Substitutions

You may have heard that I love the Flock web browser. You may not have heard that Flock has changed the browser their product is based on from Mozilla's (for 2.x) to Google's (for 3.x).
I'm trying to adapt.
In the process of moving from one version of Flock to the other, I have to find Chrome extensions to match those that I used with the 2.x version of Flock, along with the features no longer built into Flock 3.x.
One of the features that keeps me on the Firefox side is the offline blog editor that integrates that version's drag-and-drop clipboard, which does wonders for quickly adding photos to a new post. I just found this new Chrome extension called Scribefire, which is a blog editor of sorts. I'm still looking for some sort of clipboard, but may be completely out of luck.
Onward and upward, if not a slight bit to the left!

Long Term Notes: Nokia 6650 Fold

After having used my free phone for a few more months, I thought I'd jot down a few more details on its state of being and what has and hasn't worked out.

The best thing about the newer smart phones is that once the manufacturer gets the hardware and software stable, a lot of the best things about your phone come from new and exciting ways to utilize its features through new software.  This has largely been the case with my 6650 Fold, so the majority of my discussion will be about the trials of various software solutions to my problems, some of which I never knew I had.

The only real complaints I've had about this phone have been about the button layout, which I discussed in my ealier post, and apparently haven't bothered doing anything more about since then.  I did purchase a USB cable, but haven't yet felt the need to actually attempt to make the changes so that I'm not always tapping the key to open the AT&T Navigator.  Maybe later...

One thing that has changed since I first wrote about my 6650 Fold, was the addition of an internet data plan.  This has allowed me to augment many of my favorite text-only services with new features.

The biggest shortcoming I've found with this phone is that it lacks a comfortable amount of RAM. There is a great web browser for S60 and WM phones called Skyfire, which I could only run after rebooting the phone or it would protest that there was not enough memory available.  SInce installing another helper application, I can't even run it after a reboot, but it was fun to use while I could.  If you have a data plan, and an S60 or Windows Mobile device, compare Skyfire to your packaged browser.  I'm willing to bet Skyfire will take you places you never thought possible from your phone.

Similar to Skyfire's problems with running short of memory, the same can be done with my built-in browser from time to time, so my browser of choice for this phone is Opera Mini. I use the full screen interface, almost exclusively, and it hardly ever malfunctions.  The Opera Link feature allows me to manage bookmarks and notes from my desktop, then synchronize with the browser on the phone later.  I only wish I could use it as my default browser.  Unfortunately, I have not found any way to do this yet.

Google has a full suite of applications for S60.  The ones I use are Search (accessible by pressing the C key from the idle screen, and now featuring voice recognition), Maps with Lattitude, Sync (SyncML or Exchange ActiveSync), and YouTube.  From Opera, I use Google Voice, Calendar, Reader, and iGoogle.

I would like to make special note of the Google Sync features for a couple of reasons.  The first is that being able to access your contacts and calendar features from your phone AND anywhere you can access the internet, is very, very handy.  The second? Something strange was happening when I was synchronizing both contact and calendar information that was causing the birthdays of my contacts to drift, making them all a few days younger!  Disabling the calendar sync has not helped, so I'm going back to the SyncML method.  Google? FIX IT!

The music application works well, and can be accessed with the phone either opened or closed, and there are many playback options to configure to your taste.  There isn't any 3.5mm headphone jack, so you're options are limited to using the somewhat proprietary 2.5mm headset jack or Bluetooth.  I'm using bluetooth, and it works great.  This phone does not appear to have any limitation as to what sort of audio is being listened to in order to pump audio through the bluetooth connection. One of my previous phones required a headset that supported A2DP in order to play back .wav or .mp3 files, or it would play throught the phone's speaker.  Nokia does not have that limitation.

One of the features not included with this phone is picture GeoTagging, but it can be added by installing Nokia's Location Tagger software.  This is built into many of their phones, but is not included with the 6650 fold, probably due to RAM constraints again. It loads up when you start the phone, grabs your location with the GPS, goes to sleep, then wakes up the GPS when you launch the camera application.  Any pictures taken after the GPS has reaquired your location are geotagged.

In closing, I have to say again that while there are a lot of limitations to what this phone comes with, there is plenty it can do if you know where to look, and while there are many signs saying Symbian might not have much longer to live in this world, the fact is that it allows for plenty of added functionality for a very cheap (and fairly durable) flip-phone. Thank you, Nokia 6650 Fold, for being a great temporary measure.

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A new toy in my pocket

I got a new phone. Not one of the ones I've been aspiring to reacquire from Sony Ericsson, but an upgrade nonetheless. I was going to hold out and just purchase an SE model this summer, but was tired of being frustrated by the Samsung Blackjack I had been using. The Blackjack has lots of features, but is overall very unsatisfying.

My new phone is a Nokia 6650 Fold (not anywhere close to the original 6650), from AT&T Wireless, which is different yet than the regular 6650 Fold you might find from other networks or independent dealers. AT&T wanted to make it a little different, to show off their navigation software and PTT features on this phone, so it has a few more buttons to mess with.

Part of my agenda with this phone is to undo some of the crap AT&T has done to make it "theirs," and make it a little more my own. Symbian is a new beast to me, so I'll be learning for a long time to come, but I am already enjoying some of the benefits of this phone.

Bluetooth: I can conclusively say that bluetooth reception and transmission on the Blackjack sucks. I went back to trying out my Sony Ericsson over-the-ear headset for this phone, because it is the best sounding, least intrusive, and most comfortable headset I have. This headset had a problem with the microphone not always working with the Blackjack, and I still need to test this out. The other problem I saw with this headset was in being able to keep it connected to the phone. This is no longer a problem with the 6650 (hooray!!). The NEW feature with the Nokia is that it pings the headset when a message is received, so I can set the phone to complete silence and tell from the headset when something has happened.

Flexibility: The phone's menu system can be presented in a number of ways, and I still haven't decided what I like more. The addition of touch sensitive buttons for the external display allows for some nice features. I can scan text messages without opening it up, and have access to the calendar, stopwatch, timer, camera, and music player!

