Filed under: World wide web, Windows Mobile, Productivity, Mobile Minute

My iPaq might be two and a half years old, but it’s got a thumboard and WiFi. While that might not count for much, it’s enough to let me rock on with three mobile web apps that have allowed me to stick with Old Faithful instead of springing for a new device.

What are they? Gmail, Google Reader, and Ping.Fm Mobile.

The three things I really want to be able to do with my handheld are check and send email, read my RSS feeds, and update my status on sites like Twitter, Plurk, etc. I’m, however, terrible at remembering to keep my iPaq docked and charged, and I’m not good at saving my favorite mobile app installers when I reformat my base Computer.

All of which means that I need three easy apps that’ll run well on a freshly booted, totally naked Pocket PC 2003 install with clunky old Pocket World wide web Explorer.

These three have never let me down. They’re all formatted nicely for my vertical QVGA screen and stripped of any annoying elements that mess with rendering. What’s more, I have the ability to follow Brad’s advice and have all three open in tabs at the same time.

Gmail is great with a thumboard, and way superior than texting from my cell. Reader does an excellent job of reformatting all my feeds so that they’re easily readable. Using Ping.Fm means I don’t have to worry about whether or not sites like Plurk, Rejaw, or Pownce will function on the iPaq. One simple form updates them all for me. Rad.

These three must haves - along with the basic PIM and media functions that Pocket PC 2003 came with - are enough to keep me productive, even with a handheld that’s woefully out of date by today’s standards.

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Marketing and advertising, Walt Disney (DIS), Sony Corp ADR (SNE)

The Associated Press reported on five upcoming albums this fall in an article posted yesterday, raising new questions about the music industry and the success these albums may enjoy. The massive news are the number of comeback albums being released in the next few months, notably from Metallica and Australian band AC/DC. Both albums come after lapses of five years or more from the artists, a time period that has seen major upheaval and change in the industry, and the AP cites reports that both return the bands to their roots.

Nevertheless if Metallica and AC/DC are returning with new material, the music industry is simple not a safe place for anyone involved with it: artists, managers, investors, and vital customers. In fact, both Warner Music Group Corp. (NYSE: WMG) and Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE), which owns Sony Music Entertainment Inc., have seen declining prices throughout the summer. None of this is any different from the declines the industry has been seeing in current years, but digital sales and excitement over new albums in the summer might have pointed in the opposite direction.

The AP’s projections for other top albums this fall include material from rapper T.I., still reeling from a weapons charge and punishment, and High School Musical 3 from Disney (NYSE: DIS). It is just too hard to suggest if these projections are reliable in an industry currently in flux and continuously declining. However, they’re sure to be successful, in particular the next installment of High School Musical, but they will probably all be paled by an unexpected success. If the summer excitement could continue from the festivals and tours into the fall, then these albums could do well, but whether that’ll improve the industry or improve investors is just too risky to speculate.

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Filed under: Deals, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Marketing and advertising

Sheldon suggested the other day that Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) should split off its web search and services arm so that it could fit better with a possible Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) combination. Instead of pleasing that notion, Microsoft still has some cash to spend to ensure, for now at least, it still has a growing presence in the web search and e-commerce arena.

To that end, the company announced this morning that it will spend $486 million to purchase Greenfield Online, Inc. (NASDAQ: SRVY) as it swiped an earlier takeover offer from the Quadrangle Group with its $15.50 per share offer. Microsoft’s offer of $17.50 per share is a 10% premium over Greenfield’s closing price this past Monday, when the offer was received without Greenfield knowing the origin. That’s, until today.

Microsoft wants control of www.ciao.com, one of Europe’s leading price comparison shopping search engines. Does Microsoft really think owning a leading consumer review and price shopping search engine will bolster its Microsoft Live platform? Since it couldn’t compete in the U.S. against Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), perhaps Microsoft is turning to international purchases as a second competitive act. Greenfield also has an “internet survey solutions” division that Microsoft will sell to an undisclosed buyer.

