got your iphone? now just need the apps

if the hype over the last few months and this past weekend was not enough.. Im seeing some other "iphone" related news.. not about the idiots sleeping outside the store, but about applications being released of the iphone
-Visto jumps to the rescue and will support corporate email such as MS exchange..which lacked on the iphone
-iZoho gives Zoho (the online office suite) users word, excel, powerpoint support
-iphone chat..IM anyone?.. this was a feature the iphone lacked but this webbased app solves that issue for now.
-iphone accessories: as if paying steve $600 isnt enough..now you have a chance to drop more dough on things like the iphone bluetooth headset, docks, chargers, cases, etc etc ..

I expect to see more iphone apps and even though most might be web-based only is ok for now.. since a few days ago you did not expect to do half of this.. native apps wont come around as soon so for now these will do

my iphone experience

Today was the day many had been waiting for..the day to drop $600 for an iphone..although I fell in love with it when the phone was first released but then after some facts I ended up not favoring the phone for more than a few reasons. I still drove by an At&t store this afternoon while my girlfriend shopped just to see the action.. it seemed empty so I stopped in and got to test one out in person.. WOW!
no matter all its setbacks and faults(no 3G, no mms support, 8Gigs, no flash, etc etc) the iphone is still one sexy converged device.. there is no doubt about it... I almost bought it!..left the store soon because my girlfriend was done shopping.. but I dragged her and her friend back to the store..I had to show them this.. while they were not as excited and wowed as I was they did seem to like it..they left again and went to another store..I kept playing with it for another 30 mins..The user interface could not be any more beautiful and easy to use.. while the virtual keyboard gave me some challenge it still did its job (definately easier than typing on a Pearl)
while I was tempted to get one..at that point $500 didnt seem like such a bad deal.. I did not..
like I said before I will wait for the 2nd or 3rd generation.. and while the phone isnt perfect it has still set a new bar for mobile manufacturers worldwide..companies like motorola, nokia, LG will have to start focusing more on the user interface and user experience.. Apple deserves lots of props here.. the phone is just fun to have.... sure my e61 is awesome because of its SIP client but what good is it when it takes a techie to know what to do and dig through the settings? so two good things have come out of this iphone phenomenom.. a faster EDGE network and a new standard for wireless devices has been set.

iphone day is here

its almost here..just a few more hours..what millions of americans have been waiting for.. to drop $600 on a new shiny toy that will make them popular for about 5.3 minutes

I think I may drive to the cingular /att store and get on my PA "we are sold out of iphones. You must rely on money and personality to get knowest"

get email on your cell phone

the days of carrying that extra PDA, or that bulky Treo or Blackberry maybe long gone..or maybe not...if you are a power user that needs to be connected 24-7 with all the capablities such as push email, reply all, attachments, etc dont read further. this isnt for you. but if you wouldnt mind gettin your email from certain people on your phone for free then this may be something worth checking..

I learned about teleflip at DEMO 07 and was invited to be a beta tester and finally set sometime to take a closer look: basically its a free service that fwd's your email to your cell phone as a text message..sounds good right? no software, free, any cell phone will work (you should have a text messaging bundle pack from your provider otherwise this may get expen$ive)

Signing up was painless, I entered my cell phone number and email account.. but receiving email was not as easy..I sent a total of 3 test emails to myself within 30 minutes and none were received on my cell phone.. it seems that this is a known issue but out of teleflips hands (they say the carrier is to blame for the latency on receiving it, Cingular seems to be known for this but give it a try it may just work for you) in theory its a great service even though text messages (SMS) are limitted to 120 characters (this means that if your email is 240 characters it will be broken into 2 text messages)... but even then its still a great service if it works for you....its a free service that delivers email to your cell shiny razor..so dont complain because 5 minutes ago all you could use that thing was to talk and send text messages...overall I give teleflip 1 thumbs up - the idea is great but it didnt work 100% for me but it may just be because Im on cingular..