The funny thing I see with this phone is that it is running what is normally recognized as a smart phone operating system, but because it isn't from Microsoft or Apple, and only has a numeric keypad, it has been given access to the cheaper data plan from AT&T. I love that.

What I'll be doing next is adding some applications to use the GPS built into it. The phone comes with the AT&T Navigator software built in, but that costs money for the service and data (separately). There is navigation software available that can be used with map data stored on the memory card, which is preferable right now, as I only want to be able to see how far I'm walking at lunch, or whenever else. I would also like to see if it has any geotagging options.

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e-Tools Quick Take...

Just a quick update, here:

I found a work-around for Blogger's inability to keep completed tasks from showing up in my "Blogs to Be" sidebar gadget. This was coming from a Remember The Milk task list, and has probably only been read three or four times in the correct manner. I found out how to change the feed from Atom (default) to RSS, and now it works! At least there is a workaround for Blogger's ineptitude.

Since my favorite browser, Flock, has now integrated the photo sharing services of Tinypic into its Media Bar, I have signed up as well. Another member of my household has been a longtime user of this service, for stuffing her blogs full of pictures, so I have some catching up to do.

I've added a Digg feed to the sidebar, but unlike the gadgets referencing the most popular articles on Digg, these are just my own most recent diggs. You're here (all 2.5 of you) to read my spewage, so you deserve to see the "garbage-in" side of me as well. Look for "What the heck is kEnny reading?" on the right.

...

On a somewhat unrelated note, something funny happened between last night and this morning. On a whim I decided to look up the ShamWOW guy, Vince Clortho Offer. I found his Wikipedia page and used twitter to make note of it. This morning I got an email from twitter announcing that _VINCEOFFER_ was following me on twitter! How very interesting!!

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I'm Totally Digging Flock!!!

What blatant advertisement right? Well, I'm doing it for a reason: I like to keep certain people informed of what I'm up to, to the point that I can send a some people (mostly one) up to 20 links in a day. Why should i be cloggin up their email if I can make it available to them on the interwebs? I don't know!!

I've been watching Digg for some time, and I became a member once Flock included them as one of the social networks to integrate in their browser, but I had never actually done anything with it before today. I've added Digg buttons to my blog templates, and started doing some Digging of my own. I have a Digg gadget on my iGoogle page, and the best part of course, is using Digg with Flock.

Flock makes it SO EASY to see the articles you and your Digg friends have dug, by displaying them in Flock's Media Bar! No hassle, no muss, no fuss. You know what else? It's all free, and works great!

So please consider trying out Flock and Digg together, just so I don't have to be filling your email inbox with links!!

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Why I [heart] Gmail... and the dire consequences that follow!

This is a two-sided entry, in that I'm going to attempt to explain my love for a particular Google email product while tempering that with some respectful fear of the juggernaut that is Google.

As some folks may be aware I used to be a die hard user of Microsoft Outlook for all my PIM and email activities. I didn't use is so much because I thought it was the best, but it was something I used on a daily basis at work, and I wasn't paying much for it either. Familiarity does have its privilege, and it made me a more efficient user at work as well. Outlook was (and still can be) a good option for many folks wanting to achieve a higher level of organization in their life, but only with hard work and a higher understanding of where your own strengths and efficiencies lay. Without extensive tweaking, Outlook sucks right out of the box, and always has. The Power, as with most Microsoft Office products, lies in the flexibility of the software. If you don't take the time to mold it to your needs first, you are really wasting a couple hundred dollars. There have been many Add-Ins devised for Outlook to make the jump to a higher level of productivity easier, but I became aware of them long after I had already made my own similar modifications for use at work. Oops!

When Gmail (still in Beta to this day) came along, like many other local email clients, Google refined the interface to allow more organization. The best part was that it was a web app, so you could access the same information almost anywhere. It literally puts any other POP-based email from your ISP to shame, and still takes the cake compared to the cluttered (and usually advertising laced) competition from most other webmail hosts.

The most powerful of Gmail's features are Filters. Using filters you can let the service sort your email for you, assigning labels, forwarding or replying, even deleting incoming email as you decide necessary. Some folks adhere to a task-based form of email sorting called Inbox-Zero, which makes use of deleting or archiving email you don't need in front of you anymore to do whatever job you are doing. Gmail does this exceedingly well. I don't follow these rules quite so vigorously, but I do archive (after labelling) any advertising to remove it from my inbox view. This keeps all of my inbox email limited to purchase transactions, voicemail alerts, and personal corespondence.

Another handy feature of Gmail is the ability to use "aliases". You can add extra text in the middle of your Gmail address to differentiate it for different purposes or senders. Check here for an example. I use "+voicemail" to let the filters know to label voicemail alerts appropriately, and "+shopalerts" for alerts from Dealnews and Pricegrabber.

The latest set of features is an expansion of the Google Labs concept, but for Gmail exclusively. Gmail Labs givs you access to potential Gmail features which may or may not make it into Gmail on a "permanent" basis later on. The ones I make use of rearrange the interface to make my most used functions more available. I move the labels above the contacts, set the reply button to default to reply-to-all, and add a Mark-as-Read button on the toolbar.

As with any "productivity" tool, a lot of the tool's strength lies in its ability to integrate with other applications. Google has made Gmail a central player in their "suite" of tools, making it a conduit for their Calendar, Apps, and Groups applications, and fully integrating Google Talk (now with AOL IM) into the interface as well.

And now for the dark side: Yes, Google has me. I share everything with them. And everything you share with me is then, by extension, shared with them as well. They are my Big Brother, but for the moment I am happy to play guinea pig if it means they can continue to make better tools and widgets to make my life easier. Thanks Google.

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E-Tools that have me hexed, and some that don't.

This is more of a feedback entry than introducing anything new, and for that I apologize. There are a number of my regular tools whose usage has changed and their operation (or lack of) should be noted.

