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Helpful tips for Chatter Email

First of all, if you have not read the manual, I would strongly suggest you do so in order to take advantage of the application to it’s fullest. Marc Blank, the developer, has written a very user friendly piece and it’s included with every download — unless you’ve just been downloading the updated .prc files.

When I first read it I saw that there were some secret codes you could type into the console – Menu / Pref / Console (/W) like Turbo and Log. Turbo enables a much more rapid loading of messages as it allows for larger groups of them to come through at once. Log is something really only to be used if you are having a problem and need to submit a report…

This week, in addition to adding attachment support, Marc has posted a list of codes you might use in the console and I thought it would be helpful to re-print them here…

You’ll need to be running at least 1.0b10.3… though as of this post, the latest is 1.0b10.4.

  • chatterclassic – enables IM support; account required
  • chatteremail – disables IM support; the default
  • indicator , color = green, red, or orange. Sets LED msg indicator.
  • log – toggles logging
  • memo – annotates a log
  • note – same as memo
  • profile – SMTP profile debug info
  • register , code = assigned registration code. Registers ChatterEmail. Confirmation is done when the next email arrives.
  • reload – Deletes all messages in the current mailbox from the treo and starts the reloading process.
  • turbo – Toggles “Turbo Load” which loads messges in groups of 2-15 at a time (depending on load size)
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BlackBerry phonerings all the right notes

I might not be a Blackberry user and I don’t think this charmer will get me to switch, but it sure gets enough right that Palm and others will need to seriously pay attention. The form factor is excellent, the predictive typing works and of course they’ve mastered behind the firewall email and calendar delivery.

In the beginning, there was BlackBerry. A delicious fruit, yes, but also a clever way to get your e-mail on a pager-like device. Then there was BlackBerry: a clever way to get your e-mail plus an awkward phone in a much larger pager-like device. And beginning today, there is BlackBerry: a great cellular phone that also includes that clever way to get your e-mail. [MSNBC]

Walt Mossberg also gave the new Blackberry a go … Here’s the verdict: a very good device, but not as good or as easy to use as the current Treo. I hope the Treo 650 is capable of going even further …

The new BlackBerry is a good phone, a very good e-mail device, and the first serious competitor to the Treo as a combination of the two.

I’m not ready to give up my Treo for the new BlackBerry, mostly because I find the BlackBerry’s user interface slower and more complicated than the Treo’s. Also, the Treo has a better keyboard, is a better organizer, and is much more versatile and expandable. And, with the Treo, you’re not locked into T-Mobile. Every major U.S. cellphone carrier sells the Treo. [WSJ]

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Do Area Codes Matter?

Good question… I don’t think so either. Phone plans are no longer offered (unless you really have a tough time affording service) with limits other than minutes. Everyone pushes time on rather than where you are calling – outside of international which is still premium. Though Skype is certainly working to reduce that pain as well.

Do area codes really matter any more? These days, I’ve gotten used to plenty of people I know having mobile phone numbers from some distant place where they used to live, rather than where they live now. With so many plans no longer having any real marginal costs for long distance calls, it hasn’t much mattered, other than as a status symbol. The same is starting to come true in the VoIP world, as well, as people are even purposely ordering VoIP phone numbers from locations that don’t represent where they live. [Techdirt]

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The Engadget Interview: Hank Nothhaft, CEO of Danger, Inc.

Good read…

…this week journalist J.D. Lasica tries out the Sidekick II and speaks with Hank Nothhaft, CEO of Danger, Inc., about the device’s upcoming release, the market for wireless handhelds, the cachet of having Derek Jeter and Paris Hilton as Sidekick fans, and whether, if forced to at gunpoint, he’d buy a Blackberry or a Treo. [engadget]

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VOIP gets the job done

I used my Vonage (X-Ten) softphone for all but one call last week based on a flickering wi-fi connection in my hotel room. I was also able to use Skype on occasion to connect with people as well. All connections were computer to computer or computer to phone.

