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2010-04-29T08:13:00.001-04:00

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Thinking About Mobile

2009-04-29T21:13:00.007-04:00

The idea of the "Mobile Phone," has morphed and shifted into the new reality of the "Mobile Web." This has largely occurred largely on the shoulders of a single company. That company? Who else but Apple.

Think back 2 to 3 years. Look at any mobile carrier and compare any regular or smart phone to the iPhone. If you're honest, you realize how mediocre the hardware and software has been. Add to it that going to a mobile carrier like Verizon was akin to taking a trip to the DMV. Going in, you had the knowledge that when you walked out the doors, there was a high degree of certainty that you would come away irritated, pissed off and maybe even a little helpless, cause you where at their mercy.

And that is how Apple has been able to gain so much traction in the market so quickly. All they really had to do is stay, "Apple." What does that translate into? Words and principles like, "Experience economy, quality, elegant, ease of use, functional, intuitive, High quality customer service and comfort."

It might seem like a million years ago, but pretty much everyone scoffed at the thought of Apple even having the notion that they could walk onto the playing field. That notion was reinforced by a dismal product known as the Motorola "ROKR," that was Apple's way of seeing what the water temperature was like.

What was Apple's problem? Hadn't they heard the words, "Motorola, LG, Samsung, Blackberry, Verizon?" Every thought Steve Jobs was either, drunk on Apple culture, mentally insane or some combination of the two.

Looking back now, as people gleefully purchase their iPhone and download their favorite app(s), it all now looks so inevitable that Apple would succeed. How could you have ever lived without Safari, my Kindle App, Twitter, Skype, Epocrates and the 10,000 other apps that are available?

As I work on some applications and test the iPhone 3.0 Beta 4 software, I can't help but think, this is the new reality of "personal computing. Our data is ubiquitous (as long as we have a wireless connection). It really can be everywhere you are. This is especially true if you have Microsoft Exchange, Mobile Me or the fledgling Google contacts and calender "Push," enabled in your Gmail settings panel. The expression "Cloud," computing is truly meaningful within our lexicon.

To use a Bill Gates expression, the new mobile experience is about, "rich," immersive experiences facilitated by applications as the connector. It's about having hardware/software that is so well designed that when you don't have it you feel naked or discombobulated without it, because it seems so natural. It's having a phone where you don't need a book to figure it out, it just fits into your life.

The notion of "Just fitting into your life," is something that Apple does very well. On the horizon is the soon to be released Palm-Pre. Google Android, while a good first effort has had setbacks because the hardware has not been powerful enough to allow the software to shine. As we move along the technology curve, look forward to having richer, unobtrusive, connected experiences. In the future when you hear the words "desktop," or "lap-top," you'll put them in the same category as 8-track tapes or VCR's.

Mobile life is a good thing. Enjoy as much as you can, just drop the crappy hardware and software.

Jaye Morris

Verizon Hates Us All

2009-02-26T20:30:00.005-05:00

Here's the best summary of what it's like to deal with Verizon, that I've ever seen.

A Week With Windows 7

2009-01-18T11:02:00.002-05:00

Windows 7 Beta has been a pretty good experience overall. What seems to detract from it is Internet Explorer 8. Since so much of what we do is browser based, that makes its being so half-baked, so particularly disappointing. As a matter of fact, I'm making this post from Google Chrome, because of the numerous problems with IE8.

Windows 7 Beta as an OS itself is surprisingly good. Installing SQL servers, CF, Flex, etc... has been flawless and very manageable. The actual OS overhead is far better than Vista, where the systems can be "punishing," to use a word. That's the good.

Now for what might be bad. There are two area's to look at. First off, going from Windows XP to either Vista or Windows 7 is a dramatic change. Things are moved around, the work flow is very different. In and of itself, change is not a bad thing. The problem is introducing change without being intuitive. The end result is frustration for so-called "regular," computer users. They want to work on their task. They don't want to spend 45 minutes trying to figure out how to change their profile picture. It's relative to the system shock of going from Office 2003 and office 2007. I've had to help a lot of frustrated people because the paradigm shift was so extreme.