Where to begin... Twitter has been all over the place, functionally speaking. I've recommended it's use to a number of people, both as an organizational aide and for fun, and for about half of those instances there has been something bad going on over at Twitter. I'm happy to say that overall, they seem to have gotten it together, but it hasn't been without some loss of functionality elsewhere. One of those losses has been my twitter sidebar gadget (formerly on the right). Since the gadget doesn't work at the moment, and I don't seem to be able to capture the RSS feed, I decided to remove it for now. I'm keeping it on my mobile blog, if only for the link it still provides.

I have been a little "mixed bag" about Flock's most recent beta (you know, probably because it is a beta!). One of it's downfalls for me has been the (hopefully temporary) loss of keystroke access to the blog editor. The new security features inherited from Firefox have been a pain to deal with, but I can see their necessity.

One good note is that where I had previously been unable to use Flock's blog editor without trouble from the Flock Blog Plus add-on, I'm not having that problem any more.

Google's Send to Phone add-on for Firefox has been retired. I've come up with a substitute of sorts, by borrowing from the clues left by Flock when sharing a link via webmail. I now have a bookmark to open Gmail's Compose Message page, with the To: address filled in with my phone's SMS address. This works almost as good, as Send to Phone did.

***

In my last big post, discussing event organizing, somebody left a comment saying how great their product was. I thought I'd try it out. After reading up on it a little, I made an account for myself and attempted to login, but it didn't work. To make matters worse, there was no password recovery/reset tool either. So much for being able to recommend it.

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E-Tools evolved: Flock 2.0 Beta after Firefox 3

This is my first blog entry after installing Flock 2.0 Beta almost a week ago. It has been very interesting. There are good and bad parts. Most of the bad parts have to do with added security that was part of Firefox 3. I have many useful add-ons installed, but because many did not have secure updates they were disabled. I really hope the capable folks who put these extensions together can make the necessary changes to allow me to continue using their products. Some keyboard shortcuts are not working properly yet. Ctrl-Shift-B should open the blog editor, but instead opens the Bookmark manager.

The good news is that Flock is now much faster to load, even on my laptop (hmmm... is that because my add-ons were too bloaty?). It also benefits from Firefox 3's revamped address bar.

As my usage of facebook has continued, I've become even more greatful for Flock's People Bar (not exactly new). I can see all of my friends' updates on twitter and facebook at once from the sidebar. It really is rather convenient.

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E-tools update: Feedburner, FuelFrog, and Meanderings on Twitter

This post is a conglomerate that has been waiting for some time, so here we go.

The first item has been around for quite some time, but I am relatively new to: FeedBurner. This service takes any news feed, and dresses it up so you can do more with it. I've been trying for some time to get my "blogs to be" list attached to the sidebar of this blog, to keep me on track with everything I want to write about and give you a preview of what's to come. I found out that Blogger has a little problem grabbing items from Remember The Milk, and was left with Blogger showing items that had already been completed in addition to the ones not yet done. I did a little looking around and found FeedBurner, a product purchased by (who else?) Google a while back. I found that by pointing FeedBurner at my "blogs to be" list at Remember The Milk, then pointing the Blogger sidebar gadget to the resulting Feedburner feed, everything worked fine! I know it isn't ideal, but I won't have to worry about it again, and I'm happy for that.

Next up is FuelFrog. This is a simple service that offers functions I've been chasing for some time. I've been a long-time believer that keeping track of your car's gas mileage can be a handy way to gauge the relative health of your car. The hard part has always been getting myself to consistently log my fuel usage, or was it doing something with that data later on? In any case, FuelFrog makes it simple to do both. What would make it even better would be to use the mileage entries to integrate service reminders.

Now, I have to rant and rave a little more about .

Raves first: Since blogging about the uses of Twitter, my tweets have gone from private to public so I could (once again) add something else to my sidebar and demonstrate some of the goodness behind Twitter. I'm sure somebody has to be doing this already, but I think there are some really fun games that could be played between friends via Twitter. I originally started thinking poetry would be fun to post one stanza at a time (either ascending or descending order), which evolved into playing "Whose Line Is It Anyway" games. This could be fun. Anybody want to play Scenes from a Hat?

Rants last: For all the mixed opinions about Twitter, it sure has some big issues to overcome. One of them is growth. As it's number of users grow, and the numbers of followings and followers blossom, it seems to be having more problems keeping up. I hope they can find an operational framework that will allow them to grow without taking the service down (willingly or unwillingly).

The drawback to adding my tweets to the public time line is being discovered by the Collectors. This is the term I have coined to refer to those individuals that have bought into the thought that you have real influence over the people that follow you, and that by following complete strangers they will follow you in return. I've been found by a number of these people, and while I have allowed a few of them to receive my updates, I have blocked a few more. I see no use for such efforts, when it does nothing for me but to make it harder for me to handle my own lists of genuine "followers".

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E-Tools that don't Cinco el Buque

(I've been trying for so hard to find the name for part 5. Please forgive my lingual mutilation)

This time I'm going to discuss some specifics in using Twitter and Remember The Milk. They seem to be the services that my friends and family have the most problems with. I'm going to start with Remember The Milk, as it is more immediately useful to those who might feel a little daunted by the two at first glance. I seem to be most successful when I can demonstrate the cool stuff first, then encourage the newbs to try it out for themselves.

Remember The Milk is all about lists and how to access and add to them. Checking off items can be useful as well, depending on what you are using the lists for. Lists, or any items within them, can be made public or shared with people that have been added to your RTM Contacts (they have to be RTM users as well. I keep finding new things to make lists of, things that are genuinely useful! The kicker here is that you can access your lists via SMS (with the help of Twitter), mobile web browser, your desktop computer's browser, and even news feeds.

My big thrill for friends and family is Birthday Lists. Everybody is trying to figure out at the last minute what to get somebody for their birthday. We can near-completely solve this by simply populating a list and publishing it. Any lists you have published can be seen by anyone on the web, and has it's own news feed as well. I have shared such a list here. You can see that it is pretty sparse right now, but hopefully you get the point. Now you know what I want for my Birthday!!

