke from someone and immediately following get a message, the message can be addressed, the poke can not.

I also don’t like that I literally have 3 different inboxes for mail. They all fall in the mail section but are separated there into 3 different boxes. It is more tedious and  I don’t care for it but it’s certainly doable.

The appstore, that’s incredible. If you’ve tried to use an appstore for any other platform you can appreciate a simple click and install process and how nice that would be. Blackberry appstore would like to be good but it isn’t. It’s a real pain.

Itunes on the other hand makes everything awful. I do NOT like itunes. Now, I will grant you that maybe I don’t use it to it’s best advantage, so that could be user failure. But many people I talk to despise the itunes interface and I wish it wasn’t so annoyingly cluttered, or processor intensive. I also wish there were better directions for how to prevent your non DRM’d media from becoming owned by itunes. I know how to do it should I need to, but it is a non-intuitive process. Funny how all the rest of the things about the iphone just work on an intuitive basis but not itunes. Not sure what happened there but someone clearly dropped the ball.

The sum of the total…

I wish I could tell you all that I wouldn’t change back, but that wouldn’t be fair. I probably would in the right circumstances. But for now, I’m an iPhone user and it’s not that bad. It’s not perfect, but I’m still learning. I’m sure I’ll have more to say as time goes by. I’ve only had it for a couple of weeks and I have a lot to learn.

Like many other people I sat on my sofa watching as patiently as possible for what was coming for Apple. Having recently switched to an iphone from a Blackberry, I had high hopes and great expectations. And I also made the assumption that many others did that there would be a tablet on their horizon. I wasn’t wrong but that wasn’t the big deal. Not in my opinion.

140,000 apps at your fingertips. From day one.

Right now, iPad can run almost 140,000 of the apps on the App Store. It can even run the apps you’ve already downloaded for your iPhone or iPod touch. Learn more

That is certainly a big deal. It’s super cool, and I’m probably more aware of how cool it is having used my new iphone for a couple weeks. But that’s just the beginning. The new iPad Also has the ability to dock to a keyboard. If you haven’t paid attention to me ranting about this in the last year, you won’t know one of the big reasons we didn’t choose an iphone sooner was no physical keyboard. I do miss it and this makes me really happy. Productivity will begreatly enhanced with this.

Watch out Kindle!

Another game changer from my perspective is iBooks. A beautiful, easy to use virtual bookshelf, the book reader and bookstore ‘just works’. Kindle over priced themselves, making their devices more expensive than many netbooks, and consequently their lack of extra abilities will make it impossible to compete with this new device. It’s unfortunate that they will be collateral damage but they will and so will all other book devices.

Unlimited 3G Data? YES!

If I had to pick a single part of the Steve Jobs News Cast this morning that really turned our world upside down, it has to be the 3G data plan for $30 a month, no contract, cancel anytime! I won’t repeat it but do think this will change the future landscape of mobile computing because this one statement invites competition that we haven’t seen for a long time. Competition will be good for our pocketbooks.

Now you’ve seen some of the neat pictures, I’d like to ramble for just a minute. I love this device. This is a device that in my mind is just about the coolest thing I’ve seen, since the pc. I was practically drooling, largely because I see how much this will change the future, our future.

Of course with the good comes the bad, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a couple of things that are lacking or outright missing. There is no camera. You can’t do video. You can watch it but no creation. Also, the storage ability, or lack there of makes it impossible to make this a primary computing device.

All of that said, the iPad has so much potential for putting something that was typically a tool associated with mac centric geeks in the hands of everybody. It will force us to change our computing behavior thereby creating acceptance of new ideas to further enhance our lives.

I’m so excited!

Technorati Tags: iPad, Apple, Steve Jobs, Kindle

A few weeks ago I wrote about The Yamaha PSG-01S – USB Speakerphone for Skype. After some ongoing use, I’m as satisfied as ever. It’s turning out to be a great tool for conference calls, and lately I’m spending hours every day on those.