YouTube goes mobile

cell phones are getting love from the now live mobile youtube site...just point your mobile browsers to m.youtube.com and start streaming away..whenever you are bored, cant sleep or at the airport (like me) the vids stream quality is pretty good and there is no downloading so thats always nice.. you can also upload vids right from your cell phone

Opera mini 4 beta is the iphone safari rival

I talked about opera mini 3 last year , they now have released the 4.o beta version and its much sweeter...it now loads up pages the way they are supposed to load up (not vertically displayed) its easier to move around the page and zoom in when necessary (much like the zoom in feature on the iphone safari browser shown below)

















Opera mini 4 is free and you can use it on EDGE, 3G and WiFi.. which on the iPhone you are restricted to EDGE and WiFi..they even have a funny but true iphone ad parody video of opera mini guy vs iphone guy ... to finish off I took a few screenshots of opera mini 3 and the latest 4 Beta version..














As you can see opera mini 3 rendered web pages in a vertical "fit to width" format which was cumbersome to flow on pages (this is the result of web pages being pre-processed by opera before sending them to your phone)

Mini 4 Beta displays webpages the way they are meant to be viewed.. as you can see the washington post page loaded with a zooming box marked by the X














This is a zooming in shot of the post page using opera mini 4 making it easy to flow across and read.

Yahoo copies Gmail Chat

yahoo = 0

google = 1

my friend peter Do IMs me and tells me he is using Y! messenger on his Y! mail...? smelled fishy like I had seen that somewhere else..GMAIL! anywho.. I liked Yahoo messenger and still use it heavily and yea you can now talk to msn messenger buddies..but come on.. a little bit more creativity woulve been nice from the yahoo peeps.. I mean google came in and owned this space in very little time..it seems everyday more and more of my friends are making the switch to gmail and getting sucked into the gtalk effect.. i like the fact gmail saves my chats onto an email if lets say I navigated away from the gmail page.. where the yahoo page seems to sign me off...anyway visit Yahooo web messenger if this thing wows you

No good TV

Joost looks so innocent next to NoGood TV this beta internet tv site..unlike joost, you dont need to download a client ..the web based player is decent and videos seem to be in ok quality even when you go full screen..the site overall is pretty flash heavy but has plenty of content to keep you entertained..theres a good amount of channels for everyones taste as well..buffering is almost non existent ..add it to the list

off to chicago..NXTComm time

I will be in chicago next week for NXTComm .. its a mix of communications technology vendors and communications and entertainment companies.. I hope to be Wowed next week with some new cool technology.. there is a bunch of mini conferences within nxtcomm..like Digital Hollywood, WiMax Strategies and others.. with some very interesting panels so I hope to make a few..
if any of my readers are interested in attending this mega conference let me know I have some free passes just drop me a note gonzales dot sam at gmail

Cell phone popularity..be mr popular..

ever wanted to get out of that awful date or that boring meeting... I know I have.. or maybe just look important? with the popularity dialer you can.
Via their website, you can setup to have your phone called at a particular/several times and your phone will ring and hear a prerecorded message... the message are actually half of a conversation so you can fake a conversation even on speaker phone... the only setback is that there isnt an option to set up calls on a calendar all at once.. you have to do each date at a time.. and a max of 5 free calls to a number also sets you back on just how popular you will be.. so save it for a good one..you may also recognize one of the founders.. Jenny is also responsible for the portable cell phone booth

Verizon FIOS - the Nightmare!!!

do you know why this guy is reading the newspaper? Cause he cant get FiOS installed at his house! so no internet or TV like me.... that is the image off the verizon fios website ..where the USA today raves about it..as impressive Data services that can be "delivered" I dont know how much I can believe that when they cant seem to just get me hooked up..getting FIOS reinstalled at my house and FIOS TV has been a nightmare..how is it that a service provider like verizon and with all the SPAM marketing about being ready..and there for you 24-7 be such a disaster..