An example of using news feeds can be seen in the sidebar. Look for "kEnny's Tasks - Blogs To Be" on the right. This is my list of reminders for things I want to write about. The list is hosted by RTM, but now you can see it from my blog.

How about your favorite books, or books you want to read? Make a new list for the ones you haven't read yet, populate the list with books you want to read, then check them off as you finish them. You have just made a new list of recently read books, that can be added to your blog. it gets updated automatically as you add them and mark others complete. You can move the best ones to a "Favorite Books" list and add that to your blog as well!

I love movies, and I love seeing them in well equipped, modern theaters. Ever since the early nineties, I have avidly watched previews to find the next movie I need to see, then kept the lists to remind me of what I wanted to see later on. I first used PDAs of various sorts for this. I stopped being quite so much of a geek (I mean by whipping out a PDA and typing or writing on it during movie previews, the rest is kinda hard to wash off) when I found a companion to enjoy movies with. Now that I have RTM and Twitter, I am doing it again with my cell phone, which isn't nearly so out of place. At home, I can go through the list of movies and use IMDB to add opening dates, websites, and any other details. Weeks later, RTM sends me a reminder for the movies opening that day. It shows up on my cell phone as an SMS message, courtesy of Twitter, and my email inbox. If I miss a movie and it isn't in the theaters any more, I move it to my movies-to-see-at-home list, and the due date is removed. Now I can watch for it to be available on TV or DVD. I would like to eventually connect that one to a TiVo Wishlist or Netflix Queue. That would be sweet! WAIT! I'm going to add that to my to-do list right now!

I also love music. I've spent a lot of money on music over the course of my years as a bachelor, but in acquiring extra mouths in my household I have come to realize that the same money is better spent elsewhere. I'm very lucky that the popularity of MP3s popped in not long before my first household companion showed up. The good part about having other ears in the house is that I get exposure to music I might not otherwise ever come across. The bad part is that I don't have anywhere near as much spare time for uninterrupted tune-browsing as I used to. Now I can make a note right away for music I need to look for. At my computer is where I can sort the list contents. In my spare time I can see where those songs or artists lead me. Music ID services and HD radio data are also very informative sources for artist and song information, and I'm looking forward to using those to automatically populate my music list in the future.

I'm moving next month, so I started a list of all the big stuff we have to ensure we have the proper facilities to transfer them to the new house. I shared the list with Allison so we both know what we have in front of us.

When I've got a bill or other important matter to attend to in the near future, I send it to RTM, so I don't forget. It only takes a minute to make the note, and I don't ever have to worry about misplacing it.

Does it get better? Yes. Using tags and locations (RTM integrates Google Maps), you can connect items from multiple lists. There's a multitude of ways to manipulate data in RTM. Sign up now, then go here for help setting it up. You won't regret it.

Next?

This is where Twitter comes in. At its core, Twitter is known as a micro-blog. You can send short messages to update your status, and you can "follow" your friends' updates at the same time. Many services (like RTM, duh!) use Twitter as the glue between you and their operations. This population is what gets me excited about using it, because Twitter is so connectible to begin with. You can send and receive updates (and therefore message to the other services) from the mobile devices via text message, email, IM, and their web page, to name only the direct methods. There are scores of other desktop gadgets and programs that can do it as well. My favorite-est browser, , has Twitter functionality built into the sidebar. Between my phone and Flock, I get all the Twitter love I need.

Twitter is smart, too! If you set it up for multiple interfaces (IM, SMS, and Web), it can figure out the best place to contact you. When you have a message coming in, and you aren't logged into your IM service, it can go to your phone. If you designate hours when you don't want Twitter sending Tweets to your phone, it only leaves them in your log on the web for you to check on later. You can also selectively enable alerts from certain folks and services so that you are not totally inundated with incoming Tweets all the time. That was the part that took me a while to catch on to. Every time I added a new entity to follow, I also had to enable their alerts to come to my phone. After that it all works great!

I'm only following one actual person on Twitter: one of my sisters, whom I have suckered into trying it out. I follow 2 services: RTM and Xpen$er (which I haven't done a whole lot with yet). I have also set up two accounts to post to, using Twittermail, that I follow. Twittermail allows you to send an email to post to your Twitter account, and is great for coordinating activities for large groups of people. Anyone who knows the correct address can post comments or directions to everyone following that account. One recent example of such coordination was protesters trying to get face-time with the Olympic torch. I have set one up for use during a week-long family reunion this summer, and another to help coordinate resources at work. You can follow updates from your favorite political candidate, and many other entertaining and informative people.

That's what I've got for now. Tune in later to see what title I come up with for the next installment.

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An Update in General

I've been busy lately, but not here exactly. I started two new blogs that more adequately address some of my desires for outlet of late.

The first was Pushing Wool, a place where I do my part to hinder or help the larger coordinated efforts to pull the wool over our collective eyes. Having been trained throughout my life to be suspicious and look for ulterior motives, I feel well equipped to address these issues. I know there are many other worthy places to look for such illumination, but I think most of them have either jumped the shark and/or been swallowed by the gigantic loom of lies and misinformation.

The second blog, which I just kicked off a few days ago, was something I had been considering for a long time. It wasn't until somebody came out and said I should write for one of the beloved car magazines, that I really considered giving my own thoughts on the topic more than just lip service (because I really can talk about cars all day long). Once given the nudge, I was determined to give it a name both clever and self-centered enough to meet or exceed the standards set by my other blogs. I finally came up with Autogotistical Carpinions.

In the process of becoming inspired on the spot for topics about which to blather on about (see?), I've been trying to utilize any possible tools at hand to make it easier to keep track of my thoughts for expounding upon later. I'm now using Remember The Milk for that purpose, via Jott or by SMS via Twitter when I'm on the go. When I organize my task inbox later, the blog ideas get filtered into their own list, which you can see the contents of in the sidebar of this blog and both of the new blogs. This was my first attempt at using the news feed from a list of reminders. I like the fact that you can make some of the static blog content a little more dynamic without too much babysitting.

