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Well well well it has been some time since my last blog entry. Why you might ask? Well no good excuse other than I have been very busy over the course of the last several months. In November I got involved with a large project for a nationally known American magazine. Not a project that I can discuss at the moment, but something that could be very interesting. Of course the holiday season is always busy as well. I also was working on preparing the curriculum for a class that began teaching in January (more details coming soon on that one). So now that I have given a few excuses the truth is that sometimes blogging is just too hard….it takes time and when one gets busy it is sometimes one of the first things on the chopping block.

What if blogging could be easier? Well thanks to some software from Red Sweater Software it might become a little easier. Red Sweater makes a piece of software called Mars Edit. Mars Edit is basically a desktop application that lets you write and post blog entries. Why would you need that – not like it is difficult to get online and use WordPress, Blogger, Moveable Type, etc… That is true, in fact I have a couple blogs running on WordPress and it is a pretty nice system. The advantage of something like Mars Edit is that you can manage many blogs from one desktop interface. Rather than having to log on to each of my blogs individually I can set them up in Mars Edit and quickly post to any and all of them. The interface is nice and fairly intuitive – and of course it feels like a desktop application (as it should). If you are not connected to the Internet – you can still write, although of course you can’t post until you are back online. It also makes it very easy add media from iPhoto or even Flickr. We commonly use Flickr to post to our son’s blog, but it is not the best process posting from Flickr. I often find that postings from Flickr need some pretty significant editing. Anyway Mars Edit looks like an interesting option, one I am sure will be especially interesting to those that post to more than one blog on a regular basis.

At this point I have downloaded a free trial to give it a spin. If it proves to be worthwhile I will certainly purchase a license. How will I determine if it is worthwhile? See if it gets me to blog more! Anyway it looks promising – check it out!

Ever since I moved to the Mac platform I have been a big fan of OmniGroup’s software. My first experience was with OmniOutliner, which is a very versatile outlining and idea organization application. When I was looking for a Visio type application for the Mac I found OmniGraffle, which is great for developing all sorts of charts and diagrams. I have tried OmniWeb and would love to try OmniPlan at some point when my business grows to the point it would be helpful. Overall I find OmniGroup’s software to be intuitive, useful and user centered.

Recently I was looking for a good GTD (Getting Things Done) productivity application for my Mac. I had heard that Merlin Mann was working with OmniGroup on OmniFocus so I headed over to the OmniGroup web site to see what I could find. I found that the application was still under development and a release date hasn’t been given. There is an interesting video demo by Ethan Schoonover and a link for a mailing list, which I signed up for in hopes of getting on the beta testers list.

Shortly after signing up for the mailing list I got an e-mail from the OmniGroup giving me the opportunity to alpha test OmniFocus. While I am not usually to eager for alpha testing I looked at the Omni forums and it sounded like the product was fairly stable. Of course at the end of the day it is an alpha test, and there is a big warning at the top of the page that reads:

“This release is still under development. Your feedback will help us improve the software, and we apologize if it crashes or misbehaves.”

At this point I have only taken a little time to look at the application, but so far so good. It looks like it might be a promising product in the personal productivity space and I look forward to trying it out. I’ll try to post my thoughts on it once I have had a chance to really get to know it better.

GrandCentral is a new phone service that has been getting a lot of buzz lately. The idea is simple one phone number for life. Let’s think about it, most of us today have many phone numbers we might be reached at throughout the day, perhaps a home number in the morning, your office number during the day, your cell phone during your commute, your vacation home on the weekends (we can dream can’t we) – you get the idea. The idea behind GrandCentral is to link all your phone numbers together with a single phone number. You have a GrandCentral number which you give to your contacts and that number can be set up to ring any or all of your other phones. So if someone needs to reach you they only need one number, not a list saying when you will be where. Simple but brilliant!

Take it one step further and you can consolodate your voicemail as well, rather than four different voicemail systems you can have everything go to one very robust full featured voicemail system through GrandCentral. While the one phone number and single voicemail combination is the most compelling reason to try GrandCentral, it is only the tip of the iceberg. GrandCentral has many great features such as ListenIn a feature that lets you screen your calls, you can actually listen to voicemail as it is recorded and pick up the line if your choose. Other cool features include call screening, SPAM filtering (for your calls – no more telemarketers), e-mail notifications and WebCall buttons. The feature set looks very impressive.

GrandCentral was acquired by Google in July, who obviously sees the tremendous potential, and it is currently in private beta. I managed to get an invite and I am very excited to try out the system. I think the concept holds a lot of promise. The major phone companies should be watching GrandCentral, it really is what phone service should be. During the beta all of the features are free, but I would imagine it will move to a subscription model at some point. Anyway it looks very interesting – I’ll keep you posted as I try the service. I do have a few invites, if you are interested in one please post a short response to this blog entry telling readers why you are interested in GrandCentral (you will need to make an account – sorry but blog spam drives me nuts).

One of my criteria when I recently got a new phone was that it be capable of acting as a modem occasionally for my laptop, a MacBook Pro. While I don’t need access frequently enough to justify the $59.99 monthly fee of having a dedicated EVDO card, on occasion it would be helpful to have Internet access – perhaps to show a client a web site when I am offsite.Now according to RIM (BlackBerry) the 8830 can not be used as a tethered modem, nor can it be used as a Bluetooth modem, here is a quote from their support site:”Mac users will not be able to use their BlackBerry handheld as tethered modems with their mac laptop or computer as there is no support capability for Mac yet. The Mac does not use or recognize the standard modem drivers used by Microsoft Windows. At present, there is no tethered modem support via Bluetooth® functionality for Windows or Mac…”A quick search on Google tells a different story. I quickly found a forum thread that indicates that the 8830 can be used as a DUN Bluetooth modem. Below is a summary of the directions that I found for setting the 8830 up as a Bluetooth DUN modem on my network Verizon Wireless:

• Go to System Preferences (OSX 10.4.x or greater)
• Choose Bluetooth
• Under the Setup tab choose “Set Up New Device”
• The Wizard should walk you through the process, but here are the details you need:
  • Username = yourphonenumber@vzw3g.com
  • Password = vzw
  • Phone Number = #777
  • Modem script = WWAN Support

This worked for me – while speed wasn’t great over bluetooth, it certainly meets my needs. If you are trying to accomplish this as well I would highly suggest you checkout the forum thread I previously mentioned.

