More time with the Camera

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Rob

Haven’t spent enough time with the camera of late, but managed a few photo’s over the bank holiday weekend. At the moment it’s take 100′s and 1 is good, so still a lot to learn.

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digital nomad or ilife; it’s been around for a while now

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Rob

There’s a post in the standard called living the iLife and picks up on people selling all thier worldly goods and living out of a laptop. But this isn’t new, it’s been around for a while (that post is from August 2009), but this is the second story on the topic in the last two weeks or so, so maybe it’s gaining traction finally.

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What I’d like to see in Tweetdeck for Android

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Rob

Tweetdeck have released there Android app to the public, but it’s Beta, and it’s got a lot missing. Here are my thoughts on the Tweetdeck app for Android and what it needs to displace the likes of seesmic, Tweetdecks arch rival and more platform specific apps such as Twidroyd.

Now, I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve tried pretty much most of the Twitter apps available for Android, Seesmic, Twidroyd, Touiteur, HTC Peep, Twitter’s own app (basic), Twicca (pretty), Swift (fastest), TweetCaster (horrid), so I’m pretty sure I can comment on which ones work and which ones don’t.

We’ll start with the what’s good first and there’s several things, first up it’s not yet in the market so you have to download it from here (don’t forget to set the allow any app to be installed check box). This means you’ll have to watch twitter for notifcations of a newer version as you won’t be alerted by a little shopping bag just yet.

The yellow bar highlighting what’s new is a nice touch, the yellow dot’s near the top left and right also highlight new information that’s arrived in the specific columns is nice, but I’m not sure how long it’ll take before it get’s tedious.

The integration of all the feeds into the single stream is done very well, the colour coding makes it easy for you to spot what’s from which service, Facebook blue, buzz red and so on. Signing in is a breeze too, just sign in with your tweetdeck account and boom all your services are sync’d across.

The little twitter bird is nice, I like the bird in the notification bar rather some strange logo, so nicer that both Seesmic and it’s mutant Raccoon and Twidroyds dancing alien. When a post fails, the logo is upside down, a dead bird, pretty humorous.

Now the room for improvement bits, yes I know it’s a beta app and it looks like updates are happening quickly too it. One of the items I was going to point out was how large the font was and how it limited what you could see on a single screen. But within the last few hours that’s been fixed and the latest build has font size adjustment. I’m not sure if the The tweet which font size you use is a gimick or a nice way of letting other people know how you use the app.

Frequency of the updates, this is key for battery conscious people and there’s no way to adjust how frequently the app updates. Other apps allow you to set intervals from 5 mins  through to 6 hours for example. But there’s no option on Tweetdeck which needs fixing, for example I left Tweetdeck on all Saturday and my battery died around 6pm, when it would normally make it through a day no problem.

Audible notifications is missing too, I like to get a ping or a bird tweeting to let me know I’ve had a reply or a DM, but this is missing so you have to check. I don’t want to check so this needs fixing and by the current rate of progress, it should be sorted by the weekend.

Picture sharing, it’s just twitgoo at the moment, I like Twitpic but as far as I can see there’s no way to change it. Support for twitlonger would be nice too, Twidroyd has got that one sorted very well along with the also missing Link shortener of choice options, bit.ly etc.

Something that’s missing on Touiteur, but I’m glad to say is here on Tweedeck is location, you can either add a generic location or log into a specific place via Foursquare. I’m not sure if you set your locations once it stays or you have to keep adding locations to tweet’s that would be too tedious.

Number of tweets, I’m not sure how far this goes back, but there’s not ability to select 180 tweets for instance, it scrolls back pretty much through all your tweets, so not sure what impact this is having on storage, but not too worried.

A tiny niggle to see how someone has tweeted you have to open the tweet up and it shows you, web, Tweetdeck, peep etc. I like to see that on the stream, it helps me to see what people are up to, are they mobile or are they in front of a PC.

Overall, I like it, I think it’s going to continue to improve of the next days, weeks and months into a pretty solid integrated social media application for the Android platform. At the moment I keep flicking back and forth between it and Twidroyd as I find something I can’t do without, but I’m sure before long Tweetdeck will claim a place on my homescreen as the twitter app of choice.

if I’ve  got something wrong let me know, if you can think of other items that would improve it let me know.

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HTC Hero for Sale on eBay

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Rob

My HTC Hero is up for sale on eBay, only 1 bid so far, but interest only tends to happen in the last 12 or so hours. (not to self don’t bother listing things for 5 days again).

It’s an A1 condition and has the latest official Orange firmware on it, Eclair aka Android 2.1.

It’s the handset that got me hooked on Android and it can be yours as it’s listed here

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Updating Firmware on E71

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Rob

Just updated the firmware on my e71, so now having to re-install mail4exchange via ovi, this is horrible. Considering replacing the e71 with another HTC Desire through work and the interface of S60 is horrific compared to Froyo.

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Photo’s from the Seventies

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Rob

I’m trying out the Vignette app for my Android phone, it’s a camera replacement that allows you to add frames and all sorts of effects. There’s a free version in the Android store, but taking just one photo, I decided to upgrade to the £2.99 pro version and it’s a pretty cool app.