In some conversations with other folks testing this, there are some other differentiators that warrant brief mention here -

• The PSG-01S is the only Skype-certified Speakerphone that has a client interface to the hardware supported by Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 at this point. Given early popularity of Windows 7, that’s a point wirht noting.
• The PSG-01S delivers four microphone array for full 360 degree  participation in a call. This speaker array makes it nice for around-the-table calls. And they contribute to echo cancellation and background noise reduction.
• The PSG-01S supports 300 KHz to 20KHz audio for not only local music and voice recording but also for listening to music, podcasts and other audio. On a Skype call, the microphone is spec’d to 7KHz, sufficient for support of wideband audio – but the speaker continues to operate over the 300Hz to 20KHz range. 

On of the points I made in my post was that at a US$249/€199 price point, it was just a touch pricey for many potential customers. That point was taken seriously as many of us made similar comments. Now there’s promotional pricing for the holiday season to December 31, 2009: US$199.90/£179.90/€179.90. Keep in mind that the pricing includes shipping and VAT/sales taxes. .

For those of us testing this unit, it’s been the personal experience and real use in the filed and on the road that’s caught our attention. Many people I’ve talked to find themselves just using it so often it’s become a habit. Sheryl and I sometimes fight over it, moving from one PC to another.

As a result of the positive feedback, In Store Solutions wants to encourage user trials and is extending its return policy so that anyone purchasing during this promotion can return it, shipping prepaid but no questions asked, for a full credit until January 31, 2010. This gives purchasers a chance to make their own mind about the value with no risk.

If you were on the fence, now’s a chance to try one of these out for yourself. You’ll find it under Phones at your local country Skype Store.

We sometimes get the opportunity to test the most interesting new devices hitting the market. A few days ago we received a new one that we’re growing more impressed with as we use it. We’re using the new Yamaha PSG-01S SoundGadget.

We’ve both been active Skype users for years. We’ve used it on every computer and mobile device we have. Some days we simply live on the phone, and Skype is our office choice for conference calls, podcast interviews and more.

I’ve used more Skype speakerphones than I can count. Most have been mildly interesting, but not much more. I’ve tried them, tested them, then set them aside or given them away. They simply haven’t been much better than the speakers and mic in my laptop.

That all changed with this Yamaha product. It is simply the best speakerphone for Skype I’ve used. This SoundGadget is marketed for the small room environment, and it’s perfect for our home office. Yamaha has already announced an awesome looking small conference room solution coming soon, but for the typical home office or small office use, this device is fantastic.

It’s got solid echo cancellers built it. They’re tuned for Skype and it does a great job of eliminating echo and dropouts.

Setup was simple – Plug&Play that really works. It’s powered via USB so no extra power adapter cord to tangle up our limited desk real estate.

One feature we found absolutely delightful is the wideband stereo playback. there two embedded, high-efficiency speakers with the new surround formats that provide powerful wide-band stereo audio. Being highly mobile laptops users, audio quality for listening to music or podcasts while we work is always an issue. The volume obtainable from laptop speakers is always a limitation.

Yamaha has a history of delivering audio gear with the highest fidelty and superb quality. The PSC-01S SoundGadget delivers everything we might have hoped for from Yamaha’s reputation for quality. And the physical quality of the device are apparent too.

One interesting feature that I’m still trying to figure out is the embedded acceleration sensors that detect the position of the unit and automatically switch the mode by itself. When the unit is positioned vertically, the unit is ready for Skype communication as a speakerphone. When it is placed horizontally, it is ready for music playback as a stereo speaker. In my case, it works as stereo speakers standing up. When I lie it horizontally, it seems to shut all audio off. I need to play with it a bit more as speakers for music. I suspect there’s even better quality than I’m getting right now in this little box.

Here’s a picture to give a sense of scale.The PSG-O1S is sitting next to a coffee mug with a box of Kleenex in behind.

What is clear is the feel of quality. It has a metal case, and some weight and heft. This is clearly not a plastic toy.

