Category: Personal

Simpsonize Me, originally uploaded by atmasphere.

I’ve been Simpsonized

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Marketing, Photos, The Simpsons, Icons

Ok so I’ve been tagged … first from Ricky and now by Marc.

• My professional background is in Direct Marketing though I’ve been focused primarily on integrating interactive ideas into campaign strategy. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time within large holding company agencies and understand the full view. I am actively considering new career paths and am considering agency and client side technology / web 2.0 opportunities as well as (for me) less traditional options like consulting or trying to get more into tech journalism (TV or online video).
• I’m hooked on social software tools. I’m actively using Jaiku, Flickr, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Last.FM… less actively using Pownce and Dopplr. My preference is for services that make it easy to continue participation from my mobile and use both mobile sites and applications (when possible) to stay connected. This tends to make my wife a tad nutty… but it’s been a valuable experience so far.
• I’m a former All American swimmer. In college I swam distance Freestyle, IM and sprint backstroke. A few of my records still stand.
• Sadly, I have not done much working out since college. We did recently pick up some exercise equipment for the house and I’m trying… need to get back on the horse!
• I’m a certified open water diver.
• I’ve been married to my wife Ashley for over 7 6 years and have two beautiful daughters Hannah (3.5) and Campbell (11 months). We live in our first house in Katonah NY which is in Northern Westchester, about 45 miles from NYC.
• I feel like I was much more of a music geek before tech took over…. I used to want to record music as an electronic musician but never went for it. It’s hardly too late to start, but priorities are currently on other things. I did used to play tenor saxophone in high school, but that seems like ages ago. Today I listen to a lot of electronica, jazz and classic rock.
• This blog has existed in various forms since 2002. I’ve used Radio, Grey Matter, Blogger, Typepad, Moveable Type and WordPress. Google Reader reports I have 781 subscriptions. Over the last 30 days I’ve read 14,134 items and starred 73 items which you can see on my sidebar.

My turn to pass the torch… Let’s hear from Neil Vineberg, Zach Epstein and Rudy De Waele.Technorati Tags:8 Random Things

So this morning I’ve actually had a chance to play with the Nokia Media Transfer application I mentioned yesterday.

Once you’ve set your preferences (which you do on launch and can adjust through the menu bar item) your phone simply connects and begins it’s sync process when it connects to your computer.

I chose USB, but you can also do Bluetooth if you prefer. I figured go for the faster transfer system since I’ll be moving large photos, videos and music. All you do to get things rolling is connect your device and select the PC-Suite profile. Otherwise it works pretty much in the same manner as an iPod – it just works.

One nice feature is that you can choose to transfer or sync your pictures. This allows you to keep every phone picture on your phone as well as your computer. There’s a manual option to remove files which have been transferred from your device as well to conserve space. All in all, this is a very well thought out NATIVE Mac app from Nokia. My only feature request is to add support for Aperture which is the tool I use for Photo management.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhoto, iTunes, N-Series, N73, N75, N80, N93, N93i, N95, Nokia, Nokia Media Transfer, OSX, Aperture

Over the long weekend I found a baby turtle and helped it back to sea in Barnegat Bay…

Technorati Tags: Barnegat Bay, NJ, Turtle

There was a major storm this afternoon which included a tornado watch and knocked power out for about 5 hours. While I don’t think that we had any twisters in the area, the winds were serious enough to do some major tree damage. As things cleared, I checked out our yard… Fortunately, these trees fell up the hill. If they had gone the other way the house would have certainly been hit.

Technorati Tags: Storm, Tree, Katonah, NY

I plan on doing some serious relaxing here …

Hammock Swinging Gently from atmasphere on Vimeo

Technorati Tags: Hammock

Conan Visits Intel

This is absolutely hilarious and as someone who’s spent time in the halls, seems pretty accurate as well. 😉

If you’ve been tracking my real-time updates on Twitter you’ve certainly noticed that I have an N95! Since unboxing the device, I’ve been very actively putting it to the test and I have to say outside of a few exceptions, I’m very impressed and pleased.

The N95 is about as thick, but a tad wider and lighter than the N73, thinner and lighter than the N80. I was actually struck by how light it feels in your hand. This does not take away from build quality though I’ve heard and felt a few creaking sounds. This seems to go away once the slider it open as there is noticeably less flex in the system when it’s open for some reason.

My gripes are ones I hope get addressed in firmware updates. There’s definitely not enough memory for the power user and you will immediately begin to see the lovely low memory warnings and find apps have shut down when you put the N95 to the test. I’ve been working around this, but hope that since this is the flagship N-Series it gets better. The other N-Series I’ve used seemed to actually have more memory available for multitasking. My other issue is a personal thing I’ve again been learning and more willing to accept as this is a new device and things are different… I find the main buttons to be pretty tight for my hand. It’s very easy to accidentally hit the wrong key (like End) or tough to use both Down and the Pencil when selecting multiple things. I’m getting better with practice! Last, GPS takes longer than you might like to get an initial signal (cold start) but once it does, the system is quite solid.