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Filed under: Productivity, Mobile Minute

With a toddler and a 6 hour drive to the nearest major center to take into account, purchasing an iPod touch wasn’t really one of my options. However, because my tiny guy cares about Mario it was easy for me to justify buying a shared Nintendo DS for “the family.”

Now - thanks to an ambitious homebrew community - my favorite gaming addiction has become an incredibly useful productivity tool. With a $35 transflash adapter and a $40 4gb SDHC card you’ll be amazed at what you can do with your DS.

What can you do with it?

1. Twitter - Yes, the first stop on our list is everyone’s favorite (and simultaneously most hated) microblog. Still, it’s everywhere, and that now includes your DS. The developer of DSTwitter is Spanish, so at least a cursory knowledge of the language is helpful. It’s simple enough to get set up and it works very well.
2. Get Organized - There’s a touchpad. There’s just as much screen area as most PocketPC and Palm devices. Why can’t the DS be a PIM, too? DragonMinded’s DSOrganize is an amazing suite, combining a calendar, address book, to-do list, scratch pad, calculator, file browser and reader, media player, audio recorder, IRC client, and web browser. I’ve only really ever used basic functions in apps like this, but DSOrganize works just as well for me as anything on my PocketPC did.

Continue reading Mobile Productivity the Mario Way - With A Nintendo DS!

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Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, E-mail, Productivity, Google, Freeware, How-Tos, iPhone

One of the hardest aspects of managing email is keeping track of sent messages where a reply is expected. Do you have this problem? I know I do. Some of the people I correspond with are absolutely reliable, and I know that if I send them something, I’ll get a reply within 24 hours and often sooner. But some of my other regular correspondents are not so reliable.

At all.

It’s really frustrating.

Luckily, if you’re a Gmail user, there is a very simply method for keeping track of messages where you are anticipating a reply. You see it each day, and you might even be using it for something else.

What am I talking about?

The Starred attribute. With a single key or button press, Gmail allows you to add a star to a message which prominently appears whenever that message or thread is in view.

This process is incredibly simple, but effective. Now, I should first point out that starring an email is for all intents and purposes the same as labeling a message with any arbitrary label. But I think stars work superior as an expected response reminder than a label would. So follow along with me and see if you don’t come to the same conclusion.

Continue reading Using Gmail’s Starred items to track expected replies - Emailers Anonymous

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Filed under: Developer, Utilities, Macintosh, Productivity

Panic Inc.’s Coda, the one-window web development wonder for Mac OS X, has just been updated to version 1.5. Coda is a great program, designed to put source editing, FTP, CSS and command line access all in one application. It’s a great, great application for developers and is definitely one of my most-used applications.

With version 1.5, Coda adds Subversion to its tool-belt, which is sure to make many, many users extremely happy. Git might be the new hotness, but seeing as graphical SVN clients are just now starting to trickle onto OS X, this is great news to any Mac developer.

In typical Coda-style, Subversion access is clean and simple to manage. Source-control is set-up on a per-site basis. If your existing site already has a SVN directory, Coda detects it automatically. You can also enter in a repository’s URL and login details to checkout a copy of a repository if no local copy exists.

In addition to Subversion support, Coda 1.5 also boasts a much-improved find and replace system. The find and replace command can now span all open files, files in a directory, or files in the local root site. In the past, this was one of my only problems with Coda — I had to search through each file to find a specific line of code, instead of being able to search across a group of files. This is great for updating an image directory or changing a file name across a bunch of PHP or CSS files.

The “Books” menu has also received a large update: support for custom books. Coda’s Books feature works by connecting the user to a web page housing a book’s complete text. Out of the box, Coda comes with access to a CSS, HTML, PHP and Javascript manual. When writing anything in those languages or formats, you can also refer to the reference books to look up commands or syntax rules. This can be very handy. Now, with the custom book feature, you can add other on the internet books. For instance, I added the Django Book to my bookshelf so that I have the ability to have easy access to it anytime I’m working on a site that uses that framework.

