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Roaming Free

An interesting piece over at Forbes…

Just as thrifty theater-goers can save a buck by smuggling in their own Junior Mints, so too are cell phone users finding ways to download their own phone upgrades without paying a big margin to their carriers.

The very same phones that give users the power to download new services also give them the flexibility to find other ways of getting new content into those phones. For instance, an avid text messaging fan in Britain who owns a Nokia 6600 can save money by using a service run by an outside company such as Fastchat, which provides unlimited text messaging for a flat fee.

Such fee-dodging tactics are about to become a major threat to the cell industry, according to a new study by Mako Analysis, a British research firm specializing in mobile communications. New operating systems such as Symbian Series 60 are capable of working with all manner of extra applications.

“A savvy user can use this open operating system to completely bypass a range of services that are normally charged for by their mobile operator,” the report says. [Forbes.com]

Of course these issues raise the question of who owns the phone… You pay for it and lock into a service contract in most situations, but people are finding ways around the walled gardens often created to control the experience. The control is part of a two-pronged approach to both make money as well as limit the potential service issues.

An advanced user should be able to choose services that are of interest to them, and often do, though at an increase in cost due to buying unlocked phones from third parties rather than directly from the carrier – who lock the phones. When a phone is locked it allows the carrier to pre-program content and content partners as well as assure that whatever settings they need to input are there for these services to work.

If you’ve ever read Howard Forums, Mobitopia (or lurked in #mobitopia), Mobilewhack, My Treo to name a few, you’ve seen that many people are independently dealing with things.

From a user perspective, I personally think we should be able to use compatible hardware on whatever network we like. It should force the carriers to offer quality services that users want rather than just pre-loading WAP menus with things people don’t even know about let alone use…

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Flickr and the blog…

So some tweaks need to be worked out…

It’s great to post a picture via MMS or email to Flickr and have it show up in your blog feed, but I’d like some more control over the process like:

  • The ability to add a category…
  • The ability to also have the image and text appear on my actual site. I logged into Flickr after uploading a picture (the post prior to this one…) and decided to blog a bit on it, which is cool, but since it was already in my feed (per my Feedburner settings), feed readers are going to get it twice.
  • Edit without sending a second copy of the image (I mistyped a title and noticed 2 posts rather than just the first one corrected)

Still great and very cool.

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Flickr splices into Feedburner

We are very happy to announce our partnership with the smart folks at Flickr [The FeedBurner Weblog]

What does this mean? It means that Flickr photos you are sharing can automagically get inserted into your Feedburner Feeds. I’ve just turned this on… so feed readers have probably just noticed a few extras.

Lately I’ve been snapping some phone-cam shots and MMSing them to a variety of services to check it all out – Flickr, Buzznet and T-Mobile all offer services that let you snap a shot with your camera and send them to a site (there are others like TextAmerica which I tried previously) they host for you. I’ve been running a moblog on my sidebar for a while now with images hosted by Buzznet, but the more I play with Flickr the more I like it. I am still working out a kink (fixed!!) with a feature on their service which lets you post directly to your blog… not sure exactly what the issue is, but it’s something with WordPress…

Still toying with things… may add the Flickr sidebar widget instead of the Buzznet one.. it runs in Flash which is interesting and offers some a more dynamic presentation of your shots.

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blog by email

So thanks to a great tutorial by Carthik here –
http://carthik.net/wpdocs/emailblog.html – I am now able to blog by
email which has some nice advantages in some mobile situations as well
as if you just want to quickly post something received in your mail
client.

I’ve got it set to post hourly so there may be something of a real-time
delay if I do pass along tidbits while on the go, though it can also be
initiated manually which is a nice option.

Of course I’ve sent this post by email to prove the concept as well.

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iTunes Idea

I love this idea and would pay the price of a CD to do it…maybe a dollar or two more. 128K AAC files are fine, but it would certainly be nice to be able to use other formats if you wanted to. Instant fulfillment plus…

Wouldn’t it be great if when you bought a CD on iTunes they would ship you the actual CD (so you have a high-quality backup, liner notes, etc) in addition to letting you download the entire album? [Photo Matt]

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Google Acquires Picasa

Picasa enables users to easily manage and share digital photographs, and its technologies complement Google’s ongoing mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful… [PhotographyBLOG]

This photo sharing – posting to blog is heating up. As JD pointed out yesterday, Flickr now also supports posting to blogs and many more types than just Google owned Blogger.

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Pocket-DVD Studio for Palm

I have yet to try this, but it seems the main limitation is the size of the SD card you carry which enables the compression size to expand. Looks like it is designed for the T3…which they say plays better than a PPC.

Carry DVD movies in your pocket. Turn boring time into fun right from your pocket, anywhere, anytime. Let your children have something to do and keep quiet while travelling. This software makes life easier with much more fun. Convert DVDs into palm video is simple and fast. Any movie less than 3 hours long can be compressed into a 128MB/256MB/512MB card. It’s a great application that justifies the purchase of your palm device. [Palm Movie]

Update – So I had downloaded this and gone to do something else. Upon coming back to my desk, I realized that this only exists as a .exe, windows only app. Guess I won’t be trying it out after all. Seems that the image on the page is a tad misleading since it seems like an Aqua screen…

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Homeland Security planning possible delay of elections

You might want to stop and think about this one for a second.

