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This week I am off to Virginia to take a four day class on Model-Glue, a popular ColdFusion framework. The class is being conducted by Doug Hughes president of Alagad, a member of the Model-Glue team, a contributor to the Model-Glue framework as well as the author of the Reactor framework. We are currently on the second day of a four day class and I have already benefited significantly from the class. Doug is a really good instructor and offers a nice mix of lecture and hands-on activities.

We have covered a lot of ground in the first two days and laid a solid foundation for some of the more advanced topics coming up tomorrow and Thursday. I am looking forward to gaining a better understanding of ColdSpring and actionpacks – should be interesting. Anyway I’ll try to post my overall impression of the course once it is completed.

I have had my iPod Touch now for a couple weeks and thought I would post a mini review. The very short review – it’s amazing. Could it be more amazing? Yes and I think it will be, but we’ll get to that in a second. Let me begin by giving you my initial impressions. First of all the iPod Touch is all about the user interface and as always Apple does a great job on it. To truly appreciate the genius of the multitouch interface you have to try it, but in a nutshell multitouch is a simple intuitive touch screen user interface.

There are so many things to love about the iPod Touch. For starters it really is the best iPod ever. Really it is, it may not be the largest capacity, but it is definitely the best. The screen is beautiful, the user interface is incredible and the features are great. Of course it is a great music player. It has many ways to navigate your music, including a nicely implemented version of coverflow. Video looks, to quote Steve, absolutely gorgeous, really magnificent. Perhaps one of my favorite features is the built in Wifi. Setup is a breeze and the built in Safari browser is incredible. This is the first mobile device I have seen that really makes surfing the Internet a pleasure not a compromise. Of course the built in Wifi also enabled the implementation of the iTunes store – great addition. The iTunes store works seamlessly on the Touch, great addition.

One of the common criticisms that I have heard about the iPod Touch is the capacity. While I would love an 80GB iPod Touch, I think Apple did the right thing by sticking with solid state flash memory. I think a hard drive version would lack some of the performance of the current Touch. Will we see bigger ones? Sure I would guess by this time next year we will see a 32GB model. Flash memory is expensive – but the price is always coming down. A 16GB solid state expresscard drive runs about $299 right now…. so the 16GB iPod Touch at $399 seems reasonable. My previous iPod (still in service) was a 40GB iPod Photo. So going from 40GB to 16GB might seem like a big change and it is, but you need to consider the way you use the device. The 40GB iPod enabled me to carry just about all of my music all of the time. Truth be told I probably only listened to 10% of it 90% of the time, but it was a nice feeling to be able to carry your whole library. So what has the change from 40GB to 16GB meant to me? It has meant that I must prioritize. My solution was to rate all of my music (which I have always wanted to do) and make smart playlist so that I can always carry my best music with me. Now I only carry my best stuff (which really makes random fun again). At the present I have all my 4 and 5 star music, a bunch of my new music (in a list I call music discovery), a bunch of home movies, a couple TV shows and a whole lot of podcast. Trust me when I say 16GB is more that you need even if you have a large collection if you set your priorites. It is not a device to carry your whole library, but certainly very capable of carrying the best of your stuff.

One other thing I want to address. The iPod Touch is not an iPhone. While the two share a common platform and many features, they are in fact different devices with different capacities. I have seen a lot of reviews where people complain about the things the Touch does not do that the iPhone does. In some cases it is hard to determine why it was decided not to support some features on the Touch, but at the end of the day if the iPhone better suits your needs buy an iPhone. I probably would have bought an iPhone if it had been supported on Verizon. While I am not crazy about Verizon, they do have the best service in the area I live. I don’t think much of most of the cellular companies – but that’s a whole other rant.

Apple recently announced that a SDK (software development kit) was being developed for the iPhone and iPod Touch. What does that mean? It means third party applications will soon be supported on the iPod Touch. Things will get really exciting when that happens and the iPod moves beyond just being a portable media player to being a mobile computing platform… exciting stuff!

In closing I highly recommend the iPod Touch! It is truly amazing, but the best part? It is going to get even more amazing in the future. The next generation will be larger capacity and once the SDK comes out it will revolutionize the portable media player space.

I have long been a fan of Amazon.com. Not sure I remember when I made my first purchase from Amazon, but I recall doing a good portion of my Christmas shopping there in the late 90’s. Over the years I have bought many things there from books to electronics. When I heard that Amazon was launching a new online music store I was cautiously optimistic, but not expecting much. My low expectations were not because I didn’t have high expectations from Amazon, but rather it seems that many tried their hand at the digital music business, but few have succeeded.