Coda’s Clips feature has also been improved with support for groupings, importing, and exporting. There are many other improvements (check out the release notes) that make an already great program even superior.

Coda 1.5 is a free update for all existing Coda users. You can download a 15-day trial from Panic’s site. Pricing is $99 for new users, $85 for existing Transmit 3 customers. Coda requires OS X 10.4+.

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Filed under: Windows, Productivity, Freeware

With the number of laptops I reinstall Windows on every day constantly on the rise, I’ve been looking for applications that might help boost my pitiful short-term memory - for some reason, my boss frowns upon me playing Brain Age at work.

And since 6AM isn’t the ideal time to be shouting at something in my home (toddler, wife, etc.), I need something a bit more quiet to help me practice. Speed Read may be just the app for the job.

The idea is very simple: display the number of words you select at a specified interval to improve your ability to recall groups of words and maintain attention to the subject. Speed Read will display text from any text file and comes packaged with 51 sample files.

You can, of course, add your own, which is a good idea. If you’re serious about practicing, you may as well be reading something you enjoy. As your skill improves, increase the number of words displayed and turn up the speed to keep the exercise challenging.

It works quite well, and after sticking with it for about a week I definitely notice an improvement already in my ability to read swiftly - and remember.

[ via Softpedia ]

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Filed under: Productivity, Social Software

Muse Wedding has recently changed nearly everything about its format, and it is for the superior. The formerly ho-hum wedding to-do list program is now a full-fledged information and community site full of good stuff. All of the new features will be live this day for new users.

Muse Wedding is basically one of those big, thick wedding planning binders on the web. You can enter whatever you need to get done into your task list and check it off as it gets done. You can create a budget and add what you have spent. You can even see it in a pie chart!

You can visit the Idea Book to see what other users have posted or post your own ideas for others to see. You can create a profile so like-minded users can find you for brainstorming sessions or idea swapping.

I used Muse Wedding for some of my own wedding planning before the redesign and community features were available. What I liked the most is that I made my own task list and wasn’t tied to the traditional ideas of what needed to be done 6 months before the wedding, 5 months before the wedding and on and on.

Muse still offers that flexibility, now with a nice looking site design, and plenty of planning and community features. And even if the person planning the wedding isn’t quite as web savvy as you, our DLS readers, each page has clear explanations of what you can do with each command.

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity

Last month we told you about the new web calculator eCalc. Now you can not only use the calculator on the internet, but also on yourWindows desktop.

The download and install is extremely fast and easy - I had my calculator up an running in under 90 seconds. The calculator can be used by clicking numbers and functions with a mouse or using them on your keyboard. The only thing I found that threw me off was that using the equal sign on my keyboard did not work. I had to press enter instead.

The desktop version is always on top unless you minimize it and takes up a good chunk of the side of your screen. If you need a scientific calculator, pressing the scientific mode button on the desktop version takes you to the web calculator and its’ scientific abilities.

I hope this won’t make me sound too old but I found it easier to use than the regular Windows calculator because of the more massive buttons. It also features a lot more functions beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

If you spend any amount of time moving files around using Windows Explorer, the repetitive clicking can get tiresome. Folder Guide is a context menu enhancement that speeds your navigation: add a folder to your Guide, and accessing it is a two-click operation from any explorer window or file dialog box.

Adding a folder to Folder Guide can be done two ways. Launch the main program, click the add button, set up an alias, and browse for your path. Oddly, the developers chose to use the explore view which means there’s no access to the right-click shortcuts you’ve already created to make navigating easier.

The easier - and more logical way - is to simply browse for your folder and right-click it. Select add to folder guide, and you’re done. You won’t be prompted for an alias, so to edit the default name you’ll need to use the application itself.

Snce Folder Guide works with file dialogs it’s available just about everywhere you want to make directory browsing faster: attaching files in GMail, selecting a save location for a screen capture, you name it.

Folder Guide is freeware, and Windows only, of course. No mention is made on the site of Vista or 64-bit compatibility.

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