There’s a whole lot to love here and in general am very impressed with this device. I’ve been able to freeze and reset it, but I’ve done that with every Nokia to date. When you realize that you can shoot awesome DVD-like video, snap beautiful 5MP pictures, Navigate with GPS, use any type of messaging, make crystal clear phone calls and even use the phone as a high speed modem, there’s much to love!

I’ve installed the N95 iSync plugin and decided to test things by syncing my contacts (over 2000) and had no issues with cluttering performance. My N73 did not like when I did that and while I initially did this as a test, I’ve kept them all on since – why not be able to reach anyone I want… just in case!

On the phone I’ve had issues with Shozu working well and tried before and after the initial firmware update, so that’s a pass for now. The Flickr and Vox integration is solid, even if it takes a few more clicks. I have Truphone installed, Handy Taskman, Handy Weather, Handy Clock, Nokia Sports Tracker, Gmail Mobile, Google Maps Mobile, and the Nokia Wellness Diary – though I’ve yet to get this one even open yet.

I’ve paired the phone with a few computers here, my N800, BH-800 headset and our car — no issues there and I like the prompt to auto-connect, which is new to me. Not sure this is a Feature Pack 1 thing or was available in newer firmware, but I like it.

Here’s a “quick” video walkthrough for some more detail. (Yes I know I said N93 instead of N73 a few times… get over it.)

All in all – the N95 kicks ass!

unfortunate placement of yahoo ad, originally uploaded by jkenning.

Geeky fun I know… but still how could they not have seen how bad this is 😉

I’m heading south to sunny Florida for vacation with the family today and will likely be blogging very lightly if at all. I’m leaving the laptop at home and only taking my N800 (though with Keyboard). I”ll probably do most of my reading on the smaller screen (which I do plenty of) though have not blogged much from the tablet. It’s all good.

Some disappointing news coming from CTIA this morning ….

Nokia isn’t building a special US version of this phone – they’ll just be selling the European version direct and unlocked through NokiaUSA.com and at their own stores. That means the N95 will work on T-Mobile and Cingular’s EDGE networks, but won’t be able to access higher-speed HSDPA cellular networks in the US. The phone will ship in the second quarter of this year for around $700 in the US, according to Nokia. [Gearlog]

As much as I want the N95, it’s going to be hard to swallow the bill on a non-3G capable phone and makes the iPhone that much more competitive in my opinion. Perhaps some future deal will still come forth … Gearlog only references CTIA, but not a formal press release or announcement.

Update – The has been changed $500-600 (Thanks Mark!), but is still disappointing without 3G.  I love the wifi and 5MP camera… don’t get me wrong, this is an awesome piece of kit. The price is actually pretty interesting considering that puts it just a tad higher than unlocked N80 or N73 units…

Technorati Tags: 3G, N-Series, N95, Nokia

Oliver Starr just posted something on his blog at the Guidewire Group that has me VERY excited:

Guidewire Connection has just learned via a trusted source within Nokia that the new N95 Smartphone, which is just now beginning to be released across the pond in Europe, is also being produced with a 1900-MHz model – the band that HSDPA runs on here in the USA. [Oliver Starr @ Guidewire Group]

Nokia and Cingular are apparently still working out the final details, but consider this… Nokia’s uber-smartphone running on a Cingular/ AT&T’s US 3G network! This multimedia computer seriously does it all: HSDPA(3G), WiFi, GPS, 5MP images and DVD Quality video, Video Center (RSS enclosures and YouTube) a killer browser, S60 FP1, gorgeous screen (2.6″ QVGA (240 x 320 pixels)) and opens with a dual slider (one for media and one for calls / txt). It can also handle 2GB of memory through miniSD and of course (thank you Nokia!) can make VOIP calls via SIP. There’s also an amazing universe of applications available to run on S60.

I’ve been lusting after the N95 for a while and if this rumor is true, will have to own this one.
I’ve been asked countless times now what I think about the iPhone and whether I’ll own one… It’s an obvious competitor here and as an equal-part Apple fanboy, I am torn. There are two things that kill me about the iPhone – NO 3G (ridiculous for a device at this price in 2007) and no access to WiFi for VOIP (also ridiculous, but at least I get the business reason from Cingular’s perspective). The other glaring omission from Apple here is the lack of a replaceable battery. In my experience dual-mode phones (cellular and wifi) eat battery like nothing else. If you use the data connections available, it can be hard to make it through a day…
The N95 is shipping today in Europe and the All About Symbian guys have theirs nicely unboxed. Interestingly enough Nokia chose a very Apple-like box design which just makes me think more that these two companies are eyeing each other with their vision for the ultimate converged device.
I hope your source is good Oliver!

Technorati Tags: 3G, Apple, AT&T, Cingular, GPS, HSDPA, iPhone, N-Series, N95, Nokia, S60v3 FP1, YouTube