I’m sold on this as a way to go now and even just changed my Skype name to assure ease of use for the future. I was (and am still) atmasphere on Skype but have added jonathangreene and will most likely use that as my full-time skype name. I definitely saw an opportunity to lock in my actual name as well as my usual alias and took it. No need for someone else to snag it before I had a chance.

Now that I’ve got it running on my Macs at home, I can see using it much more frequently. I love the notion of calling to phones and believe the rates are unbeatable! Skype to Skype is free and you can Skype to phone close to 500 minutes a month for about $12. Prices are listed in Euro, so you need to do a quick conversion. I have not actually used Skype to call phones yet, but it seems pretty straight forward.

Feel free to look me up and if you are online.

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Car Tech

As I’ve mentioned all last week, we took a break from the city and headed North to Vermont. This was actually our second trip north recently, having driven to Saratoga for my sister-in-law’s wedding. On both occassions, we were fortunate to rent a great family truckster, the Volvo XC-70 wagon. It had a surprising amount of cargo capacity, compared with the SUVs we’ve also rented for trips, but was a great deal more comfortable and of course handles like a car. It’s a tad under-powered for my taste though perhaps that will be resolved in future models… now that I hear a beefy engine is coming for the XC-90.

Both times we had the car (different cars, but the same model), it came equipped with a Hertz / Magellan Neverlost III system. The Nav system worked incredibly well, though frankly it took me a while to actually understand all the features of it while we were going. Perhaps it was the distraction of a screaming baby at times, but there are some nice features hidden within the NL III which could easily be brought to a driver’s attention with a handy reference card. Regardless the system enabled us to find a new faster way to drive up to Vermont, than any time we’d been in the past which was handy and while in Saratoga, kept this direction-impaired dad on course in between wedding events for the weekend.

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Upoc SMS Chats with gold medallists

This is a very interesting sign of how things have changed… I recall how about 10 years ago (1995), AOL hosted (and perhaps still does) live chats with celebrities in their forums. Now it’s all being done from the mobile…

Last week, AT&T Wireless and Upoc Networks hosted a moderated, live “TXT Chat” for fans of swimming phenomenon Michael Phelps. Subscribers were invited to join the chat session by texting the word “swim” to the number 11111 from their handsets, and could then send in their questions for Phelps via text message, according to a company press release. [textually]

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Netflix and TiVo

I like this idea a lot… this could be a solid driver for new subscriptions for both services and lets TiVO compete outside the existing VOD services currently offered on Cable and Satellite. The main difference will most likely be depth of catalog, but it really seems like only a matter of time until Cable MSOs offer a deeper selection. At the moment, my currrent VOD offers from Time Warner is very similar to what you would find at Blockbuster on a given week.

As has been commented as well at the PVRblog, consumers are going to have to accept a reduced quality and a potential delay in delivery.

Tomorrow’s Newsweek carries a story about a new Netflix/TiVo partnership that sounds perfect for anyone that has a subscription to both TiVo and Netflix. [PVRblog]

Subscribers who belong to both services will be able to download their Netflix DVDs over the Internet directly into the TiVo boxes in their homes, instead of receiving them in the mail.

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Orange Deploys PTT With Treo 600

Not sure if this is considered data or voice (data would be free to umlimited plan users) or what the latency might be which is the key to successful Push to Talk Applications. Nextel for example is less than a second once the initial connection is established. You need to at roughy one second of the delay makes usage much too annoying…

Orange has announced the commercial availability of Talk Now, Europe’s first advanced Push-To-Talk over GSM service. The first device able to take advantage of the new service is the palmOne Treo 600. [PalmInfocenter.com]

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Good chief bets on standard OSes

While at times I thought he was a tad squirrely, Good’s CEO makes some good points about focusing on a variety of devices rather than relying so tightly on a hardware/software solution. I like Good, I don’t use it but if I had a choice at my job between a Blackberry or a Treo with Goodlink, I’d definitely pick the Treo. I am too attached to my other apps…

Good Technology CEO Danny Shader says his company is well-placed in the mobile enterprise market space, providing an application that runs on standard operating systems rather than on proprietary hardware or software bundles. In a Face to Face interview with ZDNet Editor in Chief Dan Farber, Shader discusses the changing shape of the market [ZDNet]

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iTunes may rock, but Microsoft will win??