The second thing which is idiotic is the number of versions of Windows Vista and planned versions of Windows 7. Currently there are four (4) versions of Vista. That's ridiculous. Most people could deal with 2 versions of XP, home or pro. That made sense to people. Four versions is just opening a can of worms and introducing an elephant to a pool party. You don't want the complications. Anyone who knows me is aware that I'm a Apple fanboy, but there's a reason for that. Do you know how many versions of OS X Leopard there are? One. You can use it for the home network or corporate network environment. It doesn't matter. You pay only one price (99.00 USD). What could be better. Microsofties for being so smart are impressively dumb, when it comes to stuff like this. If they continue with the same pricing structure and confusion, it will be proof that Microsoft is not learning from their mistakes.

Jaye Morris

Getting Things Done

2008-12-28T16:28:00.003-05:00

Over at Fast Company's WorkFastTV, I caught a video with Robert Scoble interviewing David Allen, at GTD expert. Pretty cool stuff.

Enjoy,

Jaye Morris

Can you say Vlingo?

2008-12-17T16:30:00.004-05:00

Vlingo is an iPhone app that I just discovered, that does voice recognition. Since software version 2.0, I've been looking for a good "Voice Recognition," (VR) and have only been met with disappointment.

Prior to trying Vlingo, my last big attempt was using the "Google Mobile," app which was impressively lame. I was standing there tilting the phone to my ear, wait for the "duhn, duhn" sound, which was sometimes there and sometimes not. When I did get the VR signal sometimes I didn't speak fast enough and would get only a partial submission in there. It left me just feeling frustrated and angry that they could not get it right, after all they are Google, so I expect an Apple-like experience, not a clumsy piece of crap which left me feeling rather dumb.

Enter Vlingo. First off, I was willing to give it a spin for one simple reason. It's FREE! So by trying it, I'm not out of anything other than the time I invested on the install. Upon App start, Vlingo offers a series of tips under the title of "What can I say." This is really important, since it helps you with all the key phrases, which are natural and easy to remember.

The key voice recognition phrases are "Search, Google, Yahoo, Call, Find, Map and Social." My example is "Map, Wicomico County Youth and Civic Center, " You tap the red button indicating that completes what you are looking for and boom, up comes "Map It," you press the key and there it is. Snap! You can say, "search adobe coldfusion," and search results popup for Adobe CF. by default the Yahoo! is the default search engine, but you can go into setting and change it to Google. There's no love for Ask or Microsoft Live Search, but that's how they roll. No big loss there. Everything works as expected and as it's supposed to.

The above said, there is a really cool treat. Remember when i said, you could say "social?" Well guess what? You can Facebok and Twitter update via VR. It's insanely easy to do. You configure our account, hit the social button, say what your Tweet is and your words appear on the screen, giving you a word count to boot. The accuracy is nothing short of astonishing. You hit the update button and it posts to your account. Nice.

If you are looking for Voice Recognition software for the iPhone, I really think Vlingo is it. I'm really impressed. Give it a try and post back here to share your experience. As I said, it's free and you can't beat that. Enjoy.

Jaye Morris

Interested in Getting Things Done

2008-11-15T17:51:00.011-05:00

I've always been interested in task management apps. I have way to many requests and demands on my time to easily remember things. Its also important to say that it's not that these tasks and requess are not important, but more like I'm in data overload.

Using the Outlook task manager was okay, but it also tied my to my laptop, which I don't always want to carry with me. When I had the MotoQ is was a litle better, but still somewhat clunky.

After I got my 1G iPhone, I was really bummed out, because there was zero task management available. But with 2.0 that was the first type of application I started looking for.

Enter OmniFocus. I ponied up with my 20 bucks. I felt that it was slow but robust. Some of the features and workflow was a little hard to figure out. But I was introduced to something that I was not familiar with... GTD (Getting Things Done). You can learn more about it from David Allen It's a methodology for becoming more productive and effective.

