Hooray for Pictures!!

After being jealous of the mini slide show at my sister's blog, I have finally added my own. Blogger did not want to cooperate and use its own built in hooks to to automatically grab the pictures from my Picasa web albums though. I had to make my mobile blog album public, then get the link for the RSS feed, then point the layout tool to it using the "Other" option.

Oh well! It looks nice, and I can give a little more face time to my mobile blog here as well!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

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

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

Back to my New Toy: Portability of Information

I'm still working out the kinks in my new-found access to information, where my phone has the potential to become a mobile navigation aide, help me keep track of appointments and items on my "To Do" list, and generally make life easier. I would love the Sony Ericsson K800/K790 even if it didn't have the camera. Here are some of the things I found I can do anywhere, rather than being stuck in front of a computer:

• Check my Vonage Voicemail: This one was tricky, but now works great. I love Vonage, but sometimes find their website a little frustrating. Their voicemail page is particularly slow to respond, so I went to some length to make it accessible from elsewhere some time ago. I set up a private Google Group for just Allison and myself, including virtual members like our cell phones' SMS addresses, to which our voicemail alerts are sent, with attached messages in .wav format. I had previously set the voicemail alerts to go to my Gmail account, which then passed them on to my cell, but I wanted Allison to have similar visibility and didn't want to keep cluttering my Gmail Inbox with these messages. The Google Group helps us both keep up to date with our home voicemail by letting us both know when somebody has cared enough to leave a message. I was getting the individual alerts sent to my phone, Allison to her Gmail Inbox, and I would also get a daily summary in my Gmail Inbox. Now that this Google Group contains lots of messages, all with the same information, it in turn has gotten hard to navigate and retrieve messages. This is where my K790 comes in. It supports IMAP "Push" email which, unlike SMS, supports attachments. After months of searching, I finally found a free IMAP mail service that supports this "Push" service. It's from our good old friends at AOL! Their AIM.com email service just happens to do what I need. I managed to dig up my account information (I had put it away after it got me married) and set up the email account. Configuring the phone was fairly easy as well. Sony Ericsson provided the setup for AOL email to my phone via SMS, which I then changed to reflect the AIM.com domain. Now, I get immediate notification that a message was left, I can download it to the phone to listen to, and then delete the message when I'm done with it.
  
• Check News headlines and weather forecasts: The K800/790 has a built in RSS reader, which allows each feed to be individually customized.
• Find lower-priced gas: I've found a number of services offering mobile access to prices at local gas stations. In 5 clicks (browser-down-down-down-select) I can see a list of the lowest gas prices in my area. This service is one linked to by Cingular, but if you want my all around favorite check out www.gasbuddy.com. They support mobile web browsers as well as SMS services. They also allow you to submit updated prices.
• For you Outlook users, there is software available called MobyToday, which taps your phone's PIM attributes (appointments and To Do list) and puts them together on screen like Outlook Today does as well as any Windows Mobile device. It's really handy to see these items on your standby screen if you are the type wanting that information in your face. I discovered I didn't really need it at about the same time I discovered I couldn't get my theme's background to show up as the MobyToday background. Oh well. Reminders are really enough for me.
• Navigation: This is still a work in progress. I've found a few navigation apps that can use a bluetooth connected GPS to show location information. You can find an appropriate GPS for less than $60. My idea is that I can leave the GPS in the car charging until I get in, dock the phone in it's dash holder, which would also charge it, and start the navigation app. Conceivably these devices could also be used as a two-piece bike computer as well. I've got an OLD Garmin GPSII on my bike now, which it is not ideally suited for, as it takes so long to acquire the satellites.

One other feature to note on this phone -and to look for on other phones-, is Bluetooth 2.0. Don't get a phone without it. In this day when hands-free features are becoming not only prevalent, but required by law, being able to maintain simultaneous connections is really handy. My Moto RAZR had decent bluetooth support, but I had to turn off (or tell the phone to disconnect) my headset if I wanted to wirelessly sync calendar/contacts, which then turned into a pain if someone called because it could only maintain one connection at a time, and I still don't like the idea of holding a cell phone up to the side of my head. With Bluetooth 2.0, I can keep the headset connected all the time, no matter what other bluetooth devices may be clamoring for attention.

kEnny's New Toy

My latest toy is finally almost fully operational. A few months ago I purchased a wireless phone on Ebay, which I had thought I thoroughly researched. I had read that the mechanism required to unlock this phone was rather complicated, and that it would cost a little more than most others. The combination of features offered by this phone seemed to be worth it to me. It’s the Sony Ericsson K790a.