Why have so many failed in the digital music business? In part I think the music industry is to blame for the failure of many of the failed efforts. High prices and restrictive digital rights management (DRM) have certainly not helped the digital music industry. Campaigns and lawsuits from the RIAA that treat consumers like criminals certainly don’t help either.

Apple’s online music store, iTunes, has been one of the few success stories in the digital music realm. The success of the iTunes music store is in large part due to the iPod. Apple created an easy to use ecosystem with the combination of iTunes and iPod. Apple also managed to work deals with the music industry that were favorable to the consumer. iTunes allowed consumers to buy individual tracks for .99 cents. As the iPod gained up to 80% of the market for digital music players, iTunes continued to prosper.

Today I decided to try Amazon.com’s new Mp3 download service to see what t was all about. It sounded good – DRM free music that would work with my iPod. So I downloaded three songs and here is what I found to be the advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

• Music is in the Mp3 format and will work on most digital music players
• DRM free music – play your music when you want where you want
• Easy to preview tracks
• Nice web interface for viewing and purchasing tracks
• Works well with iTunes

Disadvantages:

• Very limited selection (only 2 major labels)
• Search worked poorly in my test
• User experience, while good is not as good as iTunes
• A lot of filler content (karaoke and tribute bands)

Overall I like the Amazon Mp3 store, but I don’t see it becoming my primary source for online music. When I want to buy a single song I continue to look on iTunes first, it is quick, easy and convenient. I also belong to eMusic, which I use for music discovery and I trade CDs on Lala. I will certainly look at Amazon’s Mp3 store when I want to buy complete albums. If I can buy an album at a higher bit rate and DRM free I will certainly opt to do so – and Amazon seems to be a good choice. I would love to see both iTunes and AmazonMp3 get more DRM free music from all the music labels.

One thing that bothers me about Amazon’s new service is that is really in part an effort for Universal Music to undermine iTunes. While Universal has agreed to sell DRM free music on Amazon they are not offering their DRM free music on iTunes. Why? In part perhaps because Univeral wants more control over music distribution and are not happy with their agreement with iTunes. Again the music industry doesn’t get it…

I own several iPods. My first was a 40GB iPod Photo my wife bought me for Christmas 3 years ago. Since then we have added an iPod Shuffle, a pink Mini for my wife and a 1GB Nano. I love my iPods! I’ve always been somewhat of a gadget guy and my iPod is one of my favorites. In fact it is one of the few things that I use almost daily. It was my iPod that led me to buy my first Mac computer – and now we own three.

It is amazing how Apple has revolutionized the music business with the iPod. Since Apple introduced the video iPod almost two years ago there has been a lot of speculation as to what the next generation iPod would be – last week we found out. Since I first saw the iPhone I thought wouldn’t it be great to have a phoneless iPhone? That is what Apple has essentially done with iPod Touch.

I am really excited about this iPod I think it will really be a game changer. The user interface is absolutely beautiful, one I am sure will be copied by many in the years to come (Zune Touch anyone). I was really happy to see Apple include WiFi and Safari for me this was a critical factor in my decision to order one.

It should be interesting to see how the iPhone/iPod develop as a platform. While Apple doesn’t currently have an API for developers I imagine that it is only a matter of time before they open one up for developers, perhaps WWDC 2008? With the iPod Touch and the iPhone running a version of OSX it should be interesting to see how they evolve. I would suspect that we might see some new functionality for both of the devices when the new version of OSX, Leopard, ships in October.

Anyway I’ll be sure to give it a quick review when I get it at the end of this month.

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).

In the technology business you really need to be learning new things all the time or be left behind. This means always having a few books that you are working on as well a reading the blogs daily. I try to attend a few training classes or college courses each year and catch the occasional conference. Of course technical training can be very expensive and time consuming, but I recently came across an interesting alternative that is very cost effective and easily work with any schedule. Lynda.com is an online training solution that has been around since 1995 and they offer a great selection of online video training. They have a basic subscription for $25/month that allows you access to their complete library. I just signed up for a 7 day trial, but I will likely purchase an annual plan if I continue to be impressed.

The training is done with a series of high quality Quicktime movies. Right now I am watching a Podcasting training module conducted by Scott Bourne, which is excellent. They seem to have a nice selection. Some of the courses I plan to take include: Ruby on Rails Essential Training, CSS for Designers, Working with Color, Javascript Essentials and Web Redesign. Many of the courses are taught by industry leaders and my impression thus far is very positive. It is definitely worth checking out! I found a free 14 day trial which can give you a good feel for what it is all about.

In an effort to spread the word about the new BluOctopus blog we have set up a Technorati Profile. Technorati is the premier listing of blogs on the Internet, which catalogs some of the best blog on the web. It is a great place to find great blogs and articles – check it out if you are not already a member.

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.