Since that time, I've been looking for an easy implementation to integrate into my life via my iPhone. I heard about desktop and iPhone application called "Things." The desktop version in available as a free preview. It's surprisingly impressive and feature rich for an alpha version. There is a really cool video demo on screencast.

Connecting both the desktop and my iPhone literally took about 30 seconds. That's no exaggeration. The iPhone app is guick and effective. It certainly doesn't feel as bloated at the Omnifocus and it's half the price (9.99).

The only drawbacks that I have found is that it does not have the "tags" like in the desktop version, but that's an easy fix. The other drawback is there is no "search" function. Those two things are kind of minor and it really is an outstanding app. And if you ask what my criteria was, in judging that, it's simple. I'm "getting things done."

~ Jaye

Get ready for a fire sale

2008-11-01T16:08:00.003-04:00

Circuit City just got a de-listing notice from the NYSE. They have fallen below the "criteria to be on the exchange and have 30 days to get it above 1.01 as an average. That's pretty big. You can read more at CNET.com. Personally, I hope they survive. They have a lot of employees that will be out of work and I do like them better than bestBuy.

Jaye

Thinking About Microsoft

2008-10-29T21:26:00.005-04:00

Beating up on Microsoft and picking them apart is nothing new. It's a religious right on any given day. I am primarily a Mac user, so I'm not one to drink the "Microsoft Kool-Aid." But there are some important to remind and encourage people about with certain products. Specifically, I'm talking about Microsoft Office.

MS Office is something that Microsoft does very right, especially Excel. I like to think of Excel as the "Swiss Army" knife of software. The application in and of itself is awesome. You can easily use it in a variety of ways. The obvious it calculations and formulas. The other is as a flat file database. You can do some really cool stuff that on the surface seems simple, but in reality can be a little mind bending. I can't tell you how many times I've used it to create and manage and been data through CSV files. I love that stuff. We don't talk enough about it.

As a matter of fact, people in tech world are famous for talking about how deep Adobe Photoshop is. But the truth be told, so is Excel. If you want to go in that direction, it's impressively deep in scope. I've seen some mind-blowing stuff that would meet the needs and demands of any serious business person. Unfortunately most people only use about 10 of the available feature set.

Word is Word. I've had friends write anything form novels to training manuals to automated forms. There are some interesting tools inside. You can do a heck of a lot more than design certificates with MS Word. The forms tool is pretty interesting to play with.

I'm not going to go into each application, but by now you have a feel for the direction I'm going in and what I'm talking about. The bottom line it that MS Office is something that the boys and girls at Redmond got right. If you look into it, you can find some cool stuff. Apple has a famous phrase. "Think Different." It would not be a false thing to apply towards the suite.

Let us know your thoughts. Happy computing!

Jaye

Productivity 2.0

2008-10-13T20:47:00.003-04:00

There is a great article on "Zen Habits," on Productivity 2.0. The article does a terrific job in contrasting old (usually ineffectual thinking) vs. New School (high quality employee output. Give it a read. There are some really excellent points in there.

Jaye

Styles Change, Style Doesn't

2008-10-12T15:14:00.002-04:00

Gotta love the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Enjoy.

// Jaye

A Little Disappointment in Life

2008-10-05T07:46:00.004-04:00

Recently I got a hold of a string of applications from the iTunes Apps store that just plain stink. From my perspective it wouldn't be so bad if they where free, but that's not the case.

A great example of sucking badly is TextGuru. It should be called Text-AntiTech-Counter-intuitive-Piece-of-Crap. First the reviews in the kindness light where miss-informed on the "ease of use factor," and at worst flat-out lies. It did not work as advertised which brings back my argument for trial-ware. It can certainly be done and I have no idea why it's not.

