Curious Voyager - Live like you mean it!

Smartphone’s

In the GigaOM feed for Friday 3/26/2010 there was an article regarding smartphone’s entitled 1 in 2 Americans Will Have a Smartphone by Christmas 2011 and it should be food for thought. It’s short, read it.

First, not everybody buying a smartphone is a techie. That would be the first attempt at denial. “It’s for the techie’s or the kid’s.” Look around, that is not true.

The smartphone was an easy concept to understand and started out slowly. Since we all use computers at work and at home these days, the smartphone fell into place. There was just one two more pieces that assisted the acceptance; it was both 1) unique and 2)fun. I am not sure of the order of those 2 points. In the beginning it set you apart and you became addicted, thus crackberry.

For quite some time now businesses have pushed the likes of the Blackberry, then the iPhone and now the Android (Google) phone. They are all growing in popularity.

The general populace has also taken to the smartphone. Initial use of the cell phone was to place calls and then the kids started text messaging and we had to figure that out. The extension to email, surfing the web, GPS and now the wonderful world of the apps should have been written in the wind – a strong one. From the article mentioned above these phones were referred to as superphones, I like that.

Malcomb Gladwell, we have passed the “Tipping Point”.

Where is this all going? Well if you have software application that is accessed via a computer and at the same time can be accessed via the web perhaps it is time to develop an smartphone app for your software application. It could help you sell more. Think mobile society and it is advancing at a terrific rate of speed. 

Personally (as I have written) I did not want one however in the last 4 months of having a Droid I am now obsessed with what I can do with it. In all of my life (read long time) I have never been as fascinated with something in technology as I am my Droid.

Think mobile (and no gas).
I know, that was a groaner.

Dropbox and Cloud Storage

I know that I have written in the past about Dropbox however I have just started to really use this tool and I am impressed at the speed of going from one computer to another.

I use Mesh for a great deal of synchronizing however whenever I log onto my Mini I have to sign in to Mesh with Dropbox if I am connected to the Internet it will synch right away, and inform you that the folder is up to date. Mesh works great however I have had some synchronization problems from time to time.

The ease of adding (or downloading) Dropbox software to another computer is very good and the Free 2 GB of storage is a great beginning. I will most likely be upgrading it as a method of backing up some files.

If you take it up to $9.99/month you can get 50 GB and I think that at the moment that would be plenty for what I need to backup.

Dropbox has an Android app coming in the next few months and I am sure that I will welcomed since I am tied to this phone (read Motorola Droid).

Using New Tool To Publish From Mozilla

OK I am trying out ScribeFire while browsing in Firefox. To begin with it was not just what I was looking for however it does appear to be quite interesting. I was looking for a tool that would do about the same thing as "Blog This" does in IE8, which I really do like. This one does appear to allow you to copy something from a web site and add it to the post however not sure what will appear. I have captured something from Technorati in the Internet Business Entrepreneur section and have added it below to see what will appear.

How To Discover Your Keywords On Search Engines

Recently I came across a website that is so
simple to use and yet yields interesting results. What I am talking
about is a keyword discovery tool provided by KeyRow.com . Now here is
the interesting part of it. I do not know who owns it. There is no
about...

Now to go to the blog and see what showed. You have to really use some of these tools to see if you will keep them around and then perhaps recommend them. It does have a spell checker and that is a good thing.

The Future of The Communicator In One Form

I have thought long and much about the iPad. I have said that I would have one eventually however it may not be the Apple since I am not tied necessarily to one manufacturer. There will be others that will appear and with additional features that I want.

There was an interesting article on GigaOm yesterday and it is worth taking a look at. The iPad May Change Computer, Just Not Your Life and I think Ryan Block (cofounder of gdgt) makes a few interesting points. Apple is redefining the tablet and perhaps the way we will use the Internet while traveling or in the coffee shop.

It will need to have very good battery life but we are getting there. I found a slim HP notebook yesterday with a 9.5 hour battery life. Interestingly it weighted in at around 4 pounds however it was a typical clamshell device that takes up way too much room – enter the iPad or some similar device with one small alteration.

The iPad has a touch screen for typing as well as a peripheral keyboard – one more thing to carry. What is needed is ShapeWriter. Check this out. I use this on my Droid and it is very good (also available for the iPhone). With each upgrade this just keeps on getting better and could make typing obsolete. You do have to know where the keys are (they are visual) however all you have to do is swipe your finger around the keyboard and wow. Typing just became so easy and perhaps unnecessary as we know it.

I see both these products as revolutionary and game changers. Will the iPad win in the long run? Don’t know but it will create a new market as Steve Jobs has prophesized and now the competition will heat up.

If I had money I would invest in ShapeWriter and if I were HP (or Google) I would look at buying ShapeWriter and then license it out. Let others benefit, not quite the Apple thing. The world grows when we work together.

ShapeWriter did win a Google Android Award. If you have a Droid you should be using Gesture Search as an app. Same concept as ShapeWriter – draw on the screen.

I am working on designing my perfect slate/communication device and in one of these post’s I will lay it out.