It moves the processing of photo’s from the PC (or Mac) to the phone itself and makes it easier to add interesting effects to a photo, either before you take it or afterwards.

This is the breakfast table taken with a very leaky Polaroid camera from the Seventies. There’s a Flickr group for the app too, so if you’re interested in more photo’s take a look here.

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The Skills you’ll need to succeed according to Gartner

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Rob

At the Orange Live 2010 the most covered keynote was Peter Sondergaard, SVP at Gartner’s ‘what’s hot for IT and Consumers’. We’ve covered pretty much most of the content from the event here on this blog. I’m pretty sure a lot of what was said by Sondergaard has already been covered, but I found a small point on the skills that Sondergaard suggested will be the key to success in the workplace, very interesting;

Vendor Management skills; the first skill that Sondergaard stated was the ability to manage you partners and suppliers successfully. With the advent of Cloud computing and virtualization, the ability to perform all the required functions is limited to a few huge organizations, so the need to partner is key to success. To offer blended solutions to consumers requires an ability to manage affectively the partners involved.

Business Intelligence; Sondergaard spoke about how data that is not seen as critical now will be come valuable in the future. Sondergaard didn’t call it ‘meta data’ but I’m guess that’s what he meant, data that is collected or created as a result of another transaction. Sondergaard suggested that traditional business models will therefore become obsolete as the data that has to be managed evolves.

Within the Orange group there are R&D units working on some pretty cool technologies and also working with some of the data that Orange makes available through API’s. The ability to understand the importance of this new data and understand how this data can be built upon can provide new revenue streams.

Relationships skills; these skills can be translated to social skills, the ability to build relationships.  There’s a close relationship to the first skill, Vendor management as it’s all about the relationship between a business and its partners. To develop the business growing a strong relationship is key to the success of that business. Something I’ve mentioned in earlier posts is the importance of trust. Trust plays a huge part in a relationship both with your partners and your customers. You can’t build a relationship without trust. Therefore, in the same way it’s important to build trust as a brand and subsequently with your consumers, it’s important to build trust with your partners as well.

Imagine from Benjamin Ellis’ Flickr

Also post at Orange Business Live

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My most popular post – EVPN’s, VPN’s & IVPN’s

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Rob

There’s one post that’s always near the top of my stats and it’s this one – VPN’s, EVPN’s and IVPN’s. With all the tech stuff out there and carrier pages and wikipedia too, there’s usually a good number of people checking out that post.

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Location is coming to Touiteur

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Rob

I wrote about Touiteur a day or so back and how good it was. But I missed Location, it’s not in there right now. I had a positive response on the ‘micro review’ and have spotted a few other people using the tool too. But I like the location aspect of Twitter and feel as if some functionality is missing. Actually it’s not a big deal, but I still feel as is I’m missing out. Twidroyd is about to get twitlonger support I noticed which is interesting. So this is a two horse race now, with Twidroyd just with it’s nose in front, come on Touiteur, you just told me location is coming.

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Google offers drag-and-drop App Inventor for Kids!

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Rob

Google have launched tools to allow the creation of simple apps for Android devices, they’re not available just yet though, they are still in private beta. There are already several “it’s not going to produce much of value” posts our there, take this one from the Guardian.

Personally, having just spend the past three years learning to code for various platforms (including iOS), it is easy to be skeptical over these short cuts to writing applications

But I think they are missing the point, this is for children or young adults at least. It’s about getting kids interesting in Android, using Android and building apps that they may use, but it’s looking to the future.

I also agree that the next amazing twitter app will not emerge from this tool, but the person who develops that app, may have grown up on this, cut his or her teeth so to speak on it.

The form which allows you to register interest, is littered with references to education, Google’s aim is getting Android in to schools and used by kids as they grow up. Apple already does this it already offers free lessons for several of it’s apps for 8 to 10 year olds over the summer vacation, i.e. it’s starting the early.

To be honest, I’m keen to have a go, I haven’t done any programming since Uni and a bit of small talk on my IBM graduate training program, that’s it. But what I’m most keen to do is let my 6 year old daughter loose on it. She can use MS Paint, MS Word and do some interesting things, so I’m sure it won’t take her too long to pick this up.

The cat video might also spark a bit of interest, for the cat alone, but it’s about what she and kids her age will do with this. It gives them tools to make things not just out of paper and cello tape but allows them to make usable (if basic) software, that’s what this is about sparking an interest in the developers and entrepreneurs of the future.

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Getting Google Buzz posts into Twitter

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Rob

I’ve noticed a pick up in the use of Google Buzz and there are some great example of conversations like the good old days of Jaiku. As it stands you can pull posts from twitter into Buzz, but not from Buzz into Twitter. There are now a couple of tools to help you do this, buzz2twitter and buzzcantweet.

