tech ronin

Hiptop II / Sidekick II

Judging by Danger's FCC filing, this update may be released or at least announced by late August. The FCC's got 13 exhibits. I downloaded the pdf of 4 external photos and the entire user manual. Nice manual, few specs.

As some of you will recall, I was the proud owner of a color Sidekick for two weeks a year ago. I really liked it but panicked and at the last minute bought a P800 instead. The thumboard has left an indelible impression in my fingers. I'm still pining away for it.

Since my contract with T-Mobile ends on June 26th, I'm shopping for a phone. The Sidekick II could have been it. Just so you don't get your expectations up too high for this, though - there are some major disappointments - it seems that there's:

• No Bluetooth
• No memory card slot.
• No high rez screen - still 240x160 it looks like.
• Just GPRS.
• Slim to none third party apps - still.

Here's what's new and cool about the II:

• 3/4th the thickness of the original - still on the thick side but thinner.
• built-in camera *with flash*.
• Speakerphone.

Besides the wonderful keyboard, the price is likely to be moderate and the data plan on T-Mobile is $20/Mo. unlimited usage or $30/Mo. which includes unlimited data plus 20 cents per minute for voice usage.

If you can somehow live without Bluetooth and want an all-in-one cellular PDA with a built-in keyboard and don't care about third party apps, this may be your phone. As long as you are mainly using it for texting, you should be fine with the GPRS speed.

Dang it, though! First, the sexy Treo 600 has a tiny 160x160 screen and no Bluetooth and now, the Sidekick II seems to have similar problems (not quite as bad screenwise but still) and the Sidekick II adds insult to injury by leaving out a memory card. Oh well...

[via Engadget yesterday and Brighthand today]

Cell Phones Have Finally Made it

How amazingly cute! Talk about mindshare. London's The Cake Store has made a scrumptious looking cake.
[via Engadget]

One More Blog: Studio Manager Bulletin

As if I don't have enough to do running two blogs and two websites... It makes sense to me, though. Once you realize how useful and versatile blogs are and you have a quickstart blogging service like TypePad at your command, there's no reason not to have several.

Blogs aren't that labor-intensive. I find that different areas of my life inspire me to write different things. After 14 months of blogging, I know how to blog. I have a unique voice and it goes where I go.

I have a great tool that accommodates any number of blogs: ecto. Very slick and getting better all the time (and now runs on Mac and Windows). It puts various html tags (their standard ones plus any I make up) a click away so I'm not bogged down anymore typing "a href=http://..." over and over anymore.

So about my new blog. It's called Studio Manager Bulletin and it's going to be the place where I keep my customers and prospective customers up to date about my software product: Studio Manager. Being a blog, it will have the chance to be more fun, funny, personal and diverse than my Studio Manager website.

Which is actually pretty casual too, but not as easy to work with - I can't just jot down a few words and post. I have to struggle with the html and remember which styles do what to get something up there. Eventually, I would like my studio manager blog to be the *heart* of my Studio Manager website. I need to brush up on domain mapping for starters.

The time consuming part of doing a new blog, for me, is experimenting with and tweeking the design. Getting the colors right is a way fun project and an incredible time sink. You know how many colors there are? It's crazy. And colors look different when next to other colors. And they look different on different monitors. Way different - even when they are both TFT.

And I love playing around with the colors. It seems so cool that I can type in a little six-digit (hexadecimal) code and *have* the color I want. At this stage in my new blog design, I'm trolling other blogs and websites for colors I like. With Fireworks, I can use the dropper tool to *capture* those colors and find out the color code without having to look at someone's style sheet.

OK. Gotta get back to work. I've got some *real* work to do today.

Gmail Experiences 2

I left some things out in my 1.0 experiences post:

It's easy to tune out the text ads. I forgot to mention them before because I forget they are there.

A little slow on my 1.5 ghz Powerbook, Safari 1.2, DSL set-up. Apple Mail isn't a speed demon but it beats this pretty easily. Price you pay for a Web app vs. a desktop app perhaps.

Really like 20 or so 1 and 2 character keyboard shortcuts for things. (n)ext, (p)revious and many more. No command-this and command-that here.

Lots of good online help! Pleasantly surprising for a beta service.