So that's what I've been up to. Keep an eye out for more from each blog. I'll probably be adding a news feed for each blog on the other, for a little cross-promotional action.

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kEnny's E-Tool Fourvarites!!

These are my mobile phone essentials, compiled over the last year and some, since outgrowing my Motorola RAZR V3. They are somewhat tailored for use on my Sony Ericsson K790a Cybershot Cameraphone. Yes, I called it a Cameraphone with a capital C. My rule is that if it has more than 2 mega pixels and a REAL flash, it gets a capital C. Get one for yourself and you'll see why. There are a few available now with 5MP sensors as well.

Daily Use Tools: These are the programs and websites I use every day, to keep in touch and up to date.

• 4INFO: While it is a very capable source of information for mobile browsers and SMS related queries, I primarily use 4INFO to give me my morning weather forecast on the weekdays. The infospace supplied services for AT&T Wireless still suck for regularly scheduled alerts.
• Twitter/Remember The Milk: I don't use Twitter other than to connect to Remember the Milk, for which I am contually finding more uses. I just recently added lists for Movies and TV shows to see, gifts to get for people, and music to take another listen to. When I happen to catch a movie, I can type in the names of the previews to add to the list. When I'm listening to the radio in the car, I use Jott to tell RTM who I need to listen to again (because I try to make a concious effort not to take my eyes off the road). When my kids start asking about all the neato cool stuff they have got to get, as told to them by various children's television networks, I can keep track of those as well. RTM has a very easy to navigate mobile site, which really shows off how flexible their service is. As a side note, Remember The Milk just got whole lot better by using a Firefox add-in to integrate closely with your Gmail Inbox. Very sharp!!!
• Jott: I have to check in at Jott's website every week or so for new Jott Links. My favorite new one is called Trapster. Sure, Trapster has their own software that runs on your GPS enabled mobile device (mine is not yet), but if you just want to do your part and look out for your fellow drivers, you can use Jott to send the exact location and type of service spotted to Trapster's database, in a safe manner!
• GrandCentral: Since starting my E-Tool monologue, GrandCentral has graduated to the only voicemail service used for my cell phone. After re-enabling the internet access for the phone, and realizing that calling AT&T's voicemail counts against your anytime minutes (during the daytime of weekdays), I realized that I could keep a few more rollover minutes by using my unlimited Media Net access to check my voice mail visual-style from GrandCentral's mobile site. It took a little digging, but I found the generic GSM commands to send from my phone to change from ATTWS voicemail to GrandCentral. *** Know what makes this cool now? I can give my GrandCentral number to anyone, and it will either screen the call or forward it to my cell phone (or any number of other phones I specify), based on my preference. When I can't answer my cell phone, same thing! The links to the voicemail messages are sent to my Gmail inbox, just like my Vonage voicemails, and both services send SMS alerts to my phone.
• Weather Underground: This is the sexiest website for weather, hands down! Not only does it give you an amazing amount of information (lots of great Google Maps mashups), but it has advertising for meeting single people in your local weather area too!! I use their RSS feed to get detailed weather predictions each day.
• Google's mobile services: Where do I start? Headlines via RSS, Gmail and Google Maps from Java applications, and browser bookmarks for local movies. Of special note is Google Maps. They added the ability to triangulate your location based on cell tower data, allowing remarkable fun watching the map move when you aren't driving. It is also handy for looking up directions. The directions can start out from your approximate location. You can also get loads of information via SMS queries.
• Blogger gets special mention apart from the rest of Google, as my phone has software made specially for it. Blogger can be configured to send SMS, MMS, and other picture messages from my phone (directly after taking the picture, even) directly to the Blogger blog of your choice. Since I only use Blogger, there's no problem.
• Fandango: While I have been hesitant to use Fandango previously, due to Regal Cinemas as Comcast relations, I have to admint that they have a pretty good mobile portal. They have the only movie listings I have found where you can view show times for future dates. You can even purchase tickets from your mobile.
• Yahoo! Go: This is one I've been following for some time, but still isn't available for the firmware version on my phone. I had a chance to try it out on a Samsung Blackjack, where it worked really well. Yahoo! Go packs in all kinds of Yahoo! content in an easy to navigate package. If you are a Yahoo! user, this should be at the top of your list.
  

That does it for now. You can expect part five when I come up with a clever way to phrase the title. :^)

Blogged with Flock

Tricked out with Flock and keyboard shortcuts...

The last thing I didn't like about Flock has a work-around:



The "Share this link via email" button hasn't worked the way I would like it to, because it uses your system's default email client to send an email, and I hadn't figured out how to make Windows use a website as an email client. I found out that Google Talk has such an option, which will make this button open a new tab to compose a message in Gmail. I have also read that Flock will address this disparity in the near future.

I just thought I'd spread some more Flock lovin' around. :^)


I have also been sending a little more time on my desktop system. You know the one with the ergonomic keyboard? Last night I Googlefied (I'm sure that's a word!!) the software for it to use the shortcut keys to open new tabs for various google products in my favorite browser. Here they are from Left to Right:

1. Web/Home: iGoogle
2. Search: New Gmail Message
3. Mail: Gmail Inbox
4. Favorite 1: Google Calendar
5. Favorite 2: Google Docs
6. Favorite 3: Picasa Web Albums (more Google)
7. Favorite 4: Google Maps
8. Favorite 5: Object Edit
   

I really like this setup. I'll save the Object Edit explanation for another post. For now I'll just say that if you have never heard of Stardock or Object Desktop, you need to check them out NOW!!!!

Blogged with Flock

kEnny's Favorite E-Tools- thReevisited!!

I've got a couple more Flock-specific add-ins to write about.

The first I'm using as this very moment. It is called Flock Blog Plus, and it is really slick. It integrates a whole bunch of extra features to Flock's already-more-than-handy blog editor. The features I am appreciating most right now are the lower-pane editor window and the extra link functions.

The second is called geoFlock. I like playing with maps from time to time, on both a computer and on my phone, so this is a nice tool to add to the arsenal. Maybe for the next caving trip I take?

