I was reading though a backlog of Digg and Gizmodo stories when an item I read about in the beginning of the month popped back up: How Not to Steal a Sidekick. At first I thought this was an interesting tale of stolen property, egos and red tape. Upon further reflection I found that this story shows how the Internet will be keeping everyone, connected or not, honest.
If you have not yet read the story I would suggest taking 30 minutes and giving her a quick glance. To sum it up, a woman about to be married left her Sidekick in a Taxi. Someone then picked up the Sidekick and began using it. When the original owner got a new Sidekick she noticed that the old one was still in use (keep in mind that Sidekick info is kept on T-Mobile servers, so when you get a new unit all of your old settings are auto-downloaded). The original owner asked for it back, and the party with her phone refused. In the end this caused problems in getting a relative into the US for the wedding as well as put her out about $450.00. We have an honest party and a dishonest party. Nothing out of the ordinary as this happens thousands of times every day. People lie, cheat and steal all the time with no one to watchguard over them.
Enter the Internet. The original owners fought back and posted their story online along with the pictures and AIM address of the thief (hey, the thief was dumb enough to add this to the stolen sidekick, which the original owners could now access via T-Mobile). The posted site gained popularity quickly getting hit on Digg, Slashdot and Gizmodo. Updates were posted hourly and users started trying to help the original owners track down their Sidekick and bring the thieves to justice. After a couple of weeks the thief was arrested, the Sidekick returned and all was well. How interesting this entire situation is. The online community helped bring the thief to justice, and without this community it’s doubtful that the original owner would have ever gotten their Sidekick back.
I got to wondering how often this happens. The Dan Rather incident comes to mind where the Blogosphere basically disproved evidence that CBS tried to use in a story. CBS then later had to give an apology. How many more lies, cheats and thieves has the Internet helped bring to justice? How many more are to come? We’re living in a new age where everything can be checked instantly. Facts and data are so easy to get to that anyone can question just about anything now. When someone tries to lie their way out of a situation it seems that the online community will bring them down.
I think in the long run the Internet will impact society more than technology itself. Now we all have to watch what we say and do since anyone can bring us down, even if we are not online ourselves. This will either be the best thing to happen to society, or the worst. I think that most people are honest or at least intend to do good, so for 99% of us this really won’t do any harm at all. The last 1% makes their living lying or stealing from the other 99%, and now we have a checking system for them. I believe these people should be very, very scared as their days are numbered.
What do you think? Is this just a fad, or will we continue to see the online community bring people to justice? Will this help us or hurt us in the long run? What happens if the online community destroys a life of someone who was innocent? What do you think the big picture is?
I was playing with my MacBook Pro earlier tonight trying to find some fun applications to make life easier and more interesting. Here are a few that I stumbled across:
1 - ShadowBook. By using the built in optical light sensors in the MacBook Pro I am able to wave my hand over the laptop and have the desktop change. This is both fun and annoying. It’s nice to be able to wave my hand and get a clean desktop, but when I’m not paying attention I can easily and accidentally change my desktop. Want to see a demo? View the YouTube video below:
2 - SMARTReporter. This is a handy app for those like me who need to know the status of their hard drive at all times. I edit HD video on the MacBook and even a minor hiccup on the drive can cause hours of pain and suffering. SMARTReporter monitors the S.M.A.R.T. feedback on all the attached hard drives and will preemptively let me know if there is a problem or not.
3 - By far my favorite and most useful Mac utility is Visor. This is a great little utility that allows me to call up the terminal just like I would in a game such as Quake or Doom. By pressing command and ~ I am able to slide that little bad boy down and start working right atop my desktop. How cool is that? I have to give props to my brother-in-law for finding this one, it’s a great little utility.
We have covered the basics of why I like the Treo 700p but now it’s time to tell you what I don’t like about it. No digital device is perfect, and while the Treo line is the best of the best, I still have a few items I wish Palm would include:
1 - A faster processor. Now that we have EVDO the bottleneck seems to be the ability for the device to render and paint the pages on the screen, not the data connection. Since the processor is so slow (312MHz) it almost seems silly to ask for WiFi.