Two points aren’t as positive. It has buttons on the side to initiate and terminate a Skype call. I can’t make them work. I don’t know that I’d use them, and I will fiddle around until I figure out what I’ve done wrong, but a button to hangup a call should just work and it doesn’t. I’ll RTFM. I suspect user error in some way.

Where I think Yamaha will struggle with this small room speakerphone is in the US$249/€199 price point. True audiophiles may be inclined to spend that kind of money for a speakerphone device. I’m not one. Skype users tend to be people looking for convenient solutions that don’t cost much money. I think it will take very focused marketing to a specific target market that will spend that kind of money.

While it’s a small room device, we took it out on the patio while talking to a friend. It worked great. The speakers made him easy to hear. The mic picked up voice just fine, and it did pick up the furnace pump sounds across the yard. According to our friend, it worked great on the patio. He could hear background noise, but it was clearly in the background with our voices in the foreground.

All in all, from a couple of days testing, we’re pleased and impressed. Several of our friends and colleagues are also reviewing the device, and we’ll be watching to see what they think. If you’re looking to buy one or learn more you’ll find it under Phones at your local country Skype Store.

Amendment – After a quick peek at the manual, the call and hangup buttomns work perfectly. And now I have to change my view and say I probably will use them. Interesting handy feature.

A little tongue in cheek was required here. I have been a fan of the iPhone since it first hit the stores. I still don’t have one, but last year I did get an ipod touch. I enjoy many things about it, particularly the browsing capability and also the integration with itunes and the app store.

Having said that, I read everyday something not good about it. While we’re all familiar with the great things about the iphone, the bad seems to get pushed down. Or does it?

It occurred to me this morning as I was reading a post on VentureBeat, it may be a lot more about just being part of a craze and not so much about the greatness of the phone. Everyone I talk to says how great it is, and they extol the many virtues, but when pushed with any amount of force, they will acknowledge the much more stable quality of the rim devices and also how comfortable email is on a Blackberry as well.

There are a lot of things about the iphone no one wants to admit. The inferiority of call quality, email etc. etc. Sure, Apple pointed us to a better set of features and functions a phone could and maybe should have. Now, why doesn’t Blackberry or another phone integrate some of those great features and let’s put the iphone behind us?

Apparently one has. I can’t wait for revues on it. Have a look at what TheBoyGenius Report has to say about what the new DROID phone will do, that the iphone doesn’t.

Technorati Tags: theboygeniusreport, droiddoes, iphone, apple, blackberry, sheryl breuker, matt marshall

Tonight my son was coming home. My 17 year old son. He has spent some time in Canada visiting friends and family etc. and was due home tonight. I was to pick him up at Walla Walla Regional Airport. I won’t be picking him up there, now.

My ex husband made the ticket arrangements to fly David from Northern BC to Walla Walla. It’s been done a ton of times. David was flying international, like always, and had to make a connection in Seattle to get a little commuter flight to Walla Walla. And then the trouble began.

David typically flies into Seattle or Spokane from Vancouver. Since he was flying into Walla Walla he needed to make a connection in Seattle and when he has had to do that we have always gotten him tickets ensuring there will be plenty of time between flights. This didn’t work today.

David’s flight from Vancouver arrived in Seattle at 7:10. The two flights getting him to Seattle were with Air Canada. The flight from Vancouver arrived late. His flight from Seattle was supposed to leave at 8:00, but Horizon failed to state clearly that in order to get on the flight, luggage must be checked in 40 minutes in advance, and the person flying must be checked in 30 minutes in advance. Advance of gate closure, not flight time. Gate closure is 15 minutes prior to departure. Which means, in order for David to make the flight to Walla Walla he would have needed to not only depart his plane which landed at 7:10, and have luggage in hand and checked in by 7:05. Can you guess what they said to me on the phone? There are no more flights out tonight and he will have to spend the night here.