Next visitation: More fun on your phone!

kEnny's Favorite E-Tools... Part Deux!!

For this post, we'll focus on my favorite Firefox extensions, and which ones you can use with Flock. Extensions make Firefox fun! I use a variety of extensions, depending on the computer I am using. Here they are in no particular order:

• Adsense Notifier: It's really funny that I use this extension, as I don't seem to give any of the advertisers on this blog much in the way of business. It gives you a quick, unobtrusive look at how much Google is going to pay you for all your hard work. I don't know if it works on Flock. I haven't had any reason to try it yet. :^(
• del.ico.us Bookmarks: I got turned on to del.ico.us through using Flock. After running my favorites in the same manner for quite some time, I was looking for a new way to work them. While I don't use it over built-in favorites, I also don't leave it out.
• Download Manager Tweak: This one adds extra options to Firefox's Download Manager.
  
• Download Sort: I used to be a great fan of this extension, but numerous security updates have hobbled it to the point of being nearly useless. Being a big collector of skins for various forms of software (Winamp, WindowBlinds, etc.), this tool was indispensable for filtering different file types into separate folders.
• Gmail Manager: I used to use Gmail Notifier, but the added functionality of inbox previews, and support for multiple Gmail accounts made me switch. Unfortunately, the mail count functionality doesn't work in Flock! I hope one or the other gets fixed soon.
• GMarks: This one takes Google Bookmarks and makes it part of your built-in bookmarks as well. If I'm ever out of contact with one of my own computers, I can still get to my regularly visited sites this way, and synchronize my bookmarks across multiple computers.
• Google Calendar Notifier: This is the next most convenient item to your cell phone with text messaging for keeping up with appointments on your Google Calendar(s). It provides you with quick mouse-over access to upcoming events, and provides pop up alerts as well. You can color code each calendar to make them easy to tell apart.
  
• Google Send to Phone: This isn't real complicated, but can be incredibly handy. High lite any text on a web page, then with just a couple more clicks you can send it to your cell phone via SMS.
  
• ForecastFox: Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I've been a fan of the weather for many years. And you never know if the forecast is really going to be right of not. ForecastFox gives you upcoming forecasts as well as radar data, so you have quick access to local weather information from Accuweather.
  
• FoxyTunes: Foxy Tunes brings the fun to web browsing, after all that productive crap I already mentioned. FoxyTunes acts as an unobtrusive remote control for your favorite media player.

Do you have any favorites firefox extensions not listed here? Tell me what you like and how you use it. If I like it, I'll add it to the list!

Blogged with Flock

kEnny's Favorite E-Tools!

Let me preface this entry with the notice that one of the tools listed here, of which I am undoubtedly a fan of - and could even be considered an evangelist for, rather failed me the other day. I was well into the task of typing the original version of this post, when Flock choked and lost all but the title. Oops!!

I have been on a quest for a number of years to become more elegantly (but not intrusively so) organized on a number of levels. In this time of ever-increasing availability of information I have found quite the smörgåsbord of options for keeping one's life in order. My particular quandary lies in the fact that there are times when I spend copious amounts of time using a computers, lots of computers, and others when I am glad to stay away for a nice long time.

I have enjoyed the usage of Microsoft Outlook at work in keeping me aware of and (as much as it is able to) on time for appointments. Before the days of cell phones that could synchronize their calendars with PIMs, I found a way to keep myself current while away from my own PC: using VBA to forward Outlook's pop-up notifications to my cell phone. I can't tell you how many meetings this kept me from missing. It made me aware that there are always alternative means to keep on schedule, and that I could increase the productivity of others by promoting that awareness.

At work, I use Outlook to keep track of multiple projects, remind me of mundane tasks, tell me where and when my meetings are, and keep the unimportant stuff from getting in the way of my work. While Outlook is a very capable application for work, have untethered myself from it for personal organization, as it requires me to be attached to a single computer. At home I have 3 different PCs I use, so it just doesn't do the job. Browser based email and calendaring, coupled with easy integration of newer "smart phones", give me the continuity I ask for without keeping me tied to a computer screen. The purpose of this post is to increase the awareness of many of the handy tools I have found, and maybe some of their lesser known features as well.


Web Browsers- There are a few big ones to choose from, and a lot of others that leverage their technology. While Internet Explorer is a necessary evil at work, it has no compelling features that make me want to recommend it. Here are my favorites:

• Opera: Very flexible and standards compliant. Available across multiple platforms, including mobile devices. Want to know what I like it best for? Setting the default magnification allows me to browse the web easilly on the 61" TV from across the room without ever having to fiddle with the settings again. Unlike any other web browser I have tried, Opera alters the size of images and plug-ins like Flash movies to scale the whole page (not just the text) for easy viewing. It seems to have some problems with some sites using Ajax features, but I've read that can be as much the website's fault as Opera's. Opera also includes voice support, by allowing you to control it vocally, and it can read content back to you.
  
• Firefox: My favorite all purpose browser. Firefox's strength is in it's ability to add functions thought up by smart people not associated directly with the browser's development. I'll touch on some of my favorite ones shortly.
• Flock: Based on Firefox's Gecko rendering engine, Flock is a wonder to behold. Coined as "The Social Web Browser", Flock has gone and integrated support for many of the more popular hot spots on the web, making quick work of uploading photos & videos, blogging, bookmarking, and keeping up with your friends who are doing the same. I try to use it for all my blog posts, because the off line capabilities combined with powerful online integration make it a very pleasurable experience. Like Firefox, Flock can be enhanced with extensions, and in fact many of the extensions written for the former can be used by the latter.

