Chad On Tech

Making Noise

419onscene — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:20:27 +0000

To Ping.fm, or Not to Ping.fm? That’s the question I am thinking about this morning. How much noise should one make on social networks. For those not familiar with Ping.Fm, it’s a great service that allows you to post across multiple social networks, blogs, microblogs and status services. Basically, it lets you post the same message across almost everywhere you might post. The upside to this, is that it enables you to reach out across multiple services, but makes all your content the same. I guess I am wondering whether I am supporting different services as a courtesy to others, or as different parts of one personality. in other words, should I be posting individually to these services, and putting them all together with FriendFeed, or Lifestream.FM, or Ping them all and shoot out posts like a cannon? I am thinking and evaluating the options for all this stuff, and maybe Ping.fm’s ideal for statuses, but not posts, I don’t know if there’s any real point to cross posting to multiple services.

Why Is The Blogoshpere Down On Android???

419onscene — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:52:47 +0000

The first mobile phone featuring Google’s new Android OS has cleared the FCC, and already it seems that the Apple fanboy blogosphere seems to be setting it up for an avalanche of blog posts about how disappointing it is. The natural comparison of Android and the iPhone is inevitable and appropriate, but the question in my mind is whether or not the blogosphere is going to be fair and give Android an appropriate amount of time to mature before slamming the new OS. Bloggers jumped on the Cuil wagon in the days before it’s launch, and expectations were created that the product was going to be an instant Google killer. Unfortunately, it was not able to live up to the hype created by hundreds of bloggers, who had not even seen a preview release of Cuil.
Much has been written about the lag from the release of the first SDK, and now, however nobody seems to recall that the iPhone was on the market for six or seven months before Apple released the SDK for the iPhone. I would think an actual working handset might be a big plus for developers. Why release multiple SDK’s for a changing OS? That would only serve to royally disgruntle developers, who stood the risk of needing to recode products, losing both time and money.
I am also curious as to why developers are not embracing the possibilities presented by Android. The market for iPhone Apps has been good, but the worldwide possibilities that Android brings could be remarkable. I think Google of course has ulterior motives with the release of Android, and once it matures a little bit, it will become a great way of decreasing service costs, and put usable mobile internet into the hands of the masses. I have no doubt that Google will engineer ways for advertising to offset the costs of data plans, and an attempt to have lower cost, more widepread adoption.
Give Android a chance, it will take at least the same year that the iPhone where it is now.

Social Aggregators and Lifestreams, Where Are They Going?

419onscene — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:33:25 +0000

Lifestreams and social aggregators like FriendFeed and Lifestream.FM are increasingly popular ways for people to bring together their plethora of social media services. The only big question I have is where are they going? Unless the grand plan is to build up a user base and sell out, I’m not sure they can make money. Lifestreams are built on already somewhat questionable models like the wildly successful Twitter, which still isn’t sure how they are going to monetize. Ad revenue may be questionable, and many lifestreams are very popular because they can be inserted into other sites, reducing page views. Additionally, they are essentially stealing pageviews from the services they aggregate.
Of all the lifestreams I’ve seen, Friendfeed seems the most promising for generating pageviews, due to the fairly active commenting and community oriented features. I think the ability to comment across services is a great answer to the issue of multiple networks and services.
I think one potentially good revenue stream for FriendFeed just might be in business intelligence and brand defense/promotion. If FriendFeed offered a automated data mining service to people like the comcast guy on Twitter, there could be some real value there. If FriendFeed could provide those folks with real metrics on brand image and penetration there’s a decent chance to make some money.
Combined with an almost semantic search that could report on positive or negative trends (such as including the words sucks, horrible, slow, etc with Comcast), you have a near real time automated reporting tool.

Is T-Mobile Betting Big On Android?

419onscene — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:17:32 +0000

T-Mobile is starting to light up their 3G networks nationwide, but as of yet only introduced two or three mass market phones with 3G radios. T-Mobile uses a distinct frequency for it’s 3G data services, the 1700Mhz range, so other GSM carrier’s 3G handsets will not work on T-Mo’s 3G network. There have been no announced or leaked 1700Mhz phones on the internet, and TMo has no WinMo devices or Blackberries in the lineup that will work on it’s new network.

Now, with the announcement of it’s new “App Store”, and the fact that they do not support applications on their current handsets, I have to wonder just how big T-Mo is betting on the arrival of the first Android handset, which rumors claim may be coming as soon as this fall.