I flew into a rage yelling that they were forcing a minor to stay in a strange city and they had no right to do that and why couldn’t they just get him through anyway…he was ONE child! Eventually I asked to speak to a supervisor who insisted it was Air Canada’s fault and we should ask them to provide a voucher for David to spend the night. I yelled again and said wait a minute. He’s a minor child in a strange city and you expect him to handle all this on his own when the airlines made a mistake and his safety is now compromised?

Finally the supervisor said we can get him on a flight to Pasco, which is an hour away, but you will have to pay the transfer fees and taxes etc. Are you willing to do that? Did she expect me to say no??? I said of course I would but it was again ludicrous I was expected to pay additional fees for a problem I had not created and a flight that is SHORTER than originally requested. Eventually she came back on the phone and said they would make an exception this one time and not charge me the additional fees and she hoped we learned a lesson. I did. Do NOT fly HORIZON or AIR CANADA!

Calliflower from iotum announced the the expansion of the international dial-in network for their premium service. It is now available for conference calling and document sharing in 30 countries around the globe. Calliflower now offers a flat-rate conference calling from over 100 cities world wide! This is quite an expansion and a huge value for the global business. With their flat-rate international calls, many customers can see a savings of up to 90%. This is potentially huge for any business.

Here’s a link to what the real costs of free conference call services may be, and just how Calliflower saves you money.

iotum is a Voice 2.0 company that aims to reinvent business conversations and shape a world of relevant communications where devices, social networks and Web services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with whom they want, when they want and on the device they want.

We highly recommend Califlower for professionals looking for a program that is great quality, offers superb value and saves YOU money. There is really no better collaboration tool on the market, especially not at their price point.

Press Release for Calliflower.

I read a lot. I have for several years. RSS readers are many, and I tried several. I settled on Bloglines a very long time ago, and it really suits my work style. Today, our friend Lewis posed a question on Twitter – “Can anyone tell me how to use Bloglines in simple terms? I’m signed up but it’s a mystery to me still…” and Sheryl’s response was that I should write a post. She still finds the way I use Bloglines a mystery, yet I prefer it above Google Reader for a number of reasons – to the point I long ago abandoned Google Reader completely.

I’ll step you through how I generally use Bloglines daily. if something’s not clear, or you want more ideas, leave a comment. I promise we’ll read them and respond. I’ll caveat this post with the note that I use Firefox exclusively. I have used other browsers in the past. For my work style, as you’ll see at the end of this post, Firefox suits my needs best. Your mileage may vary slightly with another browser.

The most used pane in the Bloglines browser window is the list of subscribed RSS feeds. Here’s a snapshot of mine today.

I’ve filed RSS feeds into category folders that make sense to me.  In the screen capture I’ve expanded one, my Tech – General folder. Remember I made these folders simply while using the reader. You can name yours however suits your personal work style.

Within the Tech – General category you see 5 blogs listed. None have new/unread postings. I show this expanded view because it’s easy to see that I can read new post from either a single RSS feed, or an entire category. Personally, I tend to read a category at a time.

In practice, I pick a category and scan the entries, using the “Save as New” checkbox for those I want to write about later, forward to someone, or take some action with. In short, I treat this pane not unlike my inbox. Quickly read what’s important, flagging what needs action, and purging the rest.

So how do you add new feeds to Bloglines? For me it’s very easy. Here’s my browser toolbar at the top. Notice the Sub with Bloglines button? If I hit any web page from anywhere, clicking this button does a scan of the page I’m on for RSS feeds and allows me to subscribe and either create a new scategor folder or assing it to one of my existing ones.

Blogs don’t have to be in folders. If you look at the first visual, you can see that TechCrunch is not categorized. It’s how I organize for my personal work style. My use has evolved over years to suit me, but organizing your feeds is easy even if you already have many listed.

So how do you get that Sub with Bloglines button? Easy. On the main Bloglines page, look under Subscribe to it. You’ll find Subscribe with one click from your browser toolbar. Click the link and you have options. We like options. Choice is good.