-Back in May..yes MAY! I got a letter to sign up to receive FIOS TV priority installation?! ha what a joke.. I signed up and never heard back..for the last few weeks Ive been trying to call to see the status.
-My roommate who moved out had FIOS internet which couldnt be transfereed to me..I had to start a new account.. but when I called it showed my address as not being FIOS ready..I guess Ive been living a dream for the last year and that FIOS Box in mybasement has been an imagination..what a disaster..! they were able to pull up his old account but couldnt figure out why the other system said I was not FIOS ready.. this was thursday..the chick who said would call me back friday by noon never did.. made me feel like I had a bad one night stand
-Ive called a few times and today was no different, the guy said i was not FIOS ready, transferred me to tech support then eventually ended in the right department and now supposedly I have a confirmation and install date for thursday.. we shall see how this goes..
very dissapointed in verizon for the lack of knowledgeble customer service.. if they think because they are offering FIOS speeds and TV for a bit lower than Comcast they can get away they are wrong.. at this point Im about this close on just getting broadbandconnect from Cingular and no cable.. I got Joost, and torrents to watch TV ..as Ive said it before internet TV will be the downfall for these suckers who think they can overcharge for a simple service and suck at it...

UPDATE6/13: I was supposed to get it installed tomorrow. I was told I would get a call today to confirm my between 8am-12pm installation time.. its 5:30pm and have not heard from them so I called and apparently they have now changed me to June 22nd..it was so nice of them to notifi me.... I asked to speak to a manager but apparently they dont take calls..so they are going to call me back..this is going to get good..stay put.. verizon sucks..

i guess Im not the only one.. it took 6 months for this person to get it! just browse around the internet..

UPDATE 6/14: the 14th is here and I'm FiOSless .. supposedly I am now scheduled for June 25... I'll defnately be reading the newspaper for the next few weeks! I've become so diaspointed th:at I just dont care.. if they screw one more time.. I will go back to comcast.

UPDATE 6/25: its monday June 25 and I have a FiOS tech in my home working on the install.. he has been here since 930am but its a pretty easy install he says since I already have half the job installed.. the cable is running straight into the second level where my G4 resides, the wireless router will also be here..thank god for my neighboors unsecured wireless network

UPDATE 6/29: Ive had FiOS for a few days and I guess it was worth the wait and suffering.. but nevertheless it shouls not happen like that.. internet speeds definately bumped up.. I now have the wireless router in my office on the 2nd floor (it was in the basement before) and I have an "excellent" connection even when Im in the basement when before the signal would be only "good"when I was on the 2nd level.. TV quality also seems to have improved..the quality is more clear and crisp.. and the widgets are nice too..

Memory to go..portable hard drives

I recently downloaded a few movies but my laptop was struggling and I started getting alerts for out of memory.. I have 2 External hardrives but they need an external power adapter so they arent very portable.. I had been looking at the western digital passport in the past and nothing smaller has come out by other companies..so I decided to get the 160GB but the day before I bought it WD released news of their new 250GB version! but its not in stock yet anywhere.. it retails for $199 which isnt bad if you are an on the go person like me.. I couldnt wait so I decided to grab the 160GB version which is on sale @ bestbuy for $109.. and Im loving it! its usb powered so you just plug it in w\ the provided cable and you are ready to go! its usb 2.0 so I can play movies and music right off it w\out delay.. it can be used on a Mac and PC. it’s easy to carry and no external power adapter is needed. Comes with sync & encryption and Google software. Ive backed up all my files and are carrying pics, movies all on it now..I give it two thumbs up

More iPhone cons

the iphone sales training book leaked and there are a few more reasons now why I would NOT get it in addition to my inital thoughts ...it describes features but also ways to overcome objections..which I would definately have if I found out this at the store..

-No one-touch dialing - two touches are required
-IM clients not supported
-No GPS capabilities-I already knew this but not even bluetooth GPS enabled?
-MMS is not supported - it does not support MMS for photos and videos??

just how revolutionary is this phone again? the fact that it doesnt support multimedia messaging amazes me..especially in the heavy text messaging world we are living in these days

IPOD - Multi Room speaker system

streaming music from my itunes library wirelessly to speakers around my house has been on my wish list for a while.. at first the plan was to buy a few airport express for each space I wanted to stream to..actually that really seemed like the only option..and not a cheap one each airport express runs $99.. in addition I would have to buy a powered speaker which are not cheap..