I made the purchase from a Canadian seller who got the phone to me in good time. Being as it was locked to Rogers AT&T, I could not use it yet. When I set out to find the best place to get the phone unlocked, I seemed to be suddenly running across lots of places saying they could no longer unlock any of the Sony Ericsson db2020 phones (that’s the name for the encrypted locking technique or something associated with it). I made an inquiry to a business that had unlocked another phone for me before, and they said they could unlock it with no problem. Right there I was both happy and suspicious. Could they really do it, or did they possibly not know about the recent “Lockdown on unlocking?” It turned out to be the latter. They were able to unbrand (this removes the software limitations and new software installed for Rogers) the phone right away, but unlocking was a different matter entirely. I let them hang onto it for about a month and a half, so they could try new releases of whatever product they are using to unlock phones, with no success. When I asked for the phone back, it was returned promptly and I was refunded most of the money I paid. Half of it had been for the successful unbranding of the phone. I consider this to have been very generous, as I felt like I was taking advantage of their misunderstanding about their being able to unlock the phone in the first place.

Getting the phone unlocked was an interesting adventure. While there are many b&m stores inviting you to mail or carry your db2020 phone to them for unlocking, I could only find one that would perform remote unlocking of db2020 phones. They had all kinds of downloads available for connecting hidden USB devices, flashing, & unlocking phones. I followed their instructions to generate a file to email to them. My first attempt to send this file was thwarted by my choice of email service. I use Earthlink as my email address, but have it set to forward everything to Gmail, which is set to send messages with Earthlink as my return address. It’s great for dropping the spam, but not when the place you need to send a file to is expecting it from the domain you originally gave to them. I logged into Earthlink’s webmail interface to send the file and waited for about 8 hours for the return file to arrive. I was at work when I got it, and of course the unlocking software required access to the internet. My employer uses proxy servers to access the outside world’s internet, and of course the unlocking software did not have options for using proxies, so I drove to a local strip-mall where a number of businesses have free wi-fi. I sat there for almost an hour trying to get it to work. I finally figured out that I didn’t have all of the correct drivers installed, but by the time I got them running, my laptop had decided to turn off it’s wi-fi adapter. Doh!! I at lunch and tried it again. BINGO!!! I made a call, received an SMS message, and went back to work.

That night I spent a good bit of time getting to know the phone, the camera, and many of their various options. The Sony Ericsson website has lots of useful information, including a feature that will send an SMS message to you to automatically configure your phone for MMS, web access, and email. I used them all. Once I had everything working to my satisfaction, I (watch out!!!) changed my data plan from 200 SMS messages per month, to unlimited web/video & 200 messages (SMS/MMS/IM/Email) per month. Immediately, nothing worked. Coincidentally, my wife couldn’t send or receive MMS messages for the rest of the night either.

The next morning, I found I could send SMS messages out, even to email addresses. The return address was rejected when replying from email accounts, however. Using a specific combination of phone number and Cingular email extension, I was finally able to find an address that would get messages from my email account to the phone as well. I called Cingular with my now-specific complaint, and after spending almost an hour and a half explaining that the phone does the job fine, that they needed to fix the way they were handling (or not) messages for me after changing my data plan, I was left with two interesting things: The CSR I was speaking with didn’t really know what was going on as he told me I should not expect the addressing problem to be resolved, and that everything was going to start working okay again. Allison sent a message from her Gmail account, which I replied to, then she replied back and my phone saw it just fine. WOW!!

After some time getting to know how to navigate with the phone’s built in Netfront web browser, and playing with Opera Mobile, I still don’t know which one I like more, but I’m left to use Netfront more in general because the phone’s built in RSS reader opens links with it. I used to get an SMS message every morning to tell me what to expect for weather, but now I don’t have to waste messages on that, because the phone gets RSS feeds for weather and news headlines every day.

I’ll add updates later as I smooth out my day-to-day operations with this phone. For now, I’m gonna say that I love it, and am glad I waited for it.