Websites & Online Services- In trying to make my own and other information available from my phone (via SMS-only right now) and from any computer I end up being attached to, I have assembled a bushel of helpers. I should stress that because most of these services offer some level of SMS functionality, it really doesn't matter what kind of mobile phone you have (even if you end up putting your phone through the laundry and have to use a substitute for a while). Here they are:

• Google: Talk about overload. It seems like I am always curious what Google is up to next. When they buy a company or enhance any service, I am all over it. They have extensive resources available on the web of course, but many of them bridge across to mobile use as well. I use GMail and Google Calendar to keep my personal life in order. While my cell phone's calendar gets synchronized with my work calendar, Google's Calendar sends me SMS messages to remind me where I need to be. I can add new events and invite people by sending an SMS message to GVENT. Google's recent purchase of GrandCentral caused me to sign up for that service as well. It is a universal voice telephone routing/messaging service that has so many possibilities I can't begin to tell you what they do in this post. Everything I get from Google is free of charge. I'm sure I'll end up paying for it in some other way.
• Yahoo!: I'll admit that I'm more attached to Google than Yahoo!, but Yahoo! has some very compelling competition to most things I use from Google. Something I've been wanting to try out from Yahoo! was their latest version of Yahoo! Go for mobile phones. It wraps up all their best mobile accessible content and squeezes it into an easy-to-use interface.
• AOL Instant Messenger: Don't get me wrong, I'm not really into instant messaging too much after it got me married (and it was AIM that did it, too). But after I got my first "nice" phone and was looking for ways to exercise it, I went looking for an IMAP email service that offered Push service. For a brief explanation, most email software needs to be running for you to find out that you have unread messages (the client PULLs the messages from the server), where Push services notify the client first (and in this case the client was my phone). AIM's email service is the only one I have found in the US offering free Push email service that didn't require extra software to be running on your PC or phone. Using AIM, I had working Visual Voicemail while it was just a cool idea at Apple.
• Vonage: I can't say they have distinctive service any more, and I can't say they are the best price in town, but they are the ones with the most reputation to protect. They give us reliable phone service with LOTS of features for a very low price. I get SMS alerts when someone leaves a message, and the messages are emailed to any email inbox I desire. Thanks for offering an alternative to Qwest!
• 4INFO: I found 4INFO after being disappointed by Cingular/AT&T's unreliable SMS alerts lack of punctuality (I think their "service" is contracted through Infospace, remember them?). After dropping the unlimited internet plan from my phone in favor of unlimited family messaging, I stopped my morning weather RSS feeds on my phone, and changed to morning weather SMS messages. I stuck with 4INFO because I can put up with the unobtrusive advertising at the bottom of the message, and because they send the information when I ask them to.
• Windows Live Alerts: This one I'm a little on the fence about, but I joined on the off chance that it would pay off. They supposedly offer local traffic updates, no matter how local you want to get, but I haven't gotten anything yet. Microsoft gets traffic data from both NAVTEQ and Inrix, so I figure if there's gonna be anything to report in Olympia, WA, it should be available there.
• Twitter: If I were a social butterfly, I'm sure I would be using this constantly. Twitter allows other you and your friends to keep track of the other's life via short messages that can either be entered via the internet or SMS. I think it would be fun for a large group of people to tour a park or zoo together. I only use it so far to access my To-Do List, brought to you by my next featured service:
• Remember The Milk: This service is my non-Outlook task reminder for things that don't go on the Google Calendar very well. RTM can be used for scheduling as well, but I like that I can use fairly plain English to set a reminder via SMS, quickly and easily. The first tab on my iGoogle home page contains an RTM widget now, which complements my Google Calendar widget quite nicely.
• Jott: This is one I just read about while looking for tips on advanced usages of RTM, and instantly had to join. There is a service that Vonage provides for an extra fee per message, or you can spend a little extra for multiple messages prepaid: Transcribed Voice mail. Jott doesn't quite do that to follow the same function as Vonage. You call Jott (toll free number is 1-866-JOTT-123) tell the machine who the message is for, and speak the message you want delivered, then Jott sends an email to the recipient with the transcribed message. The person(s) being addressed has to be in your Jott phone book for it to work.
  

While I really wanted to go into more detail about Firefox extensions and how I have all of these toys arranged to keep me happy, I think I'll have to make this a multi-part entry instead.

Come back for Part II!!!

Blogged with Flock

Much ado about Blah-Blah Blah

I'm sitting here with some time on my hands, so I thought I'd get some typing practice on my lovely ergonomic keyboard, which I have just recently rediscovered at my (gasp!) desk. This won't quite be a freewrite session so much as some of my thoughts of late, and what I would like to do about them. Meanwhile I'll be digesting my tasty turkey salad sandwich.

If I don't think about it, I'm a decent touch typist. I can go on for quite a stretch when I don't think about it. Too bad I am at the moment.

I've always enjoyed watching movies in theaters, so much that even though I have an entirely adequate home theater, I still have a hard time staying away from the local cinema. One of the things I'm preparing to tell you about has to do with my desire to go visit the movie theater. I'm not doing it so much to share my unending combination of lazy bastard and geek, but because I think I should document it somewhere so that when you see it later, you'll know I had the idea first.

My job allows me quite a bit of flexibility, and sometimes I choose to take longer lunch breaks than I might under normal circumstances. I used to comb through the movie listings from Google and Yahoo! to find the best movie to watch at the best time, at the best theater. In rather short order, that became too much like work (hey, does that make you wonder what I do? It sure makes me wonder). I decided it would be better to let someone else take care of this heavy lifting for me. Since one of my children is just beginning to read, I didn't feel comfortable giving this responsibility to them yet. I decided to see if I could get my trusty copy of Microsoft Office to do it for me.

My goal was to assemble a list of movies to wach at lunch, sorted by the approximate time of my return to work. I had used Excel in my search for a new HDTV before by using it to grab prices from one of the popular price-search websites, so I was somewhat familiar with using web queries, and manipulating the data from those queries. I started by looking at the data presented by a number of websites. I have still only found one that consistently differentiates AM times from PM times: Yahoo! was the one, so I set out to customize a query for each area theater to download the movies and showtimes on their own worksheet. This seemed to be working well, so I set out to start manipulating the data to assemble the return-drive offset times.