I’ve only clipped IE and FF, but there are other options too. Follow the simple drag and drop instructions and get your own toolbar button.

So far so good. From here, you should be able to set your personal feeds up in a way that’s easy to manage and read.

Now as to why I use Bloglines and with Firefox, I’ll share just a bit more. Anyone who pays attention to Sheryl and I knows we are very mobile. I’ve been dependent on mobile access for several years. For me, Bloglines has the best mobile support of any web-based reader I’ve used. I insist on a web-based RSS reader, and I want access from my laptop, Blackberry, iPod Touch, Nokia N800, or whatever. I don’t want to re-read posts, so a web-based reader makes sense. Yes, I’ve been moving my work to the cloud for over five years wherever possibly. I want my most critical information in the cloud, my mobile, or both.

Here’s Bloglines on my Blackberry Curve, with the Blackberry’s notably dismal browser.

I’m a huge fan of simplicity, and Bloglines mobile interface is so simple it works on every mobile browser I’ve ever used. That’s important to me. Mobility matters.

Now on to Firefox and Bloglines. I’ve been blogging for quite a number of years. Linking and sharing other incorporation of content from the web can be easy or difficult. I’ve used a number of blogging tools, but for a long time now I’ve been settled in with Firefox and ScribeFire. ScribeFire is an adequate blogging tool that meets all my needs. It supports multiple blogs. And it’s easy to write a post, do all the html formatting I want. Then save it out as a note to email for use somewhere I can’t post directly to with Scribefire.

I used a number of separate tools, but being tied to web-based feed reading, something integrated into my browser works perfectly. Here’s a picture to show what I mean. It’s a full screenshot, and reduced in size here, but if you click on it, you can go see the full size on Flickr.

What I like is being able to spot a blog post on any device I choose and tag it to save for later, when I have time to blog about it. Then on my laptop, find that post in my reader, and drag and drop it into Scribefire like I have with the TechCrunch example in the screenshot.

It makes it easy to share posts from friends and colleagues, with simple links back to their work. In the conversational web, it’s important that we all give credit where due and recognize the work of others. ScribeFire lets me do that easily, while Bloglines lets me control what I read and how I read it, in a way that works for me.

Technorati Tags: Bloglines, RSS. RSS reader, news reader, feed reader, web-based reader, Firefox, Scribefire, tools, blogging tools

Yesterday Ken and I had a conference call with Steve P. Newman, CTO from Gist. If you don’t know about Gist, read Kens post here, and then wander over to the website and sign up for the beta.

We had a bunch of questions because we’ve been using Gist for a few days. It’s still in beta, or as Steve suggested, really more of an alpha but they wanted to get all the feedback they could so put it out as beta. We like a lot of what we see already, but the completed product promises a much fuller experience and one we don’t have to tweak so much.

About Gist

They say in business, it’s not what you know, but who you know. At Gist, we think it’s both.

Gist is an online service that helps you build stronger relationships. By connecting your inbox to the web, you get business-critical information about key people and companies.

T.A. McAnn, Gist CEO says:

“What people want is smarter collection, organization and dynamic presentation of information. This provides focus and intelligent views of what I need “right now” and, of course, it will be accessible on the web and any mobile device.”

Here’s what Ken and I know. We installed the desktop plugin. It basically accesses your outlook email and gathers all the information on your connections and email and also the companies associated with them. Up to that point it’s kind of like xobni, except it doesn’t live in your email application, it lives on the web.

Why it’s cool for it to live on the web is because all the connections you have also have web associations, well most of them do. Their companies may be web based, they typically have a web presence of some sort at the very least. Think cloud computing.

Gist searches the web for those affiliations and gathers information on all the people, companies, it even searches for images. Further to this, it’s not specific to outlook as xobni is. Gist can also search out gmail contacts and linkedin contacts. It updates and is always scanning to gather the newest information. It doesn’t seem to slow your system down though we did have questions about it’s constantly scanning. Steve said that is being addressed.