2 - WiFi. Not really required until they improve the processor, but WiFi would be nice for when I want lower latency Internet
3 - A hard drive. 128MB RAM is great and all, but why not include a 4GB micro drive in the thing? Even better yet, 20GB. This is my digital assistant, my buddy, my pal… It would be fantastic if I had enough room for all of my TomTom maps, some music, e-mail and documents without having to buy a bunch of SD cards. Hey, the iPod Nano is smaller than the Treo and all Palm needs to do is find room for the storage itself.
4 - Built in GPS. Maybe I can do this with the tower based GPS (have not looked very hard yet) but rather than having a bluetooth GPS mouse I would love to have that all built in.
5 - Internal antennae. Seriously, why do we need that silly thing sticking out like that? Can’t they find a way to build that in? If Palm can’t, maybe they should go ask Apple’s engineers, I’m sure they would be able to find a way to get the antennae inside the device while having it heat up to 200 degrees.
6 - 1/8″ headphone jack. The 2.5mm jack is just not cutting it for everyday stuff. I know it’s the standard for headsets, but most Treo owners I know use a Bluetooth headset over wired anyhow.
7 - Include accessories with the phone. I remember the good ‘ol days with the Treo 300 where I got a dock, car changer, wall charger and a basic case if I remember correctly. With each phone Palm seems to keep taking accessories out and now with the 700p we have the phone, a sync/charge cable, and… uh… I think they give you a stylus. This is a $650.00 phone, I think Palm can afford to give us $20.00 in plastics to make the experience better.
8 - A NEW OPERATING SYSTEM!!! I’m not a big fan of Windows Mobile 5 (had high hopes, but they were crushed). Palm OS 5 is not much better. What ever happened to these next generation Palm operating systems? Where is the payoff on that acquisition of BeOS? Come on Palm, I know you can do better. While Windows Mobile has not caught up yet they are certainly nipping at your heels!
I was trying to come up with a list of 10 items, but I really could not think much past 8. While I may have forgotten something this is still a pretty good testament to the quality of the device. All in all the Treo 700p is good, but a faster processor and more memory would have made it GREAT!
A couple of people have e-mailed me and asked what I do to sync my Treo 700p/w to my Macintosh. The answer is in the form of Mark/Space’s Missing Sync. Not only will Missing Sync allow Macintosh users to easily sync their Palm devices, but it’s also the best syncing tool available on any platform.
One of the great things that Apple decided to do was to not build bloated apps that try and accomplish everything. Jack of all trades, master of none mentality. Rather than having one program do e-mail, address book, calendaring and note taking they broke it all out into individual apps that talk to each other. I keep my appointments in iCal which talks to Mail and my Address Book. The problem is that syncing this information over to my Palm or Windows Mobile device is a bit iffy. While Apple offers iSync, frankly it’s not up to the challenge of a full syncing solution.
With the Missing Sync I’m able to easily sync all of my Apple apps as well get dial-up-networking running, sync iPhoto and iTunes playlists, use my Treo as a SD card reader, install applications and best of all it makes Bluetooth sync so easy a child could do it.
If you have a Mac and you want to sync your portable device, check out the Missing Sync. It’s simply the best.
Reader Brandorr sent in a bunch of great Treo apps and addons that I think are worth mentioning. This is some great stuff, thank you Brandorr.
Treo Must Have:
- YAHM, combined with FontSmoother and the Windows Tahoma 7 and 8 point fonts, make Blazer actually useful. (I show it to people and they want to buy the new Treo)
- McPhling. This mini-launcher lets you set buttons to go back to the previous application, and another button to bring up a most recently used list of apps. (You can force certain apps to always show up or never show up… It supports apps on the sd card as well… Check it out it’s free.
- Ptunes deluxe upgrade.. - Streaming internet radio over EVDO rocks… If you get it setup try www.radioparadise.com. They have an amazing 192kbit MP3 stream that works flawlessly.