I like the novelty of Gmail. It's fun to experiment with a different model without folders and a powerful search engine.

It seems that you need to click a checkbox on each individual mail that you want to label or archive or whatever - you CAN mark a whole page at once which sometimes saves time. But clicking on the little checkboxes is a pain. I often miss the checkbox when trying to click several quickly. Shift-click would be a big improvement. Click and drag would be better.

Major cool feature: any extra room beside the subject is used to show the first little bit of the body of the email. This can be really helpful in quickly identifying spam.

Much prefer labels to folders. I frequently want to classify messages under more than one heading.

After you've applied an action, the highlighted action summary feedback at the top center of the screen is very helpful.

Looking very good for a beta webmail app.

Gmail Experiences 1

Here's what I've done with gmail, what's happened and what I think about it after a couple weeks of light use:

Received 3 free invitations to send out. I've got one left and am open to requests from regular readers and/or bloggers.

Created an Apple Mail rule that made every email I receive at my regular inbox redirect to gmail so a copy of current emails goes there. Unfortunately, the spam goes there too. I'll let you know how well the spam filter works in my next update.

Deactivated all my other mail rules and then applied my redirect to gmail rule to my entire 1000+ sent mail folder. It took 5 hours - pretty slow and finally crashed Safari. I haven't yet determined whether all of my sent mail made it over yet but it seemed to work just fine until it crashed. Speed seems kind of like running an Applescript only slower.

Created about 20 labels to apply. Have been labeling all the Sent mail I redirected as *Sent* and then archiving it. Probably unnecessary as filtering for my name in the From field works well too.

Gmail has behaved badly quite frequently. When I do a lot of labeling and archiving - say 5 - 10 times - somewhere in there I get a Safari crash. So, Safari works now but it's not close to 100% reliable yet.

I Wanna Be a *Clean Freak*

Found this timely article in NewsWeek magazine and, naturally, it's available free online. Apparently I'm not the only one with this problem! I love organization but, all the stuff in my life gets the best of me - frequently. If you feel trapped by too much stuff and/or have trouble finding things, read this little article.

Right now I'm aspiring to acquire the Getting Things Done habit but I've still yet to set aside the requisite 2 straight days to create a gigantic pile of to do items and then create the system around them such as an A-Z filing system, project and someday/maybe list plus action items for many of those things. The end result is amazing I hear.

I'm building up to it... You see I just needed to acquire some of the basics like my new Zire 72 and Shadow Plan for starters. I also got a really cool chrome stapler. Industrial strength for sure. And, don't forget the amazing Brother label-maker plus tons of bright and shiny file folders. Don't even think about telling me I'm procrastinating!

I even have put a few things into folders with pretty labels on them. It's helped. A little. Obviously, I'm in need of the triple-strength GTD marathon weekend! Hope to report back soon that I've done the work.

One more thing. I was perusing David Allen's Tips & Tools page and ran across his Phone Logs - Get Rid of Them post. According to David, it is way uncool to have a phone log. As he says:

Actually, you should just blend it into your "notes" category for in-coming ideas, input, and information.

Come on--if you need a "phone log", then you need a "they-stopped-me-in-the-hall log" and an "oh-yeah-I-just-remembered log". Can anybody tell me what's the difference?

You get the picture. I've been worrying about the fact that I don't have a phone log for a while now...

Bought gmail for $19 on ebay today

I happened upon someone who had purchased a gmail account on ebay for $13.50 today. I had just read that gmail now works with Safari and that if you get your account now you can get your choice of email name (I wanted my name). Then she mentioned that there was someone selling a gmail account for $8 bucks and had a link. So... I clicked it and got caught up in the bidding.

A few minutes ago there were a whole slew of gmail accounts on sale - many starting at like 99 cents or less. So I bid on one for $2 and then $5 and then $10. I'm not experienced with eBay in a fast bidding situation - I've barely ever used eBay.

The report - it's fun. It's like gambling or something. Anyway, I bid on about 5 different gmails and kept getting out bid so finally I just put in $20 and figured that was my last try. And I won the bid at $19. I wouldn't call that a bargain. One of the other bids I did closed at $15.50 and I had bid $15... Just like regular gambling, though, it cost me maybe $5 extra bucks, but I had fun that made up for it.