When you test in beta, many times the features aren’t complete, or they aren’t refined. Gist is working to refine some things and make it’s application a better fit for prosumers as well as enterprise business. One of the ways they are going to better fit us by release date, is to have incorporated twitter into the mix, which I think is really important.

Some of the things Gist is looking to bring in it’s Version 1 release, which is scheduled for hopefully mid year, google calendar and ical integration. We think this is important. They are also looking at social graph views in a separate tab. The dashboard, as they call it now will be changed to be a proper dashboard not just a reader of sorts.

In this iteration it’s hard to see the full potential, but you can see just enough to know that as Ken implied in his earlier post, it really sort of makes redundant some of the tools you already use by basically mashing them together into one application.

For further information here is a video interview with T.A. McCann and Robert Scoble. T.A. is a dynamic speaker and really captures his company vision well.

Technorati Tags: T.A. McCann, Steve P. Newman, xobni, Gist, Workfast tv, Robert Scoble, linkedin, google, ical,

I recently acquired a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic through my mom Sheryl, her fiancé Ken, and their friend Andy. I acquired this phone from my mom, on one condition. That condition being that I would write a review for the phone, so here I am.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is according to other reviews quite an astonishing phone, as far as Nokia and Music go together, from what I’ve read. I personally, have used it more for texting – as any adolescent teenager would in today’s world – as well as wifi, and picture taking combined with picture uploading.

I’m certain that I’m not the first to say it, and I’m sure I won’t be the last, but I love this phone over-all. I’ve had use of two other Nokia phones through Mom and Ken, the Nokia N73, and the Nokia N78, prior to this 5800, and neither one of them was as “fun” or “cool” as this one.

The phone has a very convenient stylus, but, it’s not a requirement. You can use the touch screen with just the tip of your fingers. However, I do recommend that if you use such a primitive tool as your own finger, you wash your hands, or have a screen cleaner and rag available, to keep the grease build up down.

For the generic, but dying technology of basic phone calls, this phone is adequate, with an easy-to-use volume control button on the side of the phone, and easily operated touch-screen buttons for your various answering options.

As for dialing a phone number, well the touch pad is a little confusing at first, because the keys are small, and the touch pad can be a bit slow to catch on to the fact that you’ve actually keyed in a digit, but if you’re using the stylus you won’t likely notice the difference. If you’re going to just call a contact it’s not too hard to scroll through a list and select one to call, and which of their potentially many phone numbers to dial.

Texting is quite fun here actually. You may either manually input the number you wish to text by tapping the Recipient area once firmly with your finger or stylus and inputting the number with the number pad, or you may add a number or multiple numbers from your contact list. As for the actual message? Well, it’s similar to manually inputting a number to text: tap the text area firmly once, and the key-pad appears. You now have to turn your phone side-ways and decide whether to use the stylus, or whether to type with your thumbs. My personal choice for speed, and amusement is using my thumbs, but if I want a higher degree of accuracy, I’ll pull out the stylus for the search-and-peck method of typing. Then just hit the check-mark, click the closed envelope which is the send button, and you’re done.

So, the texting bit also touches on the fact that there’s more than one way to view the phone. You can look at it vertically as you would most, or you can flip it on its side and it will act similarly to the iPhone or iPod Touch, I believe, and rotate the icons. Of course, this only seems to work once you’ve opened one of the menus. The unfortunate thing, is that on your main wallpaper, this option is not apparently available. You can put your favorite contacts onto the wallpaper, but you can’t have them rotate with your phone like when you’re in the main menus.

As this is the first phone I’ve ever honestly used to access wifi, I can’t exactly make any unbiased comments on the speed, though I’ll make a comment anyway. Speed can always be improved.

The phone does a pretty good job of playing YouTube videos, and the sound quality is surprisingly exceptional, as is the volume capability. The video quality could be better, but we’re looking at 640×360 pixels so in all honesty you can’t ask for much better than you’ve got.