T-Mobile Tries App Store

419onscene — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:18:40 +0000

T-Mobile is going to try an App Store ala iPhone. While I applaud anything that opens wireless networks to new applications, I have to wonder what it is anybody will do with the apps that TMo will sell. While it’s WinMo and Blackberries are decent at allowing most third party apps in, the rest of TMo’s phones block the use of applications.
A few months ago, I got tired of my TMo Dash, and decided that it was time to try out a regular old handset from TMo. I figured that my email and calendar are all on GMail which offers decent enough mobile access, I didn’t really need a full blown PDA. Plus, I had wanted to try out the HotSpot@Home service, and did not want to shell out $250 for a Curve (The Curve’s a great handset, but not worth $250, plus the two year contract. I want an Android handset or a Nokia E71) So, I played with a nice shiny Samsung Katalyst in the store. I was able to download the GMail app, and Google Maps so I figured all was good. Then I tried to use them. Nope, TMo blocks applications from using the handset’s data connection. So, even though the device was capable of doing the things I wanted, TMo didn’t want me doing them, despite my $20 a month unlimited data connection. Then, I tried to sync the phone with my PC, via bluetooth. Nope, TMo did not want me doing that either. They had removed the serial port profile from the firmware, so the only bluetooth functionality was headset. I have become accustomed to being able to sync my calendar from anywhere in the house by bluetooth, like when I walk in, or otherwise remember. I keep lots of stuff on my phone. According to Samsung’s website, the bluetooth connection is supported by the Katalyst.
Two hours of bad tech support later, they had no idea what a Java Application was, or that they were blocked by TMo’s firmware. They were very nice, and very apologetic that they had no idea what they were talking about, but had no idea what they were talking about.
Then, there’s all the stries about TMo blocking Twitter’s short codes. I guess I just don’t understand why they are going to open an App Store, if they have an internal dislike of anybody using applications on their phone. Crippling firmware and removing manufacturer’s features is not playing nice. Blocking customer installed applications that use data the customer if paying for is not nice. I was willing to sign a 2 year agreeement, but TMo’s policies and bad decisions made me decline to agree to a contract. So why bother selling applications if you refuse to let applications work?

8 Firefox Extensions That Increase My “Productivity”

419onscene — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 05:47:35 +0000

It seems that adding the phrase “increase your productivity” seems to add pageviews for any blog post, so there it is. Let’s take a look at the Firefox extensions that I use almost every day:
AdBlock Plus
AdBlock Plus is a filtering services that eliminates many forms of advertising from appearing on your screen. It works by blocking the urls of most ad serving companies and speeds up the loading of many pages
Better Gmail
Offers a few nice features for GMail. Consistently updated by Lifehacker‘s Gina Trapani.
BlueOrganizer
BlueOrganizer’s got so many feature’s that I’m still trying to figure them all out. BlueOrganizer is sort of a catch all place for stuff you want to save on the web. It adds a button to your Firefox that allows you to bookmark pages, create TinyUrl’s, share to Tumblr, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, MySpace, and others.
It’s got more features than I can go into here, but take a look at it.
Cybersearch
Turns the firefox address bar into a search bar. Just start typing in the address bar, and if there are no awesome bar entries (i.e. addresses you’ve been to) cybersearch displays the top google results.
Works really well for me.
TwitterBar
Lets you post to Twitter straight from the Firefox address bar. Really super for sharing links on Twitter. Type your tweet in the address bar, then click the button at the end of the address bar and poof you tweeted. Also displays a character count to let you know how many characters you have left.
Firegestures
Ever have use an application that you get so used to using that it’s like you’re on autopilot? For me, it’s Firegestures. Firegesture’s an extension that executes Firefox actions (new tab, back, forward, etc.) by right clicking and drawing with your mouse. You can chage most of the gestures, and create new ones. I find myself trying to use the gestures all over windows now, not just in other browsers. You’ll love it after you get used to it.
FireFTP
FireFTP is a FTP program that opens within a new window. It’s great for installing updates to websites, or other web based tasks. Lets me stay within FF for basic stuff.
ScribeFire
Write blog posts from Firefox without logging in to various admin pages. Scribe fire’s loaded with features that make it nice and quick to fire of blog posts about whatever page you’re looking at. Used it for awhile on my work bog, as well as personal blog. Nice and easy to use.

is.gd is good

419onscene — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:46:54 +0000

With the rise in popularity of Twitter and other microblogs, the use of url shortening services is on the rise. Url shortening services take long urls’s and cut them down to easily fit into a twitter post. TinyUrl Bit.ly Snipurl and is.gd are all examples of url shortening services. Since I started twittering more, the advantage of these services became more apparent.
Enter is.gd. is.gd has a really useful Firefox extension that provides some great options, and makes it really easy to use the service. One of the really nice features of the extension, is the bility to create a is.gd url from any page simply by right clicking on the page. The is.gd url is automatically created, and put on your clipboard. Just paste it where you want it.
Another great use for is.gd is for adding long links to an email, which might otherwise wind up broken. Also, is.gd urls are a great way to hide your email address from spammers. For example, instead of posting your email address, simply go to is.gd, enter mailto:you@yourdomain.com, hit enter, and you get a url like http://is.gd/1d2p. That ur works just like a mailto link, but hides your email address from the page.

Welcome

419onscene — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:23:15 +0000

Welcome to Chad On Tech. There seems to be no end to the number of tech bogs out there, but many seem to focus on things irrelevant to the casual user. In this blog, I will try to write a little about not just the latest websites, but how they might be helpful.