- Docs to go premier… You get password protected office docs, a spellchecker, and the most important thing “PDF reflow”, which reformats PDFs to fit the screen.
- Splashblog photo blogging… I’m sure you know about this… if not check it out. It is awesome.
- BackupBuddyVFS, and BackupBuddy.net (I have managed to put my new Treo into 4 neverending loops, playing with new software, that hsn’t all been fully baked in on the 700p) The only recovery was a hard reset, which wipes your device.
- TCPMP - allow you to view DiVX movies. Actually almost any format. It is an amazing piece of opensource software.
- FileZ - ONe the the best file managers, works on internal files as well as external, also lets you view the palm internals.
- Magic Button - This allows you to use the button on the 2-in-1 headset that comes with the Palm to control ptunes.
Honorable mentions:
- quicknews - rss reader
- EzRemote - Remote Desktop client
- mergic ping - When you want to test your internet latency
- pssh - ssh for treo
- Directory assistant
- Audible/AudibleAir - Audio Books (comes on 700p)
Hardware:
- 4GB SD card. Get one. You won’t regret it.
- Palm pen stylus. (This is the stylus where you can screw off the tip and use it as a pen)
- bestskinsever.com skin… It is basically a thin polymer laminate that you can apply to the treo that makes it scratch resistent. It takes up no space and the Treo will still fit in any case you have.
- Seidio 2-in-1 in ear soft ear buds… Great headset replacement
- Seidio 2400mAH extended battery. Extends the battery life of the Treo by 33% (1800mAH standard). This really comes in handy if you are using chatter in push mode.
A lot of sites have already done fantastic reviews on the Treo 700p, therefore I’ll do my best to not recap the work they have already done. I’m going to take a look at the Treo 700p from the perspective of a techie and a businessperson, not just from a features standpoint.
Current Treo owners of the 300, 600 and 650 should take a good hard look at the 700p. While the Treo 600 to 700p migration will be revolutionary, the migration from a Treo 650 to a Treo 700p will only be evolutionary. If you rely heavily on communication, such as being able to get phone calls and e-mail on the go, the Treo 700p is an absolute must. If you are a techie who just likes to play with technology, then the need to upgrade is quite a bit smaller.
Evolution Data Optimized (EVDO) access
Every reviewer touches on how EVDO is the best feature of the phone and I must agree. I have yet to actually see anyone mention the primary reason for current CDMA users to upgrade, which is probably the most important feature in the 700p. For those not in the know, CDMA 1xRTT phones from Sprint and Verizon can do either a data connection or a phone connection. On my Sprint Treo 650, if I’m in the middle of downloading a bunch of e-mail, which takes a long time on the slower 1xRTT system, I am unable to receive incoming calls. All incoming calls are directed immediately to voice mail. GSM phones (Cingular , T-Mobile) do not suffer from this problem, but their data access plans are spotty in my area (to say the least), in many cases are slower than 1xRTT and cost a lot more. Features vary from area to area and even a couple cities away the cellular arena is completely different, but I have found that in general CDMA providers offer better service/data for less $$. Enter the Treo 700p with its EVDO access. With EVDO, I’m able to download at much faster speeds, on average of 500-700Kbps, and most importantly I am able to receive phone calls while in a data connection. If an incoming call starts while in the middle of downloading a 2MB e-mail attachment, the data will pause, the phone call will come in and ring, and I can take the call. My download needs to be started from scratch in many cases, but at least I can stay in touch with the office. EVDO is a great start but I’m excited for both EVDO Revision A and EVDV which is Evolution Data and Voice, allowing me to receive a phone call and download e-mail at the same time. Alas, we’re a long way for both EVDO Revision A and EVDV (looks like EVDV development is gone at this point with everyone focused on EVDO only). That being said, EVDO is a great first step and anyone who needs to conduct business on a phone/data device should seriously look at the 700p. Missing even one important phone call because you’re downloading e-mail can be costly and it is for this reason that I suggest all 600/650 users very seriously consider upgrading.