Text-Guru is supposed to allow you to "seamlessly" allow you to connect with your iPhone and move, share and edit basically any file format. Wrong. I still to this day have not been able to get the file transfer to work, despite being a pretty darn good geek, and in existing word documents you lose cut and paste functionality. The only documents that you can actually cut and paste are text files. That blows. They left out that little invaluable tidbit of information. There are a bunch of other clumsy things about the app and I'm not very happy. Why? Because if it happened once, I'd say okay, but it's happened multiple times.

Several other "Apps That Suck?" Ummmmm Chef, Pick & Choose Groceries, ATT Yellow Pages, What's On, Where and a few others but as I write, I'm just getting more upset. It's just too mind bending.

So to keep this from being a full on rant, Apple needs to do something about the process. As I said above, allow for trial-ware for goodness sake. Show little demo's movies, something. Come on this is the tech age. You can make our lives easier.

Jaye

Thank Gawd

2008-09-21T18:43:00.001-04:00

The Microsoft ads featuring Seinfeld and Gates have been officially cancelled. Thank goodness. Now if Gates could get some of that 10 million back from Seinfeld for sucking so bad and fire the marketing staff for lack of message focus. It's okaybto be cute, judy make sure that you are selling product. People are looking for reasons to buy. But ads like these Micosoft one's leave people confused and skeptical.

Jaye

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To Write Love on Her Arms

2008-09-14T11:23:00.006-04:00

There is a really nice video piece that MSNBC did on Renee Yohe the Social Movement, "To Write Love on Her Arms," who focus is helping people struggling with issues such as "cutting," and "drug addiction," and the barriers that can get in the way of people getting treatment. It's work the look.

~ Jaye

Real Genius

2008-09-13T18:44:00.009-04:00

I'm really pleased about the iPhone and iPod Touch 2.1 software update. So far since completing installations on several units, I have to say that none of the iPhones or Touch has crashed (as yet). Right on!

It's also notable that the apps are much snappier (with the exception of Twinkle - but that might be bad coding). They seemed to get a handle on issues like slow applications and keyboard lag. The push functionality in the MS Exchange and MobileMe is supposed to be much better. But to tell you the truth, I've been having a great MobileMe experience.

For those interested, the iPhone and iPod Touch seems faster in the backup functions and the App installs are way faster. Thank gawd. The previous backs took so long, I could microwave something and eat it and the backup would still be going. This is a true improvement.

The last thing to note is Apple Genius. This is interesting because you can select a single song and then then touch the "Genius," button and it creates a playlist based on what goes well with that particular song. And to tell you the truth, it's flat out amazing. It not only appears in you iPhone and iPod Touch, but iTunes 8 (which is awesome by the way). in iTunes, based on what you are playing it analyzes your music collection (no private data is kept on file) and compare it with what other users are listening to and then makes suggestions to you.

To be quite frank coming up with cool playlists and finding new material generally sucks. There are times I've wasted hours attempting to "discover," new music still only to come up empty. Genius has been offering some really good choices and introduced me to some things that I wasn't aware of. It's a Win - Win.

Let me know your thoughts. I look forward to hearing your experience.

Tech-On,

~ Jaye

You're A Beautiful Liar

2008-09-06T07:26:00.003-04:00

Sara Palin implied during the RNC convention that in an effort to save Alaska money, she "sold it on eBay." Turns out she listed it on eBay, but didn't sell it there, even after listing it twice. Check out the story on Valley Wag. Maybe she should have turned to an eBay powerseller for some tips and tricks.

~ Jaye

The Powerset

2008-09-04T20:24:00.005-04:00

I came across a great web application called Powerset. The website offers "natural language" search placed on steroids. It's been a really nice way to cut through the information chaos for me. Having used a lot of search tools, especially for research, I have to say that Powerset is a winner hands down.

On top of the enhanced and very easy tool set that it offers, in a paradigm you don't have to think very hard to catch on, they also offer an iPhone Webcentric page as well that is amazingly fast and cool. It has earned a place on my main "Home Screen." Give it a spin and let me know your thoughts.