About halfway through this process I began realizing that Yahoo! was Screwing! With! Me! They were throwing ads and switching up the order of the theaters, so that I was not always getting the showtimes for the theaters I thought I was. I figured I would sort that out later as I was starting to work out a good system for converting a long string containing multiple times into multiple time entries with the correct 24hr time format (so I didn't try to watch an 11pm show at 11am). Next I put together another worksheet which would display all of the results. I decided at this point that it might be handy to filter for just a single movie. Yahoo! also had me covered because they could give me a list of just movies, guaranteed to have the same name as the lists of movies at each theaters. Now I had two sort methods to figure out, and a recurring problem with my movie theaters not staying in the same spot.

I decided to rework the whole thing. If yahoo wasn't going to give me consistent results, I had to make a smarter spreadsheet. Instead of grabbing the same webpage 10 times to get one small table I would download it once, then parse each line to sort each theater's shows into their own worksheet, where my previous technique of pulling out the showtimes could be reused.

This gave me an idea for another "feature". There were some theaters I really didn't care to waste my time on, so I grafted in some more creative math to ignore the ones I didn't have an alias or commute time for (duh, because I wasn't going to go there) once the data got copied to the report worksheet. This way it could all be processed the same way, and would be simply hidden from view in the end, maybe not the most efficient for processing, but much simpler for me to design with Excel. I also threw in an option for a second "base" location, with a second set of drive-times. Now I could find out when I might get back to work OR home after seeing a movie. Nice!

Is the current form we have a fairly large spreadsheet, that can retrieve the first 20 showings of up to 20 movies each at up to 10 theaters closest to (up to) two locations. It sorts ALL of this data by proximity (represented by the number of minutes you think it takes for you to drive between your "base" and each theater) added to the calculated ending time (start time plus end time plus 15 minutes for commercials and previews). Alternatively it can show you a single movie's showtimes, in case you already happen to know what you want to watch, but don't know where to watch it. Two to four clicks is all it takes.

I'm rather proud of it, but I recently decided it wasn't enough. There seems to be a boom in web creativity as more content owners make it easier to play with their information, or to add your own to theirs (Hi, Google). I would love to have something like this on the web to look at from anywhere, but nobody seems to have done it yet. I guess it's gonna be me for now. Man, are you gonna be sorry for not doing all this hard work for me.

I've got another thing I really want this to do. I want it to pick a showing, then add it to my calendar! Why? This started out as an exercise in not missing important things at work. If I can put it on my calendar, it would be eaiser to see where there might be any conflicts with other items on my schedule. Right now I use two calendars: Outlook/Exchange for work, and Google for not-work. I sync my phone with Outlook, and get alerts from Google Calendar via SMS. To begin with I'm going for Outlook "integration" to leverage the work I have already done, and my relative ease with using VBA. The kicker is that I would like to integrate on the Outlook side so that I can preview the movie schedule right next to my current calendar, select the item, and slurp it into my own calendar. I haven't come close to playing on this level before with Outlook. The less elegant method (in my mind, anyway) would be to use Excel to grab the calendar from Outlook and do the picking from Excel, then send it back over to Outlook. It may end up being easier to implement, though.

Once I have the kinks worked out, and a clearer vision of how it works, my goal is to make my own gadget for Google Desktop/Home-Page/Etc. that would look at your location, ask what movie theaters you do or don't like, automatically calculate drive times and store that info for future use, show you the movies coming up (maybe for the next few days) and send the appointment to the mail/calendar app of your choice after you pick the movie.

That would rock.

I think I've exercised the finger enough now. More "free writing" later!

Blogged with Flock

Time to Try New Tools

This entry is again dedicated to the topic of alternative means of working with my blog. I just recently installed Flock, which is a web-community oriented browser based on Firefox that includes built-in support for posting to various blog, batch uploading pictures to your the web, sharing bookmarks, and other forms of on-line collaboration. -I just ran the spell checker and noticed that it didn't recognize the word "blog". How funny!

I've had a bit of a revelation of late. In working to understand all of the features of my new mobile phone, a Sony Ericsson K790a, I have been playing with both this blog and my new mobile blog quite a bit more. I've noticed that there are a lot more resources on the web for earning money by making your own words and pictures available for publishing. I had run across similar ideas in the past, particularly from my father, and had not been very impressed.

My dad is staring down the barrel of retirement, and wondering what he can do to ensure (maybe even grow?) his income once his career as a city employee is over. He has been looking to the Internet for inspiration and ran across a business & advertising scheme called Affiliated Websites. I use the word scheme because I think the purveyors of these prebuilt websites are taking advantage of the common netizen by stealing their money for services that aren't that hard to perform for yourself. For a 3-figure annual fee they set up a domain (which they own), let you choose from a number of content templates to fill in the blanks (including your testimonial as to how effectively it makes money for you), then they sell ads and prominently link to specific businesses selling products related to the main topic of the website (those are the affiliates).

I was initially quite shocked when Dad introduced me to this idea. I wasn't very impressed with the so-called content of these websites. There was a lot of fluff, and not much meat. My impression was that these sites were just search engine traps optimized for funneling eyeballs toward on line vendors, rather than providing any real information about the topic highlighted by the site. I explained my objections to him and tried my best not to sound like a jealous snob. Was I doing anything to try to make money using the Internet? Somewhat, and in a rather lame & half-hearted way. Did I have any better idea? Not really. My only strong objections were that there wasn't much this affiliated business plan did that you couldn't do yourself for a handful of dollars, and that there was nothing to keep people coming back for more after they tripped across the site and made (or didn't make) a purchase at the featured store.

My dad is a great guy, and took my criticism of this plan very well. He still plans to set up a website to attract folks with interests similar to his own, primarily motor homes. He took an HTML course at the local college and is now much better equipped to not only help himself, but he can sell his services to other people wanting to set up a website.

I'm going to try to turn the increased opportunities to be published to my advantage by writing more often, and taking more pictures that can be applied to more than just my own personal use. I'm looking forward to being able to use new tools and features included in products like Flock to make this easier than ever before. I'll be using this forum to let you know how it goes.

Blogged with Flock