Although, it was not planned, I guess I'm getting a gmail account. Curiosity killed the cat, they say. I think I'll live...

While I was caught up in the whirlwind bidding I was thinking, well, I'll just turn around and sell the invites that I get on eBay and make my money back. We'll see if that holds true.

Will let you know. So far I'm waiting to receive the invitation. I wonder how long that will take.

Update: got it in 47 minutes. Got my preferred name (janet.tokerud - come say hi if you like - I have an empty in box for once in my life!). Now I would like to import all my email in Apple Mail into it so I can find stuff. Any suggestions? Meanwhile I'll be reading up on it but hints and tips are *very* welcome.

Temptress Airport Express

That Steve is a sneaky bastard! I can imagine him plotting with his ubergeeks about creating a product that combines Apple's strengths in music and its leadership in design and wi-fi. This does it nicely. Portable Airport Express works!

Imagining myself in a hotel room, office or friends' house plugging this in and having wi-fi was enough. The music thing is cool, though. I have my airport basestation on top of my stack of stereo gear now. Hmmm... I guess I could move it somewhere else and sell or give away my snow basestation. Now that I have decent airport reception with my new Albook, I don't really need the snow to cover the house.

I've got just about my entire music collection (we are talking 100 - 200 CDs) on mp3 at 192 kbps. Now all we need is some wi-fi or bluetooth headphones. Do they have those yet?

I like this move it around the house wherever you need and take it with you thing.

I like the plug in your printer deal too. I got a great color inkjet that I hardly ever use because I'm too lazy to walk in the other room and plug in with USB. Wi-fizing (we bloggers can make up words right?) it would make it just as convenient as my ethernet Laserprinter But then that puts me at 2 of these things. I told you Steve was sneaky...

Treo 600 vs. Zire 72 + Nokia 6230

The Republic of T is obsessing about a question that I have strong feelings about. Should you get a single combo PDA/Cell or both a PDA and a Cell.

I've been around the block on this one. I'm a long-time PDA and cell phone owner. Currently, I've got a Treo 90 with the built-in keyboard but no phone capabilities, a Sony-Ericsson P800 and a Zire 72.

I've owned several Palm devices over the years. The P800 is my first non-palm PDA that is also a cell phone. It has never really satisfied me for a variety of reasons:

• No keyboard.
• Very bulky for a cell phone.
• Not a Palm device and thus very limited in its software compared to Palm and inferior basic organizer software.
• Narrow screen for web surfing - 208 pixels

For a cell phone, I was attracted to its power including a relatively hi-rez 208x320 screen and Bluetooth. But, things haven't gone well.

When I bought the phone last June, T-Mobile wasn't officially supporting it in the US - so support staff were responsive but not yet knowledgeable. Third-party software was scarce at that point. The P800 was hard to learn. It came with a huge manual and tons of online help but even then it was hard to master because it was SO capable. It could do so many things at least at a basic level.

Since the P800 was so big and had basic if not ideal PDA functions, it seemed redundant to carry my Treo 90. So I stopped carrying it. But I still sorely missed the Treo's keyboard and Palm OS.

I wasn't able to get the P800 to synch for a long time - 6+ months. When I bought it, I was expecting to be able to synch - Apple said it would work. I was expecting to use my phone as a remote like the T68i and T610 could do. Didn't work on my phone. That meant I couldn't synch the calendar on the P800 - so I had to maintain 2 calendars - which never works and lead to missed appointments!!!

When the Treo 600 came out in the Fall (but not for my preferred cell provider, T-Mobile until this Spring), I wrote about it and said I would rather have it than my P800 which was true. But I also said I wouldn't buy one with a crumby little 160x160 screen and *no* Bluetooth. I figured, Handspring would add the 2 missing features by Spring --- wrong! I read last month that perhaps a revised model will be out in September. Being out and being available on a particular cell service can be months and months apart.

Then my gadget buddy, Bob, bought his Zire 72 and a Sony Ericsson T610 to go along with it. As you may recall, I was tempted and bought the Zire 72 within 2 days! I was tired of waiting for an acceptable Palm PDA/Phone which a bluetooth 320x320 Treo would have been.

