Mykl.biz

"Until six months ago I was clinging to the idea that printed books would likely last for ever. Since..."

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:21:43 -0400

“Until six months ago I was clinging to the idea that printed books would likely last for ever. Since the arrival of the iPad I am now wholly convinced otherwise. The printed book is about to vanish at extraordinary speed.”

- Simon Winchester, author of ‘The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary’

CloudApp

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:42:31 -0400

CloudApp:

“Share images, links, music, videos and files … choose a file, drag it to the menubar and let us take care of the rest. We provide you with a short link automatically copied to your clipboard that…

testing iPhoto's integration

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 01:24:00 -0400

This evening I was comparing how iPhoto uploads to and shares albums via:

MobileMe,

Facebook

and Flickr.

Once your photos are loaded into iPhoto and grouped in a album, sharing the album on any of these services is quite effortless. To compare the same album on each service, click the links above.

If you’ve gotta have AT&T as your mobile phone service, but their reception sucks where...

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:35:00 -0400

If you’ve gotta have AT&T as your mobile phone service, but their reception sucks where you live or work, their 3G MicroCell may be the solution to your coverage woes. Here are my bookmarks to more information:

"Think I’m finally 'getting' the iPad. Here’s why:

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 13:27:00 -0400

"Think I’m finally 'getting' the iPad. Here’s why::

In my quest for a pocket computer with a keyboard that...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 11:28:27 -0400

In my quest for a pocket computer with a keyboard that doesn’t completely suck, the otherwise middling LG Ally (top) seems to be the leading contender.

in the Palm of my hand

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:47:00 -0400

There is so much elegance, simplicity and functionality in the webOS operating system, that I really want to love the Palm Pre smartphone on which it runs. And, in so many ways, I do. When I tested one in the store, I easily intuited how it works, and actually enjoyed navigating in, out and among its different applications by effortlessly flicking “cards” around the screen. I also appreciate the way it combines and organizes my contacts, calendars, messages and accounts, from multiple services and applications, into the single corresponding tool on my phone. The webOS is so much more graceful than Android. But two things keep me from choosing it as my next pocket computer.

The Keyboard: My most immediate problem? The keyboard is just too tiny for me, provides hardly any tactile feedback (clicking to let you know if you pressed a key), without offering a decent auto-correction feature to compensate. Now, keep in mind, typing is most of what I do on a my phone; you might feel differently. Indeed, one of the attractive features of the Pre is how compact and comfortably palm-sized it; the keyboard could hardly be enlarged without also enlarging the whole phone. If you’re a slow and infrequent typist, if you prefer holding your phone and typing with just one hand, if you want your pocket computer to slide easily into an average pocket, you might think it’s just right.

Looking at photos of the Pre, I can easily imagine typing 2-thumbs style on that keyboard. It wasn’t until I held one of these cute little gadgets that I realized how truly tiny and closely spaced those keys are. You (more or less) press each key with your fingernail, to avoid hitting the wrong one.

The Future: I also have a long term problem with the Pre. I doubt how much webOS will improve over the coming two years of a new Verizon Wireless contract. I fear it may languish (and ultimately disappear), like the Atari and Commodore computers that long ago withered in the shadow of Apple and Microsoft’s success. Today, Apple’s iOS already has over 200,000 apps, and Android’s app marketplace is growing quickly into the 10,000s. Apple is steadily improving their operating system and hardware, as are Google and its manufacturing partners. While Palm gradually updates webOS, and has shown recent success using app contests to effectively bribe developers into creating software for webOS, I still worry that the best developers will concentrate on the more popular iOS or the more open Android, leaving second-rate or second-hand apps to belatedly arrive on webOS (if at all). Also, it is currently unclear what HP, Palm’s new parent company, plans to do with webOS, now that they own it.