E-Mail
Awhile back I reviewed the Treo 700w, the twin sister to the Treo 700p. The big difference between the two phones is that the Treo 700w has Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 as the operating system and the Treo 700p has Palm OS 5 as the operating system. Frankly I’m not a huge fan of either OS, but there is one thing that the Treo 700p has the the 700w does not: ChatterEmail. As I’m sure you can imagine, I’m a very heavy e-mail user and by far the best e-mail application on any platform, Blackberry included, is ChatterEmail. With ChatterEmail, I’m able to connect to my Exchange server or IMAP Idle-based mail server and have all of my e-mail pushed to my phone. It’s a lot like the Blackberry but without the monthly service fees, much faster and much easier to use (believe it or not). There are a couple of e-mail applications that come close on the 700w and one that even offers push e-mail via IMAP Idle (when it works), but nothing is as elegant or as incredible as ChatterEMail. I am able to check multiple e-mail accounts with a single summary page, I can have my e-mail pushed to my phone in real-time, check on a set schedule and set up blackout times when I don’t want the phone checking (at night for example). Each account can be assigned a color to easily see where my mail is coming from and how I’ll be replying. Frankly, ChatterEmail is the killer app for both the Treo 650 and the Treo 700p. Combine ChatterEmail with the 700p’s EVDO access, and you have one powerful e-mail solution that is second to none.
There are a number of additional likes/dislikes I have on the Treo 700p, and I’ll be covering those in the coming days as well as a side-by-side comparison of the Treo 650, Treo 700w, Treo 700p and the PPC-6700. In the mean time, the Treo 700p combined with ChatterEmail is my business and techie phone of choice. This is the ultimate communication machine.
I had the honor of speaking at The Lawlor Group Summer Seminar in Minneapolis earlier today about search engine optimization, pay per click marketing, web analytics, and social networking sites. The theme for this year’s seminar is, “Fresh Thinking, New Directions.” Bill Konkol of Marketing Architects, Fritz Vandover of The Lawlor Group and I were tasked with providing fresh thinking and new directions to attendees from a web marketing perspective.
Here is a list of web sites mentioned during today’s presentation:
- Google Trends
- Google Analytics
- Google Adwords
- Yahoo Search Marketing
- WordTracker
- MySpace
- Icerocket
We received a question near the end of the presentation that had no easy answer. To paraphrase, “How do you use email campaigns to communicate with high school students with multiple email addresses?”
I’d love to hear some ideas on how to address this challenge. Here’s what came to mind:
1. Have students give you a primary and secondary email address. If the primary starts bouncing, switch to the secondary and remind them to log in to update their primary.
2. Use RSS rather than email to communicate with prospects. This may be a bit early for communicating with college prospects, but it’s going to happen. For examples, check out The Lawlor Group’s RSS page, or Technology Evangelist’s.
Additionally, I think it would be important to email both the students and the parents. Parents change their email very infrequently compared to students, so this will be less of a problem with this key decision maker in the college admissions process.
Andrew Goodman shared his thoughts on pay per click advertising and mastering Google Adwords during a presentation yesterday to the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association. Aptly titled, “It’s Not Just You: Pay-Per-Click Can Be A Real Beast,” Andrew covered topics from how to write compelling pay per click ad copy to the latest theories on what Google is trying to achieve with their AdRank system. Andrew is president of Page-Zero, a Toronto based web marketing firm, and the blog maestro at Traffick.com.
Here are what I consider the top-4 highlights.
1. High click through rates are generally a good measure of a campaign’s success since it leads to more traffic at a lower average cost per click. Google calculates ad costs based on a combination of bid price and click through rate. Put another way, the ads that make Google the most money rank highest, whether it’s caused by high bids, high click through rates, or a combination of both.
2. Additionally, it’s important to track ad performance beyond click through rate to actual conversions. He included an example of two ads receiving 500+ clicks each with a similar click through rate. Both ads sent visitors to the same landing page and had the same title, so the primary difference was the two line description within the ad. One ad had ~3% conversions to sales while the other converted no sales out from 500+ visitors.