I also wanted to use my Nokia E61 as the itunes wireless remote control using sailing clicker via bluetooth or WiFi so that I could control the songs playing from my couch, patio,bed, etc..

I came across an easier and maybe less expensive alaternative..EOS wireless sells a home wireless speaker system for your ipod and other audio sources..the site states that is broadcasts cd quality audio up to 150 feet and can be expanded up to 4 wireless speakers.. the Core system retails for $300 which includes the base station and one wireless speaker each additional wiereless speaker retails for $150 so for about $750 you could have a multi room speaker system for 4 spaces which isnt bad if you consider a few things..

-If you move to another home you take this multi speaker system with you

-You can stream not just from your ipod, you can plug in your XM radio, mp3 player, or computer

Even though I would spending about the same if I deployed my inital "system" to match EOS (4 airport exprees @ $99 each=$400 and lets say that a decent powered speaker is about $99 each that would add up to $800) but a few setbacks is that I would only be able to stream from my itunes on my Mac so I could not play songs from friend's libraries if they brought their IPODs over.. and the EOS system is also more portable in my mind..with my "system" I would have to plug the airport express but also the powered speaker into an outlet..where I wpuld only plug the EOS speaker wherever I want it..less cables, less mess, less bulk.. seems like sharper image stocks this so check it out.. it gets my vote..

Bluetooth enabled car stereo

I've seen an increase of car stereos with the auxillary input for your ipod.. even new cars come with it..but I just came accross the sony MEX-BT2500 which has bluetooth connectivity in addition to the aux input.. which is pretty cool if you carry tunes on your music phones or smart phones and use it as your ipod.. with memory increasing on cell phones (the nokia n91 has 4GB-8GB) more and more people are going this route vs carrying an ipod too.. but this is also why the iphone is coming out right?.. most of the time you have to buy a special adapter or cable to be able to listen to your tunes from your "music phone or smart phone" ..this overcomes that issue..at least while playing in the car.. it also allows you to do hands-free calling but its limitted to incoming calls and only redialing the last number dialed..(what is that about?) I would have to agree with this cnet review that apart from music streaming the "principle purpose of the system, therefore, is to accept incoming calls"..a feature that limits the full usage of bluetooth connecvity

the iphone may be a good thing

so June is here and you know what that means.. its getting hot outside..and the iphone comes out june 29th. Everyone that asks me about it already knows my thoughts on this first generation iphone and why I will wait for the next generation even though the iphone ads make me want one..but I know its just the hype. Even apple executives share the same feeling I have according to NY times article

"Some Apple executives worry privately that expectations for the one-button phones may be too high and that first-generation buyers will end up disappointed.
Certainly there are skeptics. The high price will limit the phones’ appeal to true believers. The cellular network that the iPhone operates on is slower than those of many of its rivals. Several of Apple’s handset competitors hope that its decision not to include a keyboard, relying instead on a touch-screen virtual keyboard, will limit the attractiveness of the iPhone in text-intensive business markets"

I have no doubt that the iphone will get that 1% market share though regardless. there are enough people out there ready to pay up the $600 for it... with all that aside and the impact the iphone will have in the wireless industry..I was happy to read that at&t is boosting up EDGE speeds which benefits everyone! not just iphone owners.. a smart decision from the people at at&t since faster speeds are needed to create a rich web experience which the iphone claims as a main feature but since the unit is lacking 3G that was going to be a semi-rich web experience with lots of disappointed people..
Minimum data speeds should increase from about 40Kbps to 80 Kbps around June 15th if all goes as planned.. so see even if you are not getting the iphone you are still reaping the benefits that this little device is causing, its not everyday a wireless carrier shifts focus to refining older technology (EDGE) when they've been focused on growing their 3G coverage

New Applications for the Nokia E61

I have not blogged much about any of the latest symbian 3rd edition applications for my nokia e61 and others for a few reasons..they usually get good coverage already and I havent had time..but I think these are worth it...and like my friends that own these devices would say..why didnt you tell me..so here are some of the new apps or upgrades that are worth a read..