Obviously, this is in the realm of (at best) educated guesswork. But as we come to rely on our “phones” to do more and more for us, our choice of operating system has increasing and long term significance. The more we invest our time and money in one system, mastering it’s use, tuning our muscle memory, and acquiring a home screen full of familiar applications, the less convenient it becomes to switch later. This is only reinforced by the two year contracts the mobile carriers like us to sign. All these considerations increasingly lock us in to the platform we chose. So I recommend giving some thought to that choice, before buying your next phone.

For a casual user, who doesn’t want a bulky tablet in their pocket, who might even settle for a dumb phone, and who is adverse to the sort of geekery required to get the most out of an Android phone, Palm’s Pre is one way to switch to a smartphone without too much fuss or bother. And it doesn’t hurt that it will only cost you $50 (with contract), or less. But it’s probably not the tool for a tinkerer, or a mobile writer like me.

touching Androids

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 09:51:59 -0400

The other day, I spent a little time laying my hands on a few of the smartphones available at a nearby Verizon Wireless store. I’ve been reading the latest reviews of these pocket computers. However, most reviews are written by geeks who are largely oblivious to (or mask) their own prejudices, and worse, are so immersed in the testing, tinkering and minutia of this rapidly advancing technology, that they’ve lost the perspective of ordinary people. It was time to test the utility of these gadgets myself.

There’s been amazing development since I bought my current (barely) smart phone, two+ years ago. Every year, the iPhone has gotten better, while its competition has been catching up. Today, the most talked about alternative to Apple’s iOS operating system is Google’s Android, now used in dozens of phones from a half-dozen manufacturers, including five models sold by Verizon. But two things have yet to change: Verizon still has the widest coverage in most of the places I happen to live and travel; and no iPhone works on Verizon’s network.

That’s the context in which I spent an hour, on the advice of multiple reviewers, trying out two high-end Android phones: HTC’s Incredible (touchscreen only, like the iPhone) and Motorola’s Droid (with both a touchscreen and slide out keyboard). Here are a few quick impressions.

In general: Any recent Android phone is (in most ways) significantly more capable than my aged LG Voyager. Every Android phone is (in many ways) more complicated to use than an iPhone. For each fabulous feature in any given model, there’s an odious flaw; another model without that flaw will also lack that fab. The challenge is to find the smartphone which sucks the least in those ways that matter most, to you.

Touchscreen keyboard: Writing is what I do the most. Unfortunately, typing on the touchscreen of an Android phone sucks even more than typing on a shitty chicklet-size physical keyboard. No wonder people post so many typos and stupid abbreviations, or just retweet what others have typed. The touchscreen is perfectly good for consuming content (surfing the web, reading friend’s updates on Facebook or Twitter, watching YouTube). But the minute you want to create or type something, like your own microblog, or enter the words for a search, you’re in hell. The better you type, the worse it seems. If you’re a hunt-n-peck typist, you might not notice the difference. For anyone else, it’s enough of a pain to decide, “F*ck it, I’ll wait until I’m at a real computer” or ask “Where’s my iPad?”. And just forget about typing a paragraph the size of this one, little more a whole article. If you want me to immediately stop micro-blogging from my mobile phone, buy me a touchscreen-only HTC Incredible.

Typing passwords, strong passwords, the kind that contain numbers and letters (both upper and lowercase) is a miniature nightmare on the phones I tested. Both the onscreen and mechanical keyboards include a mere subset of keys you see on a full-size keyboard, so typing numbers, symbols and caps necessitates pressing special key combinations. Because passwords are disguised with ******* in place of what you type, it is nearly impossible to know if or where you’ve mistyped. Thankfully, Android will store some passwords, so you only need to login to those accounts once.

Tip: Do not login to your own accounts when testing the display models in the store. Several Facebook and Twitter apps I tried had no “logout” button. I had to dig down into more obscure settings to find and remove my personal account and contacts info (to avoid leaving my private account open to the next person who used the phone). This is a biproduct of the way these apps integrate and store you info on the phone; convenient on your own phone, awkward on somebody else’s.