Newsweek reports: “American counterterrorism officials, citing what they call “alarming” intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the United States this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack… The prospect that Al Qaeda might seek to disrupt the U.S. election was a major factor behind last week’s terror warning by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge… Ridge’s department last week asked the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to analyze what legal steps would be needed to permit the postponement of the election were an attack to take place.” [kuro5hin.org]

Do you think the Republican party is nervous about the new Dem ticket or what?

While I’ve got your attention, you should definitely consider watching Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Sure it’s one sided, but the facts are true (at least to the best of my ability to tell) and the events discussed are simply amazing. Personally, it’s an opinion maker. Time Magazine had an excellent cover story in case you missed that as well.

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System Optimizer X

Saw this one pop up as a new update today and gave it a whirl while eating some breakfast… It’s definitely worth a go! I knew it was chugging along a bit, but had no idea it could be clear this easily.

System Optimizer X can improve your system’s speed and stability using the following routines:

  • Update prebindings
  • Run system maintenance scripts
  • Clean system/application cache
  • Repair UNIX file permissions
  • Optimize internet buffer sizes
  • Compress minimized window buffers

Use the “Optimize” feature to run several routines automatically. You can also set the schedule to automatically run specified routines weekly, monthly or bi-monthly. [MacUpdate]

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Talking Panda

Thanks to a link at Boing Boing, I discovered this application for the iPod. Lookout Berlitz!

Talking Panda sets a new standard for language translation software. Designed for the iPod, it’s stocked with over three hundred essential words and phrases of the language you want to speak, organized for instant access. … Virtual fluency available in French, Spanish, and Japanese for $10 per language. [Talking Panda]

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Arrow Launcher 1.5

Arrow Launcher is a slick pop-up shortcut launcher for the Palm OS. It works great with both graffiti and keyboard devices…

Arrow Launcher is a new type of launcher that launches applications, e-mail, contacts, and can SMS a contact, DIAL a contact, PLAY an mp3, and load a bookmark, launch applications AND contacts AND more FAST! [mytreo.net]

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SIPphone now for OSX

Just signed up… what the hell right? If you know me and want to talk, you can send an email and we can give this a whirl. I’m still hoping that Skype is an interesting bit for Mac when it arrives and may switch over to it when that day finally comes.

With SIPphone, users get a phone number, free voicemail to email, free conference calling, free SIP-to-SIP calling anywhere in the world, very cheap International dialing, and the option of a virtual number in the US or the UK so they can receive calls from the ‘traditional’ phone network.”

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All’s Fair in Love and War?

Alleged Hacker Now Works for Microsoft

A man accused of hacking into search engine company AltaVista’s computer systems about two years ago is now employed by Microsoft, reportedly working on search technology. [eWEEK]

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Yahoo has acquired Oddpost

Competition for advanced web services is heating up! Oddpost also noted in the recent WSJ article on feedreaders, combines a nice webmail client with a feedreader… it should be very interesting to see how this falls into place in the world of Yahoo. I’ll be looking forward to giving it a whirl for sure.

Yahoo has acquired Oddpost. A couple of weeks ago I got a heads-up that this deal had been consumated and would be announced shortly. Little did I imagine then that they would pick a Friday evening to make the announcement, but that’s the way it goes. It’s a big one. Oddpost turned the idea of what you could do with a browser upside down, by producing a clone of Microsoft Outlook in JavaScript and DHTML running in MSIE. Since then, they have labored in relative obscurity, growing a customer base, raising VC money, adding people, and staying out of the way. Then Google launches Gmail, with a very Oddpostish interface, and someone at Yahoo says “Hmmm, I’ve seen that somewhere,” calls up Ethan and Iain and their new VCs and asks “Are you for sale?” and the rest is history. [Scripting News]

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Zen Portable Media Center

In addition to additional format support, I’d suggest more platform support as well. Most people using windows are not buying media center PCs which this is catered around and there are certainly people using older windows versions, not to mention Mac and Linux PCs.

I still like the Portable Media device idea, have to wait and see what else comes aroung. Archos seems to be the mindshare leader in my book. Perhaps a more powerful Palm based OS6 device will be able to handle this duty…

This new Creative unit is the first product that MS hinted at early this year. It’ll be interesting to see how well it does in the marketplace. The price is kind of high and since you’re locked into using Windows Media Video instead of Microsoft’s own AVI, DivX, and/or MPEG, I’m curious if there are enough legitimate users of wmv to create a market for this. I bet if the device played more video and audio formats (why not add ogg support?), they’d sell more.

[PVRblog]

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The Gillmor Gang

Listening now…as usual, it’s a very interesting conversation with people who are not only well connected, but highly involved.

I just posted the July 9 show with special guest Brendan Eich, chief architect, Mozilla Foundation. (Is this the start of Browser War II? Can Mozilla-based browsers corner 6% of the market by year end? And if they do, will they be targeted by the same crackers who go after IE flaws? Does the potential for “tag soup” sound like what Microsoft did to the browser market in 1996?) [Doug Kaye: Web Services Strategies]