I’ve now tried both of these service and both failed to work for me, you might have noticed a couple of dull buzz tweets yesterday to see if it worked and nothing. So I hunted around and found another way to do it and here it is;

1) Launch http://profiles.google.com/me into a tab, which will redirect to your profile.
2) Copy your profile URL (e.g. “http://www.google.com/profiles/xxxxxx”) either your name or profile number, doesn’t seem to matter.
3) launch http://feedburner.google.com/ in a new tab and sign in with your Gmail account
4) Paste your profile URL under ‘Burn a feed’ right this instant
5) Click on next and then click Skip directly to feed management
6) Select the Publicize tab on the top of the page
7) Select the Socialize tab on the left (about half way down)
8.) Select Add a Twitter Account
9) Sign in to Twitter and click Allow to allow Feedburner to post
10) Change Post Content to “Body Only” (important!)
11) Select the Activate option and that’s it.

it’s based on Unni’s comment on Louis Gray’s post

Just check the feed that it shows your last 5 or so buzz’s and you’re good to go. I think it’s pretty quick to update, the only downside is it won’t let you (or I can’t find how to do it) add your bit.ly codes, otherwise works a treat.

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Touiteur, maybe the best Android Twitter app

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Rob

If’ your running with an Android device and are a twitter user then check out Touiteur (it’s twitter pronounced with a french accent). I’ve been a user of Twidroyd (formerly Twidroid), Seesmic, HTC Peep, Twicca (and a horrid looking one that lasted just a few minutes, but it’s name alludes me) for a day and this beats all of them in terms of looks and functionality.

The official twitter app, isn’t really a power user app, it’s away into twitter for the first time for people, who move onto the apps mentioned here.

The look and feel of Touiteur is nice, ie, dark with light font. The inclusion of threaded conversations is one of my fav features, when you go to the replies tab, it shows underneath the replies to the previous tweets all as part of that conversation, nice.

The widgets are pretty neat too, tap the corner of the widget to refresh, or leave it and it’ll refresh every 20 seconds.  There’s maybe not as much in the settings as say twidroyd and I miss the hit the bar to jump to the top of seesmic, but otherwise, it’s my new best twitter app.

I’m still looking for some of these to add in Google Buzz for instance, but they are coming on huge leaps and bounds, Gravity for S60 is still probably leader of the pack, but Touiteur is as good as it get’s on Android.

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Sad but true, Symbian-Guru.com is Over

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Rob

This is a sad story, but one that’s happening frequently, guys and girls who once cheered for Nokia are making the leap away. Symbian-Guru, like me, has moved to Android, others have moved to iPhone, atmaspheric endeavors for example;

As of today, I will no longer be updating Symbian-Guru.com, and will be purchasing an Android-powered smartphone – my new Nexus One should arrive tomorrow. I’ve been a Nokia fanboy since 1999.

I’ve tried to use all of Nokia’s various products and services to the best of my ability, and I just can’t do it anymore.

I can’t continue to support a manufacturer who puts out such craptastic ‘flagships’ as the N97, and who expects me to use services that even most of Nokia’s own employees don’t use

I’ve noticed a lot of the buzz surrounding Nokia has gone, WOM World is working hard, but they’ve got their work cut out now. Nokia has got to pull it’s self up by the boot laces quickly, it’s fine concentrating on the emerging markets, but they are aspirational too, they aspire to own iPhones and Droid’s and cheap Nokia’s are just a stepping stone. They also want apps, have you used the OVi store recently, don’t it’s just awful. The new handsets, N8 for example look hampered with the same old issues, see the photo above from the Nokia Blog

I hope Nokia listens to what people like Symbian Guru says as it’s cheer leaders are leaving in Droids.

Posted in Mobile, Nokia/S60 | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Twitter’s API rate cut in action

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Rob

Looks like the impact of the cut in the twitter API rate from 350 to 175 is visible here even, my Tweetmeme counter hasn’t changed and I guess that’s why.

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Spotify and Uncut Magazine, painless discovery

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Rob

For those who follow me on Twitter will have noticed I paid a visit to the “sloany pony” on Wednesday evening to visit an old University pal who works for IPC. We had a great time over some nice beer catching up and discussing amongst other things social media, radio6 and it’s plight. The reason it was so interesting I was able to see the other side of the story, the ‘dead tree’ people’s side.

Anyway, a great evening during which I was given some sheets of dead tree (sorry Chris!) in the form of Uncut magazine. During the conversation we’d talked about music and how I’d shifted away from buying CD’s to renting my music from Spotify and that as a result I’d started to listen to much more music and to bands I’d have never have bought. Chris confessed to buying music purely on the cover, which is a risky business, but with Spotify (there are others of course) that cost of discovery is almost zero. I listed bands such as ‘the xx’, ‘two door cinema club’ that I’d probably never would have found or enjoyed if I’d have had to take a risk and pay 9.99 for.

So I’m home now and have Uncut in front of me and I’m dropping the 4 star album reviews into Spotify and happily checking out the albums at almost no cost to me. Most of the time, I’ll listen for a few weeks, get bored of it and move on. However, there are some albums that are just too good to rent and I’ll buy them for keeps.

Maybe they should bundle a subscription of Spotify when you subscribe to Uncut, surely doable, and cheaper than sending out those CD’s stuck to the cover and an easier way to get more people listening to more good music…I’ve discovered Lissie in the last 5 minutes..awesome.

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