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.

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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 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. :^)

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