Mechanical keyboard: In the store I visited, the Motorola Droid was the only Android phone with a mechanical keyboard. This is the model I was expecting to like best. But I found the keyboard to be just awful to type on, kinda sorta better than typing on the touchscreen, but two steps backward from the phone I have now. BTW, that gold doodad on the right is a pointing device. My first instinct and preference was to simply tap the screen to select text or move the insertion point. The fact that this was consistently inaccurate no doubt accounts for Motorola giving space to this pointer, space which otherwise could be used to better layout the keys.

Orienting yourself: As you may know, when you turn an iPhone-inspired device in your hand from portrait (vertical) orientation to landscape (horizontal), the image on the screen is supposed to automatically turn as well, so it’s always right way up. This is helpful on these tiny screens, because one web page or another app will fit better in one orientation or the other. Unfortunately, I often found the Android phones didn’t rotate the screen when I turned it. Looking at videos of geeks using these phones, I’m guessing you eventually learn to trick your phone into reorienting itself, adapting yourself to its shortcomings.

Geekitude: The Android OS is just geekier to use than the iPhone. Overall, it feels like it was designed by a committee of engineers. To my mind, its best feature is being in second place to Apple for having the largest variety of apps available, with more in development all the time. But it’s like Windows or Linux (versus the Mac): setting up, using and maintaining your pocket computer will require more work and bother on your part, and some geek fortitude, especially if you want to use it well and to its full potential. It does not always “just work”; you have to show it who’s boss and put it in its place.

Tip: If you buy an Android phone, set aside time to read the manual and search for tips and how-tos online, to figure out how it works, and get around its limitations.

The consensus of the geekerati is that the HTC Incredible (or it cousin the Nexus One) is this month’s best answer to the iPhone. ”Aww shit”, say I, “that’s the best you can do? Please Verizon, cut a deal with Apple to carry the iPhone this summer.” There are occasional rumors of that; also, rumors of a Motorola’s Droid 2 having a better keyboard. But I can’t make phone calls with a rumor, so I’m looking seriously at the third runner in the pocket computer races, the Palm Pre running WebOS. More about that in my next post.

Who says the internet is shortening our attention span?

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:19:11 -0400

Who says the internet is shortening our attention span?

OpenOffice.org

Wed, 26 May 2010 04:30:31 -0400

OpenOffice.org:

“The Free and Open Productivity Suite … a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and open-source project; compatible with all other major office suites; free to download, use, and distribute.”…

"I never share anything on any site anywhere on the web regardless of any privacy settings unless I..."

Sat, 15 May 2010 12:00:35 -0400

“I never share anything on any site anywhere on the web regardless of any privacy settings unless I am willing to accept that the data might one day be public…. The one internet privacy policy that really matters is your own. If you want it private, don’t share it. Because what’s private today might be public tomorrow.”

- Dave Pell

"Just as the printing press greatly expanded the reach of printed material (at the same time it..."

Wed, 12 May 2010 00:46:27 -0400

“Just as the printing press greatly expanded the reach of printed material (at the same time it “de-valued” the manuscript by several orders of magnitude), the mobile web is expanding the reach of digital media into new hands that would not otherwise have access to the information in print or on a PC.”

- Andrew Savikas

"Whenever you need to make a technological decision, if you err on the side of choosing the more..."

Wed, 05 May 2010 09:28:30 -0400

“Whenever you need to make a technological decision, if you err on the side of choosing the more connected, the more open system, the more widely linked standard, you will always be right.”

- Kevin Kelly

cheap and easy photo blogging

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:01:00 -0500

This week I’ve been testing an easy method for the nearly instant blogging of digital photos, using free tools and services. As an experiment (and for the love of Mr. Meckels), I’ve set up: (1) A mobile phone to send digital photos directly to my Flickr account. (2) In turn, those photos are automatically imported into a simple photo blog created on Tumblr. (3) Likewise, those Flickr photos are automatically imported into the Notes, and the Tumblr posts are automatically announced on the Wall, of Mr. Meckels’ Facebook page. (4) As new photos post to the photo blog, Tumblr automatically tweets each one on Mr. Meckel’s Twitter account.