Moving on to photos: There is a 3.2 megapixel camera on this phone. Once again, when you take into account the size of the lens, the photo quality of the camera is really surprisingly exceptional. You won’t be taking any professional grade photos, to include in a photographer’s portfolio, but certainly adequate for on-the-fly captures of moments that just need a picture to be able to describe them. And when you’ve gone and taken a picture, if you have wifi, and a flickr account, you can upload photos right from your phone to your flickr account, fairly quickly.

Music quality on the phone is exceptional, as I stated in my comments about YouTube with this phone. The volume reaches surprising levels for such a small device, and the quality is not terribly distorted as it would be with a lower-end phone.
The transfer speed from computer to phone through your USB connection is also great. I didn’t know the exact specification, so I looked it up, and it is advertised at 4mb/s transfer rate.

The music application includes ability to make on the go playlists, and organize your songs in different ways.
The one downfall is that you either have to manually input the music files by accessing your phone memory or memory card on “My Computer” and drag-and-drop the music into the phone memory, or you have to use Windows Media Player to synchronize songs – that is unless, my phone and computer combination just don’t optimize transferring capabilities.

On a whole, I have to reiterate that I love the Nokia 5800. There is however room for improvement, including more options for what to include on your wallpaper, as far as icons go, perhaps, since it’s the Nokia 5800 “XpressMusic” a music icon should be included. And then there’s the potential for improving wifi speed. To go along the subject of speed, the touch-pad needs to be improved so that your touches register a little bit faster and easier, rather than having to almost hit the screen at times. The last thing I think needs to be improved would be not the transfer speed, but the ease of transferring, and program compatibility for transferring music and sound data. But all in all, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic lives up to its name, and is a magnificent, and amusing phone.

We got confirmation this morning in email that a new Nokia 5800 xPressMusic has been shipped our way as part of the Nokia Blogger Relations Program.

Dubbed the Tube and once tagged as an iPod killer (we’ve since seen lots of confirmation that it isn’t), this phone looks like one that will be a hit for those looking for a solid all around device.

We know it’s got WiFi, Bluetooth, a 3.2 megapixel camera and a 640X360 resolution screen. No QWERTY keyboard, and we’ve seen mixed reviews of the ways this S60 devices provides for keyboard-like entry. We’ll see how our testing goes.

More to follow once it arrives and we get it unpacked. And this time around, we expect to try something a little different. We’re thinking we’ll have David try it out as well, and bring you an evaluation from a 17 year old who will look at it through the eyes of a non-business oriented user.

Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia, 5800 XpressMusic. mobile, mobility

In the past couple of weeks I’ve mentioned Vidtel and the great meeting Sheryl and I had with Scott Wharton. I have to say that we’ve had a little taste of firsthand experience, so I’m sharing some more information.

If you’ve been reading, you know that Scott graciously offered us a couple of test units to evaluate. We had set one up in our home office and found it fast, friendly and easy. Last weekend we flew to southern California to visit my Mom. What a perfect candidate for the other phone. She uses the computer, but isn’t a tech-savvy user. And what a great way to try out video with someone who doesn’t feel comfortable with installing programs. There are a huge number of people who would love to have video calling, but don’t feel comfortable using the computer to make calls.

Even Mom was impressed with how easy it was to set up the Vidtel phone. And we made a test call back to Sheryl’s daughter at home to make sure it worked. It was flawless.

Simple. Fast. Easy. If you’ve ever cringed when you said those words plug and play you know how rare that has been. Kudos to Vidtel for one of the simplest solutions to set up I’ve ever seen – and it works great.
And while the video screen may not be a large HD flat panel display, here’s Sheryl’s lovely face taken with our Nikon to give you a sample of just how it looks.

I was home for lunch earlier today and Scott called to check in and see how things were going. We had a great chat. One of the nicest guys we’ve met in a long time, and we’re both impressed with how easy things are to use and how well they work.

You can expect to hear more from us on Vidtel.

Technorati Tags: Videtel, Scott Wharton, video