3. Some attendees seemed to see some contradictory statements from Goodman on what works best for pay per click ad copy. For example, should you include the search phrase in the ad title? Goodman explained that while certain tricks generally work, there are enough exceptions to make testing different variables the real key to PPC campaign success.
4. Tasty appetizers. The Calhoun Beach Club came through with some great finger food.
Andrew knows his stuff and highly recommend his company for pay per click marketing services. If you want to get a taste for just how much he and his team knows about pay per click advertising, check out their eBook on Google Adwords, print book “Winning Results with Google AdWords” or their new Yahoo Search Marketing Handbook written by Mona Elesseily.
Andrew Goodman shared his thoughts on pay per click advertising and mastering Google Adwords during a presentation yesterday to the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association. Aptly titled, “It’s Not Just You: Pay-Per-Click Can Be A Real Beast,” Andrew covered topics from how to write compelling pay per click ad copy to the latest theories on what Google is trying to achieve with their AdRank system. Andrew is president of Page-Zero, a Toronto based web marketing firm, and the blog maestro at Traffick.com.
Here are what I consider the top-4 highlights.
1. High click through rates are generally a good measure of a campaign’s success since it leads to more traffic at a lower average cost per click. Google calculates ad costs based on a combination of bid price and click through rate. Put another way, the ads that make Google the most money rank highest, whether it’s caused by high bids, high click through rates, or a combination of both.
2. Additionally, it’s important to track ad performance beyond click through rate to actual conversions. He included an example of two ads receiving 500+ clicks each with a similar click through rate. Both ads sent visitors to the same landing page and had the same title, so the primary difference was the two line description within the ad. One ad had ~3% conversions to sales while the other converted no sales out from 500+ visitors.
3. Some attendees seemed to see some contradictory statements from Goodman on what works best for pay per click ad copy. For example, should you include the search phrase in the ad title? Goodman explained that while certain tricks generally work, there are enough exceptions to make testing different variables the real key to PPC campaign success.
4. Tasty appetizers. The Calhoun Beach Club came through with some great finger food.
Andrew knows his stuff and highly recommend his company for pay per click marketing services. If you want to get a taste for just how much he and his team knows about pay per click advertising, check out their eBook on Google Adwords, print book “Winning Results with Google AdWords” or their new Yahoo Search Marketing Handbook written by Mona Elesseily.
Andrew Goodman shared his thoughts on pay per click advertising and mastering Google Adwords during a presentation yesterday to the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association. Aptly titled, “It’s Not Just You: Pay-Per-Click Can Be A Real Beast,” Andrew covered topics from how to write compelling pay per click ad copy to the latest theories on what Google is trying to achieve with their AdRank system. Andrew is president of Page-Zero, a Toronto based web marketing firm, and the blog maestro at Traffick.com.
Here are what I consider the top-4 highlights.
1. High click through rates are generally a good measure of a campaign’s success since it leads to more traffic at a lower average cost per click. Google calculates ad costs based on a combination of bid price and click through rate. Put another way, the ads that make Google the most money rank highest, whether it’s caused by high bids, high click through rates, or a combination of both.
2. Additionally, it’s important to track ad performance beyond click through rate to actual conversions. He included an example of two ads receiving 500+ clicks each with a similar click through rate. Both ads sent visitors to the same landing page and had the same title, so the primary difference was the two line description within the ad. One ad had ~3% conversions to sales while the other converted no sales out from 500+ visitors.
3. Some attendees seemed to see some contradictory statements from Goodman on what works best for pay per click ad copy. For example, should you include the search phrase in the ad title? Goodman explained that while certain tricks generally work, there are enough exceptions to make testing different variables the real key to PPC campaign success.
4. Tasty appetizers. The Calhoun Beach Club came through with some great finger food.
Andrew knows his stuff and highly recommend his company for pay per click marketing services. If you want to get a taste for just how much he and his team knows about pay per click advertising, check out their eBook on Google Adwords, print book “Winning Results with Google AdWords” or their new Yahoo Search Marketing Handbook written by Mona Elesseily.
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