SMS killer: the SMS client in the E and N series is not the greatest..we all miss the palm style threaded sms where all your conversations are under one contact..here are two applications
I first tried threadsms a few weeks ago and once the trial expired it didnt blow me away so I unistalled it but it may do the trick for you.then i saw SMSchat on my HF feed, and Im liking it alot more, its got an iphone feel to it, however one setback I encounter was that when it loads your contacts it sorts them by last name, I have my address book in first.last order, I have not seen a place to change that, also the fact that it doesnt replace the built in sms app is abit annoying..I got to press exit, press and hold the application key to get into the application and then to inbox..seems like a lot of steps rather than just pressing "show"when I receive something. I think these are great but replacing the built in app is a must otherwise it might be too many steps to get to your text's

Internet Radio: I already use the nokia internet radio app but this application looks alot nicer and very XM radio like..it came through from virgin but branded spodtronic..I cant remember from what rss feed I saw it originally but Ed does a nice write up here, I tried it myself a few times but Im running the old firmware so you have to be running the latest firmware for it to work otherwise it will just hang..

VoIP: more MoIP apps! I recently got an email from gizmo which I no longer use about some cool offer so I went to their site to see what theyve been up to and saw the gizmo client for not just the n80i which I knew existed but also for the E series and then this week I saw a few postings about it so Im assuming its relatitvely new..click here for E-series and here for the other nokia devices I already use truphone for my MoIP needs but this is a nice application..

so I think those were it as far as new apps Ive seen around lately.. as always this phone's apps keep getting better and better...this week @ GTM Ive seen quite a bit of E61's around actually.. the conference is highly attended by europeans who were the ones I saw the most walking around with their shiny E61's..

Evite Sucks - Episode 2

earlier I wrote about my evite issue.. well here I am again. we are planning a camping trip and my girlfriend started drafting something on evite..the thing went wack again.. erasing or entering wrong data in the wrong places..she fixed it and would go back to do it again.. tonite I decided to have a closer look at socializr and Im liking what I see..
even though it doesnt have as many designs loaded Im sure there will be more later( i couldnt find one for camping) but thats ok..on to the things I liked..
- I can add music to the invite or add my own mp3
-I can add video from youtube
-I can add flash widgets like rockyou voicemail, or meebome IM...
as if that wasn't enough.. I can IM the invite to (aim, yahoo, msn), share it on facebook, add it to my outlook calendar, send it to my cell phone and even update my twitter!!
that did it for me.. theres some features i would love to see in something like this but cant talk about it unless socializr contacts me and offer me a nice offer ...anyway Im saying bye bye evite!

be a lender or a borrower

I was reading my fast company april issue (catching up actually) and came across prosper.com, a peer to peer lending site..its like ebay for people looking for a loan and people looking for a place to dump some dough.. I checked it out and the listings are from things like starting a new business, to pay off credit debt, to getting married! so if youve always wanted to be a VC or angel investor here is a good way to start..and if you need some $ for anything it may be worth the visit to their site...make sure to read the FAQs though..

evite sucks

in the last few weeks I have supposedly been invited to friend's events but never heard about them until they started asking me..why I had not responded to the evite?if that sounds familiar..welcome aboard. I would understand if maybe it got filtered into my junk folder..but nope. Last week I went through my entire gmail junk folder looking for one that was sent and nothing..but getting the evite is not the only issue, for NYE we had a party and sent out an evite to friends, most of them received it but the thing went wacked and one day deleted all the friends rsvps and responses.. so Ive been looking around for other options and recently read about socializr which was started by the founder of friendster Jonathan abrams. I signed up but havent played around with it enough to say this is the solution since there are other evite competitors out there..and even myspace competes in this space...we'll see how socializr does..