Biran Cooley over at ZDNet believes that simply based on scale and relative goodness that the the MSN music service will knock iTunes down. I am not so sure… I’d bet that enough people have been exposed to the simple elegance of iTunes and iPod that they get how it should work. Microsoft has a high bar to match even if they can outspend Apple… they probably won’t out-cool them.

There’s also the missing piece of the player itself. They just have a store, and many others will probably roll out very similar stores based on their platform — and let’s not forget confusing DRM.

It’s all part of the objectivity and professional skepticism that goes with the job, but come on. In the end, Microsoft’s strategy for the music wars should simply read like Reagan’s plan for the Cold War: they lose, we win. Then, you just spend your competitors into a hole.

Apple’s iTunes store and iPod players have been earning a 4.0 grade point average. But Microsoft merely has to get a 3.0, multiplied by the Windows user base, and it wins. All of the online music stores sell the same music from five major labels (and a handful of indies who don’t make or break anyone’s business). And even if Apple does have leverage with the labels now, I can assure you that all five of them will throw Steve Jobs under the bus when the Windows music store starts heating up. [ZDNet AnchorDesk]

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Verizon 3Mbps Goes Live

I’m a loyal cable guy for now, but this probably is good news to many people… the price is actually quite competitive, though I am capable of getting up to 6MB down…

Though Verizon has yet to issue a press release or official announcement, our users are now ordering and receiving 3Mbps/768kbps DSL service. Only customers in former Bell Atlantic territory are seeing the upgrades, while Verizon West or Ex-GTE customers are still waiting. Users report it’s not available for those served via a remote terminal, or to those further than 11,000 feet from their CO. The tier costs $39.95 bundled, or $45 stand alone; the upstream speeds making it particularly attractive to many cable users (if they qualify). [broadband reports]

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Nintendo DS does VOIP

In its Electronic Entertainment Industry Update released today, TNI Securities reports that the recently revealed headset port on the Nintendo DS will be used in conjunction with the built-in wireless 802.11b networking capabilities to offer voice-over-IP chat–in effect, allowing gamers to use the DS to make free phone calls at wireless network hotspots. [Gamespot via Gizmodo]

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Pocket PC as a WiFiphone

The Vonage Softphone forums have a few posts on this and while it’s not supported, it definitely works. I don’t have and probably won’t be getting a PPC device, but for those of you with WIFI PPC’s and a Vonage account, you might be quite happy reading this… The Softphone service is pretty cool and if you add it on to your Vonage account, you get 500 minutes unlimited local and LD, which is a pretty good amount of talking (not power business use, but average). If you have a softphone account now, this is just another way to make use of it instead of lugging a laptop around…

This week’s How-To is a handy one for the folks out there who use the Vonage Voice Over IP (VOIP) service and happen to have a Pocket PC device with WiFi. We%u2019re going to show you how to turn just about any Pocket PC PDA device in to a real telephone with a working telephone number. At the end of this, we’re also going to post our phone number so you can test it out (it might be a long distance call for you). [Engadget]

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iMac G5

The new Apple iMac will definitley be finding a place in our home at some point… wow! I love the design and the specs are fantastic.

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Call Looping

As I mentioned in the previous post I am using the Vonage softphone to handle my calls while I am out of range for T-Mobile this week. I just did an interesting trick I thought I’d share for the other person who might find this interesting. my T-Mobile mobile is forwading to my main Vonage line which is forwarding to my Vonage Softphone. Basically all calls are being routed to my softphone which is very cool – at least to me.