~Jaye

Chrome Rims

2008-09-02T21:20:00.002-04:00

Google today launched it's newest weapon from their war chest, Google Chrome. I installed it over Parallels today, since there is not a OS X installation as yet. As it turns out, the installation was light-weight and simple.

Firing up Chrome, my first thought was "cartoon" like. The color scheme threw me off a bit, but given my design background, I'm probably a little more sensitive to that sort of thing than the average person.

The second thought I had was "lawsuit." The home page looked amazingly similar to the Opera "Speed-dial." I suppose plagerism errrr imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The third thought was, I found it interesting that Chrome is based on Apple's "Webkit." the reason that I find it interesting is that Apple releases almost nightly builds. The browser is always in a perpetual state of motion and iteration. With Chrome, average users probably won't be too happy to put up with that. Actually it's almost an act of God to get average users to update their Antivirus correctly.

All of the above said, doesn't mean that I don't like Chrome. In reality, I think that Chrome 's very cool (except for the suck color scheme). In the interface, I do like the tab positions. I also think it's smart that an individual tab might crash but the other tabs are in separate threads if you will and can remain working. That in and of itself is awesome. Also a nice little touch is that when you type in the address bar, it dynamically lists URL's, offering suggestions. Kinda web 2.0 feel to that little trick.

In all, Chrome shows real promise, offering a modest alteration to your normal web browser paradigm that will be east for most people to pick up on. It will be interesting to see how people take to it, especially since it contains Googles usual minimalist approach. If you've downloaded and tried Chrome post back and let us know your thoughts.

~ Jaye

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Captivate 2 - Mis-Take 2

2008-08-30T06:25:00.004-04:00

I came across a situation this week where a client needed me to convert a SWF to an FLV. I thought to myself, simple enough - they probably didn't realize that they could directly export it to FLV from captivate. This comes up all the time with MS Word and Excel document versions.

After looking into the situation, I got a surprise. Adobe...errrr Macromedia.....errrr Adobe did not include the FLV file format export. Are you kidding me? From a programming standpoint that is definitely what we call a "missed requirement." That's just plan terrible, dare I say - unthinkable.

Upon more research the most concise instructions I could find was from a developer called Dexterous and it goes something like this...

1. Create your project in Adobe Captivate 2 (Note - Create your project only as demonstration, do not include any interactivity in it)
2. Save the project.
3. Open Macromedia Flash and create a new file with the same dimensions as in your Adobe Captivate Project.
4. select File -> Import -> Import to Stage, browse and select the CP file.
5. In the options for importing DO NOT import the playback controls and DO NOT select 'slides as movieClips'
6. Export from Flash as an AVI (File -> Export -> Export Movie)
7. Now from Macromedia Flash 8 Video Encoder or any other AVI to FLV converter, you can easily convert it into an FLV.

Now if you ask me, that's just a wee-bit convoluted. It takes something that should take about 30 seconds and turns it into an hour long expedition and quite frankly I found this to be surprisingly weak and uninspiring on Adobes part. They need a fix, patch, update or whatever. Not being able to natively FLV stinks. I'll step-off h soapbox now.

~Jaye

Brand Rehab

2008-08-21T21:20:00.004-04:00

It's been an interesting watch to see how Apple has been dealing with the negative press around the iPhone, the related firmware updates and MobileMe. Part of it has been of their own making. My impression is that Apple bought in the their own halo spin and elevated their arrogance and just plain unrealistic hype.

The latest example of Apple in brand rehab is their something Apple has not been very good at... Communication. Their great at image, but actually having a dialog is new for them. They are used to telling companies and people how it is, not actually listening. It will be interesting to see if Apple maintains this over the long haul. Only time will tell.

Another thing that they have been doing is acting "humble." The MobileMe team has repeatedly admitted they "screwed up." Recently Apple without any special request gave users who signed up before August 18th another 60 day extension. In an email they literally said, "MobileMe was not up to our standards," and stated that they have been working diligently to make things better. This is un-Apple-like and is a major shocker.

