Posts Tagged: twitter

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2
Sep 10

iTunes Ping – Finding people, adding friends

There’s a lot to write about Ping, but before I get to that I need to play with it for a while. iTunes 10 was only available for download late late last night, so I haven’t done a lot. I have created an account (yet another network to maintain – ), and like many other people I have been unsuccessful in adding a picture. People have hinted that Apple may review pictures. If that is the case, new Apps in the store will probably be delayed even longer ;)

Anyway, after I created the account I started looking for friends I knew had also created accounts, but I couldn’t find any. Again, somebody said that you probably only appear in the directory after your image has been approved (not that this is available as a status message somewhere).

But I have found a way to add people nonetheless: go to your profile and right-cllick on your name:

Click on “Copy Link” and send it to your friends, tweet it or post it on Facebook. Friends can then find you and connect to you easily.

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10
Jan 10

Old gadgets are still useful: Blackberry 7290

When I’m on the road, I usually have my work laptop with built-in 3G with me. I also carry a Nokia 3270 Classic for phone calls (robust, great keyboard, fantastic battery life) and an iPod Nano for podcasts and music (the iPod Touch is a lot more fun, but crap for in-car usage).
My work phone does not have a data plan, so I have to use the Laptop for Twitter and emails. As the &%$%§ Vista machine needs 10 minutes to wake up from standby, this is not exactly perfect. I have a dual SIM for my data card (it’s my personal SIM), so I decided to get a cheap device with QWERTZ keyboard for email and Twitter.

I quickly found a Blackberry 7290 in mint condition on eBay for EUR 50 – not bad for a start!

Now, the problem is that you usually need to buy Blackberry Service from your operator to use data services, which I did not want to do. So the first step was to update to OS 4.1, which allows you to simply enter a GPRS APN that apps can use.

Then of course the BB still refuses to let you use the built-in browser to download apps. In order for the browser to even appear, you usually (again) need to subscribe to BB service, then your operator will push something calles a “Service Book” to your device, which unhides the browser.
It’s a good thing there are smart people out there, so please got to “Blackberry without BIS” where you can simply download a service book and install it through the BB desktop software.

Then use the browser to download some apps – unfortunately not all will work with OS 4.1.

What I got:

  • The GMail Client which even works with my Google Apps account, and will flash the LED when new mail arrives. This is as good as push for me, without requiring the BIS service.
  • Opera Mini for browsing
  • GoTalkMobile for GTalk
  • BlackBird as a Twitter client (not great, but haven’t found a better one yet)

All in all, a decent experience with minimum spending. It’s an incredibly robust device with USB charging, outstanding battery life and a great keyboard. Recommended.

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7
Sep 09

Smart and not so smart uses of Twitter

More and more companies are using Twitter as an infrastructure to built new services on, most focussed on marketing related issues.

The latest one I stumbled upon is The Symbian Foundation’s Screen Saver that seems to pull in mentions of the word “symbian” from twitter and displays them on users screens.

greenshot_2009-09-07_14-46-37

I can think of soooo many ways how this could backfire – I guess being a security consultant just makes me think in weird ways sometimes ;)

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6
Jul 09

Bye bye, Plaxo!

I’ve been using Plaxo for several years now. Plaxo’s main advantage over any over solution has always been that it will automatically keep my address book up to date whenever people change their own data. We use Outlook at work, so to be able to keep my address book current was fantastic.

Today I realized that my sync from Outlook did not seem to do anything. Then I saw people tweeting that Plaxo will start charging for the Outlook sync feature. A quick look at my sync options confirmed this:

greenshot_2009-07-06_11-58-15

They didn’t even offer to export your contacts. I used the trial upgrade to premium, but even that did not offer an export function.

I don’t need another silo. I’m done with Plaxo, and I cancelled my account today. Looking at Twitter, I’m not the only one…

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9
Jun 09

Spymaster: Want to join?

Btw. – if you’re looking for a SpyMaster invite: msg me on Twitter – @fkoehn

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9
Jun 09

iTunes needs to move to the cloud. Seriously.

This weekend I went through another major re-install on my iPhone. I’ve been trying for weeks to somehow make my iPhone work with my PC setup.

Here’s the problem: I am using 3 computers – my desktop at home, my work laptop, and my Samsung NC10 netbook on personal trips. I’d like to be able to use any one of them to work with my iPod. i.e. change playlists, tag MP3s, install apps and update or backup my iPhone.

Not working. I tried managing my iTunes library from the desktop, storing the files on my NAS. When I want to access those files from my work laptop, I need to re-do all my playlists. Plus, it’s slow as molasses.

Then I had to re-install my desktop and decided to spend some time tagging my MP3s. When I connected my iPhone to the PC, it said “backing up iPhone”, and then proceeded to DELETE ALL MY APPS ON THE PHONE!

Even though I could copy the apps over from my work laptop, iTunes wouldn’t use them to install. I had to re-download all the apps (ok, good opportunity to update some of them) and re-install. That of course meant that all data was lost – my banking transactions from iOutBank, my Fieldrunners scores – EVERYTHING. Hate it.

Why can’t iTunes just keep all that in the cloud, so that I can access it from any computer with iTunes? You might even crowdsource MP3 tagging, and/or recommend songs to your social graph. Twitter could be used to broadcast your activities.

Wouldn’t that be neat? Maybe Apple’s even working on something like this already – what else would they use all those servers for?

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17
May 09

Fresh From FriendFeed today

Tour de Flex

New blog post: Fresh From FriendFeed today http://bit.ly/rNq8X

2009_05_16_16_09_04
Image

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15
May 09

Fresh From FriendFeed today

New blog post: Fresh From FriendFeed today http://bit.ly/18tw3I

@humpaaa was geht im bisherigen release nicht?

@papascott normal ist das, nicht aber nach der vorgeschichte

@pixelbase where’s that…? #whisky

@gerikson THAT one is pretty obvious (no offense, Ewan… ;) )

@jimh I seriously doubt that there is *any* target group for these songs… ;) #eurovision

@ewanspence 18% of my radio stations listeners like the german eurovision title

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