Because I’m doing this to test multiple services and feeds, the above methodology is more complex that most people or businesses need. Nonetheless, now that it is set-up, all I have to do is snap a photo, then send it from my phone (as an MMS or email message) to the unique address Flickr gave me. The Subject of the picture message will become the photo’s title, while the Text becomes its caption. Once I press [Send] on my phone, everything else happens automatically. There’s a time delay (varying from minutes to hours), as the various services “talk” to each other and feed (pass along) the photo. End result? The new photo is automatically posted to each of these web pages, with no further effort on my part.

This is moderately geeky and somewhat time consuming to set up. But once configured, it’s simple — and wonderfully fast — to snap and spontaneously share photos, from wherever you are. This service is included in my Synchronized Social Media Setup package deals. (Please contact me, if that’s something you’d like to discuss.) But each of these services has reasonably clear instructions to help you figure out how to do this yourself.

hotel snacks: left to right, that’s Rickety (new 13”...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:37:00 -0500

hotel snacks: left to right, that’s Rickety (new 13” MacBook Pro) and Pokey (2 year old 17” MackBook Pro), the workhorses of my portable office. in the photo displayed on Pokey, are Pokey (foreground) and Gigi (5 year old, recently dead PowerBook 15”). the coffee and cookie kinda sucked (2 hours old, courtesy of Sleep Inn).

the Internet stuffed into my seatback pocket

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:13:31 -0500

the Internet stuffed into my seatback pocket

Nexus One Phone review video by Uncrate

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:31:25 -0500

Nexus One Phone review video by Uncrate

photographing the work in progress at Kraftwork, my...

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:01:57 -0500

photographing the work in progress at Kraftwork, my client’s new bar coming to Fishtown in Philadelphia.

Serious CMS

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:31:00 -0500

Most serious Content Management Systems are used to develop and maintain content rich web sites that will be around and updated for a long time. So one important criteria for selecting a CMS platform is the likelihood that it will be available and improving for years to come.

You never want to get locked out of your chosen Content Management System, because it went away or the pricing became unreasonable. At a minimum, you want all data stored or backed up to a standard format. (And, it goes without saying, you’ll always keep an offline backup of all your data.)

For serious content management, I tend to favor popular open source platforms. Open source means no owner can take it away from you or cut you off. And if a lot of smart people are working with that platform, it means lots of smart people are constantly making it better. It means a larger pool of plug-ins, extensions and themes from which to draw, if ever the core system doesn’t meet your particular needs. It also means more third parties making it their business to actively support the platform with hosting and other related services. Look to who else is using a Content Management System. If large, stable and tech savvy organizations rely on the same tools as you, you have some reassurance it will be supported and improved in the years ahead.

These are especially important considerations for intermediate to higher end web sites, where you want plenty of room and options to grow. For smaller or short term projects, I’m usually more interested in how quickly and cheaply I can deploy a good looking web site, concerning myself less with its long term prospects.

It all depends on your particular needs. There are dozens of Content Management Systems to choose from. Honestly, it’s hard picking the best one, because the most popular tools are all improving very quickly, frequently adding similar and overlapping features. If you’d like to discuss some possibilities, I invite you to contact me.

What's a Content Management System?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:04:00 -0500

I’ve spent much of this month setting up Content Management Systems (CMS, for short) for clients. What’s a Content Management System, you ask? It is underlying software for a web site which makes it possible for less technical or essentially non-technical people to post, edit and organize the content (words, pictures, videos) of their web site. A useful and properly configured CMS enables content creators (writers, editors, photographers, videographers) to publish their material online, without needing a webmaster or designer to code and layout every page.

In other words, a good CMS makes it easy for ordinary people to update their own web site. Little to no geekery required.

Using the extra dead simple CMS on which this site runs, I’m going to post brief and general descriptions of several relatively low cost Content Management Systems, comparing and contrasting different approaches. Uh, just as soon as I write them. (No one has yet devised a Content Generation System more effective than the human mind — and a cup of coffee. And I’m outta coffee.)