I can say this first hand, because I've had at least three horrendous experiences with Apple over the last 7 years I've been using their products. One time I was so made, I literally almost poured lighter fluid over my laptop to set it on fire. thank gdness my wife took away my lighter fluid and matches.

A finally Steve Jobs made a startling admission as to "buggy" iPhone firmware stating that by September they will deliver "crash-free," software. That was amazing that Jobs did that and nearly unheard of. He is a CEO who is not glossing over things , trying to hide or send some fool out to the masses to repeat what he needed to answer to himself. Finally a CEO earning his money and taking responsibility.

All-in-all is appears that Apple is making a "serious" good-faith effort to get things right and live up to a more positive reputation. Instead of being considered the champ, they seem interested in living the role. That's a refreshing change. They are definitively on the move to rehab their brand. Why? Maybe their realize that they really do need their customers, if they intend to move forward as a global corporation.

// Jaye

Push comes to shove

2008-08-11T20:37:00.005-04:00

There is a great article over at Appleinsider.com on Apple's MobileMe service and how it stacks up to other services. The other services profiled are BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Exchange, Gmail and The someday to go live Microsoft Live Mesh. It takes a fairly complex subject and makes it very understandable.

Enjoy,

~Jaye

Because it"s True

2008-08-06T07:04:00.002-04:00

I'm posting this not out of support for Obama, but from a "Geek" standpoint, what he is saying about air gauges is true. And because it's a funny moment. Happy, happy.

Woe is Me

2008-07-27T06:16:00.005-04:00

I'd been thinking of checking out MobileMe for the family. I was thinking that it would be a good backup for contacts, data storage and a few other things that I liked the idea of. It had been a tempting proposition until the disastrous launch reports. To get a feel for what's been going on, ust check out the support forums on Apple's own servers. After reading though some of the problems, you just kinda say, "Wow, that's gotta hurt."

Currently there is a "MobileMe" Status page (personally I'm wondering who the staff memeber is that has to pen that page). Steve Jobs must be taking massive heat for all the crap (and I do mean crap) going on in that division. This roll out has definitely effected shares on the stock market, company image and has Microsoft dancing the "Happy Dance." My guess if it hasn't already happened, a few people have been fired. It's a major embarrassment for Job and Co. And I think we all know how ANY CEO hates to be made to look incompetent or just not delivering on products and services.

So what's an Apple fan supposed to do? That remains to be seen. One would think that the real question is, "How would MobileMe" help me in my day-to-day experience. Depending on how you answer that question should determine whether you get the service or not. Reports have been coming in from all over the web that the MobileMe issues are effecting about 1 percent of customers. That's a very small percentage and can make jumping in worth the risk. But for those folks in the one percent, Woe is Me.

~ Jaye Morris

Lifecast - Computing From The Cloud

2008-07-26T10:02:00.002-04:00

I just downloaded Lifecast for the iPhone. It took me 63 seconds to configure and setup. As a matter of fact, I'm posting you from my iphone as we speak. After playing around a bit, I only found one to two weaknesses. The primary one is that you cannot go back and edit a post and then republish it. And for Blogger clients, you cannot upload pictures yet. If you use Tumblr, you can take advantage of the image upload.

The app appears quick and snappy. It's really nice especially considering that it's free. As a matter of fact, that one surprised me Lifecast is a very good example of "cloud computing," demonstrating the power of the iPhone as a platform. Enjoy the fun and keep your head in the cloud.

~ Jaye

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Microsoft IMF not so intelligent

2008-07-22T10:17:00.006-04:00

Recently I've been testing out Microsoft's Intelligent Message Filter on MS Exchange 2003. My hope and prayer was that it would be at minimum give a little assist to blocking spam. The result? No such luck. It's about as dumb as a box of rocks.

What is lame about the IMF is, very few control and no genuine interface to manage things. If anyone has thoughts or suggestions, I'm all ears. I think the real solution is going to always be some sore of Spam Appliance like a "FireBox."

Jaye