Ahh, my Nostradamus personality is taking over once again and I can see into the future.

The Future & Other Stuff

I am having this great ongoing discussion with myself as to what this blog is and why. It is a never ending secret conversation. My original thought was a blog that let’s me expand on what I see and think about current technology and how we can use it or not. What will the benefit be to us personally or as a Small Business/Home Office (SBHO) trying to compete in this crazy yet wonderful world.

Sometimes I get distracted however that is what happens in both the real world and in the virtual one that some may Live in. Today I get distracted.

Today is the last day of my Starbucks hide out, well not really a hide out as most people know that I come here.

The Starbucks on Cornell in Blue Ash, OH is closing today and that is not a happy moment. I have to admit that this morning there is more chatter and laughter here than I am accustomed to but that is to be expected. Everyone trying to find out where everyone is going and what will we, the customer, who has become really comfortable here, is going to do.

This may not seem like much to some but those of us affected it is a great deal. We who have come to benefit from both the environment and the people here will have to relocate and adjust to a new environment. This is our cubicle and we have been displaced. These are our friends and they have been displaced.

See I have been distracted. I had intended to talk about Social Networking and I guess I have but in the real world sense not the wireless one.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Home Page

3/11/10 Statement of Chairman Genachowski, Hearing on Consumers, Competition, and Consolidation in the Video and Broadband Market, Before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate.Word | Acrobat

via www.fcc.gov

This is a link to the FCC site and you will find links there to the National Broadband Plan. I am not necessarily promoting a position yet however it would be good to be involved and heard. We will live with this and we want to be sure it is something we want to live with.

Google TV Should Finally Push Apple TV Beyond A “Hobby”

For the past couple of years now, when talking about the Apple TV product, Apple likes to throw out the word “hobby.” It’s as if they’re ashamed of the device. And considering sales are anemic next to Macs, iPods, and iPhones, it’s no big surprise that they talk this way.

via techcrunch.com

I am so ready for Google to get into the TV arena and shake up the status quo. Bring on Internet TV and do it right. Now for a computer that will turn on and be online like my TV.

Internet Explorer 9: Platform Demos

Welcome and thank you for investigating the first Internet Explorer Platform Preview. This release represents only a portion of the capabilities that will be in the final IE9 Web platform. Check back frequently, we will be updating the Platform Preview regularly and adding more demos all the time.

via ie.microsoft.com

I just downloaded and played with this demo. I will be happy to see this when it really hits the Beta stage, at the moment it is testing various features of the future browser.

10 ways you might be breaking the law with your computer: UPDATED | 10 Things | TechRepublic.com

Legislation that affects the use of Internet-connected computers continues to grow in its reach and its complexity. To help you avoid any infractions, we’ve revised this list to include new and pending laws and recent rulings.

via blogs.techrepublic.com.com

This is a very interesting read and worth the time. I believe there are some things we need to get involved with; #3 for one. This really flies in the face of the beliefs that I was raised with regarding the USA. Perhaps those were not real and that this type of dictatorial power should exist? I believe we have fought wars to free people from this. Where are we going?

Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

OK, so this has become the most comical and distressing sign on my (HP) Mini as of lately.

I am using Microsoft Office 2010 Beta and I really do like it. When I first downloaded it to this computer it worked like a charm. I have since installed it on my desktop computer and it is a winner. Greater graphics, a real nice upgrade from Office 2007 with features that I wanted and some I didn’t know I wanted until I started using it.

Now all of a sudden, on the Mini, I am having issues when opening most of the office software. I see the sign at the top of this page; “Microsoft Office is downloading the required feature”. I even got that message trying to open an email in Outlook, and I thought the ability to open messages came with Outlook. Who knew?

As I have said in previous blog post’s I recommend this software all the time and have even produced a 2 hour seminar for the company that employs me to show customers/clients the real benefit of going to Office 2010 when it is released. I am the local evangelist for Office 2010.

Suddenly however I can’t open Excel, Word or Outlook without a ponderous wait. If it was once a day that would be one thing but at the moment it is every time I open anyone of the above mentioned pieces of software. It would appear that it has to download the software from the mother ship and sometimes it would appear that the mother ship is out of range.

Now there is one more sign that appears which I find interesting.

This is not true. My Internet connection is working and very well however perhaps the speed of the connection is not what Microsoft had in mind. When using the netbook (Mini) I am never connected to a cable connection I am on wireless – either Verizon (and I have a good signal) or ATTWIFI (Starbucks) or my home or business network, all very good however not broadband (that’s another blog).

The line that says “…to resume downloading Microsoft Office” is a question for me since I thought I had downloaded it once. Are these updates? Or are we testing the subscription service? Sometimes I think that I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer so don’t know. Are they checking me out?

One more sign; when opening Excel, and after the signs from above have come and gone, I often see this sign;

Next step is to close Excel and re-open and then often we go back through the same steps again. This can be very frustrating. 

We shall prevail, onward and upward, and all that jazz. If you are thinking about downloading the Office 2010 Beta be prepared. This may not be common, it could be just me but we don’t know.

OK time for supper.