My 1 year cell contract is up in a three weeks. My P800 works as a Bluetooth phone, it now synchs with my Mac and it serves as a wireless modem for my new Zire. Now I have good reason to carry it around. But I'm carrying three devices:

• Zire 72
• P800
• Minolta Dimage X camera

My little Dimage X takes decent 2.1 megapixel photos. It has great auto-focus, 3x zoom. It has a flash. My P800 and my new Zire have cameras that don't hold a candle to this camera. And the Dimage X is so pocketable that I forget it's in my pocket with most pants. Sometimes I'm also carrying my iPod 15 gb.

It gets crowded in my pockets when I have to carry my wallet, P800, Zire 72 and camera plus my keys and a pen. I wear cargo pants most of the time, so this is doable but I don't have room to spare for an oversize cell phone anymore.

I need a small, high-quality Bluetooth cell phone. The Sony Ericsson T610 is available at T-Mobile - cheap! But, I'm a little bummed because the T630 with a much better screen is already out in some markets just not here. I may see if I can buy one anyway - I'll need some reassurance that it will work with T-Mobile. The T610 has been so popular that there's been no rush to replace it.

UPDATE 6/7: I've just discovered the Nokia 6230. It's Bluetooth and is small with a 128x128 screen and is an EDGE phone. This sounds like a seriously better phone than the T630 above. It's a more progressive offering.

If you've been following my blog for a while, you know I want some decent screen space on a light device so I don't have to carry my Powerbook with me all the time. I've been covering several alternatives over the year. The Treo 600 does not qualify - 160x160. The P800's 208x320 is too narrow. The Zire's 320x320 is the absolute minimum. I really want at least 640x480. I'm not getting that anytime soon on a cell phone!

So, get a good small cell phone with Bluetooth and a PDA with at least 320x320. And maybe get a nice SCOTTeVEST. If you're anything like me, you'll need one soon!

Keyword Feed Fun

For those who haven't tried it yet, PubSub lets you subscribe to keywords in your RSS Newsreader like you subscribe to blogs. The difference is that you see every blog post that PubSub tracks with those key words in it. And the keyword you are tracking is highlighted. Right now the whole service is free.

This is hot! One big advantage is that I get exposure to lots of different blogs I've never seen before which gives me the opportunity to discover new interesting, informative and/or entertaining voices. Some of which are quite good. It's a nice variety in my RSS news reading. A little like reading the Sunday paper. Fun browsing.

I've got 17 keyword subscriptions going right now. Since I recently purchased both a Zire 72 and a Powerbook, "Zire 72", *Albook* and *Powerbook* are three of them. As I was writing this, I subscribed to *newsmaster* to see what that would bring. It's a snap to set these up: click *Subscribe to Weblogs*, enter your keyword(s), select a language preference, enter your email address and submit. You'll get an email shortly with a link. Click the link and select the RSS Newsreader you are using. Done! Your favorite newsreader has a new keyword feed.

You can subscribe to things on a whim or temporarily. Change around. It's so simple and clean that you can get your subscriptions just the way you want them.

What pubsub does for me is

1. Lets me easily save a search request
2. Points the search at blog space
3. Translates matching blog posts to RSS

Over time I expect to refine my keyword requests to be optimally balanced between being targeted and producing the number of results I want to see. *Powerbook* is a very general search and Albook is narrow. Albook doesn't get many matches. I'm enjoying many of the Powerbook matches so I'll keep both until I come up with something better.

I got clued into PubSub by Roland Tanglao's excellent post: The Lazy Person's Guide to Being a NewsMaster Part 1. Roland gives lots of credit to Robin Good's The Birth of the NewsMaster post.

Regular readers know I am biased towards desktop tools. I'm eagerly awaiting NetNewsWire 2 at the moment targeted for release this month. Sucking the information I want off the internet onto my Powerbook where I can peruse it at my leisure - online, offline, anytime. When I want to save especially good posts, I save them to my personal links blog. This is efficient stuff!

One last thing. I still visit blogs frequently, so don't let your blog go because you think everyone is reading newsfeeds. Every link in a newsfeed goes to a blog *not* to another feed. That may change, of course. Lastly, if I like the look of a person's blog, I like to read it *native* in its full context. But when I'm offline, I'm readin' feeds. There's no choice.