While there may be no smartphones that met all of my criteria right out of the box it does look like both the Palm Treo 700p and the BlackBerry 8830 came very close. Both phones are feature rich and include many important features such as robust e-mail, Internet, modem capabilities and the ability to read common document formats. However in the end I found a few things that I preferred about the BlackBerry 8830 including:

1. User interface – I like the user interface on the BlackBerry I found it very intuitive. The trackball interface was very easy to use.
2. E-mail – This is what BlackBerry is famous for and give it a try and you see why.
3. Form factor – The 8830 is slim and fit well in the hand – a big plus.

Once I have had ample time to use the phone I will post a short review.

Recently I found myself in the market for a new cell phone. Being one that usually researches new purchases before I buy, I began to think about the criteria of what I wanted in a new cell phone. Here is what I came up for as my criteria:

• A phone that supports “push” e-mail
• Support for viewing common document types (Word, PDF, etc)
• The ability to use my phone as a modem for my laptop occasionally
• A good user interface (a rarity in the cell phone world IMHO)
• A full QWERTY keyboard
• Ability to surf the Internet in a meaningful way
• Compatibility with the Mac platform (both for syncing and modem use)
• Compatible with my current provider (Verizon Wireless)
• A decent music player would be nice

Based on my criteria I would be looking at phones in the category referred to as smartphones. Smartphones are a class of phones that offer more computer like functionality than typical phones and usually include: a keyboard, robust e-mail capacity and productivity software. Well known phones in this category include: the Palm Treo, Motorola Q and the Blackberry.

Before I progressed much further in my research I decided to visit a couple of the local wireless stores. In my area Verizon Wireless has the best coverage by far – I say that in part based on my own experience with other carriers including Nextel (Sprint) and T-Mobile. AT&T is probably the next best choice in this area, but by most accounts the coverage is somewhat spotty in this area.

First I visited the Verizon Wireless store. Never really been a big fan of their stores, they don’t seem very customer oriented. You enter the store and are required to sign in – is it just me or does anyone else feel like they are visiting a doctors office? It seems to me if they are so busy that they need you to sign in then perhaps they need to expand their store and hire enough people to help everyone in a timely manner. At any rate after I signed in I proceeded to look around. In the smartphone section they had phones from Palm including the Treo 700p, several Blackberry phones and the Motorola Q. After a few minuted I was called over to the counter by a sales associate. When I told the associate my criteria for a new phone she sounded surprised that I knew the features I required – hey doesn’t everybody? She immediately started talking about the Treo and the Blackberry. I asked her about Mac compatibility and she referenced a smartphone comparison grid prepared by Verizon. While the grid had some of the information I wanted to know it did not tell the whole story. I asked about using a phone as a modem – she said she did not know the answer to my question. Of course then I would have expected her to find someone that did know the answer, but as usual my expectations were too high. At anyrate I had gotten some basic info from Verizon and realized that I would need to search out my answers myself – thank God for Google.

Next I visited my local AT&T store. While I was doubtful about switching service from Verizon to AT&T I decided I would go take a look and check things out. After all the iPhone was going to be released soon and that was only on AT&T, so maybe it was time to take another look at AT&T. The one clear advantage of AT&T over Verizon Wireless is that AT&T always gets the cool phones long before Verizon does, case and point the iPhone. When I talked the the sales associate she showed me the Blackberry Curve, which looked like a very nice phone. I had never considered a Blackberry, but this was an interesting looking phone – I love the form factor. When asked about thing like using the Blackberry as a modem, I got answers like “I think so”, but being one that like certainty I knew I needed to do some more homework before I proceeded.

As I did some of my own research I kept coming to the same conclusion that there were many phones that did all of the things I wanted if I was on a Windows platform, but the choice for Mac compatibility seemed limited. The Palm Treo 700p seemed to be one of the better choices, it came bundled with Mac syncing software, but after doing some more research I found that it could not be used as a tethered modem for a Mac (at least according to Palm). Although it was indicated that the 700p can be used a dialup networking (DUN) modem over Bluetooth.

I also began researching the Blackberry 8830, while I really liked the Blackberry Curve Verizon did not carry that model, so I began looking at the 8830 which has a lot in common with the Curve sans the camera. According to Verzon’s smartphone matrix the 8830 did not include sync software, but it indicated that there was 3rd party software available. Fact is the 8830 does now include PocketMac a sync utility for the Mac platform. However my research indicated that Missing Sync from MarkSpace was a better choice for Mac users. According to the RIM site (Blackberry) the 8830 can not be used as a tethered modem or as a DUN device. A little work with Google and I did find info to support that the 8830 can be used as a DUN Bluetooth modem. The picture that was now emerging is that perhaps with a little effort I can find a phone that will meet all of my criteria.

So it looks like my best choices as of now is either the Palm 700p or the Blackberry 8830. The iPhone looks very cool and interesting, but looks like it will lack certain features that are important to me, such as the ability to act as a modem for a laptop – not to mention the iPhone will be tied to the slower EDGE network for Internet access. Stay tuned and find out which smartphone I choose.